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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1972

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Premier.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure to advise the House that this morning I had the pleasure in receiving in my office Miss Canada, and Chief Dan George who is chairman of Brotherhood Week which has been proclaimed from February 20 to 27 of this year. Chief Dan George is well known to you as a great leader, a great Canadian and a great British Columbian. He was awarded the Medal of Service in the Order of Canada last year. Also with him is Mr. John Smithson who is executive director of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews and I know all Members of the House will want to welcome both of them very warmly.

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

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to give my public welcome to Miss Canada and I'd also like to echo the sentiments of the Premier in regards to Chief Dan George, and because it is Brotherhood Week, Mr. Speaker, let me take the lead and say that I now invite the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Premier to coffee with me next week.

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

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, may I too extend very liberal greetings to our guests today and to say that we too will do more than our share during Brotherhood Week here in British Columbia. And we welcome our guests.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I rise again with great pleasure Mr. Speaker. We have on our Floor today Miss Karen Magnusson. Miss Magnusson is 19 years old and is a resident of North Vancouver and so to make you all jealous she gave me a beautiful picture of herself which I will not share with anyone but myself.

She holds the Canadian Figure Skating Association Gold Medal, United States Figure Skating Association Gold Medal, and the International Skating Union Gold Medal. She has held titles in all ladies' categories, provincial championships and she has also been the Canadian Junior Ladies' Champion.

In 1968 she was a Member of the Canadian Olympic team, in 1970 she became Senior Ladies' Champion of Canada, in 1971 she was the Senior Ladies' Champion of Canada, also the North American Ladies' Champion, and won the Bronze Medal in the World's Figure Skating Championships.

In 1971, Mr. Speaker, she was also selected as the Woman Athlete of the Year for all of Canada. In 1972 she is still the Senior Ladies' Champion of Canada, and just recently won the only medal for Canada in the Winter Olympics by acquiring the Silver Medal for Ladies' Figure Skating.

Mr. Speaker, all Members of the House, and all the people of our province join today in honouring Miss Magnusson who has brought honour to Canada and to British Columbia.

Accompanying Miss Magnusson are her parents, and also Mrs. Dixon. I would ask them all please to stand and receive a warm welcome.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask an exception be made in the rules of the House and Miss Magnusson be asked to say a word or two for us from your dais.

Miss Karen Magnusson: I would just like to say thank you very much for the honour of being here, and thank you ever so much for all your support that I've had throughout the years. I've really really appreciated it and getting telegrams from everyone has made everything so much easier. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, may I express my appreciation of Miss Magnusson, thank her for her words, and express to her our very good wishes for her success at the world championships in Calgary next month. And beyond that I think that all Canadians will understand that there are some areas of equalisation we can't share, and one of those is her Silver Medal.

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

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker I too would like to extend the very, very warmest congratulations to Miss Magnusson. It was once a great thrill for me to be a member of Canada's Olympic Team and I know how hard the people who represent our country must work and how tough the competition is.

But I do say this, that the people who represent our country at the Olympic Games and in these various international competitions are our greatest ambassadors and in all the experiences I have had over the years no country conducts itself in a better way than Canada. And I hope that in the future our athletes, our young athletes, are going to have even greater support than they have had in the past.

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

MR. D.M. BROUSSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, I'd just like to say how proud we are of North Vancouver today to have so many distinguished residents of North Vancouver present. Miss Magnusson and her family, and Chief Dan George, we are very proud to have them.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Langley.

MR. H.B. VOGEL (Langley): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the risk of incurring the displeasure of the Whips for delaying the House I must tell you that we had 60 students from the Cloverdale High School swarming happily through our chambers this morning. And they are accompanied by Mr. Brunell, the principal, and Mr. Allison, and they are in our galleries and I would ask the Members to extend a welcome.

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

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MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Before mentioning to the House the name of the school that I would like the honourable Members to welcome I'd like to say that it has a very short but thought provoking motto and that is "Ich dien" — "I serve", and I think the Members of that school looking at the Members of the Legislature appreciate that there are 55 people here who also serve, and I would ask all of the Honourable Members to pay an especially warm welcome to the students from the Prince of Wales High School, their teacher Mr. Cupit, Mrs. Adlan and Mrs. Calangis.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Atlin.

MR. F.A. CALDER (Atlin): To Dan: "Lu-am-go-dem-wilga'in, sim-ogit." (The Members of this House are glad to see you, Chief).

MR. SPEAKER: I hope my Honourable friend was in order. (Laughter). The Honourable Member for Cariboo.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Mr. Speaker and Honourable Members. In the Speaker's gallery today is the Mayor and Aldermen from my home town Quesnel, Mayor Kingley, Alderman Lazzarin, Alderman Enemark, Alderman Johnson and Town Administrator Tony Green. I would ask the Members to join me in welcoming them.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Revelstoke-Slocan.

MR. B. CAMPBELL (Revelstoke-Slocan): Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the Members in this corner of the House who can't see Miss Canada very well, does she appear to be from a have-not province?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Miss Canada was in my office this morning but she has a bad cold so she couldn't appear in the House this afternoon. I have nothing but good feelings to all parts of Canada including Quebec today. (Laughter).

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the second Member for Vancouver South.

MRS. A. KRIPPS (Vancouver South): Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that Miss Canada happens to come from the have province and she happens to be of Ukrainian origin, the third ethnic group of the multi-cultural society in Canada. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Nanaimo.

MR. F.J. NEY (Nanaimo): I would like to introduce Curtis Harvey from the Nanaimo Youth Organisation today.

MR. SPEAKER: May I introduce Mr. Clerk? (Laughter).

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker I think this is more interesting than the question period they didn't have in Ottawa. (Laughter).

Introduction of Bills.

Orders of the Day.

ON THE BUDGET

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health Services.

HON. R.R. LOFFMARK (Minister of Health Services): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was very pleased the other day to hear the Leader of the Opposition comment on the birthday of the deputy Leader over there. I was reminded, of course, of the old saying that it's a gentleman who remembers birthdays but forgets the years.

I noticed too the other day, Mr. Speaker, the Member from Cariboo talking in a most animated way about the subject of the Moran dam and I couldn't help come to the conclusion that the Honourable Member was thoroughly convinced that he had not been elected by the constituents of Cariboo for the purpose of liquidating that constituency.

Another time in one of the earlier debates the Honourable first Member from Vancouver Centre had occasion to talk about the Scots and their long history. And I see by the orders of the day that he will be addressing you a little later on, Mr. Speaker, and I think it's appropriate that he should remember that the history of the Scots is long, certainly tumultuous on occasion, but at one time the Romans when they had to deal with the Scots could do nothing better than build a wall across Northumbria. Just a word of caution there.

Another occasion of course, I think it was the Honourable Member from West Vancouver (Mr. L.A. Williams) who was objecting to what he thought was an unseemly display of automobiles along the front of these magnificent buildings. And I was very grateful as I listened to the Member talking about the aesthetic value of the building that I had disposed of my green Dodge before he rose to speak.

Mr. Speaker, the health services of the province are divided into four major administrative functions. The medical care programme which is under the jurisdiction of my colleague the Provincial Secretary and the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Black), the three other branches — public health, mental health and hospital insurance — come under my purview and I would hope in the next few minutes to deal with those in that order.

There are a certain number of pieces of information from the division of vital statistics which I should report to you. The first relates to the increase in population of the province. As of December 31, 1971 the population stood according to the estimates of our director at 2,200,000. And it is interesting to observe, Mr. Speaker, that this increase results generally from an excess of births over deaths to the extent of about 25 to 35 per cent of the total increase, and the other 65 to 75 per cent results from immigration into the province. So that in broad terms…

AN HON. MEMBER: Where from?

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: Mostly from the rest of Canada. The proportion is probably about one to three. For every increase of one as a result of births and deaths, there are about three people coming in from other parts of Canada.

In assessing the measure of our budget and some of the policies that are obviously necessary for the best management of this province we must recognise that any government in this province will be required to deal with this very important matter of such a large influx in population into the province. The birth rate in the province in 1971 was the lowest rate

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in 30 years at 16.1 per 1,000.

The birth rate for illegitimates was 12.3 per cent which marks the first year in which the substantial increase in other years since 1961 has been reversed.

But before we draw any conclusions from that I think it is necessary that I mention to you, Mr. Speaker, that at the same time the rate of therapeutic abortions in British Columbia is at its highest and also that the same rate in British Columbia is by far the highest in Canada.

1970 and 1971 marked the lowest death rate ever in the province with rates of 8.0 and 8.1 per 1,000.

The same favourable trend is to be remarked in the downward trend in number of deaths from heart disease. This continued in the right direction. The 1971 rate was 262 per 100,000 which was 15 per cent below the 1969 rate of 310 and 25 per cent below the 1965 rate of 349. This, Mr. Speaker, may well be a reflection of the greatly-improved treatment facilities now available in intensive care units established in many hospitals in the province.

In 1971 there was also a very marked decline in cancer mortality and deaths from cerebral vascular disease. Perhaps I should acknowledge here the very fine work being done by the cancer institute in Vancouver. Certainly these statistics as the Hon. Members immediately recognise are a tribute to the work that they are doing.

Unfortunately, in another area which is outside that of the medical and hospital team, but certainly is within the control of the community itself is the unfortunate accident rate, which has increased from 71 per 100,000 in 1970 to 79 per 100,000 in 1971.

Turning next to the rubella vaccination programme, this appears to be proceeding satisfactorily. In a Vancouver publication called Health News 1971 which is published by the people of the Metropolitan Vancouver health service area, it was reported that Dr. Bonham who is the medical health officer for Vancouver stated:

The war against rubella turned out to be the major public health programme during these past months and it carries with it the label of success.

I think too that at the same time Dr. Bonham did say that in the Vancouver Province of July 22, about the same time, that Vancouver has one of the best school health programmes in North America.

Now in respect of the H.I. testing programme, of course, which is a part of the rubella vaccine programme for the detection of rubella infection, during the years 1970, when the programme got under way, and 1971 there were approximately 29,500 tests conducted. Approximately 104 positive reactions were found in pregnant women.

The department has been informed that of these 104 persons, 52 chose to terminate the pregnancy by therapeutic abortion. While the statistics may sound objective, all Members will recognise the heartaches that went into those decisions, by the medical adviser and the woman herself when she was told that as a result of these H.I. tests the prospects of her bearing a child with a serious deformity were such that an alternative had to be considered.

I'd like to comment at this time too on certain efforts that are currently being made allegedly by persons in the travel industry, particularly in the United States and in Britain, to reduce or even eliminate the present requirements in respect of smallpox vaccination.

I might advise that the public health services in British Columbia do not at this time propose any changes in respect of existing policy relating to smallpox vaccination. The risks, Mr. Speaker, are too great and until we know more about this we've been inclined to rely on the wonderful record in respect of smallpox vaccination in the last 100 years. We will be cautious in making any changes or recommending any changes of the kind that are being advocated in the interest of tourism in those countries.

I will only comment very briefly at this time on the matter of pollution control. Sufficient to say, that the 1968 statement of policy requirements for treatment of domestic sewage which was published by my department at that time, and the air quality standards and the water quality standards which were later published with the concurrence of the pollution control board and branch are presently being enforced by the Public Health Department and the pollution control branch.

I might say that at this point all of these statements of principle seem to be standing the test of time and we hope that as time goes on the evidence of their value and the wisdom these policy statements will manifest themselves.

Next, I'd like to deal very briefly with the question of the kidney failure correctional programme, which has been said by responsible people and knowledgeable persons to be one of the finest in the world. Certainly, British Columbia can say that our medical profession is leading all of Canada in the development of this programme.

There are approximately 75 beds set aside for treatment of patients suffering from kidney failure. They are in Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops and Trail. The annual operating costs for one of these beds is about $18,000. It was for this reason and taking into account the advantages that would accrue to the patients themselves that the provincial government agreed to underwrite the cost of drugs and equipment for those patients who could benefit from our home dialysis programme.

The dialysis machines as used in the home care programme cost about $7,000 each and the home care costs range from $2,000 to $8,000 a year depending on the form of treatment and the nature of the drug therapy that is administered.

I might say that a better perspective of this wonderful programme can be given by relating an experience of a resident of this province knowledgeable in this matter who was visiting Florida not long ago while one of his relatives was suffering from a form of kidney failure.

In the interests of helping his relative he attended upon the doctor who was treating this relative of his and he got a description of the form of the ailment. Knowing of the programme in British Columbia he said to the doctor: "Couldn't we have a renal failure machine supplied to this lady to assist her?" The doctor replied to the British Columbian in words something like this. "Sir, I don't think there's a renal failure machine within 40 miles of where you and I are sitting." This was in a large city in Florida. He added: "If I wanted to go out and find a machine for this lady, I would not know where to look." We are giving these now on a public service basis to many, many patients in this province.

I should remark also very briefly on the home care programme of which there are really two parts. The first one had been a long-standing appropriation in our public health department and it's administered by the public health nurses across the whole of the province.

In addition to that, last year we appropriated money for the purpose of trying out a pilot programme of home care designed to draw patients from acute care hospitals in the

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province.

Our first pilot programme was introduced at New Westminster in the Royal Columbian Hospital. It was brought in during September and I had the first formal report from the members of that team just before Christmas.

I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I was most impressed, with the sincerity and the competence of the people who run it, with the cooperation that they received from the hospital and from medical staff.

I'm able to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the patients who received the benefit of this are most pleased and we have now expanded this home nursing programme and have authorised the commencement of a home nursing programme at the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops and at St. Josephs — or as it is now, Mr. Speaker, the Queen Victoria General Hospital and also the Royal Jubilee. I'm sure that those Members of the House who are associated with the medical profession will recognise the value of this kind of a programme.

Now, on the same subject, I think that it is proper that I point out to you, very briefly, that we do have a problem of persuading the senior federal government of the importance of maintaining some of these programmes. The reason for this is that in the last three years there has been a precipitous decline in the federal government's contributions in this field of health care grants.

In 1969, there was a $900,000 reduction in the health grant programmes which were a part of the British Columbia general programme.

In 1970, the withdrawal by the federal government came to $1,800,000, and in 1971 the figure was $2,700,000. The accumulated total reduction in these health grant programmes by the federal government amounts to $5,400,000 all of which must be borne by the provincial treasury. I think too that we should observe that the federal government has also withdrawn financial support from the construction of community health care centres as well as hospital construction grants.

Turning next to the mental health services…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: I'll come to that in just a minute. Because that is a most important matter.

In the case of our mental health services, new mental health centres were opened during the year at Whalley, Port Coquitlam, Penticton, Duncan, Fort St. John and Powell River, bringing the number of mental health centres in the province at December 31, 1971 to 23 in total.

The government proposes, Mr. Speaker, to recommend to the Legislature at a later time appropriations to provide additional mental health centres at other places. I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that you'll be interested to hear that one of them is contemplated at Prince Rupert, another one at Port Alberni and another one at Williams Lake.

All of these, of course, Mr. Speaker, are part of a broad programme to create a community based system for care of patients suffering from mental illness outside of what are sometimes called the conventional forms of institutions.

As part of that broad programme of reducing the population in mental institutions we have been successful in undertaking psychiatric home care services, group living homes, day care and out-patient programmes and particularly the introduction of a new out-patient department of the Riverview complex on East Broadway in Vancouver.

We also hope to be moving in in a very substantial way into regional boarding homes, sheltered workshops and the like of that. Also, the opening of Glendale centre will have a wonderful effect upon the opportunities for seriously handicapped children who develop in an environment that will be beneficial to them.

Now, what is the result of all this, Mr. Speaker? Well, it is this. That there will be a much improved mental health care service for the people of the province and this can be seen particularly in the reduction in the number of patients forming, the population in the Riverview complex. Perhaps you would like to hear something of the numbers who have in the last two years been resident in that place.

The significance of this of course, Mr. Speaker, is that notwithstanding the ever-increasing population of the province and with the normal expectation that there would be an increase in the demands in respect of mental health services, we have successfully brought down the population of Riverview from 2,500 to 2,300. Now, furthermore, and at the same time of course, we remember that at one time the maximum number of patients in Riverview stood at 3,700. So this will indicate, Mr. Speaker, the success with which we are reintroducing mental health treatment as a community-based programme where it really should belong.

The most pressing problem today in the field of mental health care is in respect of the poor geographic distribution of psychiatrists. There are 126 psychiatrists practicing in Vancouver and Victoria.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: There are 126 in Vancouver and Victoria and there are 12 in the rest of the province.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many in West Vancouver?

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: Now, I'm not going to say, Mr. Speaker, who is the disadvantaged group. But I am sure that you will agree that a better distribution of this professional group would be desirable.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: I intend, Mr. Speaker, to refer this matter of the geographic distribution of these people to the medical manpower committee of which I will have more to say in a few minutes.

I would also like, Mr. Speaker, to remark very briefly and to register my regret that some property owners have objected to the locating in their neighbourhood of residences for retarded children and for others.

In a recent item in the Vancouver Sun it was reported that the North Vancouver municipal council had defied a group of angry residents and voted to allow development of a retarded children's residental complex in lower Lynn Valley. Here's what the paper said:

Cries of "finks", "stinkers", and "snow jobbers", greeted the council policy committee decision to bring in a zoning

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bylaw amendment to rezone the area at Mountain Highway and East 19th for the complex.

Now, Mr. Speaker, these children must be maintained in an environment as nearly a normal community as is practical. I join the municipal council in asking all people to see that these young persons be received with compassion, with kindness and with understanding.

I turn now, Mr. Speaker, to the matter of the administration of the British Columbia Hospital Insurance Service. "Payments to hospitals" is the second largest appropriation that at a later time the committee of the House will be asked to consider. This is the second largest item.

In 1968, the budget appropriated $125 million for hospital operations. We spent $137 million. The Hon. Member from Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan), who criticised an under-expenditure in another vote, must in all kindness remember that it is not all votes that are underexpended, but that the hospital vote was over-expended by $12 million that fiscal year.

In 1969, the $150 million budget was over-expended by $9 million at $159 million.

In 1970, $175 million was over-expended at $184 million. This year, the present fiscal year, the House appropriated $205 million but we don't know what the final figures will be, of course, but it will certainly be in excess of $205 million.

In the year to come of course, this item will be going up proportionately. At the present time I should just remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the rate of increase for hospital operations in this province is now running at $30 million a year which is almost twice the total budget of our public health section. This gives you, Mr. Speaker, some idea of the enormous demands for hospital services — the increase alone, not the total of the budget, but just the increase of hospital operations being almost twice as much as our total public health budget.

Now, turning to capital. The capital budget under administration for hospital construction, which includes $58 million for a health sciences hospital in Vancouver, an estimated $90 million for the Greater Vancouver regional hospital district bylaw which is coming up and the forthcoming bylaw in the capital regional district will in this coming fiscal period approach $400 million in capital.

Now, education and health care appropriations together take up 70 per cent of the budget. My colleague, the Hon. Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brothers) and myself between us are responsible for spending more money than all the other departments put together — by 50 per cent. That's the way it should be.

But at the same time, this fact must be clearly in the minds of every Member when we come to this question of cost sharing — very, very important. While it is true that education is the largest single item in the provincial budget today the rate of escalation for health costs has been and probably will continue to be greater than that for education.

One of the major tasks facing all provincial government today is to contain spiralling education and health care costs within manageable bounds. Recently the Government of the United States fixed guidelines for increasing health costs by imposing a 2.5 per cent limit for increases in fees and a 6 per cent ceiling for increases in hospital charges.

Now, in the face of that policy I don't think we can conclude anything but that the Government of British Columbia has made every effort to be as fair and generous as we can. At the same time remember that we have a responsibility to keep the economy of this province on an even keel and moving along.

The problem of the province is compounded by indications that the federal government proposes to introduce a new method of financing its share of hospital operating costs. The essential elements of the federal plan is that the federal payments will be based on a formula as follows: The provinces would receive annual grants calculated on a per capita amount for a base year. To this would be added a fund which is called a thrust fund and which my friend, the Hon. Member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. Campbell) has characterised as the "cheese on the trap."

Well he may say that, because in addition to that the annual increases in years subsequent to the base year if the federal proposal is accepted would be tied to increases in Gross National Product. The consequences of this, Hon. Members, is most serious from the province's point of view.

I'll tell you why. The federal government defends the proposed changes by alleging that this new formula will permit greater flexibility in tailoring health services to the special needs of each province. No doubt this is true, but the price that the federal government is asking the provinces to pay for this privilege of flexibility is too high for a number of very good reasons which are as follows. This so-called thrust fund of $600 million would provide British Columbia on a per capita shared basis with about $60 million. The $60 million the federal government proposes to put up would probably run out very, very quickly and certainly would not extend over probably more than two or three years at the most. The federal government proposes that its share of increased operating costs be limited to an amount proportional to the changes in the Gross National Product.

Let's see how that relates to our escalating hospital operating costs. Health care costs are rising at a rate far in excess of increases in Gross National Product. The effect would be to place the burden of increasing costs almost entirely on the provinces. Gross National Product is increasing of a rate of three to five per cent. Health care costs are going up at rates in excess of 10 per cent.

In the event of a recession and a fall in the Gross National Product the federal government could reduce its share of operating costs, notwithstanding that health care costs were still rising. No provision is made in the federal government formula for federal sharing in the cost of such things as new hospital construction, improved standards of care, new programmes like the kidney failure treatment programme, open heart surgery, nuclear medicine and so on. Or indeed in any newly-developed treatment.

Problems in respect of uniformity in services will be much more difficult to solve as each province goes its own way. There will be new difficulties in co-ordinating hospital insurance with other shared-cost programmes.

The position of the British Columbia Government is set forth in a letter dated January 28, 1971, from me to the Hon. John Munro, federal Minister of Health and Welfare which reads in part as follows:

The British Columbia Government does not support the suggestion that federal contributions under shared cost agreements take the form of per capita grants as proposed. This government opposes any alteration in federal contribution under the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act and the Medical Care Act as well that would replace the present shared cost system. Prevailing federal provincial cost sharing agreements are cornerstones of cooperative federalism and this govern-

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ment urges the federal government to preserve the spirit of unity implicit in the partnership character of hospital financing.

The avowed intention of the federal government is to establish a system of cost restraints with the federal government's share being a fixed amount. The federal proposal is really a bail-out operation for Ottawa. The pattern is well known. The federal government claims credit for innovating programmes then a few years later they pull out of the programme leaving the provinces to foot the bill.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

AN HON. MEMBER: What they save goes, you know where.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: I'd like to turn next, Mr. Speaker, to another proposal relating to eligibility and portability for hospital and medical care benefits.

Perhaps I should begin, Mr. Speaker, by explaining that existing rules applying in the provinces do from time to time cause hardship for some Canadian residents because of discrepancies between provincial plans. The objective of the new proposal is to achieve a greater degree of unanimity in terms of coverage and benefits.

With the objective, the British Columbia Government is entirely in agreement. However, we do warn that complete portability ought not to be achieved at the expense of reasonable safeguards designed to protect provincial plans from abuse by non-residents of Canada.

We understand that the federal government proposes that eligibility for coverage be based on physical presence in a province regardless of whether the patient is a visitor, a transient, or a tourist. But we say, Mr. Speaker, such a proposal would not be practical and would expose our provincial health plans to exploitation.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to come to a matter that I have thought about for some little time. It involves the naming of patients. In most cases, I would not even consider bringing such a matter on to the floor of the House, but after a careful reflection of the matter and considering the issues that are involved and considering the responsibilities this government has to the taxpayers of this province I see no way but to give you a complete detail of the facts in order that you shall be fully informed as to what has been going on and why the government is very concerned about this matter of persons coming into this province and enjoying the benefits of what we can say are the finest medical and hospital services in the world. Here they are.

The British Columbia Hospital Insurance Service has only recently completed an investigation of a case involving a lady who I am informed had at one time been a Canadian resident but who is now an American resident and who received medical services and hospital care in Vancouver under circumstances which can only be described as unfair to British Columbia tax-paying residents.

Here are the facts as they have been reported to me. On August 5, 1971, in a letter from Norma Rankin, 190 Jacqueline Avenue, Sparks, Nevada, to the Vancouver General Hospital, Mrs. Rankin wrote as follows:

I am expecting to come to Vancouver to the hospital to have a heart operation. I'm told it will be the end of September or the first part of October to be operated on by Dr. — and Dr. —

I delete the names of the doctors here.

I want to know, will you accept Cal Western Insurance Company of California? I am told the head office is in Sacramento. I have had Blue Cross the last two times I was there and you accepted Blue Cross but the Lynch Company have changed from Blue Cross to Cal Western Insurance Company and I have to know definitely before I come up again, and if you have changed the rates since June or not.

On August 25, 1971 in a letter from the Vancouver General to Mrs. Norma Rankin, signed by E.G. Parsons of the collection department two excerpts read as follows:

This hospital prefers that you paid cash… This is particularly preferred in cases of elective surgery.

and Mr. Speaker, I point out to you that here the Vancouver General Hospital administration refers to elective surgery. The standard ward rate at the present time is $64.90 per day.

Now, sir, if Mrs. Rankin had been accepted as a resident of this province the total cost to her for the operation would have been about $40 for 40 days of hospital care. As a non-resident here she would have probably been billed in British Columbia for hospitalisation about $2,600. Medical care we estimate at about $1,400 for a total of $4,000. That is a non-resident who comes here and enjoys the benefits of our plan. I have also been informed that a similar operation performed in Seattle or San Francisco would range in cost from $8,000 to $10,000. At least twice of what it would cost a non-resident. But only $40 to a resident.

This, Mr. Speaker, gives you some idea of the dollar value that is involved in our hospital and our medical plan. I say to the Hon. Members that we must defend these to the last.

On December 5, 1971, Norma Rankin was admitted to the Vancouver General Hospital for heart surgery.

At the time of admission, Mrs. Rankin applied for hospital benefits and claimed to be a resident of British Columbia. Another person certified Mrs. Rankin had lived continuously in British Columbia from June 6, 1971 to December 5, the date of her admission. Notwithstanding that in August, during that same period, Mrs. Rankin wrote to the Vancouver General from an address in Nevada.

AN HON. MEMBER: What was the waiting list then?

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: I'll come to that. On January 19, 1972, on instructions, an investigation was made. A report was received by the eligibility supervisor from our Vancouver representative. The following are excerpts from the report:

…the admission form showed her living at an address in Port Moody. However, when the investigator on behalf of B.C. Hospital Insurance Service called there he was advised that she and her husband were living at the Sands Motor Hotel and they could be reached there.
Before he had a chance to introduce himself, Mrs. Rankin said she wanted to pay the bill herself and that she was going down to the hospital that next day to do so because she could not live with this for the rest of her life.
The investigator confirmed that Mrs. Rankin was on leave of absence from her employer in Sparks, Nevada and was returning to work again. The Rankins were in before noon the next day and paid the hospital bill in full, a total of $2,596.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

[ Page 567 ]

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: I'll come to that in just a minute.

January 21, 1972, Mrs. Rankin was determined to have checked out of the Sands Motel in Vancouver. On February 14, 1972, I've been advised that Mrs. Rankin is presently living in the State of Nevada.

Now, the foregoing information first came to this department in the form of a letter as follows — and I might say here that in Britain people of the same political inclination and political philosophy as Hon. Members across the way, I think in good faith brought in a plan. They did so in good faith. But it's under terrible pressure, and here I'm going to tell you the reasons why. We're under just as much pressure as that plan in Britain was. The foregoing information as I say first came to this department in the form of a letter as follows. Here is the informant and I quote the letter:

I wish to point out something we think very unfair both to the residents of British Columbia and the Government of British Columbia. It concerns Mr. Gilbert B. Rankin and his wife, Norma. They are American citizens…

I think that may not be so. I think probably they are American residents, but for our purposes it doesn't matter.

They live and work in Sparks, Nevada. Last year she decided to have an open heart operation and as she said herself, B.C. is so much cheaper than anywhere in the United States. So her husband, Gilbert Rankin, came up ahead and made residence at a relative's in Coquitlam, where he applied for the B.C. medical plan and was accepted because he didn't say in the application he was an American citizen. So they didn't know the difference as he gave his address as the place in Coquitlam. The reason being to have all his wife's expenses paid for just the price of one year's medical. They knew for over a year this operation was coming up.
On September 28 (that would be 1971) Norma came to — to wait for the operation and in December had the operation. She is still in Vancouver General.

and that letter was written by the way in the early part of January.

Incidently, for the Members of the House who are familiar with the laws of evidence, this next part is hearsay but I think the Honourable Members should hear it:

Doctor So-and-So and Doctor So-and-So told her to go ahead and collect from the B.C. Government. She got a year's leave of absence from her place of employment near Reno, I believe Lynch Electric Company, and plans to collect medical expenses from the insurance company at her place of employment and she says she should be able "to pocket some money between the two countries." Husband is going to claim she was in this country longer or that she plans to stay in British Columbia for quite some time but she is going home to Nevada just as soon as she is well enough.

I delete the next sentence because it may otherwise identify the informant and I don't think there's any reason for me to do that at this time. Then she goes on.

Their home address is 190 Jacqueline Avenue in Sparks, Nevada, and her brother Angie Leclair lives with them there. So he knows when she left, also this relative Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So with whom she lived when she arrived in Canada.

Here's the observation of that citizen.

The unfair part is being able to collect all expenses when they knew so far ahead just by joining the B.C. Medical. If they get away with it they have other friends in the United States who are going to try the same, just by giving their address as that of a relative in British Columbia and then joining B.C. Medical.
We are watching with interest to see if they can do it. Yours truly (signed).

I have no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that Mrs. Rankin is a person worthy of any medical assistance that we in British Columbia can offer, but aside from whether or not there was any misrepresentation intended or committed, it must be remembered that at the time Mrs. Rankin, a resident of Nevada, was occupying a bed in the heart surgery section of the Vancouver General Hospital, a British Columbia resident in the person of Mr. McKinnon was flown at public expense to Montreal for badly-needed heart surgery which was not available to him at the Vancouver General Hospital when he needed it. Mr. McKinnon left British Columbia for Montreal on about December 17 or 18, 1971.

Another case of a Seattle resident coming to Vancouver and giving false information is under investigation. If the allegations made are supported by the evidence, I will be reporting the matter to the Department of the Attorney General for further consideration and action.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: She's had two operations, as near as I can make out. No, I don't know about those, I have no information about that.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: No, not by the same surgeon, I don't think — I have no knowledge on that. But the essential facts are that she was a resident at that time of the United States. Although I am not sure on those matters, I did check very thoroughly on to the question of residence.

AN HON. MEMBER: If you leave the country, you leave the country.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: Please, we'll come back to that in a minute.

These cases, and I emphasise that these are examples, point out the reason why the government is unable to accept the existing system of accrediting doctors in the heart surgery department of the Vancouver General Hospital and the present system of admitting patients to that department of the hospital. There is a great deal of evidence leading to the conclusion that all too often whether a patient is to be admitted to certain departments of the Vancouver General Hospital depends more on who his doctor is rather than on the seriousness of his illness.

Just the other day another case came up in which a doctor told a patient that there would be a two-year waiting time for admission to the Royal Columbia Hospital. The patient wrote to me complaining about what she called an appalling waiting list. When we checked into the matter we found that the doctor making the statement did not have admitting privileges at the Royal Columbian Hospital. Had this patient selected another doctor, she probably would have been admitted within a week or so.

Sometimes an individual physician with less than adequate hospital admitting privileges will make statements

[ Page 568 ]

about long waiting lists which really apply to him and his patients rather than to the availability of facilities.

The problem is not unique in British Columbia. In the Toronto Daily Star, October 2, 1971, Dr. John Wilson and Dr. Stanley Sober of Ontario are quoted as telling a Ministers' committee on hospital privileges that "how quickly a patient gets into hospital and into an operating room depends on which doctor he chooses."

It was with these matters in mind that amendments to the Hospital Act regulations were passed last fall, authorising the Minister of Health Services to create three new administrative agencies as follows:

First, a medical appeal board. The function of this board will be to hear appeals in respect of decisions of hospital boards touching on a doctor's privileges in that hospital.

Today, I am pleased to announce that this appeal board will be constituted very soon. Persons designated to serve on this board are, as follows: Dr. F.A. Turnbull, Dr. L.L. Ptak, Mr. T.C. Marshall — past president of the B.C. Hospitals Association — Dr. D.M. Longridge, representing the B.C. Hospital Insurance Service. The fifth member will, I hope, be the person named by the medical manpower committee as its chairman.

The second authority we propose to create is a special medical review board which will make recommendations to the board of management of the hospital designated as being a hospital which provides a special referral service on a province-wide basis.

This review board will also be constituted soon. Persons designated to serve on this board are: Dr. Peter Banks, Dr. D.J. Cody, Mr. Gordon Frith — who is the administrator of the hospital at Nanaimo — Dr. P.A.H. King, and the fifth member in this case too will be the person named by the medical manpower committee as its chairman, so that we will have a continuity of policy and information, between the three boards.

Now I intend to designate the heart surgery departments at the Vancouver General Hospital, at St. Paul's Hospital, and the Royal Jubilee Hospital as facilities providing a special referral system on a province-wide basis. And that is as far as I propose to go in respect to these cases where there appear to have been non-residents by their own admission receiving elective treatment in the face of what seems to have been demands of a higher priority.

I am also pleased to announce that today I have established a medical manpower committee to advise me on all matters respecting the overall medical manpower needs of the province and the geographic distribution of medical practitioners throughout the province.

The medical manpower committee is comprised of the following: Dr. J.C. MacKenzie of Vancouver, Mr. Ray Menzies — and may I explain to Honourable Members that Mr. Menzies is a fourth-year medical student enrolled at the University of British Columbia and I'm sure that you'll all agree that he and his associates there have a real interest in the problem of distribution.

The other members of the committee are Dr. H.J. Pickup of Alert Bay, Dr. D.M. Longridge of Victoria, Dr. R.H. Patterson of Prince George — he was nominated by the medical staff of Prince George Hospital, and finally the president of the British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons Dr. Adam Waldie of Vancouver.

I will ask Dr. Longridge to convene this committee forthwith. The committee's first job will be to meet and name a chairman and consider terms of reference which are now ready in draft form.

In the same regulations we introduced measures which will give more democratic privileges to all doctors in the province in such matters as the election of chiefs of medical staffs, bed utilisation committees and accreditation committees.

Now finally as my last subject, Mr. Speaker, I want to deal very briefly with a matter which touches many people very closely. I hope that no one will be offended by some of my remarks that relate to alcohol and tobacco.

Now there's nobody, Mr. Speaker, who has more courage and more confidence in himself than a man with a glass of booze in one hand and a cigarette in the other, unless it's a cigar. But, Mr. Speaker, I meet some of these people going into the Cancer Clinic. Last year according to Health Minister Munro's statistics between 16,000 and 18;000 people died in this country of lung cancer. If that many people died on the highways or for any other reason that wasn't so sociably acceptable the whole country would be up in arms to do something about it — 16,000 to 18,000 people died of lung cancer. It's practically unknown among non-smokers.

One-half of the male population in the Riverview Hospital record histories of acute and chronic alcoholism. The LeDain Commission has said that the problem of alcohol addiction in this country is 100 times as bad as the marijuana problem. And he's right. I see the Honourable Member nodding his head and he's in the right.

Mr. Speaker, we're either on the right side of this problem or we're on the wrong side of it. Either we stand for what is good and what is right or we don't.

Now in respect to alcohol and tobacco advertising more than once in the year since legislation on this subject was passed by this House efforts have been made to impute to this government motives of dubious quality. Suggestions have also been made that the legislation was capricious in nature. Nothing could be further from the truth and to illustrate the breadth of support that the British Columbia legislation has throughout Canada, and the States, I would report to Honourable Members something of the proceedings of the latest federal-provincial health ministers' conference held in Ottawa in December 1971.

At that meeting the following statement of policy was considered, and here is the statement that was drafted by the ministers of health assembled; and I quote:

The health ministers concurred in a statement as follows: that recognising (A) the health hazards associated with the misuse of alcoholic drinks and tobacco and (B) the conflict between the objectives of improved health of this nation on the one hand and the manifest purposes of commercial advertising designed to encourage and increase the use of these hazardous substances on the other, it was agreed to set in motion a federal-provincial inquiry to determine how best to discourage if not bring to an end commercial advertising of liquor and tobacco.

This statement was approved and endorsed by seven out of 10 provincial Health Ministers, seven out of 10 of them. The three ministers who did not join in the statement thought it appropriate to refer the matter to their respective governments and to the best of my knowledge these governments are still studying that.

Mr. Speaker, you and the Members of the House listened patiently to what I've had to say, and for that I thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Yale-

[ Page 569 ]

Lillooet.

MR. W.L. HARTLEY (Yale-Lillooet): I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, the Premier isn't here. I have a little present for him. But before I send the present across for the Premier I would like to thank the good potato producers of the province for the fine bag of spuds they sent across to all of us. I would like to offer my regrets to the Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch) who two days ago stated that the farm produce of this province was not of as high calibre as it might be. I think we have some of the finest farm produce grown, produced in British Columbia of anywhere in Canada. The potatoes were not the quality of B.C.-produced. Mr. Speaker, no matter how thin he slices it, it's still spuds.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. HARTLEY: Now, Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in all of the remarks that the previous speaker made. I'm sure he gave a great deal of time and thought, study and preparation of the talk that he's just delivered on I think something that should rightfully concern every Member here — the matter of health services.

I regret that in the budget and in the Department of Health they have come up with no answers with regard to the problems he outlined, how the cost of health services and the growth of inflation, far exceeds the growth of our Gross National Products.

I hope the Minister will be back because I feel, as in the past, we have positive suggestions to make for him in his department. I'll save that until he comes back. I hope you don't all leave, I'll have to just stand here.

Now, this budget, Mr. Speaker, as I see it is mainly a money budget. Of course we can't have a budget without money but I believe that every dollar should be related to the good and welfare of the citizens of the province. That is we shouldn't have a big budget, we shouldn't have growth merely for growth sake.

Many of the families in our province that have great social problems, that have great family problems, many of the children that are found on drugs come from the better part of town, come from homes where the father or the income of that family is far above average. The social problems that we are suffering in British Columbia today are not confined to the people on welfare or the working poor or the average people.

Just as a good personal income doesn't protect a family from these social problems, particularly the children of these families, a great big fat budget doesn't protect this province, and the citizens of this province from great social problems.

One of the greatest injustices that I've heard done by politicians in this province is when certain leaders name certain people as deadbeats and they did this because of the deadbeat philosophy. There should be no room in a wealthy province, in a great province like this — a $1.5 billion budget — for a deadbeat philosophy. We have to accept within ourselves that within every man, within every boy and girl, within every person, there is good. True, some of the children starting school may have reading problems, they may have writing problems, they may be slow learners but these are problems of education.

This is an area where I feel that we are failing. We are failing to place enough or sufficient emphasis on quality education. We're spending more time trying to beat down the teachers and make a political issue out of their salaries rather than saying how can we break the large class down into smaller groups. A group of brilliant children that may want to move more quickly than the whole class — have them in a group where they can work together and move ahead as quickly as they wish. Then have an average group, then a slow group, then a group with particular problems. I think that when we can do this, when we can let every child and every man and woman feel that they are valued and they have some real work then the dead-beat philosophy will die and of course this government will die. This is possibly one of the reasons that they are failing to really come to grips with educational problems.

While speaking on education, I would like to commend the Victoria school board for the work that they are doing in South Park and Beacon Hill. They have placed a new principal there, Mr. Allen, and some new teachers under him and I believe that they are really working hard to involve the whole community to make that school a community school.

I am looking forward to seeing great things come from this experiment because in the James Bay area, while the complexion is changing, there have been many families, and there are many families with great problems, and yet with the new high-rises, some fairly well-to-do families are moving into that area. So there's a great conglomerate of students and with that great problems but I certainly commend the Victoria school board and the principal and staff of those schools for what they are doing.

I noticed that our budget certainly has climbed up. I notice that the social welfare vote is up to $138 million and many of the votes, the health vote, the education vote, for some reason the Minister of Finance related these back to 1960 and said they were double or triple or so, many more times what the budget was little better than a decade ago.

But in the case of social welfare, in 1960, it was $26 million now $138 million or 530 per cent more than it was at the start of the last decade.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if there is anything that should condemn this government, the Social Credit Party has become synonymous with social welfare. They are pretty much the same — Social Credit-social welfare.

What we need is a new philosophy. A philosophy that is going to lift people instead of calling them dead-beats and try to knock them down. A philosophy that will provide work and wages for all and lift people so that they have the moral and spiritual values of appreciating the opportunity and the ability to work.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: Yes, my friend from Esquimalt says labour camps. That's all he can think of. That's what he would do, not this little group here. That group, he knows too much about the black shirt, the jack-boot and the labour camp. We recognise to give full employment, that we must move ahead to a 30-hour week and we have to consider earlier retirement. Surely it is better for everyone to be free to work 30 hours than having half our work force working 40 hours or 48 hours and a great percentage unemployed and on welfare. That is what we have to date. This should indict this government and this budget more than anything else.

The previous speaker, the Minister of Health, (Hon. Mr. Loffmark), made some very interesting comments about alcoholism and I agreed. It's a very, very serious problem. In British Columbia last year there were almost 50,000 chronic alcoholics. If the increase in alcoholism continues for the

[ Page 570 ]

next 10 years the way it has under the past decade, under Social Credit, we will have almost 100,000 chronic alcoholics in this province. In the last decade alcoholism increased by 85 per cent. Didn't quite double, but almost.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: The authorities that have made a study on alcoholism say that it is just impossible, beyond the realms of a good solid estimate, to tell how many we will have in the next century, unless an entirely different approach is used by government, by the educators, with this problem. Now, while the profits, earnings from the liquor industry in this province went up by 10 per cent — it went from $70 million to $77 million — yet the grant that we give to the alcohol foundation went up merely from $300,000 to $325,000 — 8 per cent. An 8 per cent increase and that $300,000 is just a very, very small fraction of a per cent of the total earnings, the total moneys made by this government from alcohol.

I would like to say this, that if the Minister of Health was serious about alcoholism, if those were not just pious words, I will challenge this government to blaze a trail for the whole world.

We've heard different Members of this government and I agree that there is no money to be made from the sale of alcohol. You may show a profit but the number of spoiled and ruined lives can never be bought back by money. I would like to challenge this, that if this government would take that $77 million and use it to rehabilitate the 50,000 people in this province that have alcohol problems, to put on a programme of education of alcoholism in the schools, if they would do that then this government and this province would have something I believe truly to be proud of.

It's a vast expenditure but this money, the $77 million, is coming from broken homes and broken wives. The very least that we can do as responsible legislators is to plough this money back into rebuilding those lives and make certain that the growth of alcoholism is checked in this province.

I would like to commend the government for increasing their rural electrification assistance grant from $3 million. This is something that is very close to me in the Yale-Lillooet riding. This government has spent a considerable sum of money in building rural electric lines throughout the riding and I was pleased to be notified yesterday that another six lines are being built. As you know originally the subsidy was $1 million, three years ago it was increased to $2 million and this year it is being increased to $3 million. I think this is very good, when we can supply electricity in the farm home and for the rural housewife, it gives that home all the amenities of life that a city home could have. With that you can have running water, you can have inside plumbing, you can have refrigeration, you can have a fully modern home. I am sure that if anyone deserves these facilities, it's the farm wife and the rural wife.

I am pleased to see that under vote 237, under the Department of Recreation and Conservation that $100,000 is being made available towards the conservation officers so that they can do a better job. They will be given some auxiliary help in policing and assisting in the management of the game of this province. I am pleased to see that the new training programme, vote 241, is increased by $25,000. I believe this could be increased far in excess of this, that this is a worthwhile project. I visit it at least once a year with the youth group up at Manning Park and I'll deal with that further during the Minister's vote.

While on recreation I would like to call on the Minister to have the former elk sanctuary in Manning Park or in the area of Highway 3 restored to its former boundaries. A few years ago, we changed our game boundaries so that the hunters could go right up to the head waters of Copper Creek and this was the wintering ground of the elk. Once they got in there they cut great inroads into the main herd of elk and they are becoming very scarce. They may become wiped out. So under the wildlife estimates I hope the Minister will consider the boundaries of the Manning Park Game Preserve.

The first citizens fund — this is very good but I would like to see from this fund full-time court workers or from another fund if you wish, but full-time court workers that would be paid to assist any one of our native Canadians that happens to become before the law.

I don't know whether any of you saw the documentary on the Eskimos the other evening. It was a very good documentary. It showed how the traders moved into the north land, the North West Territories, and how they would trade off a rifle for a pile of white fox furs as high as the rifle. Then they would have to come back next year with another pile of fox furs to get the bullets.

While the Eskimos were in at the trading posts, they were introduced to fire-water and it showed how they reacted to this. Then it showed the priest coming along and telling the Eskimos that it was wrong to drink this fire-water and so on. It showed a rather bad scene, the male Eskimo and the Eskimo family. He accepted what the priest was saying and he accepted it with so much interest and sincerity that he offered the priest the greatest of hospitalities in the Eskimo culture. He offered him the opportunity to "love" with his wife. To sleep with his wife.

The priest said: "Oh, no, that's all wrong," and he tried to lecture the Eskimo and with this the Eskimo was insulted and he took and shook the priest and bumped his head on the wall and the priest died and of course it showed the law coming in.

It was really a very sad situation, and yet it showed the conflict that exists between the philosophy of those that were here thousands of years before us and our philosophy. The philosophy that we have forced on them. He showed what happens when they take our fire-water and I mention this because in the Yale-Lillooet riding we have many native Indian people and they are good people. They are good people to have as friends. But often when they run afoul of the law they look very bewildered and they look very perplexed and if they are forced to go to court they often go there and plead guilty.

So I'm mentioning this little story, Mr. Speaker, through you, to the Attorney General because I hope this government will appoint full-time court workers that will be available to go anywhere in the province at any time.

I hope that before this session ends and before very long, before we really move out of the budget and that's tomorrow, that the transcript of the Fred Quilt case will be made available to those of us who would like to read it. I believe in all the areas of justice when we are dealing with native Indians and Eskimos, we must bend over backwards not just to see that justice is done but in their eyes that it appears to be done and I think this is very basic and very important.

I would like to make some comments with regard to the previous speaker, the Minister of Health. The problems that he lay before us today were basically problems of the

[ Page 571 ]

fee-for-service system that we have been using in paying the doctors. On the matter of the renal dialysis system that the Minister spoke so proudly of, and I think he has every right and we have every right to be proud of the work that we are doing in home treatment and in kidney transplants. I think Dr. Price and Dr. Russell Palmer have done a remarkable job in leading this field for all of America.

When the Minister takes credit, and we have no objection to this, I would like just to remind him that this is another idea that was sold from this side of the House. It goes back to the days when the Honourable Eric Martin was Minister of Health and a friend of one of my constituents came to me. This young man was in his late twenties with two kiddies and a wife, and had a very chronic kidney condition. His doctor has asked if it would be possible to have home treatment by peritoneal dialysis. This was the system whereby they hooked the plastic tube into the dialysis cavity of your stomach. It was the first system that we had here, an idea, I believe, that Dr. Russel Palmer brought back from Holland following the war.

I approached the then Minister of Health and he said "No, no, we just couldn't do that." I pointed out that if we could give him this treatment at home, his employer, the town of Hope, would allow him to work five days a week and he could have this treatment during the night while he was resting.

I couldn't get anywhere with the Minister so I raised it on the floor here and showed how we are spending about $13,000 a year at that time keeping this family on welfare paying for a hospital bed for him in the hospital. The Minister of Health at that time looked up at the Press gallery, he saw them writing up the story and he stood up and said: "Okay, if the Member for Yale-Lillooet insists we'll experiment in that case."

He started with Ricky Stevens in Hope. Today with the help of some of the airforce mechanics, we have a good supply of peritoneal dialysis machines — this is the kidney machine — that through the Department of Health and Welfare, these machines will be provided in any home in the province and I think this is a credit to the government. But I think it is also a credit to this side of the House that we do have ideas and we sell them to you, that's part of our job, selling good positive ideas.

There are some renal dialysis machines that I believe are available. If anyone knows of a community or home that needs one the government will build a room onto the home if necessary so that the husband or the wife can take treatment at night while they're resting. The case I mentioned, the Ricky Stevens case in Hope while he started under peritoneal dialysis then later went on to renal dialysis in the past year had a kidney transplant and I saw in the paper quite recently where Mr. Stevens had given something like his thirtieth pint of blood. He's a good, youthful, healthy citizen paying income tax. I think it's a lot better than having left him on welfare and left him sick. It's a good positive programme and I commend the Hon. Minister of Health.

Now, I said that I would have some suggestions as to how we could reduce the cost of health services in British Columbia and Canada.

In 1968-69, the first year of medicare, medicatre cost $32 million. Our current budget is $85 million — almost three times as much. Now Mr. Speaker through you to the Minister of Health, it's gone up about $30 million a year. It doubled in just over the first year.

This means the more money we have the more sick people we have. Why are we spending more money? I always thought that health care was simply that, health care. Now is it that instead of health care we have sickness insurance? Is this what we are selling? Is this what we are dispensing in this province? Do we put a premium on being sick? And I think we do. I think so long as we have the fee-for-service structure then if a doctor or the medical profession through alchemy could come up and make us all healthy they would all be without jobs. They would be all without income. It is in the doctor's interest, to have have sick people. The doctor's financial interest is to have sick people. Now you think about that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Doctors never want us to be sick.

MR. HARTLEY: Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm not saying that the doctors want anyone to be sick, but I am saying this — that if we all became healthy through better diet, through better exercise, through looking after ourselves, the doctors' incomes would go down.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not their fault.

MR. HARTLEY: No, Mr. Speaker, to the lady Member from Vancouver South, this is not the doctors' fault, this is the government's fault and that's what I'm telling her. And I'm glad she's listening but she's got a lot to learn.

This is where this type of fee-for-service, this sickness insurance this government is perpetuating, is wrong. The government is wrong and the policy is wrong, and the policies of health care that you are allowing, or that you are operating are basically wrong.

You put the premium on the sick person rather than saying to the doctors: "We'll pay you well to carry out a programme of preventive health care and keep all your patients healthy. And we'll pay you well, we'll pay you when you have holidays, we'll see you do post-graduate work."

So Mr. Speaker, the cost of medicare in British Columbia since July 1, 1968, the year it started, the first year it was $32 million, this year $85 million which pretty near tripled the cost of medicare. And we have absolutely no control over the quantity, or the quality of medicare being dispatched. Have we, Mr. Member? Very good.

I believe there are certain things that we could do to reduce costs. They tell me a few years ago when we didn't have the complete coverage that we have today that if a male wished vasectomy he would go to the doctor's office and have a little operation performed.

Today they tell me if a male has a vasectomy most surgeons send the gentleman to the hospital by appointment. He takes up a bed in the operating room, he takes the time of a couple of nurses and valuable space.

Now my suggestion is this, Mr. Speaker, that if the doctor can do these operations in his office, O.K. — he gets one fee. But if he is going to call on a great deal of ancillary public services in the hospital and operating room and so on then he gets a reduced fee.

I don't see why we should have to provide all these extra services at extra cost if certain elective operations can be done without an operating room. And if you'd travel that road you will get no credit from here, Mr. Member.

We say studies show that under the fee-for-service system that the tendency is to over-service. You've heard both myself and the Member from New Westminster speak of the group health in Seattle. The group in Prince Albert, and

[ Page 572 ]

Saskatoon and in Sault Ste. Marie.

Now I'm sorry that the Minister of Finance isn't here, but in British Columbia we have approximately 1,800 hospital patient days per year. That means for every 1,000 persons in the province, 1,800 hospital patient days are used. Better almost than two patient days per person.

In Seattle under the group health clinic where they have a whole series of doctors, specialists and ancillary services, that figure is reduced from 1,800 to 422 — 23 per cent. Now, the Minister was saying how our costs were skyrocketing. This year the money that we expect to spend for hospitals is going to be $230 million, almost a quarter of a billion dollars. If we through a group practice putting doctors on a salary and plenty of ancillary services to work with them we would reduce $230 million to $53 million or we would save $176 million for the people of British Columbia. Now, this is being done elsewhere. And I would like to commend Dr. McCreary and the medical faculty at the university for experimenting in East Vancouver with the Reach Clinic. Here they have doctors and ancillary services on staff. But this government isn't cooperating too well with Dr. McCreary, they're not cooperating too well with the medical faculty.

Now, to the Minister of Health through you, Mr. Speaker, I say Dr. McCreary is to be commended. But under your fee-for-service structure of medicare, Mr. Minister of Health, there is no way that a group health practice in B.C. can be paid through medicare for a public health nurse, for a social workers, for a regular nurse or for any ancillary services.

At a group practice seminar that I attended in Vancouver a week ago today, they showed how in different parts of America, including parts of Canada — there was a gentleman there, Mr. Fred Griffiths from the Sault Ste. Marie clinic — showed that by having ancillary services to work with the doctors and having them all on salary they were beginning to get figures reasonably close to the figures that I gave you from Seattle.

So what do we have to do to make these group clinics possible and practical in B.C.? We have to have a schedule in our fee schedule to pay these people either on a fee basis or on a salary basis. And I would like to see through the medicare plan and through the Department of Health, through the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Speaker, I would like to see them pay grants to the Reach Clinic so that they can fill the empty dental chair. The Reach Clinic has a dental chair but they not have a dentist to fill it. And if there's one of the areas of health in British Columbia that is being woefully neglected it is dental care. Dental care is being woefully neglected in British Columbia.

A survey was made last summer by four medical students in East Vancouver in the area of Reach Clinic. And they said that the dental health, the dental hygiene of the children in that area was just something terrible.

Now here is an area that would lend itself for us to experiment in the case of health care. Let us hire a dentist, some dental hygienists and dental assistants to work with this dentist and put them to work helping to fix up the teeth and the dental health of the children in East Hastings, And if it works there, if we find that that salaried dentist and the girls that help drill out the teeth and make the fillings and work with him, if they find that they can handle more people and help lower the cost then, Mr. Minister of Health, possibly we can apply this more wisely.

I can assure you that in the areas that this is being done, not only in British Columbia. In other parts of Canada and the United States where dentists are being paid a salary a most remarkable development has taken place. But what is happening in B.C.? The opposite is taking place. One or two of the trade unions have dental plans and many B.C. dentists are holding up those dental plans. You go to the dentist, you have your teeth fixed and you may pay your account. You send your bill in to the dental plan, and they say "we'll return it to the dentist." And I have accounts from dentists and from these trade unions that feel that their plan is being bilked by the dentists where in more than one case, regularly, once a dentist finds there is a dental plan they increase the fee by 50 per cent.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. HARTLEY: This isn't blackening anyone, Mr. Speaker. If my friends over here on my left, and they should be on the right — if they were in close touch with their constituents they'd know. Of course maybe these aren't problems of the urban rich, maybe these are not problems of the urban rich, maybe these are just problems of the working people. Anyone that would like to see the documents, they are available. This is what has happened.

This is a dental statement and on the bottom of his account it says: "Due to proposed legislation, all accounts billed and due and payable by the 15th of the month. A service charge of $1 per billing will be placed on the account if the account has to be rebilled. All accounts 90 days and overdue processing go through a collection agency." Now do you know of any proposed legislation that gives any dentist the right to tax $1 on every account that is 30 days overdue?

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't have to pay it. It's not a contract. You don't have to pay it.

MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, it's all very well for my legal friends on my left here to say they don't have to pay it, they are a bunch of slick city lawyers. They know. But the average working man when he gets a slip like that from his dentist saying "due to proposed legislation", he doesn't know about legislation. And this is why I'm raising it right here Mr. Speaker. So the Press knows and that you know and if any of your constituents get an account saying "due to proposed legislation" and if the health plans are going to be bilked by a 50 per cent increase by a certain dentist — not all of them — I think then that this Legislature has to take action.

The action that I suggest is that in the Reach Clinic we put a salaried dentist with some salaried hygienists and some dental workers to provide a high quality dental care to families whether they can afford it or not. Extend this service in that area, in the Vancouver East area, under the B.C. Medical Plan.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be some help to these people and tell them they don't have to pay it.

MR. HARTLEY: I've told them they don't have to pay it. Now Mr. Speaker, I will deal with the Member for Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) shortly. He put on a most shameful show here the other night, I don't know whether he'd been in the sauce or what but I have something that I've saved up for him.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member withdraw that remark?

[ Page 573 ]

MR. HARTLEY: I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. I thought maybe he liked tomato sauce.

Well, Mr. Speaker, being as my friend is getting up-tight about this when he stood here the other night he took a policy and deliberately attempted to say that the contract that a certain party was covered with, was a Saskatchewan government insurance. He implied that, and he said that those rates would be the same as in Saskatchewan.

He carried on at great lengths, and he is a very clever silver-tongued lawyer. Very able, but what he said, or what he implied was not the case.

I can tell this House that it is absolutely impossible for any car driver in British Columbia with a B.C. licence plate to buy Saskatchewan government insurance. The only way you can get a Saskatchewan government licence plate insurance is to have a Saskatchewan licence plate and you can't twist that. But this Member did try to twist it.

Here is the booklet on Saskatchewan government insurance that was put out by the Liberals for the 25th anniversary of Saskatchewan government insurance and the Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch) during that debate got up and made quite a big to-do on how Saskatchewan government insurance lost $991,000. He has the same document as I have. He didn't tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the year they lost that was the year 1965-66 when the Liberal Party — my friends on my left here — when they were the government back there.

The Liberal Party was elected in Saskatchewan to do away with government insurance. And they did their best. After they'd plunged into debt then they discovered that according to the legislation Saskatchewan licence plate car insurance can neither lose money nor make money. If you lose money one year you either cut back on the benefits or you raise the rates. According to legislation.

The last year this reports shows, there was a surplus of $1,200,000. Now, I'm not going to go at great length into insurance but I'm also going to reply to what the Attorney General tried to do on a point of order.

He read a letter from Dr. English, and I have a copy of the transcript of what he said here. He tried to indicate to the House that because the company in question had not raised their rates in 1970, but in 1971, for the year '71-'72, they had increased a whole category by 65 per cent.

It was stated in December that the insurance industry for car insurance in British Columbia would go up by 5.9 per cent. Now if this company in question raised their collision rates by 65 per cent in one year — I'm sure there was no raise the year previous. But if they had had half that raise or spread it over two years, it is still 33 per cent for 1970 or 1971 and 1972.

Are we to take it then that while 65 per cent is too much, 33 per cent is alright by the Social Credit? They're using all these methods to cover up and to protect their friends in the insurance industry.

I say 33 per cent increase in 1972 is too much. Certainly 65 per cent when there was no increase the year previous is too much. But it works out at about 33 per cent the year ahead and 33 per cent the year where there wasn't a raise.

Now we did have an insurance hearing. At that hearing I filed a series of questions with the board. I now have a written reply to those questions. I would like to say this, that I'm not satisfied with many of the answers. I'm not going to say it's the fault of the board, but I'm going to say it's the fault of the way we keep our statistics, it's the fault of the way that the car insurance industry disclose their statistics in the Blue Book and this is the most recent Blue Book here.

I'd like to read one of these questions as an example. I asked: what was the total sum of money paid for medical services for the above purposes — this is for accident car insurance — in 1966 and 1967? This is when the average person could pay an extra $2 and have medical benefits with their car insurance. This is before it was no-fault and before we had medicare in B.C.

Then I went on and asked what the total sum was in different years. What is the answer to 3B? The answer is: "The board cannot obtain this information." Now if the board cannot obtain this sort of statistical information how ever can we expect them to make worthwhile decisions on behalf of the car driving public of British Columbia?

I go on further to ask for a breakdown as to what was paid for hospital services, medical services, and so on. They say they haven't this information.

How do we know that the car insurance companies are not charging our B.C. Medical Plan on B.C.H.I.S.? How do we know that these people are not going in and having their hospital and medical bills paid by the tax supported plans? This is what happened prior to 1967. Every health service organisation had to police car insurance accidents, make sure the car insurance companies paid them and not B.C.H.I.S. or the respective medicare plans before 1968, before we had medicare.

Now when the B.C. Insurance Board states that this book doesn't give them the information to answer the questions I think that we should have a complete investigation into the methods by which we keep track and record the fire and casualty business in Canada. But we could start in British Columbia, if we want to start a pattern here. This is an area in which we could and should start in.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you can see this or not but this is a beer glass. The past year the price of beer went up from 20 cents to 25 cents a glass. I don't know whether anyone here ever goes into a pub but last Saturday night I took a walk around town and about 11 o'clock, I'd been working…

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the Chair, Honourable Member.

MR. HARTLEY: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I guess because the hour was late and maybe the chap at the bar thought well, they've all had a few. I hadn't had any, I went in and had one. I noticed that it was filled possibly within an inch from the top. So when I was in another province I bought for 25 cents a beer glass with a Plimsoll line on it. I brought it out here. If the Attorney General would promise to do something about, I'll give him the glass. He just has to nod his head. No. It has a Plimsoll line on it and I remember when the former Attorney General was very critical of that went on…

AN HON. MEMBER: I think the beer was better, then.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, when we give a pub the right to sell draught beer by the glass, we're virtually issuing them a licence to print money. There's a fabulous mark-up in beer by the glass and I think the least that we can do in the good life under this province is make sure that those who wish to patronise the pubs know that they're entitled to a glass full of beer, at least the beer should come up, the yellow

[ Page 574 ]

of the beer should come to the white Plimsoll line, the foam can go as high above that as it likes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARTLEY: I have this little present for the Premier but I'm sorry he hasn't returned. Now, Mr. Speaker, there has been a fair bit said about advertising of various wares in our papers. As of September 1 last year liquor and tobacco ads were outlawed. Now I noticed after that legislation went up, that there was a marked increase in government advertising, particularly in the weekly papers. There was a marked increase.

I have several papers here from different parts of the province and of course, just what is going on I'll have to leave possibly to your imagination. This is a little rural weekly paper. I noticed there are three major items.

Here, "Are you on Social Assistance?" It's a full page signed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Honourable Dan Campbell, Chairman of Job Opportunities.

Then, "Call Phil." About a three-quarter page ad "Call Phil." It gives a phone number there. Well, at least I imagine that's the call number. "Phil Gaglardi has been asked by the Premier to help you find a job." Well, I'm not sure, or whether there's some little race going on.

Now in the same paper, I think this fellow's winning. He's got a big picture, the biggest picture I've seen of the Minister of Municipal Affairs in any paper.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's a beautiful picture.

MR. HARTLEY: Now, whether this is the way the Social Credit Party in this province are running the leadership contest…

AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't you refer this to committee and I'll tell you something?

MR. HARTLEY: We had a statement made up, quoted on the floor of the House yesterday and attributed to the Attorney General with regard to advertisements and what would happen to newspapers that did or did not cooperate. The statement as I understand it, and I have the clippings from the Victoria Times here in part: "The Times should in no way be rewarded by the government."

That's on Page 1, February 16 Victoria Times. I looked up the word "reward." I went to Webster, and what do they say? "Something that is given in return for good or evil done."

AN HON. MEMBER: Pretty pitiful if you have to look it up, eh Bill?

MR. HARTLEY: "Something that is given in return for good or evil done." So what's the opposite of reward? Is it punishment? What's "punishment"? "The infliction of a penalty, retribution, suffering, severe, rough or disastrous treatment."

I wonder what the Attorney General had in, mind, Mr. Speaker, I wonder what he said when he said the Times should in no way be rewarded by government. Those ads like you see in the weekly paper — are you attempting to reward these weekly papers for the money that they lost in advertising from the liquor and the tobacco industry? Is this what you're trying to do? If they carry out your political line, they'll be rewarded. If they're not, they'll be punished. Can we impute it this way?

Mr. Speaker, I think a statement, the nature of which the Attorney General made two days ago, is a very very poor statement to come from the gentleman who holds the key to the meeting of justice in this province.

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion no democratic nation can remain free with a captive Press. With these ads that he's putting in the papers, spending more money this year than ever before, is he trying to have a captive press?

Send it across to him.

Yes, the motor vehicle branch, through you Mr. Attorney General, puts ads in. There's about two pages of ads in a little 12 by 16 weekly. I'll show them to you, I'll show them. I'm not finished yet, Mr. Speaker. I feel very strongly on the rights and the freedom of the Press. What I think we should do, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to call for a complete review of government policy with regard to advertising and the placing of advertising and its effect on the future and the freedom of the Press. I think there's a very, very serious situation that has arisen in this province and it's emanated from the Attorney General's department — the man that's supposed to look after freedom and justice. A man that would think in the terms of whether we reward a paper with advertisements or punish them, I think this is most despicable. I have plenty of them here.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's a reflection on the free Press of this province.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the ads that you pulled out today? You announced in the paper you pulled out the drug and alcohol ads.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, in the throne speech and in the budget, we do have some very limited quotes on pollution. I noticed in December where the citizens of Peace River, Alberta, were up in arms because this Social Credit government were issuing a permit to the oil refinery at Taylor. The community of Taylor draws their water off above the oil refinery. They weren't worried but our neighbours to the east, our neighbour province to the east, was very much concerned with what we are going to do with the Peace River, with millions of gallons of effluent. Well, they like to have a swim in it once in awhile, they like to drink some of it. They might like to go fishing in it. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the Member from Peace River North that he might do well to listen because the problems of pollution are very, very serious.

When we went down to Olympia we found the Senate representatives from Okanagan, Washington, were very, very much concerned as to the way we polluted the Okanagan Lakes and the Okanagan watershed. They wanted to know what we were doing about it. I told them that I would raise it in this House, that we had raised in the past. The Member from North Peace River (Mr. Smith) Mr. Speaker, thinks just because the Peace River flows out of British Columbia and into another province he can act in the very irresponsible fashion we see him acting now. Well, it wouldn't hurt him to use a little water to wash his ears out and listen.

There are problems on the Peace, there are problems on the Fraser, there are problems on the Kootenay and the Columbia. Many of these rivers flow outside of the province

[ Page 575 ]

into other parts of Canada and into other parts of the United States.

I don't believe that this gives us any licence to treat the matter of pollution lightly. Now I've noticed that the Minister of Recreation and Conservation has a programme — he calls it Sam — where you gather up the old cars and grind them up, shred them, and then recycle them. Of course the Minister of Water Resources, he's in charge of our other fields of pollution.

I think what this government needs, Mr. Speaker, is to take and put the Member for Chilliwack and the Member for Prince George through that shredder, recycle them and then with that, we'll come up I hope with a new Minister with some backbone and an Act with some teeth and then we can do something. Our Act needs teeth and our Ministers in charge of these programmes need some backbone.

With regard to the P.G.E. Railway, Mr. Speaker, I was hoping the Premier would come in because I have a little present here for him somewhere.

We have a couple of bills before us so I won't go into the matter of naming the P.G.E. — renaming it. But I will say this. It's going to cost approximately in excess of $1 million to change all those things and before we embark on that sort of nonsense I think we should improve the road bed of the P.G.E. Railway.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask through you the Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) why that very special train that went up to the opening at Fort Nelson ran off the tracks in that Member's riding. It ran off in that Member's riding because the road bed is in horrible shape.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: In that particular point where it went off the tracks there were "slow" signs. The train was flagged down to 20 miles an hour and the road bed was in such horrible shape that even at 20 miles an hour it ran off the tracks and there was a major accident. That happened in your riding Mr. Member for Cariboo.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell the House what happened.

MR. HARTLEY: Yes. I'll tell the people up in the Cariboo too that if you valued the lives…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: …the lives of the running trades — the engineers and the firemen and the conductors and the brakemen — and the passengers you'd be speaking out to see that those punky, rotten ties were replaced.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nothing to do with those ties at all.

MR. HARTLEY: Plenty to do with the ties. What's this I have in my hand, Mr. Speaker? It's a tie…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. HARTLEY: …it's a sleeper, that's correct. In this month's Coupler, the P.G.E. magazine that's sent out to all employees and M.L.A.'s, it shows a picture of a six-engine P.G.E. diesel coming down off the Kelly Lake Hill heading down into the area of the Moran dam.

Now, the road bed situation had been reported to me by employees of P.G.E. because when they go out on those runs, they realise they are taking their lives in their hands.

If this was just one tie that was rotten and punky, it wouldn't be bad. But I walked over a mile down this stretch of the highway below Kelly Lake and in 100 yards there was something less than 100 ties but there were between six and 16 rotten ties. In some cases, one following the other. You wouldn't feel so bad if there was a new tie close by.

Unless something is done about this road bed, Mr. Speaker, we're not only going to have more of our running crews maimed and killed but first thing we know one of the Budd cars will go over and maybe the Premier will be in it. Because he's the president of this outfit and I'm sorry that he's not here. I'd like to send this…

AN HON. MEMBER: Have you reported it to the P.G.E.?

MR. HARTLEY: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you report it to the president?

MR. HARTLEY: I'm sorry that the president isn't here to accept this.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Attorney General if he would accept this piece of rotten tie. Do you know what the running trade call it? They call this a widow-maker. Because they're realising they can go out on a run and the road bed, the shape it is — and I don't like to raise this because it's not good in encouraging people to go on that railroad but I wouldn't want people to go on that and wind up in an accident.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. HARTLEY: If you'll take that over to the Attorney General. In case he doesn't know, you can tell him it's wood. Wood suffering very badly from dry-rot.

Again I'm sorry that the Premier is not here because you know, in the past year he changed the name from the Trans-Canada Highway to B.C. Highway No. 1. In this Monday's Vancouver Daily Province there was a picture of B.C. Highway No. 1 as it runs between Yale and Spuzzum. B.C. Highway No. 1, and it shows pictures of pot-holes in the black-top, people standing in there with their gum boots. It shows wheels badly bent from hitting these pot-holes.

Now, if the Premier is going to change the name of Trans-Canada Highway to B.C. Highway, I think he should see to it that it's kept up in the type of repairs so that we can be all proud of it. If he's not going to do that it would be just straight politics for him to say: "Oh, well, that's Trans-Canada Highway and they're not helping us with it." But he's changed the name and so he's taking responsibility and he's going to give B.C. Highway a very, very bad name unless he does a better job in maintaining it than what they're doing right now. Until these pot-holes are fixed, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that it would be better known as pot-hole alley. Not B.C. No. 1.

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated at the outset B.C. has over 500 per cent more cases of welfare on welfare than they did at

[ Page 576 ]

the start of the decade. The start of the 1960's. Social Credit, social welfare.

The roads, many of them, including B.C. Highway No. I are full of pot-holes. Mr. Speaker, this is a pot-hole budget from a pot-hole government.

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

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): I rise on a matter of personal privilege. The Hon. Member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Hartley) who just took his place, in his remarks this afternoon said that in a previous debate I had said or implied that he had purchased automobile insurance from the Saskatchewan government plan.

I have a copy of the Hansard transcript of that debate. In fact I said, referring to that company "…now there's a company with its head office in Regina, Saskatchewan, carrying on business in that province, offering as it turns out the precise minimum package which is offered in the Province of Saskatchewan."

The words attributed to me by the Hon. Member were not said by me. The implication that he suggests is not properly drawn and was not intended.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. second Member for Vancouver South.

MRS. A. KRIPPS (Vancouver South): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a pleasure for me to take my place in the budget debate and to represent that great constituency of Vancouver South.

We in British Columbia are fortunate to have one of the best governments that any free people anywhere in the world have, thanks to the dynamic leadership of the Premier of our province, a man of vision and political brilliance, a man with such infectious enthusiasm that he can bring off plans that seem beyond the reach of conventional reason. It was under his firm guidance and reputable leadership that British Columbia made such great progress, especially during the last two decades, or in other words one-fifth of the entire history of the Province of British Columbia.

It was this same man, and the same Social Credit government that deliberately eliminated the province's total debt of $222,453,788 between 1952 and 1959. It was this same man and this same Social Credit government that took the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, soon to be renamed the British Columbia Railway, under its wing and proceeded to open up the north, and may I add, with no federal financial assistance.

It was this same man and this same Social Credit government that encouraged private industry to follow the railway and build up the north country. And it was this same man, and this same government that launched the vast Peace River hydro-electric project that linked the province's largest single power source on the Peace River to the lower mainland.

And it was this same man, and this same Social Credit government that deliberately cemented and strengthened the relations with the Pacific Rim countries. And it was this same man, and this same Social Credit government that concluded major mineral contracts especially of coal and copper with Japanese industry.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on, and on, and on, but the past 20 years are just the beginning of greater things to come for all the people of British Columbia. The opportunities are unlimited and we are ready for them.

We are ready because we have laid a solid foundation upon which to build a greater future, thanks to the people of British Columbia who have placed, and who will continue to place, their faith and confidence in the Social Credit government of British Columbia. The only government that has balanced budgets operated on a pay-as-you-go policy.

Mr. Speaker, Friday, February 5, 1972 was a great day. It was the 20th budget of the Social Credit government and it was Bennett Day all the way! It was the people's day!

This year's budget is a bold budget, a dynamic budget with a real heart. A budget filled with optimism, opportunity and confidence, all directed towards human needs, values and aspirations by a government that really cares.

And, Mr. Speaker, the Opposition had great difficulty in finding something to criticise. How can they argue with success? How can they argue with a government that provides services for people without any increase in provincial taxes? How can they argue with a government that has vision, courage, determination, and above all the experience to make long-range plans for the benefit of all the people of the province?

And furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the word "surplus" seems to have a derogatory connotation with the Opposition, those who would rather see half the budget being spent on interest rates rather than on people.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we would be having if the Socialists ever became the government, and what a hope! Such stupid statements come from the Opposition. For example, how can a government be bankrupt and still sit on a fat surplus? The Opposition is so confused that it doesn't know the difference between a surplus and a deficit. It is really comical, Mr. Speaker, to hear the leader of the Liberal Party bring in his budget and state how he will spend the surplus. Whose surplus, may I ask? Have you ever heard of a Liberal surplus budget? That's utter nonsense!

The leader of the Liberal Party with his shortsighted, distorted, tunnel vision, can't even comprehend that this year's budget didn't just happen. He can't comprehend that the great growth and prosperity of our province was the result of long-range planning and decision-making, over the past 20 years by a government continuing in office and exercising good sound judgment and plain ordinary common business sense.

Last year the Premier of our province stated that the prime goal of the Social Credit government was to create more jobs within British Columbia. At that time he set a minimum objective of 25,000 in the number of people gainfully employed between October 1970, and October 1971.

In the budget speech of the Premier we noted that that minimum target was reached. It was in fact exceeded by nearly twice that number with 73,000 more British Columbians working in October 1971 than in October 1970. And that, Mr. Speaker, is performance. That is action.

If the rest of Canada had performed as well as British Columbia did in the creation of jobs, Canada would not have the unemployment crisis it has today.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this year's budget will continue to provide for still more jobs because of an additional $10 million allocated for reforestation and another $10 million for parks acceleration projects — just to mention a few of the job creating programmes enunciated in this year's budget.

[ Page 577 ]

Ever since the Social Credit government initiated the home-owner grant to relieve the burden of increased taxation on homes, it has been the policy of this government to endeavour to ease the burden of taxation at the local level.

This year I am particularly pleased to note in the budget speech that the home-owner's grant will be increased from $170 to $185, and an additional maximum $50 home-owner grant will be given to home-owners aged 65 and over for a maximum grant of $235.

Mr. Speaker, I think that would-be home-owners, especially tenants, will be very pleased to hear of the continuation of the provincial government's home-ownership assistance programme. Introduced in 1966 it is an unqualified success. To date, almost 84,000 families have received outright grants or low-interest second mortgage loans. It is an original and unique programme and it is Social Credit policy to provide for individual needs and to encourage homeownership.

In last year's budget debate, Mr. Speaker, I said we will build more senior citizens' homes in the Vancouver South constituency. I am pleased to say that last week an outright grant of $455,000 was approved for the new 160 unit Polish Park Manor, to be built in Champlain Heights in the southeast section of the Vancouver South constituency. More of these homes will be built in the near future. They will be built because of the harmonious relationship and the splendid cooperation between the provincial government and community-minded public-spirited citizens.

It's a fantastic arrangement of government and people working together. And that's how it should be. Surely the people don't want the government to do everything for them? The freedom-loving people of this province want to be independent, self-reliant and enterprising. Thanks to the Social Credit government of British Columbia the people are given such opportunities. The people of British Columbia really appreciate receiving this incentive of an outright capital grant of one-third of the total cost of constructing senior citizen's homes.

Another unique feature of the Social Credit government is the innovation of perpetual funds, the earnings of which will provide in perpetuity much-needed services for our people. I am particularly pleased that an additional $5 million will be added to the $10 million British Columbia cultural fund and $5 million will be added to the $10 million physical fitness and amateur sports fund. A very important feature of these perpetual funds is the fact that no money is spent on administration and the capital of each perpetual fund is invested in many of our human resource buildings such as schools and hospitals, thus returning a two-way dividend to the people of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, there is a section of Crown land right in the heart of Vancouver on Burrard Street. It's a very small block just on the corner of Burrard Street; that piece of land belongs to the Crown. It belongs to the province. It belongs to the people of British Columbia.

I would suggest and recommend that this piece of Crown land between the Bentall centre and the new Columbia centre be dedicated as open space for the people of Vancouver and British Columbia. After all this will be in keeping with our new green belt policy and when the B.C. provincial building complex is completed, no doubt this provincial office will not be needed and it's just natural to have this piece as part of our open space.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to see another item from our government and that would be a firm commitment to purchase one-half of the government paper requirements, produced by recyling old paper. Such a move on the part of the government would encourage the development and research into the use of recycled paper. It would provide a new industry and it would serve as a catalyst for other industries to pursue other areas of recycling glass and cans for example.

I admire my colleague and running mate, the Hon. Minister of Health, (Hon. Mr. Loffmark), and his concern that the community accept retarded homes. As he works so effectively for the province in total, I hope that Vancouver South will not be subject to the old adage that the shoes of the shoemaker's children are the last to be soled.

I plead with him to take special interest in a particular project currently awaiting approval for a grant under the Treatment Resources Act, which would permit the Vancouver Association for Retarded Children to proceed with their building plans, which include seven group homes for retardates, to be built in the new area of Champlain Heights in the Vancouver South constituency.

I wish to commend the Vancouver City Council for making this land available at a very reasonable cost and also the local community — that is, our constituents in Vancouver South who welcome this project with wide-open arms.

We in British Columbia don't expect any special treatment from the federal government, but we certainly expect to receive fair treatment. But do we get it? The answer is an emphatic — no.

I am appalled at the massive equalisation payments made by the federal government to certain provinces, particularly to the resource-rich Province of Quebec. It is reported that over the three latest years, equalisation payments and contributions to certain special programmes paid by the federal government to the Province of Quebec, have increased from $440 million to $773 million. Nothing — but nothing — is more explosive, more dangerous to our Canadian unity, than unfair treatment, or seemingly unfair treatment of one sister province to another.

For example, we have papa Trudeau and 10 daughter provinces. Papa takes $500 million from one daughter and gives it to one of his favourite daughters, plus a pat on the head — nice girl.

Do you realise what this does to the family unit? It creates resentment, suspicion and mistrust. Of course no fair daughter would want to hurt papa's feelings by refusing to accept this gift and I don't blame her. But when the "la belle" daughter province, rich in resources, receives this gift, then this fatherly act of kindness becomes extremely explosive and very dangerous to our family unity. It further places a seed of resentment, disharmony, suspicion and jealousy, within the family unit.

Some will say: "Oh, papa is French, that is why he favours la belle Province de Quebec." Others will say, well, the pay-off is 74 seats out of a possible 108 and such a move is politically expedient.

It is very obvious that the present system of equalisation grants is not in the best interest of confederation. The time is now for the federal government to devise a fair and just programme of assistance from sea to sea to all — and I emphasise all — needy Canadians regardless of their geographic location. Just because we don't agree with Ottawa's unfair treatment of our province it doesn't mean we're not Canadians first and foremost. There is no feeling of separatism in British Columbia.

British Columbians are dedicated, hard-working, freedom-

[ Page 578 ]

loving Canadians, concerned about the Trudeau policies and the treatment given to British Columbia. Day by day Canadians are becoming more and more divided by the so-called just policies formulated by a just government for a just society and seasonally adjusted.

I want to make my position very clear, I am for one strong united Canadian nation from sea to sea and Canadianism is the only "ism" of any importance to us. The only "ism" that can adapt itself to our people, our country and our needs. I am certain that 100 years ago when our forefathers decided to join Canada, they did not expect a "fuddle-duddle muddle, take it or lump it" attitude from Ottawa. A change in federal government policies is a must and the only way we may get such a change is to sweep the federal government out of office.

British Columbia has been very fortunate because of its natural wealth of physical and human resources. Its geography has placed it in a trading position that is already the envy of the world. Strategically located on the Pacific Rim, British Columbia will be the hub of a trading wheel whose spokes will extend to every corner of the world. British Columbia is no longer Canada's back door. British Columbia is Canada's front door, the gateway to the Pacific and we are ready for further expansion and development all for the benefit of our people.

Our most valued resource and by the end of the 20th century British Columbia's population will be over 5 million. With this phenomenal growth we will see great changes in the concentration of our population. No longer can we have half the population of this province clustered in the greater Vancouver area. It's crowded already and public pressure is beginning to ferment with cries of "give us open space, give us room to breath, let's keep the traffic moving, give us fresh air" and so on and so on.

Therefore, I would suggest that we look to the north, to the Arctic, and capitalise upon the tremendous, untapped economic opportunities. Let us provide incentives for people to develop the true north, strong and free. Today young adults are already the most mobile and income-conscious of all age groups in Canada. Instead of just paying them to idly roam the country at the taxpayer's expense, let us put them to work and develop the challenging northland.

What an opportunity for advancement! What an opportunity to develop whole new communities, planned and organised in such a manner that they will provide all the necessary amenities such as schools, hospitals, cultural, and recreational facilities for the enjoyment and enrichment of the people of our province!

Let us remind ourselves that the natural resources of our province have built our modern cities and fashioned our dynamic economy. It was this unremitting search for resources that threw back our frontier, built the rails and dug the mines, and most important of all, planted the seeds of both adventure and self-reliance in our people.

Furthermore, I think the Yukon Territory can never be properly developed by its isolation administration. I would therefore suggest that British Columbia extend its boundaries to the Arctic Ocean to promote the growth of the entire northland — now I don't mean by declaring war, but by peaceful negotiations and mutual respect and understanding between both government. In this way the newly-developed riches of the northland will serve as a magnet to attract millions of people into unsettled areas. This will in turn alleviate the heavy concentration of people in the lower mainland, in particular around the greater Vancouver area.

I am confident that such a move will beckon people, as it did in the so-called frontier days for the sake of challenge, for advancement and higher income. Young folk today will want to explore the northland, rough it out and receive the satisfaction that comes from a day's work.

By opening up the northland all the way to the Arctic we can really offer and share the good life with others.

I think it is imperative that better cooperation and co-ordination be established between all levels of government and private groups working with youth, especially since many projects are now being funded by Ottawa, and the provincial government has no say in the matter.

In order to utilise the great potential of youth and in order to co-ordinate these efforts, I would suggest that we establish a British Columbia Youth Service Corps, which would be youth helping youth. This corps could have a programme of its own, called greater opportunity for youth, "GO" for short, for youth.

Summer programmes could be set up in various areas of the province in which students after an orientation course, would work on a variety of projects in a given community. Such programmes would provide an opportunity for creative work for the benefit of others and at the same time provide an opportunity for concerned young people to be confronted with the realistic problems of people and communities.

The "GO for youth" programme would enable youth to develop, for example, neighbourhood improvement projects, serve as volunteer probationers, counsellors, work with solvent and glue sniffers, drug users, help in senior citizen projects, public-housing projects, serve as tutors, et cetera. The list is endless for services to people in need.

I believe that those who would be participating in such a programme would gain a deeper understanding of the problems faced by disadvantaged members of society. Furthermore, the "GO for youth" programme of the B.C. Youth Service Corps would not only provide an opportunity for our idealistic creative youth to contribute their energy and thinking toward developing our human resources, but it would also inspire them with a deep sense of excitement, a sense of destiny and belonging, a sense of responsibility, recognition and faith in their capabilities, a sense of being involved in helping to make a better world for all mankind.

As I said, the majority of our youth today are splendid young people, healthy, self-confident and well-balanced. About these we need feel no anxiety. There are, however, others who find it difficult to come to terms with society and whose social incapacity can take many forms, from shyness to compulsive exhibitionism and crime.

Adolescents need to develop their capacity for making sound judgments. They need opportunities for realising that some things, slower, and more hardly won, are nevertheless more rewarding than the excitements offered in each day's passing show, and I believe that there is a desperate need for special youth centres where new approaches and advice can be given to problems of youth.

Such centres could be in the form of a mobile unit, an "opportunity caravan." These caravans could be purchased through our drug, alcohol and tobacco fund, and operation of the project would be extended to all areas of the province, giving on-the-spot advice, guidance and counselling.

I had received numerous complaints about vandalism, breaking and entering, fire-setting, et cetera, in a certain area of my constituency, and the businesses concerned were being cautioned by the insurance companies that they will no longer insure their premises because of the continual

[ Page 579 ]

property damage, particularly breaking of windows.

After a thorough investigation I was able to trace the root of the problem to a particular group-home operated by the Children's Aid Society.

The home was donated to the Children's Aid Society. There were eight boys, all under 12 and generally the most difficult kind to handle. There was a social worker in charge of the home, houseparents, a cook, housekeeper and six child-care workers — a total of 11 adults and eight children. Some of these children had been doing the breaking and entering, smashing of windows, stealing and setting fires in the business community.

The staff at the time was so specialised. For example — when the cook was cooking, and the boys would be climbing through the windows, well, Mr. Speaker, if the cook did see them it was not her job.

She was hired to cook and the job of looking after the children belonged to the child-care worker who had already gone off duty. But, Mr. Speaker the problems of acting-out, emotionally-disturbed children do not stop at any given hour.

As an example as the kind of children that were in this home, the ring-leader is a continually depressed child, suicidal, and attempts firesetting. Psychiatric reports recommended him for residential treatment. At the age of seven he was involved in stealing and drugs. He has a long history of family strife and discord, has been truanting from school, addicted to smoking, some glue sniffing and the use of marijuana at that age. He has a severe reading disability and a problem in auditory-visual association.

I won't tell you all the others but I have 36 different types of children.

In my opinion, these children require something more than a roof over their head — a little more tender loving care, concern and proper treatment. I was told that it was difficult to provide 24-hour supervision for each of the eight children and to convey them back and forth from school. Even if it is only a half-day basis.

These acting-out children engage in destructive patterns not only to themselves but also to community property. At that time when I was investigating this home, the treatment — if you can call it that — was totally inadequate. And although the home in question has now been reorganised and that particular home is operating very well; nevertheless moving these problem children from one house to another, from one area of the community to the other is only a temporary cover up and the problems just keep multiplying and it's not fair to children.

Mr. Speaker, I believe we should be placing greater emphasis on prevention in the area of the family home. Prevent them from breaking down and causing harm to these innocent children, victims of our social ills.

I might just add here when the Minister spoke about alcoholism this ring-leader's father lived in one end of my constituency, he had one social worker looking after him, his mother lived with a boyfriend whom she has since married in the other end of the constituency. His sister was in another home and he was in this home and each one had a separate social worker. There was no real treatment and I don't know how the community can afford having these lives jeopardised by not adequate care.

What is happening to the family unit of today? The cementing force in our society, the corner stone of democracy.

I believe our nation can only be strong if the family unit is strong. And as concerned parents and concerned citizens we must make an all-out effort to preserve the family spirit, for we are the ones responsible for laying the foundation for the children's character and behaviour.

Let's not blame the government for our own faults as citizens and parents. Furthermore I don't think we should be expecting government to do everything for us. Today's problems originate in the community — and the community with the assistance of both government and private agencies should find solutions. As firm believers that the strongest force for good in the world is the free and responsible individual, let us guide our efforts towards that goal for we all need each other to make this place a better world for all mankind.

As I see it, Mr. Speaker, this specific area of special care services for children is totally inadequate. Something is obviously wrong when children run away from home, become a ward or non-ward of the Children's Aid Society, and then these same children are just shuffled around from one place to another. What happens to these children? They are just back on the street, getting into more trouble and causing more trouble for the community as a whole.

Mr. Speaker, there is a crying need to see children as children, not as a "welfare" case or a "mental" case or an "educational" case or a "juvenile" case, or whatever label society may give it.

This specialisation and categorisation of children into little pegholes results in no treatment of the child as a whole. There is no one really responsible for it, the child easily falls through gaps into limbo.

I realise that the government has been working on this problem and meeting each challenge by challenge. But in this day of accelerating problems, the machinery is not working fast enough to cope.

I would therefore suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we establish a Youth Resource Authority that would have power and teeth in it. An authority that would have the ability to act instead of passing the responsibility from one department to another, an authority that would cut across the different departments concerned, whether it be education, welfare, mental health, public health or the Attorney General's department. This authority must be an interdisciplinary body working on behalf of children with the financial resources behind it.

Such an authority would cooperate and co-ordinate its work with the various agencies that are approximately 99 per cent funded by the government. This is most important. No longer can we continue in this hodge podge hit-and-miss fashion — always trying to catch up with one crisis after another. It's not good enough.

Mr. Speaker, I would further suggest that the Willingdon School amalgamate with the Maples, and a complete reorganisation take place between these two treatment centres in order to make best use of these facilities.

What is also needed, Mr. Speaker, is a 24-hour supervised treatment-oriented holding unit, where youngsters in conflict with the law may be cared for and treated. This would be a closed-setting assessment centre, which would provide secure physical care, and maintain individual and group activities with counselling guidance and therapy in order to appropriately study, observe and produce a professional report for a treatment plan for the child.

Residents in this treatment-oriented holding unit would, in most cases, be short-term but once the child is settled down and coming to grips with solving his problem, no longer acting-out or running, he would move into a foster home setting.

[ Page 580 ]

Mr. Speaker, there is no "closed" treatment centre for children who are dangerous to themselves and others, and facilities for the child with multiple handicaps are lacking. For example I know of a boy. He is deaf, disturbed and he cannot be accepted in a treatment centre. He's a husky 200 lb. 14-year-old. He was recently accepted in Woodlands although he is not retarded. He is of low intelligence — perhaps brain damage — epileptic and deaf with a severe communication handicap, which led him to extreme frustration and violence.

Another need, Mr. Speaker, is that of hospital facilities that would offer secure hospital attention and psychiatric treatment for those juveniles who need protection from harming themselves and others — children on drugs, especially L.S.D., glue and nail-polish sniffing.

Mr. Speaker, a number of highly emotionally-disturbed children have been brought to my attention. These children react violently and they continue to repeat criminal offences. These children need a secure psychiatric service and they need it now. I hope a small drug unit will also be made available.

All this indicates the urgent need of a youth resource authority that would co-ordinate, direct and carry out the programme needed to fill this grey area.

Because of these unfulfilled needs we have reached an almost epidemic crisis. The courts are ceasing to commit children to the Children's Aid Society, knowing that the society does not have the resources to cope or help the child. It's a vicious circle and the community suffers.

The police and the courts are experiencing tremendous frustration in coping with the juvenile delinquent problem, and I must say that I am particularly pleased that the Vancouver City Police are undertaking a pilot project in South Vancouver where 25 per cent of all reported crimes in Vancouver take place.

I am delighted that the policemen will be on the beat in the community where they belong. They will be identified as a friend of the community and once again those in the community will be able to turn to them for advice, for guidance. The police will know what is happening in the community and hopefully this will serve as a preventive measure.

Hopefully, Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General's department will provide more funds for the wonderful work that our police are doing on behalf of the citizens.

Mr. Speaker, the quality of our educational contents is most important. I would like to see courses in our schools that are more relevant and life oriented.

Mathematics, for example, should teach young people about home buying and home management budgets and mortgages, savings and investments and the wise use of credit. Subject matters taught should have real meaning to students later on in life. Somewhere in the curricula students should be made aware of their legal rights and responsibilities, to municipal, provincial and federal governments. This is a must for all high school students if we are going to help them get a start in life, especially since many of them today marry just as soon as they graduate from high school.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen cases in which young families have been forced to go the bankruptcy route because they simply could not meet their financial obligations. They simply did not know how to do it.

Our education system must be closely related to the occupation requirements in the community. To assist in bringing this about, I would suggest a labour analysis. Such an analysis would study jobs and job trends and determine their educational requirements, thereby avoiding training for obsolete jobs and establishment of unrealistic educational requirements for specific jobs.

From my close association with students, I have found that there is a general lack of knowledge about the functions and organisations of government at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, our young people would become much more responsible citizens if they had an idea of how a democratic system of government functions. I would therefore suggest, Mr. Speaker, that a simple political science course be introduced as a regular programme in our high schools. I think such a programme should emphasise and stress the privileges and obligations of Canadian citizenship as well as the fundamentals of taxation, public finance and basic economics so essential to understanding how our governments function.

Mr. Speaker, is the school curriculum really relevant to the needs of today's youth? Does it focus on their interests, on the problems of today and those of the future? Does it train them to comprehend and control a rapidly-changing and very often confusing world?

Mr. Speaker, I think our whole educational policies, goals, and aspirations must be re-examined, reoriented and redirected to meet challenges quite different from those we struggled with during the past decade. And, Mr. Speaker, the spread of student unrest adds urgency to this need. It is now over 13 years since the last Royal commission was appointed to study education, and I think it is time for another such study.

Young people today are staying in school longer and a practical course on life as it is should become a regular part of the curriculum, and not just a subject of the odd lecture from a visiting specialist.

Young people today are capable of handling their own affairs, and I believe they are worth the extra educational effort needed to make them more self reliant and independent as citizens. Young people today are literate and educated. They are better off financially and far more independent of their parents. They are taught to think and enquire for themselves and mostly do so and their experience of life is wider. They have had their horizons broadened by travel and television. But, Mr. Speaker, the question is not whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, the question is what are we doing about it.

I believe that we must ensure that the young go out into the world as fully prepared for their adult responsibilities as possible. The start which has been made in education at school, in personal relationships, and in the realities of family life should be developed much more fully.

Mr. Speaker I have found that for many people the word "teenager" conjures up horror images of gangs roaming the streets, and long-haired rebels being rude and disrespectful to their elders. Some people just shudder when they hear that word.

The majority of our young law-abiding folk are anxious to make this world a better place in which to live, and that's not fair to have such prejudice against them as teenagers. I think this anti-youth attitude is a result of the Press who dramatise and sensationalise the wrong activities of youth groups. Oftentimes you see headlines that make your hair stand on end.

I would like to see more written about the enterprising, responsible and vigorous young people. Devote a page or two

[ Page 581 ]

to youth. Let them express their views on any aspect of life. Let them become involved as an integral part of society.

And the live media — radio and television — can do a better job of projecting the good works of youth than even the newspapers.

Mr. Speaker, let's not equate bright clothes, long hair, and the liking of pop music with delinquency. Here again the newspapers are culprits. They play up to this feeling in their older readers, whose gloomy view of the young is confirmed by what they read.

Mr. Speaker, I can foresee many changes and approaches to education, particularly since the taxpayer is becoming more and more aware and conscious of the escalating costs of education. The public is demanding more accountability for moneys spent.

I think the schools should be the focal point of the entire community, the hub of activity, the clearing house of reliable information on community activities.

Various community resource personnel should be brought together to solve local problems, to build a climate conducive to change. Today's students are more sophisticated than past generations, because of communication media that have exposed them to social and global concerns at an early age. Mr. Speaker, society itself is a teacher and students should have the whole of the city, the whole of the province, as a classroom. A trip to the legislative buildings to see parliament in action, or to the City Hall certainly has much more meaning to them than merely reading about it in a book.

I think the whole community should be the curriculum. By focussing attention on community problems, rather than on compartmentalised subjects we would help meet students' criticism of education being irrelevant to their deepest concerns. Students tell me that it is so monotonous to repeat back to the teacher just what the teacher has told them from the book.

In addition to offering students a problem-centred curriculum the school must give students responsibility and the opportunity to engage in constructive social action outside the classroom. Let them visit and see on-the-spot problems.

I think we are heading for an absence of the traditional division by subject in favour of interdisciplinary problem-oriented work, and that's good.

Our children are in schools more than anywhere else. More than even at home, what happens in the school affects the immediate community. This in turn affects the City of Vancouver, which affects British Columbia — and what happens in British Columbia affects Canada and the world.

Within the school area there are many available physical facilities and human resources that need to be co-ordinated into an overall effort to provide services to the community.

The school should serve the needs of the people in its particular neighbourhood beyond formal education. As an example, the school has gymnasia, athletic equipment and audio-visual equipment that is used only by the students during the school hours. Why should everything be so exclusive? All school facilities and eqipment belong to taxpayers, who are paying for it. Why save it for special school days only? The school is not the ivory castle of teachers and students only. It belongs to us all.

Another community resource that I feel the school should explore is that of the churches and the synagogues — and both are doing a fantastic job in the community. They stand for ethical, high principles and service to mankind. Why not take a visit to some of the churches and the synagogues, and see what they are doing on behalf of the citizens in the community?

Another human resource is that of our senior citizens, many of whom never have any association with children or teenagers, apart from seeing them on the street. And something that I have often heard said by parents; "Now don't go over there and hang around the school." Because that's where all the problems are picked up, around the school. I think that is wrong. I feel it should be the opposite. The school should be a place for recreation after the formal education has been completed at 3:00 p.m. The school should be a centre for activity, and I think that parents should be very pleased to have their children go back to the schools, especially so on the weekends. But what happens? Our schools are closed on weekends

Other cities have tried to open the schools on Sundays and it is working out very well. In the State of Washington for example gymnasia in the high schools are open, and the student can go in and all he has to do is leave his student pass, pick up a basketball or a volley ball and go and play. Then when he returns the ball he can pick up his pass and go home again.

Mr. Speaker, education doesn't stop at the three "R's", nor does it stop at 3:00 p.m. Anything one can do to broaden one's perspective is part of his education.

So in summing up, Mr. Speaker, this year's budget indicates the kind of confidence our government has in the economy of our province. It's a budget that reflects the stable business administration of the Socal Credit government of British Columbia.

As we stand on the threshold of a whole new era of human renewal programmes, a whole new era of human endeavour, with this record budget that spells "jobs" we will create a society in which every human being can hold his head up high, and say with deep pride and dignity: "This is my home, my castle, and I will go forth in deep faith and confidence and enthusiasm, to build an even greater British Columbia and a more united and prosperous Canadian nation."

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

MR. H.P. CAPOZZI (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, it's that time of the afternoon when I guess a seventh inning break is just about right. It's been a long afternoon and part of a very lengthy debate and it would ill betide me to keep you much longer than 6:00 o'clock this evening.

I appreciated the gift of potatoes today. I thought I might bring a bag of spaghetti along sometime or either find a way of fermenting the potatoes and work on it from the other side.

During the past two days it may have passed the attention of some of the Members of the House, but as of Tuesday we started the Chinese New Year. As has been my custom in the past I normally would have done it on Tuesday but since I was speaking on Thursday I did want to point out that this is the Year of the Rat. It is the first of the cycle of 12 years in the Chinese New Year.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CAPOZZI: I'm pleased to hear that, Mr. Member. Because the rat in the Chinese calendar is a very significant and important animal. He is very revered, he is given the first place of honour. The very first place of honour.

[ Page 582 ]

You might know that it marks the year of a new cycle. It's a year of opportunity, it's a propitious time to launch new ventures under the year of the rat. The Chinese say that it is a time for sharp politicians because "chui", which is the year of the rat, it's a "chui-an" time as the Chinese say.

There are people who are born under the sign of the rat, and I thought you might be intrigued by the characteristics of those people. A person who is born under the rat is honest, ambitious, and has a tremendous capacity for pursuing a course to its end. They are short-tempered, though adept at concealing it and provident. A penurious streak prompts them to hoard their gleanings, a tendency to carry tales sometimes costs them friends, they are fated to have their ups and downs during youth and middle age, but will escape the rat race in later life.

I might point out that they are associated with success and prosperity. There are three Members in the House, Mr. Speaker, who are under the Year of the Rat. I will only point out that the Premier is one of them, and that he marks under this a man who has a special streak for tremendous capacity and ambition.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CAPOZZI: He has a recording that goes from here downstairs. He knows what I'm going to talk about.

This of course, Mr. Speaker, is the week that was, and there are a lot of things that have been discussed and I don't pretend that a great deal will change the words that have been said both in this chamber and across the country. I don't believe that there is anyone either here in the chamber or in public office that does not regret the statements that were made by the Prime Minister.

But surely, Mr. Speaker, his words should not be the very sorceror's spell that would turn us into the thing that he says we are. Surely our disappointment and delusions with him must be with the Prime Minister and not with the provinces nor especially with the people or the language of Quebec. When we talk about another language I recall the words that were over the door of the school I went to in Italy, it said: "Un altra lingua e un altra vita" — another language is another life. And surely we have that responsibility as a language to make it as a method of making our own people more aware. Not as a compulsory part of an educational system, but make them aware that it creates a new culture and another new part of living.

I urge the Attorney General to walk very carefully along the path that he has selected. I fear that the road to separatism is far too easy to walk down, and very difficult to walk back up.

I am sure that no one in this chamber got elected to sit in at the dissolvement of confederation and if in the final analysis, Mr. Speaker, the price we have to pay to hold Canada together is dollars, then that price I am prepared to pay.

I don't think that this belongs to the property. I think that this is the sentiment and the feelings of people on all sides.

I would suggest also, Mr. Speaker, that if this is the week that was, that the question of law and order and respect is also a significant part of this week. Everyone of us has endeavoured from programmes here to stress to youngsters the need for law and order which is the very base of society. Last year there were two bills put into this House, and I, as you know, Mr. Speaker, opposed both bills. And I still am opposed to the principles of the bills.

But I say this, Mr. Speaker, that I know that I and everyone in this House is prepared to obey what those bills asked the citizens of this country and this province to obey. If we obey them we should expect others to obey them, and I must express in this House, the shock and dismay when two prominent newspapers who previously had editorial pages filled with the advantages of these bills, with righteous indignation have now shirked their responsibilities in a manner so flagrant as to bring into disrepute the entire publishing industry.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that at the same time if our approach is to withdraw the very ads in the papers that the people need at a time if they are doing this, that we may be a little bit guilty of putting into double jeopardy the very people that we're trying to help with those particular ads, and the questions of trying to prevent the problems in the Province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to go back and discuss the essential parts of the budget. You will remember that I described it in the throne speech as being very much like an English dinner. In carrying on that parallel I would like to briefly tell you of an incident that happened once to our particular family. I'm sure in my family, like many of yours, the key note for people that come to the house was food and hospitality. They were completely and closely mixed. As far as my mother was concerned if you didn't partake of food in our house you hadn't partaken of the hospitality.

I recall on one occasion, when the people arrived she insisted they stay for dinner and after they had gone through the procedure of trying to refuse and had the grace to stay she called my two brothers and myself in the kitchen and explained that there was enough spaghetti to go around, but there wasn't enough salad. So when it came to salad we were not to take any salad, which we completely understood and we agreed.

Then she came around during the dinner, and she said: "You should eat your salad." We said: "Well, we don't want any salad." She said: "Salad is good for you." Well we said: "We don't want any salad." And she said: "You've got to eat salad — it's got vitamins."

Finally we didn't have any salad — which was fine. But when she came around with dessert she said: "All right, you kids. You didn't eat your salad — now no dessert." (Laughter).

Somehow today I feel that in the discussions on parts of the budget, as I intended to point out for the Minister of Finance if he were here, that while I'm satisfied with the main bulk of the dinner, I hope that he will have a certain amount of dessert for some of the people that I've talked about in the past.

It's a giant-sized budget. We talk of a budget of $1.5 billion. I pointed out once before in the House, Mr. Speaker, we bandy these figures around with such reckless abandon — In $1,000 bills $1 million is eight inches high. In $1,000 bills $1 billion is 850 feet high. And $1.5 billion is twice the size of the Empire State Building in dollars.

During the time we've had people refer to the fact that the budget is only dollars. Of course it's dollars. It's the dollars that have been raised by the hard-working people of the Province of British Columbia. It's the largest part of a Gross National Product in the Province of British Columbia of approximately $12.5 to $15 billion — almost 10 per cent of that. And we bandy these figures around. I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that the great bulk of it is being spent on

[ Page 583 ]

people. It's a people's budget if you want to use terminology. But it seems to me that since most of this was generated by the initiative of the people of the Province of British Columbia that we too have a responsibility to encourage and develop that particular initiative. We must make sure that there is an atmosphere that will encourage individual initiative in the development of the province. I particularly stress, again to the Minister of Development, Trade and Commerce — and I must say in due credit in all fairness to him that he has shown some great signs of taking the advice that many Members have given him and his own good sense which I see has finally come to the fore (laughter) and that he's now taken on an excellent deputy Minister. He's now advertising, of course, for a new director. But there are several things that I would recommend to him.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister that one of the key things and a requirement would be to call a Conference 2000. We're 28 years away from the year 2000. Now's the time to consider those problems. I would recommend that you call a conference of 2000 of the prominent people in the Province of British Columbia to discuss the problems that we may face in the next 28 years — representatives from trade, from commerce, from the cities, from the communities, from labour, from education, in a series of three-day seminars to rectify this province, to look into these particular problems. Not a serious expense but it's part of the motivation that we're going to need to continue the initiative, the expansion in the Province of British Columbia.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that one of the key responsibilities is the organisation at this time of the Pacific Rim trade talks. I do feel that British Columbians can play a keynote part in the organisation of these particular talks.

I do suggest one other particular point, Mr. Minister, that is an essential part of the responsibility of the chartered banks in the Province of British Columbia. The chartered banks — and I have the notes for three of them — in 1970, three major banks loaned approximately $6 billion each throughout Canada. They showed a profit of approximately $90 million to $120 million on the loans which they had provided to people of Canada.

I suggest, however, Mr. Speaker, that the loss ratios that those banks have had is far too low. Time and time again, in the Province of British Columbia, people who are endeavouring to get bank loans find themselves in a position where they require either the signature of God, Paul Getty, and the Premier of the province and it's got to be any one of the two.

Not too long ago — and I can give you a perfect example — we were involved in a business deal ourselves. We went to the bank and the bank manager said: "Ifyou'll guarantee the loan, we'll lend you the money." And my brother looked at him and said to the bank manager: "If you'll guarantee the loan, we'll lend you the money."

And I suggest, Mr. Minister, that responsibility of the banks of British Columbia is a very serious one. It's a question of responsibility for the development and to the initiative of the people in this province. I think, Mr. Minister, that one of the responsibilities that you have is to call them together and explain to them as clearly as you possibly can that we expect them to take on this mantle of responsibility, that the advantage, Mr. Speaker, to them is not just direct loss. The losses I might point out are taxable deductions. There is a 50 per cent payment on their tax they pay on the bank losses, and I would suggest that at this time in our province, we need that type of encouragement.

I would ask the Hon. Minister to set a meeting up with them — I'm sure that if he invited them, they'd come — and explain to them that we're not proud of a low loss ratio. I realise they have a responsibility to shareholders but they have an even greater responsibility under the regulations of the Charter Bank Act in Canada to provide a service of risk capital. And at a time when we have eliminated the capital gains portion of taxes. We're now taxing capital gains. There's a definite requirement for the banks to step into this and take on a responsibility in the community.

Mr. Speaker, in my opening remarks I discussed initiative. I also discussed responsibility and individual responsibility but time and time again in this House, I have been disturbed by the discussions of responsibility and then immediately we tie in the programmes we put forward, to a means test.

I am not, and understand this, opposed to help to the needy, to the forsaken, and the helpless. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that I am worried that we are in the process of destroying in our society the one essential virtue that has made this nation grow. That virtue is thrift. We are developing more and more programmes which if you want to give them any title, "Sock It To The Saver."

To quote the second Member for Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) who said: "They frugal the frugal." Take two individuals, Mr. Speaker. They work through their lifetimes, both at equal jobs. One is determined to save for his future. He puts a little aside. He tries to form a plan, he tries to save some money. The other decides that he will spend the money. At age 65 what happens? The person who has saved his money receives nothing. The person who has spent every cent, we give him free medical, we give him subsidised housing, we give him transportation, we give a supplemental income.

I'm not opposed to these plans. But somehow, we must turn around, do something to encourage people to remain on the other side. We cannot continue to sock it to the savers. We take him, we tax him, we charge him and we deny him. In our society, I point out today, Mr. Speaker, that the grasshopper wins. But more, what's even worse, let's take the case of Frank Frugal who turns around and does save and responsibly puts himself on a serious pension plan. Now after letting him go and put himself into a pension plan, what do we do, Mr. Speaker? We steal his pension.

Take the case of a man in the 1930's who retired and worked, saved and put his retirement away. He knew he was going to be looked after. He knew he had a pension of $100 a month was going to look after him for the rest of his life. That same man is endeavouring to live on hamburger today, when he can afford it. And that's even on top of the other pension we give him.

Take the case, Mr. Speaker, of a man who today decides that he's not going to make that mistake. He's going to put away for himself at this time a pension of $500 — after 25 years he's planned that he will have $500 a month.

At 4 per cent inflation — which is what we have had over the past years — when he gets that $500 a month, in that very first month after 25 years it will be worth $188. That $500 will buy him $188 at our 4 per cent inflation rate.

If he has the temerity to live on, after the first five years that will be down to $154 a month and if he has the terrible audacity to live for another 20 years that will be down to $86 a month. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that no wonder the unions today are demanding wages now: "We don't care about pensions. Why should we take a pension"? We turn around time after time. We say to them that we're going to

[ Page 584 ]

look after them in the future and we do not provide them with anything that is meaningful. If we are to keep faith with the people who go on to pension plans, then we cannot attach them to fixed rates of interest. We cannot tie them to fixed dollar returns.

Pensions must include equity shares. We must provide a tie-in with the corporate structure, with the growth factors of our economy. Some turn around and say "tie to the cost of living." That doesn't help.

You take the cost of living, it goes up 4 per cent. What happens? We immediately put it on the top unless we move the tax rates and the tax base that we allow on the taxable deductions. We turn around and take an ever larger percentage of that. We take 15, 25, 30 per cent of that increase.

If we're going to tie-up to the cost of living, then we have to move the taxable deductions up at the same time. We cannot tie it entirely to that. What advantage is the security of a bond when we steal his pension? How honest is our stewardship for people on pension plans — and we have tremendous regulations — when he goes to his savings and finds that we have melted them away? How valid is our integrity when we turn around and tell him that the entire sacrifice that he made during 25 years of saving is absolutely worthless?

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it should be a requirement of law that no pension plan can have less than 50 per cent of Canadian corporation equity shares tied into that particular plan. I suggest that we should exempt from taxes the first outside $100 and either we should exempt the first $100 of the additional pensions over and above any pension plan that he's on as a taxable income.

Either that, Mr. Speaker, or let's tell the people the truth: "Don't save." A pension planned on a fixed dollar will not provide their future. With the knowledge that we, as individuals, have today of the inflationary pattern, if we insist on putting people into pensions on a fixed plan, then we are dipping into the pockets of the pensioner of the future. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we can no longer be looking at plans which provide X number of dollars at the end of a fixed time.

I'd like to talk about other responsibilities, Mr. Speaker. We talked today, and I appreciated the discussion, of both sides of the House on the medical plan and medical costs. I would point out the very interesting figures by the way.

We talked about the Canadian contributions. Canada contributes the highest percentage of its gross national income to medical costs of any country in the world, 5.2 per cent of our Gross National Product goes to medical costs.

The United States is 4.7 per cent, Sweden 4.3 per cent, United Kingdom is only 3.6 per cent. We have more doctors per capita than any country in the world. We have more hospital beds. We have the fastest-growing health costs. We have more concerns and lots of things are happening that we didn't talk about today. We're producing specialists faster than we need them. We're producing pediatricians, we're producing cardiac specialists more than we can possibly handle. We have no fundamental direction in what we're going to produce.

At the present time in British Columbia our specialists are doing 30 per cent of the work that should be done by general practitioners. In a recent study they did on medical practice, they pointed out that a skilled nurse in pediatrics can do 75 per cent of the work that is done by the pediatrician.

I'm suggesting, Mr. Speaker, this is a necessity for an examination in this particular phase. But no wonder again, Mr. Speaker, why we have skyrocketing costs in medicine. We have no basic control where the control must rest and that is on the individual.

They pointed out under the Kaiser plan and it's been talked about, I only point out one fact — that the Kaiser doctors who participate in the profits of that particular hospital operate 25 per cent less than doctors on a similar basis studied in any other area, 25 per cent less operation. They haven't found any reasonable difference in health.

The difference as one doctor pointed out to me is when a mother walks in and says: "Johnny certainly needs his tonsils out, doesn't he"? down there they say: "No, he doesn't." Up here they take his tonsils out. It's better than have him come back.

We've generated a method of this and we have no basic deterrant in costs that ties in with the patient. The good Member, the second Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Kripps) pointed out that she received some bills that weren't her bills but how many people in this House can tell me what your medical costs were last year? You all get a slip. What were the basic medical costs?

I'm saying that we have to determine, Mr. Speaker, the costs per person and then turn around the other way and say: "Let us have an incentive to stay healthy." Let's turn around and say: "Why do we not encourage people who work at staying healthy"? Certainly that is worth more to us in a dollars saved than the costs that we think. I would suggest that every individual in the Province of British Columbia should receive a $200 health certificate, a Province of British Columbia Good Health Certificate.

No restrictions again, exactly as we have now. You go to the doctor as many times as you want but if you don't spend that $200, if you don't use that $200 of incentive, if you don't use that up, that is a tax credit that applies against your income tax. In other words, it's something that makes it realistic. No attempt to take away from any of the plans you want to go into, no attempt to take away from the use of the medical system. Let's put an incentive on people to worry about: "Should I really go to the doctor today? Do I really need to"? I would suggest that examination, the basic examinations shouldn't be a part of the cost of this plan. We shouldn't deter people who are worried from going but unless we do this, Mr. Speaker, we are going to face chaos because of one thing. There is nothing in the world as expensive as something that is free.

If you want to get a perfect example, then there should be tax exemption on many of the things that keep people sick. I would suggest that many doctors should be tied into the Medical Corporation of the Province of British Columbia and every doctor should have to put up and buy $1,000 investment into the Medical Corporation of British Columbia.

We should determine what the medical costs right across Canada are and if our doctors in British Columbia can produce lower medical costs then we should give them a percentage of the difference that they're able to save the Province of British Columbia.

Let's make them participants in a sharing programme of medical costs. Let's bring back an incentive. I point out again that so much of this is tied in to what we need.

Another point that I'd like to make is the need in all of this, Mr. Speaker, to consider some of the things that are required for our young people because over and over again we have this tremendous motivation that seems to say "Just worry about the sick after they're sick."

I suggest that one of our basic requirements throughout

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the Province of British Columbia today is a development of the facilities for recreation and athletics. I pay great tribute to the Attorney General for the programme and the special fund that the Premier established. It has one basic weakness. It does not provide for capital expenses so that we can train the coaches and we can train the people who would look after the teams, we can pay for travel. This is excellent.

The whole programme has been a great credit to British Columbia but I suggest that the time is now, Mr. Speaker. We must find the necessary funds to put a programme together that will enable us throughout the Province of British Columbia to produce facilities for youngsters.

This film has passed the censors and is not a part of "The Stewardesses," I'm afraid to say or I'm very happy to say. But what this is, is part of a suggestion programme that I would like to offer to the Premier for consideration.

So many of the facilities that we have built in the Province of British Columbia are more deluxe than we need. We build giant temples. We put in facilities that we do not require.

I looked up the basic cost of a 50 metre swimming pool as put in to most of the communities and they're in the range of $250,000 to $500,000. They include the dressing rooms we require, they include all the other facilities.

A hockey rink costs between $500,000 and $800,000. Today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest to you an alternative under which we can put into every community in the Province of British Columbia either a completely-covered 50 meter swimming pool or a complete ice rink for $90,000. I would like to run this film and it won't take very long.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member should ask the House for leave.

MR. CAPOZZI: Yes, I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the House give leave then to allow the Member to proceed. Shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

MR. CAPOZZI: Thank you very much. This is a programme which is designed to use air bubbles and they are low-pressure bubbles which will sit over the top of facilities. They are air bubbles which will be produced in the Province of British Columbia in a new industry which is starting in Grand Forks.

Under this particular project, 50 of these particular facilites will be built in the Province of British Columbia. The normal cost would be $150,000 but by a standard programme, through the province we could build them for $90,000. I suggest they be financed in the following manner. I suggest that $30,000 be the expense of the community. I suggest that $30,000 be the expense of one of the clubs — one of the service clubs in the community — and I have the guarantee from one of the banks of British Columbia that they will supply the funds on a loan basis to the particular service club.

I suggest that the other $30,000 of the $90,000 be a grant from the Province of British Columbia and every community would be able to have a completely air-filled facility in its location. The dressing rooms would be the combination of other facilities.

It seems to me that this is the type of approach that we should be taking in the development of initiative.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CAPOZZI: They are guaranteed for 20 years. They are completely air conditioned because of the type of facility they are. They are low pressured, they're pumped. Many of them are round. We'll have to show the film outside and I intend to show it after for those who want to stay.

Now I would like to talk about some other things. I'm going to skip through because of time and pass by some of these. I would like to talk to the Attorney General about justice. I would like to talk about expressions you've heard — "justice delayed is justice denied." I'm not here to talk about delays as such. But I'm talking and I'm suggesting that justice by squeeze, to quote an English expression, is justice gesumped. We are at this time gesumping in reverse. Many of our citizens, if you recall it was an expression, gesumping is where you establish a price and then keep moving off from the price and you keep gesumping up. We have today, in our courts, being used by the insurance companies to gesump people the opposite way. I've got here some examples of cases that appeared and went before the court. I'll read you one.

June 8, 1954, it went before the courts, it was settled in September '58 for $40,000. It was the death of a 34-year-old logger by a gas device, leaving the widow and four children. Defendants appealed, dismissed, and bankruptcy was filed after judgment.

After a period of four years they received $40,000. There is no interest on that $40,000 for that four years. At 8 per cent, that would be $14,000, that the delay of the settlement came out of the pocket of the individual and ended up in the profits of the insurance companies.

March 29, 1955, eventually settled for $40,000 — a fire loss. The total loss of buildings in Fort Nelson, personal negotiation, adjustments, finally settled. 1955 — finally settled in May '67 — $40,000. The interest lost was $38,000.

I can go on. There's other cases of personal injury of a 11-year-old boy in an advanced class in chemistry. Severe disfiguring burns on hands, arms, chest, legs. With recovered funds, final settlement was $23,000. Interest cost to the boy — $5,520. The profit from that ended up in the pockets of the insurance company.

I suggest, Mr. Attorney General, that that is not justice and I suggest, Mr. Attorney General, that the time has come when insurance companies, who have the money and eventually must pay it, should be required to pay 1 per cent a month after the first 90 days. I would suggest that that would bring pressure to put people through and provide them with justice.

Now, I would like to discuss in closing very briefly, the budget. It's a good budget and there's been a lot of talk about the budget. I pointed out at the beginning, that it was going to be an appetising dinner and it was an appetising dinner.

I was amazed — in six years I have listened to the criticisms of the budget. You know, this year I didn't hear one criticism about lack of classrooms. Didn't hear one criticism of the number of acute beds. Not one criticism on the budget about the lack of hospital facilities. No way, highway and ferries, nothing about the amount, no concern about the total recreation costs — forestry.

The Opposition spent more time on the questions of bigotry, they spent more time on the Skagit, they even spent more time on the breeding of race horses than they did on the major topics of this budget. I would have to suggest, this

[ Page 586 ]

I would suggest, should be called the Galumbo plan, because — most of them were extremely glum during the whole debate. I looked across and was amazed.

I couldn't close without a final short reference about the dessert that I mentioned that my mother never gave me. I am suggesting, Mr. Minister, that there is a need for some dessert over and above what is in the budget.

I have talked about the tenant and I'm not going to belabour that point. But in the budget there's a very significant thing. In the budget, Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Finance, there is a provision of $50 for senior citizens in their own home. Let me suggest and I would like to briefly read this one letter that perhaps can explain, much better than I can. It's addressed to the Premier, re the home-owner grant.

I wrote to you last year concerning this matter… In light of your latest budget, I feel compelled to write again. I listened carefully to your explanation as to why you did not consider rentals, not even those over 65, should share in the grants now allocated to the homeowners. You stated that your budget would encourage the renter to go out and purchase a home because the government would assist them in financing them and would help them.
The idea might be very well for young working people. They would be interested in building an equity in a home. However, for those of us over 65, the idea is not feasible in most cases. We are not interested in equity in a home at this stage in life but rather strive to lengthen our life span by a few years by freeing ourselves from the problem and even the physical strain required to maintain a home.

I will say this, Mr. Speaker, that I can understand your views, Mr. Minister, and I'll accept your views about the encouragement of people into their own homes and the younger people but I do suggest the time perhaps is now to consider a grant made through to the tenant over the age of 65 on the basis of a percentage of their rent that would be refunded through the taxes on that particular property.

I'd accept that as a compromise to my bill, Mr. Speaker; I would accept that. I think in fairness it provides the type of justice that we have to expect for those people who are the ones most strongly caught in this particular bind.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much would it cost?

MR. CAPOZZI: Very little, because in those cases where the rebate is there, we are only taking money that we are normally going to turn into the community anyhow. Next year, instead of raising the home-owner grant we don't raise that grant and we take that amount of money that we give to the community — because that's the dollars we use — and we add that, we don't raise the per-capita grant we use that, but we allocate it out in this manner to give relief where I know your heart is, because to quote the famous ad — "that is performance."

Hon. Mr. Kiernan moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

The House met at 8:00 p.m.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE RENT CONTROL ACT

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

Mr. Dowding moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 38 intituled An Act to Amend the Rent Control Act.

Motion approved. Bill No. 38 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

ON THE BUDGET

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. the Minister of Recreation and Conservation.

HON. W.K. KIERNAN (Minister of Recreation and Conservation): Mr. Speaker, this is, of course, our traditional and time-honoured budget debate when we discuss the financial affairs of the Province of British Columbia.

I think this budget has been described in quite a number of ways. I regret that the Opposition can find so little in this budget. I've come to the conclusion the Opposition is either totally blind, totally unable to read or totally unable to comprehend what they do read. Because I find, first of all, Mr. Speaker, this is a budget to protect and enhance the environment.

It is a budget to create employment. A budget to encourage initiative. A budget that plans for the future and most of all, Mr. Speaker, it is a balanced budget which is a remarkable document in the world in which we live today.

The fact that this is a balanced budget, Mr. Speaker, is I think the most straightforward form of tribute to the man who had served as our leader of this government team for 20 years. Year after year, Mr. Speaker, our Minister of Finance — who also happens to serve as our Premier and a number of other jobs — has brought into this House a balanced budget. This I think is a remarkable record of performance in any country.

When one looks across Canada at the deplorable record of unbalanced budgets down through the years and deficit financing it is a remarkable document that our Premier has brought into the House in this year of 1972. Because not only are there tremendous provisions for benefits to people but they will all be paid for from the revenues or from the reserves that come into the treasury during the course of the year in which the expenditures are committed to be undertaken. I think Canada could well take a leaf from our Premier. In fact, if it wasn't that we don't really feel we could spare him we should send him down to Ottawa to straighten out that unholy financial mess they've got the country into.

I think also, Mr. Speaker, with due respect, the budget is a tribute to the cabinet team that sits on this side of the House. After all a team depends on team work to get results regardless of what kind of a business you may be managing. This is a large business, the largest single business in the Province of British Columbia. In order to carry out that business successfully it requires a lot of dedicated work and co-operation.

[ Page 587 ]

I think also, Mr. Speaker, the budget is a credit to every private Member on the government side of the House. Because without the continuing support of the private Members it would not be possible to carry out these policies.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I think also, Mr. Speaker…

AN HON. MEMBER: He's announcing his leadership candidacy.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: In an indirect way it's a tribute to the Opposition. Because down through the years — I assure the Member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) I've got nothing but kindness in my heart.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Down through the years they have needled and niggled and negatived and criticised and we have tried to correct their misunderstanding of the time and economics of the place in which we live and in the process of having to answer their sometimes rather foolish arguments we have in turn developed a better understanding ourselves. So they have made their contribution, Mr. Speaker, and that too is part of the democratic process.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: We are the firmest believers in the parliamentary system. And, Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary system requires an Opposition but I think sometimes in listening to the debates in this House, Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure really where the Opposition sits. But that just goes to prove we're a very democratic organisation and we can stand constructive criticism from any quarter.

I've been rather intrigued, Mr. Speaker, by some of the debate that has bounced back and forth in this legislative assembly on this question of equalisation payments by the federal government to provinces of Canada.

You know, Mr. Speaker, we have a very generous attitude. We believe that every area should be able to govern itself in the manner it sees fit. In looking at the organisation across Canada and in taking a brotherly interest — after all it's brotherhood week next week — a brotherly interest in the way some of the other provinces manage their business, I thought perhaps to bring to your attention just a couple of interesting statistics.

The four Maritime provinces, for example, have in total an area of 207,000 square miles, four provinces. They have a population of roughly 2,150,000 people. Now, one of these provinces, of course, is not much bigger than some of our smaller constituencies in British Columbia. In fact, with the exception of Newfoundland which is 156,000 square miles, the good Member from Cariboo (Mr. Fraser), looks after a constituency larger than the other two provinces combined.

In other words the 90,000 miles roughly that the good Member from Cariboo looks after is as big as the Province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island combined. But then you've got to throw in another 20,000 square miles to make it up to the size of Cariboo and the Member from Atlin (Mr. Calder), of course, he has even a bigger area to look after.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many…? How many…?

HON. MR. KIERNAN: With all due respect to brotherly love and national feeling and that sort of thing I say that these provinces have every right to govern themselves as they see fit. Provided they do it with their own money. But when I see the total trappings of four provincial governments handling an area that is not much more than half the size of British Columbia I begin to wonder, you know, whether Canada can really afford all this extravagance.

Another casual observation Mr. Speaker. Occasionally we go down to the national capital for conferences. It's very interesting when you go down — there British Columbia will have perhaps two representatives but the other provinces, Mr. Speaker, you would think they had brought the whole government to the national capital to participate…

AN HON. MEMBER: And all their wives.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: …and sometimes I think all their relatives, Mr. Premier.

Now again, Mr. Speaker, I'm not being critical for the sake of being critical. But when we are asked through our taxation, through our contributions to the national treasury to very heavily subsidise these governments I think injustice to the taxpayers of British Columbia we have the right to raise the question of how the tax money extracted from British Columbia is being spent when it is handed over to these other governments.

My point is simply this, Mr. Speaker. If we are afraid to bring this sort of question out in the open and subject it to public scrutiny then we are not doing our job. I think there is nothing to be subscribed to that as being anti-confederation or anything of that nature at all. I just don't think it's good enough to pretend that these things don't exist, because we can observe the very best economies in all our operations. But if the productivity of British Columbia is being syphoned off as it is, to be spent in an extravagant manner elsewhere then I think we have the responsibility as representatives of the people of British Columbia to protest, and protest vigorously.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I'd like to talk a little while with you about the matter of energy because I find some very strange observations at times taking place in this House.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Well, yes, some things are stranger than strange. I find it strange for example, Mr. Speaker, that there is apparently no communication between the first Member for Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) and the second Member for Point Grey (Mr. Gardom). At least if there is communication, Mr. Speaker, there's no understanding. Either they don't talk the same language or they don't get together for conversation often enough.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I believe, Mr. Speaker, it was not very long ago that the first Member for Point Grey — who I believe is the leader of the Liberal Party, at least it is so alleged — stated without any equivocation that the gas pipe

[ Page 588 ]

line to Vancouver Island ought to be built by B.C. Hydro and no question about it.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): No I didn't.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Oh, you didn't?

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Well, perhaps it was just the way it was reported that led me to believe…

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: …he was recommending it. Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: While the second Member for Point Grey speaking in this House this week suggested that there was serious engineering incompetence in the British Columbia Hydro…

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Suggested that there were grave questions that were not being answered. Now either one of those Members is trying to drag a red herring or the other.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, both.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Maybe it's both. Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I'm sorry that I may have excited the Members Mr. Speaker. For that I apologise. But I suggest to them, through you, Mr. Speaker, that they should stop this business of trying to ride both sides of the street at the same time.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I'd like to talk about energy for a little while, Mr. Speaker, because it happens to be one of the prime activities of British Columbia Hydro — the generation and supply of energy. Really there are three or four basic kinds of energy but we only come to grips with two of them.

First of all, there's the energy of gravity acting on water — we call that hydro energy. Then there's thermal energy which normally speaking we think of in terms of fossil fuels — coal, oil, natural gas. Then there's nuclear energy which is becoming more prominent in the energy picture.

And then of course, we have the energies that are spoken of but not in much use today in terms of producing usable energy — those are solar, tidal, bimetal and chemical. I think that pretty well covers the common ranges of energy as we know them.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: British Columbia, well that's a different kind of energy, Mr. Member. We'll give you an opportunity to test your voltage and potentials shortly.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: British Columbia, of course, Mr. Speaker, is very rich in terms of energy. In the field of the production and distribution of energy British Columbia Hydro has played a very active and I suggest progressive part over the last decade.

I think we sometimes lose sight of the growth of demand for this very useful source and kind of energy. I'll just give you round figures because they're easier to remember both for you and I. In 1960 production and distribution amounted to 5.6 billion kilowatt hours. Just 10 years later in 1970 it had grown to 14.8 billion kilowatt hours. Or in a period of 10 years an increase of almost three times.

It is estimated that by 1980 the demand that stood at 5.6 billion kilowatt hours in 1960 in two decades, by 1980, will have grown to 36 billion kilowatt hours or six times.

Now, as of March 31, 1970 we had an installed hydro capacity of 2,445,000 kilowatts, that's name plate capacity. We had an installed thermal capacity of 1,055,000 kilowatts or totalled installed capacity of 3.5 million kilowatts in round figures. Now the principal locations of those installed capacities were: Burrard Plant, which is thermal steam, 750,000 kilowatts; Port Mann, which is turbine gas,100,000 kilowatts, and Georgia Station on Vancouver Island out here at Chemainus, which is a reformed oil turbine station, 75,000 kilowatts.

In addition there were 26 diesel plants and six mobile diesel plants all of small-ranging capacities 2, 3, 5,000 kilowatts. The principal hydro sources — and we've accounted for in-place capacity of 925,000 kilowatts — the principal hydro sources were Bridge River, Bunsen, Ruskin, Stave, Waleach, Cheakamus and Shrum, and several smaller plants. Shrum had installed at that date, March '70, 1,135,000 kw; Cheakamus, 140,000; Waleach, 60,000; Bridge River one and two, 428,000, and we had on the island the John Hart system made up of John Hart Strathcona and related dams. Again we had several small hydro plants scattered around the province, none of them accounting for more than 15 or 20,000 kilowatts.

Now, what we have been working towards Mr. Speaker is a fully-integrated system. By fully-integrated system we mean a fully-developed ability to interchange power from all the principal sources with all the principal load areas. And to do this you have to establish your main transmission grids throughout the province.

By establishing that integrated system it means that you can store water in one reservoir as long as you have storage capacity, and draw from that reservoir when you run into a low reservoir situation in another area. By combining both thermal and hydro you take out a variety of insurance. And to further strengthen your system you create inter-ties with your neighbours. We have inter-ties with the United States, the State of Washington. We have inter-ties with the Province of Alberta. And those inter-ties are really what saved our situation when we lost high voltage transmission during the terrible storms that took place a couple of weeks ago and I want to speak a little more about that.

Now the basic components of a hydro system are usually storage, because run-of-the-river plants are not generally too good in British Columbia and the reason run-of-the-river

[ Page 589 ]

plants are not too good is that the run of the river can vary as much as 60 — 1 — in other words from maximum high water, to minimum low water the volume of water in the river can change as much as from 60 down to one.

MR. W.L. HARTLEY (Yale-Lillooet): Do we have very many river plants?

HON. MR. KIERNAN: We have very few run-of-the-river plants. Actually the only good run-of-the-river plants in the province are on the Kootenay River, between the Columbia River and Kootenay Lake. Those are run-of-the-river plants and the only reason they are good run-of-the-river plants is because you have a large reservoir, Kootenay Lake, at one end and a rather controlled outlet situation on the river itself. Generally speaking, though, you have to create storage. And storage — again a shot gun figure — will usually run a third of your total plant costs. So you create your storage, install your generators and provide your transmission. And it is surprising that it will work out in very rough figures on the average sizable project one-third for storage, one-third generation, one-third for transmission. Now it will vary from place to place of course, obviously. But as a rough guide that is fairly accurate.

On your thermal stations generally you will locate your thermal station close to your load centre so you will only have generation and distribution — obviously you are not going to have any major storage costs.

Now, I suppose we shouldn't entirely ignore this nuclear power. And I think we should not be conditioned in our thinking by the rather horrible introduction that the world generally had to nuclear energy when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. That was the first time the world generally became aware of nuclear energy. And we certainly on government side have no fixation against nuclear energy. But it's still in the experimental stages as any one who is following it closely will tell you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you call Pickering experimental?

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Yes, they are still improving on their mustering of energy from nuclear reaction. They are still looking for fusion as the activating process rather than fission. And if we were in the situation that some other areas are where we were short on energy resources then we would have to, I think, seriously consider installing nuclear plants. But we are not in that position, Mr. Speaker…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I wish the leader of the Liberal Party wouldn't keep yapping, because while he says it's the cheapest thing available there's at least 10 economists that will tell him he doesn't know what he is talking about. And this business of going into what is still an experimental type of energy when we don't need to, when other people are doing the research the experimentation and the improvement, it doesn't really make much sense when we are rich in other energy resources to rush into nuclear energy at this time. And I think that's the very simple position.

I want to speak a little bit about transmission, Mr. Speaker, because it's an important component in this whole question of energy distribution. You use transmission, of course, to convey power from the source of generation to the point of use. But you also use it to integrate sources and this provides alternate sources of energy so you have the greatest flexibility in your system.

For example, we have that large plant at Burrard which we were able last summer to shut down almost entirely because the Peace River System was pouring in the necessary power, into not only the provincial grid but into the lower mainland. Burrard is only run when we really need it because Burrard burns either gas or oil — it will burn either. And that gas or oil regardless of how good a price we get on it costs money. Whereas the hydro plants once they're established and operational their fueling and maintenance costs are very minimal.

So you have Burrard there for situations where you need to meet a big load, but you don't run Burrard or the other thermal plants when you can supply your needs with hydro.

Now some people believe that thermal plants are ideal for peaking. But generally this is not so. Even your nuclear plant is not suitable for peaking. It takes too long to start up and shut down. Your steam turbine plants such as Burrard from cold boilers will take about eight hours. Your hydro plant can be from standing turbine to fully active in about three minutes. So your hydro plant is the best device at the present time for peaking purposes.

I think also that by having a variety of plants you spread your risk. By having a variety of transmission alternatives you spread your risks. And the problem that we ran into this winter when we lost both high voltage transmission lines from the Peace was rather a unique combination of circumstances. First of all we had an ice storm in the Fraser Valley that we had not had the equal of since 1935, and we lost the line that comes through the Fraser Valley on Seabird Island.

Now the line was built to carry an ice load of approximately 1 in. on the conductors. It was designed to carry tower weight, its wind resistance weight, and an ice load of 1 in. on the conductors. We encountered almost 3 in. of ice build-up. Any of you who have seen a silver thaw know what I'm talking about when I say it is probably one of the most destructive elements short of an earthquake that you can encounter.

Up through the valley, when I sent up on the Saturday two days after the storm the devastation among the beautiful trees through Sardis and East Chiliwack was almost unimaginable. Beautiful trees that had stood there for 40 years split right down the centre and flattened out. And up along the edge of the valley where the storm had gone through it was as though someone had taken a great knife and sliced about 20 feet off the tops of the trees just in a straight line.

In other words it would have been possible if you could afford it to build a line that would have perhaps stood 2.5 in. of ice. But when the load climbed up to 3 in. of ice it would have been beyond anything we could have afforded to have built to take that kind of a load. Over Mission Mountain…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Don't twitter so much.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the Honourable Member stop the interruptions?

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I wonder would you take this over to my talkative friend over in the Liberal Party. What I'm sending over to you is the designed cable that is in place across Mission Mountain.

Now Mission Mountain is in the Bridge River area. In

[ Page 590 ]

order to split the line we had to bring one over Mission Mountain and one through Squamish. At first the engineers thought we could not build a high-voltage line that would carry that voltage under the weather conditions encountered on Mission Mountain. And after a great deal of research and engineering consultation and testing they came up with this cable.

This cable, which I hope they'll pass around, costs $7.50 a foot. And if we had built the home transmission line from Peace River to Vancouver with that kind of cable the transmission line alone would have cost $175 million more just for the conductor.

Now, there is an element of risk in everything you do, even in crossing the street. And in building across Mission Ridge we used very expensive materials because it was only a few miles to get across the ridge and we knew that if we lost the line there in mid winter it would be almost impossible to get equipment in to put the line back in. What happened on Seabird Island — which was where we lost 25 towers, five miles out of the 500,000 volt line — what happened there was simply the ice built up until the actual conductors themselves could no longer stand the load and they broke.

The conductors themselves literally tore apart, tore in some cases the long insulators strings right off the towers. And of course the towers then becoming completely unstable in some cases tipped on the top section, in other cases under the load just literally collapsed partially within themselves.

On the Squamish line we had a slide come down, and the slide took one tower and tipped it till the conductor cables were resting on the snow, shorting out the line, tripping'the switches, and cutting off the power.

Now when they went in to restore that one tower they had several D8 Cats in there because they were dealing with over 25 feet of snow. And we were able to restore the power on that line within five or six days. We had not as of yesterday restored the power on the other line, but we are bypassing it with wood poles temporarily and should restore it probably next week.

Now there was a combination of circumstance, a slide on one line, a on one line, a silver thaw on the other, which is part of the calculated risk. Now there was not a silver thaw of this magnitude previously on record since 1935 and to have designed to stand that kind of a load that developed would have made the system prohibitively costly but by dispersing our generating sites and tying them as it were, we are able to shunt power back and forth to the various load areas.

I think we owe a real vote of thanks to our neighbours to the south. They stripped some of their customers of power. They cut off their deliveries to the State of California in order to pump 450,000 kilowatts north to us. Did it for a reason. Needless to say we would do the same thing for them under similar circumstances. And that is what cooperation is really all about.

I would like to deal with Hydro for a moment as an economic entity. In 1960 the assets were about $896 million — I'll just use round figures again. The accumulated net earnings were about $68 million and the business volume in that year was about $110 million. In 1970, the assets had climbed to $2,294 million. Accumulated earnings to $85 million and business volume to $240 million. 1971 — assets, $2,490 million, business volume $277 million for the year.

Now from those figures you can roughly draw a couple of broad observations. For each $100 million of annual business, it has required the investment, roughly, of $1 billion. For each $100 million worth of business, the investment of roughly $1 billion in plants. In the year ending March 31, 1969, new plant was $227 million, in the year ending March 31, 1970, new plant — $189 million. For the two years $416 million. Now from that deduct your depreciation, because your depreciation is available for re-investment, it's in your cash flow picture, so less depreciation for the two years of $83 million, less net earnings which were two fairly lean years of $8.8 million, you have $92 million available in your cash flow stream against the capital requirement for a new plant of $416 million. So therefore, you have to raise somewhere the $324 million if you're going to pay for the new plant.

Sources of funds. I say, Mr. Speaker, that Hydro is a sound investment. It serves an essential need, it is being built to meet the requirements of the people and therefore…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Don't get so excited Mr. Member, you yatter and yatter about wanting facts, wanting facts, and yet when I give you the facts you do nothing but chatter like a magpie. You don't want the facts.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: You don't want the facts because it spoils your story.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Mr. Member, I've been elected by the people of this province seven times — so don't tell me I've never been elected. Don't tell me I've never been elected. I'll put my batting average up against yours any day of the week. So don't give me that nonsense.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I think we can agree Hydro is a sound investment. It serves an essential public purpose. It is owned by the people of the Province of British Columbia. It has always over the years shown modest profit with one exception when it had a deficit one year, and therefore I think it qualifies as a sound investment. I also suggest that it is wise, where we can do so, to finance ourselves. Where we are able to put our funds to work for ourselves, pay the interest to ourselves, that I think is good economics in any man's language. I think also we have a responsibility to run a sound business. I think we have to accept business guidelines because if we don't accept business guidelines what then are our guidelines?

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Oh, you people — I know I'm spoiling your public story all to pieces. And you don't like it. You don't want the truth. It spoils all your yak, yak, yak, in the public arena.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Mr. Speaker, one of the provisos of running a sound business is that you put your business out

[ Page 591 ]

— your supply requirements out — to public tender.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I'm letting the Honourable Members in on some very secret information and I don't know why they don't appreciate it.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Oh, it's very secret — in fact everything I'm telling you tonight comes right out of the annual report of the British Columbia Hydro. It's just that I have to collect the material for you because you're too lazy to do it.

One of the requirements of a sound business is to the greatest practical extent put your requirements out to public tender, and all other things being equal and acceptable, take the lowest bid. Now there has been some controversy about our accepting a bid for two turbines from Russia. Now, this is not the first time that we have dealt with people in that part of Europe. I believe a contractor from Yugoslavia did the grouting on the Peace River dam and in all fairness did a first-class job — a first-class job. There is another group then from Yugoslavia that did some grouting for us and that was a first-class job.

We didn't ask them what their political attitudes were, we simply asked them if they were competent workmen. I think the other question is that if we are to run on a sound business basis and we believe in this business of live and let live in this world, then we are obliged to honour the sound concepts of world trade and when people buy from us we should be prepared to — all of the things being equal — to buy from them. I think when the question comes up, are they buying from us? we only need to look at the orders they've placed for wheat for example…

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

HON. MR. KIERNAN: …which of course is important to our prairie provinces and we think that trade has to be a two-way street and that is the simple basis upon which those tenders were accepted after most careful engineering examinations.

I think also we have to recognise that when we require in order to meet the growth of demand, around $200 million a year for capital plant, it is only fair that future customers pay their share for the plant that will be generating for them. Or to put it the other way, it would be unfair to the customer today to demand from him such a high rate for electrical energy as would be required to provide $200 million or more of capital in a single year for new plants.

So there is, I think, in fairness to the customers a need to fund a lot of this capital construction so that the load will be distributed over all the customers through the years that use that power.

We are going to continue to need more capital because we're going to have to buy more turbines, more generators, more transmission lines and these are all public statements that everyone who takes an interest in this sort of thing is aware of.

It's publicly stated that we're putting the sixth unit in Burrard, part of our balanced programme. It has been I think, general public knowledge, that we have ordered the turbines and are ordering the generators for Mica, because that is where the next power source for British Columbia is located. It's public knowledge that we are in the process of teeing up to clear the right of way for the transmission lines from Mica to bring it down to Kelly Lake and into the other load centres.

It's public knowledge that we are building the Kootenay Canal plant and we're building it because Duncan storage and Libby storage makes the Canal plant a natural. It would not be very good sense, having created the storage, not to use it.

My friend was alarmed because he had heard that sometimes there might not be enough water to run the full, generating capacity in the Kootenay Canal plant. There is that possibility but this is part of an integrated system. Do you realise, for example, that we could run Portage Mountain all-out with 10 generators for four months if we needed to, once the Portage Mountain reservoir was full?

I think this is the principle of an integrated plant, where you shift your load from spot to spot, where you take advantage of the weather conditions, the rainfall, in the various weather areas of this province. We have for example, just completed rebuilding the Jordan River plant. Now there isn't enough water out at Jordan River to run that plant all year round. But that plant at Jordan River now has five or six times the generating capacity that it had before we rebuilt it and for a few hours, a few days, or for a few weeks, we can bolster the energy supply here on Vancouver Island right from that Jordan River peaking plant.

It's been converted from a basic load plant to a peaking plant, because we can turn it on and off, right from down here in Victoria just by the touch of a button.

This I think is the kind of integrated system which we are steadily working towards, so that all the component parts fit together.

I would like to say just a little bit about Hydro as a corporate citizen. It's a big business. $275 million last year. $275 million gross income. Net profit of about $16 million. It has a chairman — some of you have heard of him — a well-respected citizen of this province, long history of service. It has a board of directors and a staff.

We are naturally open to criticism. Any big business today is open to criticism and has to be prepared to expect it as part of the responsibility of being a big business.

MR. BARRETT: Even your members criticise it.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Right, and this is part of the democratic process. But I suggest to you…

AN HON. MEMBER: Not any more if that keeps on.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I tell you, that despite the criticism that Hydro sometimes seems to ignore the people, I tell you that that is not so. Hydro is very responsible to the people and I'll cite you some examples — you probably won't know what they mean but my friend from the Kootenays will know what they mean, my friend from Cranbrook will know what they mean, Duck Lake, Meadow Creek, Stave Lake, Bunson Lake, Slocan Pool, they all ring a bell with those who are interested.

We're also on a programme to make available, wherever it is possible to do so, for recreational purposes, every right of

[ Page 592 ]

way that we own, every power transmission right of way that we own and we are prepared to spend some dollars to facilitate the recreational use of those rights of way.

Bear in mind, however, some of the rights of way are just easements. We don't own the land, we simply,have the right to transmit power over it and there of course we can't utilise the surface of the land for other purposes without the consent of the owner.

I think I have taken my allotted time. I hope I have straightened out some misunderstandings in relation to Hydro and its operation. I think simply as a matter of broad Hydro policy we are there to serve the people of this province in the best way we know how.

We will certainly make every effort to do that job. I think perhaps also that it's time for a few forecasts, Mr. Speaker. I will forecast that in the next five years Hydro will invest over $1 billion in the necessary work to serve the electrical needs of the people of British Columbia. I will forecast that in the next five years there will be no increase in electrical rates to the domestic consumer. I say it.

I forecast that in the next five years there will be no increase in gas rates to the domestic consumer. Mr. Speaker, if we had the economic wisdom in Canada to stop this inflationary bubble that is pushing our economics all cockeyed there would never be a need again to increase hydro or gas rates in the Province of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: The gas rates right now — you're making money off of them.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: I'm just about finished, Mr. Member so if you'll bear with me for two more minutes…

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. KIERNAN: Mr. Speaker, I also forecast that within the decade of the 70's — in other words before 1980's rolls around — every hydro reservoir in the Province of British Columbia will be completely cleared and suitable for recreational use. I also forecast…

AN HON. MEMBER: The weather tomorrow?

HON. MR. KIERNAN: …Mr. Speaker, that there will be a provincial election. But unfortunately at this point my crystal ball has gone hazy and I can't tell you the date. Thank you very much.

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

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS (Vancouver East): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy hearing the addresses of the Hon. Member for Chilliwack (Hon. Mr. Kiernan), and I say that genuinely. However there's a lingering doubt that always hangs around with respect to some of the long-time cabinet Members in this government, Mr: Speaker, and that is that too often I feel that they're wedded to their own decisions of 20 years and that with the best will in the world it's extremely difficult for them to cast a new eye on the problems that they face at this stage 20 years later.

So I have this kind of gnawing doubt, even though I enjoy the Member's addresses, that in fact we're not getting the kind of policies we should have or could have because they're always thinking about some of the mistakes they may have made in the past that they have to keep in mind that deter them from doing the job that's needed today.

But I'd like to mainly this evening, Mr. Speaker, talk about the community that I discussed during the throne debate. That is the District of Dufferin on the edge of the City of Kamloops.

There's a range of reasons. I think the District of Dufferin is probably the best civics course one could have in British Columbia. The best civics course that could be given to any high school student or any voter in terms of how the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon, Mr. Campbell) operates in British Columbia.

I want to deal with this town, Mr. Speaker, partly because of the responses from the former Mayor. Partly because of the responses from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Gaglardi) and because it's justified. Because it's an untold story that needs to be told.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: The background was covered. Is the Minister saying there's more mud in that situation? He should know. He should know, because the Hon. Minister didn't deal with any of the facts in his speech. He chose to just do his usual song and dance routine and failed to deal with any of the facts that were presented at the earlier stage.

You know, the Minister of Municipal Affairs in the past has stood for rational, local boundaries, for fair sharing of taxes, for amalgamation — and that point was made in the throne debate. But the Minister has proved that all of those things are negotiable and that what the Member for Kamloops wants is what they get in Kamloops territory.

It was made clear that the gerrymander involved in the creation of Dufferin was the gerrymander of the century in municipal politics and I don't know of any student of municipal affairs that would deny that. Even the Minister didn't try to justify that particular pattern.

AN HON. MEMBER: How could he? He didn't talk about the past.

MR R.A. WILLIAMS: The loss in that kind of situation, Mr. Speaker, is for the 25,000 people that live within the City of Kamloops. The taxpayers just lost directly as the result of the creation of this community.

It could have been avoided. The Minister knew that it could have been avoided because he pointed out himself that he was unhappy with his own statutes early last year in January during the session of this Legislature when another town, another blunder loop-hole town was created under his administration. That was another vest pocket municipality like Dufferin. Lions Bay on the north side of West Vancouver right on Howe Sound.

Yes. What did the Minister say? He said it was a loop-hole that allowed it to get through and it should have been avoided.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: And what did the local municipal leaders in the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area say?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

[ Page 593 ]

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: That's right. The Mayor of New Westminister, Mr. Evors, made it clear that he thought it was wrong and was unfair to the other communities in the regional district.

The Mayor of Surrey, Mr. Vanderson, said the same thing. Why did they say that? Because they've got one vote in that Greater Vancouver metropolitan area. With a handful of people in Lions Bay they have one vote. Surrey municipality with 100,000 people in it has two votes in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. It's that kind of rotten borough situation.

HON. D.R.J. CAMPBELL (Minister of Municipal Affairs): That's not my doing.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: That is the Minister responsible for the modern rotten boroughs of British Columbia. It is his doing. But rather than dealing with the problem the Minister sat back again, left the loop-hole and let Dufferin slip through.

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: No wonder they fired you up in Central Kootenay.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Central Kootenay? I've never worked in Central Kootenay. This is the strangest pattern of municipal boundaries that the Minister is willing to live. The District of Dufferin, Mr. Speaker, is almost a kind of a key-club municipality. It's a case where the keys to the city are shared by a select few. It's a very nice club. The people that have those keys have access to city hall and they have access to the real estate office that dominates the District of Dufferin.

What's been the response from the former mayor of Dufferin? I made it abundantly clear that I was talking about the former Mayor of Dufferin but the Hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs chose not to understand that when he replied to the speech.

You recall that the founding father of Dufferin was Charlie Bennett. The great supporter of the Member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Gaglardi). What did the former Mayor of Dufferin say beyond the diatribe that is in the Vancouver Province of February 4? The Mayor confirmed that his two firms, George Field Investment and Del Cielo Heights Limited owned 2,400 of the 6,700 acre community. That is about 40 per cent of the community. How did this founding father of Dufferin feel about the zoning that was brought through in Dufferin while he was mayor of Dufferin? He said, and I quote: "I am satisfied with the way the municipalities zoned all of the land in the municipality."

How does this compare with Charlie Bennett's feelings in 1970? Well, in 1970, he said:

We haven't been able to get the zoning changes to allow for the light industrial or the commercial zoning or the residential zoning that we want. We've been trying to get that zoning for three years now and the refusals are mainly the result of the objections of the City of Kamloops and the regional district.

But now, he's very satisfied with the kind of zoning he and his co-founding governors of the municipality of Dufferin carried out. He's satisfied and I should say he should be satisfied, Mr. Speaker. He should be like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Would the founding Mayor of Dufferin have been quite so satisfied if those lands had been under the jurisdiction of the City of Kamloops? Hardly likely in view of what he had said earlier. He didn't like the city zoning and he didn't like the regional district zoning. In fact, would the Minister get what he was asking for? He said that there was unfortunate ribbon development along the highway from the edge of Kamloops and you'd think if he was a really crackerjack Minister he'd see to it that that just didn't happen again. Well, the Minister said there is a measure of unacceptable ribbon development. That was back in 1970. In fact what happened with the zoning is that the ribbon development was extended. All of the zoning categories that Mr. Bennett wanted were extended in the municipality of Dufferin during his term of office as mayor.

The question that the Minister might ask himself is: Is that a legal zoning by-law that has been passed in the District of Dufferin?

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: You don't need to do that. If you knew anything about municipal affairs, you wouldn't ask me that.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Oh. Is it legal or is it not?

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: Certainly not.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Oh, it's not? I see. I see. Well, that's interesting. Is the Minister agreeing then that the zoning bylaw that the founding fathers, that he should have been supervising was not approved by the Department of Highways, for example? Clearly, it's not a legal document. But maybe more background is necessary, Mr. Speaker. For example, had the City of Kamloops wanted the Del Cielo and George Field intersection land within the City boundaries? Had the city wanted this area within their jurisdiction?

A further question: Did Charlie Bennett promise to become part of the City of Kamloops? Had he agreed that some of his land should be within the jurisdiction of the City of Kamloops? These questions should be asked of the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Did the city want that area, Mr. Minister?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes or no.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Did the Socred-appointed mayor promise to join into the city? Did he make that kind of promise?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes or no.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Did he sign a document saying that he would join into the City of Kamloops? It's easy to understand why the City of Kamloops wanted these lands within their jurisdiction, Mr. Speaker. They wanted some control of development on the edge of the city, and that's reasonable. And they wanted some fair return in terms of taxes from that area as well. But what about Charlie Bennett. What did he want out of it all, Mr. Speaker? The answer to that is fairly simple too. Mr. Bennett wanted water supply to his land up there at the Merritt and Trans-Canada highway junction. He had the land at the highway junction. He had the zoning and the access that he wanted but he needed water for the whole thing to work.

So on April 30, 1968, just soon after the Member for Kamloops was demoted — that I'm sure caused some complications — there was a memorandum of agreement

[ Page 594 ]

signed between George Field Development Limited and the City of Kamloops. That's in April, 1968, between the City of Kamloops and George Field Development Limited a memorandum of agreement April 30, 1968. It's worthwhile reading the last paragraph at least, Mr. Speaker, the agreement states:

(a) Whereas the developer represents that it is the owner or is authorised to act as agent and representative of the owner of some 2,600 acres of land near the City of Kamloops at the junction of the Merritt and Trans-Canada highway south-west of the City of Kamloops all of which lands are more particularily described in schedule "B" appended hereto and forming part of this agreement…

and carrying on to section (c), Mr. Speaker…

(c) Both parties acknowledge that the said lands must be developed as part of the City of Kamloops and in accordance with an overall plan of development for the entire area and that the said lands must be brought within the corporate boundaries of the city by means of periodic boundary extensions and the parties contemplate the ultimate extension of city services, including water and sewer facilities to the entire area.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's the deal…

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Made even more clear, Mr. Speaker, in section five of this agreement. Wherein it states:

The developer undertakes to do all things which may be reasonably required of it in order to cause to be included within the corporate boundaries of the city all those portions of the said lands as are being developed from time to time and with respect to which city services are required.

They specifically agree regarding the incorporation of the parcels at the intersection of Highway 6 and the TransCanada. Signed by the acting Mayor and the city clerk for the City of Kamloops and Charlie Bennett and the corporate seal of George Field Development Limited.

The land map that's attached to the agreement, Mr. Speaker, is one we've become familiar with in this House — again at the junction of the Trans-Canada highway and Highway 6.

AN HON. MEMBER: B.C. 1.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: No, Charlie won this one. (Laughter). The schedule that's attached to the agreement makes it all abundantly clear what it was all about.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: That developer mayor, Mr. Speaker, agreed to have those lands included within the city boundaries so that he would pay fair taxes to the city. The city in exchange extended the water services beyond the city boundaries past the R.C.M.P. offices up on the hill there and to the intersection. The city gave its word and Charlie Bennett gave his word. The water main was extended to serve the gas stations at the intersection and those gas stations at that intersection are still on City of Kamloops water.

Where's the City of Kamloops, though? They were left just half a mile down the road. Charlie Bennett, he sold the land to the gas companies. He got the water, the zoning, the access to the highway. But he didn't live up to his agreement. After getting what he wanted he was rewarded by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, he was rewarded after cheating in the City of Kamloops. All this courtesy of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and the convenient loop hole that he left there in his municipal statue.

City of Kamloops didn't even get a letter from Charlie suggesting the termination of the agreement, hardly necessary. The Minister of Municipal Affairs had already looked after that. Is the Minister familiar with the agreement? If he isn't, all it would take is a phone call to City Hall in Kamloops.

But when you check with the Department of Municipal Affairs and ask if a bylaw is on file for any municipality or an agreement is on file for any municipality you find out they don't keep them down here in Victoria. They simply don't require that information of the municipality — even the municipalities that should be watched rather carefully such as the District of Dufferin.

But if the citizens of Kamloops were burned by the non-performance of Mr. Bennett then the poor 200- odd voters in the District of Dufferin should be warned. Because they have an agreement with Charlie Bennett. And that is that if they spend a lot of money as they indicated they were willing to do on a bylaw in January of this year then Charlie will provide $60,000 to help with the building of the water main. But I would suggest they get a better lawyer than the City of Kamloops has.

You know, Mr. Speaker, it's unfortunate that this kind of process goes on in the edge of communities. We could be improving the edges of our towns and we do have some legislation that's coming forth in this House, "greenbelt legislation," and that may well improve the edge of some of our cities now that we've allowed so many of them to be destroyed like Kamloops,

In Kamloops, though, it's not a greenbelt surrounding the town — it's a money belt. And the money belt in this particular case is right around Charlie Bennett's middle.

You know they used to say that you can't beat city hall. But under this government you can. They give you your own city hall.

What did the Honourable Minister say after my last speech in this House? Well, let's see, here it is on page 78 of the Vancouver Sun (Laughter). I had been reading the want ads that day, and I noticed it. He said: "The Minister stated that Bennett is neither a resident elector, a tenant elector, or owner elector in Dufferin, and the Member from Vancouver East knows that." And yet by the ex-mayor's own statement Charlie controls 2,600 acres, 40 per cent of the District of Dufferin. The Minister of Municipal Affairs, what else did he say on page 78? He also said: "Residents of the area sent an incorporation petition which included the pulp mill at Dufferin. But I excluded it, I stood up to them, I excluded it."

That's the old fight. But how much did he fight when it came to discussing the Del Cielo intersection? Where's the old fight, tiger? It's just that that tiger doesn't have the clout in Cabinet that the Member from Kamloops territory has.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tigers could never catch roadrunners.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: And the Member from Kamloops! Well, what other kind of bylaws did the founding father of Dufferin bring about, Mr. Speaker — this instant town, this instant mistake, that the Minister joined in fathering? We know they passed a zoning bylaw and it's a different one

[ Page 595 ]

than the City of Kamloops wanted and it's one different than the regional district wanted. But it's one that made Charlie Bennett very happy.

But they passed another bylaw, Mr. Speaker, and that dealt with roads in the District of Dufferin and that dealt with highway access in the District of Dufferin. I suspect, Mr. Speaker, that that particular bylaw made the developer mayor even happier than his very own zoning bylaw. And the bylaw is bylaw No. 20 of the District of Dufferin. And it's a bylaw that the Minister of Municipal Affairs should be fully aware of. Is he?

It's a bylaw that dedicates roads, a bylaw that dedicates roads along the Trans-Canada Highway and the Merritt highway in a fascinating pattern. It is a bylaw that is clearly intended to bypass the provincial statutes, and confer access rights to Charlie Bennett's land. Land that is in the name of the George Field and Del Cielo Company.

Mr. Speaker, access is critical in respect to land values, as we have come to know in this House. The first Member from Vancouver East made it abundantly clear in the 1968 debates on highway access. He said it was the handle to the money machine, at the highway intersection. And let's remember that it was those debates and that issue that led to the resignation of the Highways Minister of that day.

But with the appointment of the new Minister of Highways, Mr. Speaker, there was a freeze on highway accesses. And in many cases the highway freeze even in the Kamloops area had very real results on the owners that were affected. In some cases the Minister went so far as to actually rescind or withdraw approvals even when the approvals were a condition of selling land for the widened highway. But at the Del Cielo intersection, Mr. Speaker, the existing accesses remain. It would be worthwhile to look at the Controlled Access Highway Act that was passed initially in this House in 1960, chapter 76. And the most recent amendment to that statute which was passed on April 2, 1971.

The original statute is very clear, Mr. Speaker. Under that statute the Minister of Highways can designate highways as controlled-access highways. And when those highways are so designated he can prohibit access to them. So the 1960 statute is abundantly clear. The Minister has these powers — he can use them and prohibit access to controlled-access highways. That statute also requires the ministerial approval of zoning bylaws within half a mile of these designated highways.

But there was an amendment to the statute, Mr. Speaker, — that April 2, amendment of last year. And one must ask, was that amendment another glorious loop-hole that Charlie Bennett could jump through? The amendment says this and it replaces one sub-section, Mr. Speaker. It says:

No person unless he holds a valid and subsisting permit from the Minister, shall construct or use any private road, entrance way, gate or other structure or facility as a means of access to a controlled-access highway.

Now what sub section does that replace? It replaces the former one which said this, Mr. Speaker:

Where a highway has been designated as a controlled access highway except at such places that he may designate.

When you think about it the amendment, Mr. Speaker, seems somewhat less complete that than the original statute. And certainly less effective. Why is it less complete than the original 1960 statute? The reason is fairly simple because it does not include public roads, it simply says "private roads," only private roads. And that brings us back to bylaw No. 20 of the District of Dufferin, Mr. Speaker. And a good chunk of that bylaw is essentially in map form.

Those maps have now been deposited in the Land Registry Office in Kamloops and registered. And it's a good thing that the bylaw was deposited in the Land Registry, Mr. Speaker, because that little town of Dufferin, that key club, that beacon of democracy that the Minister of Municipal Affairs was talking about in his last speech, they wouldn't provide the bylaw when it was asked for.

They wouldn't provide the bylaw to the public, Mr. Speaker. And that despite the fact that this statute, that this Minister governs, the Municipal Act makes it abundantly clear that all bylaws are to be made available to the public, and I think there is a fee of 25 cents.

But in Dufferin, the town created for the friend of the Member from Kamloops, bylaws are not available. When the request was made the person who requested it was advised that the staff was too busy to provide the bylaw. What the Minister of Municipal Affairs has created here in Dufferin is a kind of a back-room club where public business is carried out in private. What about the Highways Department and their standard policy with respect to accesses, Mr. Speaker? This section of the Trans-Canada Highway west of Kamloops, was designated I understand at an early date, in one form or another in relation to various statutes, as far back as 1954.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, as a controlled access route. I've been advised, Mr. Speaker, that the policy of the department is very clear, that any subdivision that implied connection to the Trans-Canada Highway in this section would have to be approved by the Department of Highways. The standard policy of the department is that they would not approve a number of connections, or a series of individual accesses in an area such as this. And I should note that it's a high-speed area, Mr. Speaker, and an area that's on a curve at least to the cast of the intersection. And that seems like reasonable departmental policy to me.

Accesses or subdivisions require departmental approval, and that includes accesses within municipalities, Mr. Speaker. And a normal procedure, Mr. Speaker, before registering a plan is for the Land Registry Office to require the approval of the Highways Department before the plan is registered.

Well, what did happen and what was the procedure with respect to bylaw No. 20 in the District of Dufferin? The secret bylaw. This secret bylaw was signed by the mayor and the clerk and had final reading on November 3, 1971. And the plans which were a part of the bylaw were deposited in the Kamloops Land Registry Office November 23, 1971. The plans, Mr. Speaker, are number M9918 and M9919. And what do those plans look like, Mr. Speaker?

The Member for Surrey (Mr. Hall) is most helpful on these occasions. It doesn't matter, I think I might just indicate — I can understand the Member from Vancouver Centre's frustration since he wanted a picture show this afternoon and wasn't able to give it.

But the situation here, Mr. Speaker, is that this is the Trans-Canada highway running east-west, this is the Merritt highway here coming in and north is to the top of the page. The areas that are red on this map, Mr. Speaker, are new stub roads along the Trans-Canada highway in the District of Dufferin. There's a stub road here at the westerly end, there's one here that actually could create an intersection, and another one here, another one here. These are the gas station

[ Page 596 ]

sites at the intersection area, accesses back of the gas stations sites and one further to the east as well. A total of eight road accesses, Mr. Speaker, in that short section of highway were designated on plan 9918. One of the road stubs is 230 feet deep, a second one is 243 feet deep, a third one is 190 feet deep. On the south side there is one 125 feet deep, one 60 feet deep and another one east of the intersection 75 feet deep. And south of the gas stations there's two on Highway 6. And then there's plan 9919, Mr. Speaker, and again this is running north-south. This highway to Kamloops, the Merritt Highway, is running north-south and there are four accesses designated on that particular plan. Two stubs…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: I think the point will be made, Mr. Speaker. One of those stubs is 97 feet deep, on the Merritt highway … there's four of them and they're all about 100 feet deep. So it's a total of 12 altogether.

Who signed those plans, Mr. Speaker? Well, it was Charlie Bennett but he had to sign several times. He signed as secretary of George Field Developments Ltd. He signed as President of Del Cielo Heights Ltd. He signed as President of Halstan Planing Mills Ltd. And he signed for the assigned mortgage of Kamloops Livestock Co., Mr. Speaker.

But he didn't have to sign as mayor so that left the plan somewhat uncluttered.

The Kamloops Livestock Company, Mr. Speaker, is a company that interestingly has not filed a report in the companies office since April, 1968. So many things in the Kamloops area stopped or started in April, 1968.

Also filed at the Land Registry Office, Mr. Speaker, were new deeds. Deeds that transfered the title of those 12 road stubs from George Field Development Ltd. and Del Cielo Heights Ltd., all of 208 West Hastings Street, to the District of Dufferin. They're under land registry numbers in the Kamloops Registry Office of F43766, F43770 and F43772. All of these are signed by Charlie Bennett. But this is an interesting way to transfer title of roads, Mr. Speaker. It's one that I don't think has ever been done before in British Columbia.

It's an interesting way to transfer title, it's unique. Because the title of those roads in now in the District of Dufferin's name. And for people not familiar with municipal affairs, possibly like the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I might explain that in more detail.

In every other town or village or district municipality in British Columbia, the title to the roads is not with the municipality. The title to the roads is with the Crown provincial. In Dufferin, things are done differently.

With the control of those roads in municipal hands Charlie was able to play a different ball game than they play in other communities in British Columbia.

Let's go back to the Controlled Access Highways Act, Mr. Speaker. The April amendment, if you'll recall, said absolutely nothing about public roads. It talked only of private roads.

In Dufferin we do have public roads abutting the Trans-Canada highway but they are not Crown public roads. They're District of Dufferin public roads. All the 12 accesses, Mr. Speaker, are municipal public roads.

This way, I'm sure, that the people involved thought that they were safely getting outside Department of Highways jurisdiction, and safely in the jurisdiction of the District of Dufferin — the vest-pocket town.

It appeared that Mr. Bennett, the developer-mayor, clearly thought that he was meeting the Controlled Access Highways Act of British Columbia.

What does the Department of Highways have to say about this matter officially, Mr. Speaker? When I called the deputy Minister several days ago and simply asked in a very general way about access policies, I was offered only one, or rather two sentences, from the deputy Minister of Highways. One, they do check on accesses, yes. However, if I wanted any further information even on general policy of the department then I would have to ask the Minister himself. The staff clearly had been advised, for one reason or another — or they concluded, for one reason or another — that the department should be run more like a secret society rather than an open public department.

Today I wanted to follow up the specifics of the case further, Mr. Speaker. So I contacted the senior engineer in charge of access administration. As soon as I advised the senior engineer that I wanted to discuss the Dufferin road bylaw, I was advised that he was not free to discuss any matter involving the District of Dufferin and I would have to contact the Minister. That was a short two-and-one-half minute meeting, Mr. Speaker.

Even general policy information is denied and must be obtained directly from the Minister. I'd like to say, however, that the Minister courteously agreed to a meeting at 1:15 p.m. this afternoon on relatively short notice and I thank him for that. At that meeting which was attended by the Minister, the deputy Minister, and the senior engineer, I was advised the following.

I advised the Minister that I had been advised by his two senior staff people that if I wanted any information regarding these matters that I had to speak to the Minister himself. The Minister, at the meeting, neither confirmed or denied that. I was advised by the staff that the Highways Department did not approve the bylaw plan. I was advised by the staff that the Land Registry Office did however contact the departmental staff about the plan prior to allowing them to be registered. I was advised by the staff that it was not a subdivision plan, and that it was different. It was just a road plan. Therefore it was not under their jurisdiction, that is the Department of Highways.

They added further that in their judgment the plan and bylaw did not give access. The Minister then asked the civil servants: "Now are you telling the truth"? And the two senior civil servants said yes, they were. And I certainly accept that, Mr. Speaker.

But what about bylaw No. 20? What does the bylaw itself say? The bylaw noted that the district has power to dedicate roads through its letters patent granted to them by the Minister, the Member from Kamloops. The bylaw noted that the road shown on the two big plans were duly dedicated as highways within the District of Dufferin. The bylaw noted that with regard to the access requirements of George Field Developments Ltd., and Del Cielo Heights Ltd., and the Shell gas station. But these 12 roads shall be considered access to the Trans-Canada highway and to Highway 6.

The Minister's staff says the bylaw does not grant access to the provincial highway. Good, I applaud that. That's as it should be. I hope that has always been departmental policy. But I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the former Mayor of Dufferin agrees and I wonder if the Council of Dufferin agrees. I'm bothered by the question that lingers in my mind and because of the persistent rumours in Kamloops, if this Minister is only an interim Minister as so many of them say

[ Page 597 ]

on Victoria Street in Kamloops, will this policy remain?

But what about the Minister of Municipal Affairs? The Minister of Municipal Affairs who indicated he was unhappy with this vest-pocket town. He's the Minister who has had, in my view, a double responsibility to watch the District of Dufferin closely.

One, because he was the Minister. Two, because he doubted the viability of this town — I think he used words to that effect at one stage of the game — and especially because of his various fights with the Member from Kamloops.

Where's the Minister been through all this, Mr. Speaker? Does the Minister of Municipal Affairs consider the agreement between George Field Developments and the City of Kamloops which guaranteed boundary extensions for the City of Kamloops? Did the Minister of Municipal Affairs stop the zoning bylaw which was clearly ultra vires? Did he intervene on the highway access question and bylaw No. 20? Not at all.

Instead he intervened in favour of developers in other regional districts, that's where he spent his time. In the Kamloops area the Minister of Municipal Affairs has sat back and let the boys in Dufferin go to it. The Minister has let this Tinker-toy town governed by the friends of the Member from Kamloops subvert the statutes of British Columbia.

There has never been, Mr. Speaker, any excuse for the incorporation of the District of Dufferin. It is a town created mainly for the benefit of developer manipulators, a town that is thwarting the proper development of the City of Kamloops, a town that has proven that it is ill-equipped to govern itself. There's now only one proper course of action for the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr. Speaker. That is to withdraw the letters patent for the District of Dufferin.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs should eliminate this developers' enclave. The Minister should integrate this town, the pulp mill, the oil refinery and the other major industries freeloading on the edge of the City of Kamloops with the City of Kamloops and give the citizens in the City of Kamloops the kind of tax breaks they deserve.

And if the Minister was completely honest with himself, he would agree that it is time to reassess everything he's been doing in the last few years. It's time the Minister looked back to when he was first appointed to Minister of Municipal Affairs, looked back to the original ideas that he espoused, time that he renewed his self esteem, time that he changed his standards to something a little different than those of the Member from Kamloops and his developer friends.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the second Member for Vancouver-Burrard.

MR. B. PRICE (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, prior to getting into a discussion on our budget debate tonight, I think I might say a couple of words about what I have read in tonight's paper regarding what is being done in Ottawa and particularly the throne speech.

It's encouraging to notice that one of the things the Government of Canada promises is — and they put it this way — that overcoming unemployment remains a primary focus of attention and action and the government will work to ensure a favourable business climate.

Well I noticed in an article that they're putting up $45 million to create work in British Columbia and if they think that is going to overcome unemployment in this province they certainly have another think coming.

They also point out that they're going to have secure income, this is the Ottawa aim. I certainly think they better start with the old people. Today it's rather a serious thing when our old people, in many cases, have to get along on the old age pension of $80 a month, $86 a month. It's quite easy to see that Ottawa has been quite willing to do everything they can for the people of Canada as long as British Columbia can afford to do it.

Another thing, too, which I think we should all take notice of and that is today President Nixon of the United States starts his journey — and I think we could call it a peace journey — to Red China. We wish him well. I think we can perhaps look forward to the end of the Vietnam war because I personally believe this is the main purpose of his visit to Red China and I certainly hope and I'm sure all of us to here that he is 100 per cent successful.

I have a headline in my hand, Mr. Speaker. It says "Socreds Kill $200 Pension Vote." I take exception to a headline of this kind, when it has no application to the actual action taken by the government. I think it's a very unfortunate thing that Opposition Members are allowed to bring in a smoke screen and create a vote deliberately calculated to develop a headline such as we read here.

Everybody in this House is aware that we would like very much to give a $200 pension to every old age pensioner but the fact of the matter is that if we ever tried to do it every old age pensioner indeed in Canada would be on our doorstep and there would be no way of denying them this money and you know it. There's no argument about it. You know how valuable a five-year clause is when you're dealing with old people. If they're here you'd have to take care of them, there's no argument about that.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that our government is to be very highly congratulated for the budget which they have been able to produce. We've heard the figures contained in it so many times that I really hesitate to mention them again, particularly at this time of night.

I would draw attention to the B.C. Medical Plan which is going to draw $85 million this year. The important thing to me is that it states that 99 per cent of the population of British Columbia is fully covered by this plan and 26 per cent of that enjoy this low income subsidy which goes down as low as 50 cents a month. This is something which I'm proud of even if you're not. I think it's a very valuable thing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Members, please address the Chair.

MR. PRICE: Those with a taxable income of less than a $1000 are able to enjoy the benefits, the complete and full benefits at half the regular premium.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there's no doubt about it. We have a long way to go in the application of universal chronic care. This is something which I have looked forward to ever since the first day that I became a candidate in 1952. No doubt a great deal has been done along this line. I think now we have 2,700 extended-care beds in this province and they're going to increase every year.

I strictly doubt if we will ever catch up with the need. We won't catch up in B.C anymore than they have in most other parts of America. But we are making headway and this, I think, is the important thing.

I'm quite proud of the fact that British Columbia exports 53 per cent of its total provincial product against 35 per cent for the balance of Canada. Another interesting fact too is that of all the tourist foreign exchange dollars that come into

[ Page 598 ]

Canada, 22 per cent of it is generated right here in British Columbia. I think it's a great shame that the federal government doesn't give great credit to British Columbia for being able to do that. It's not only B.C. that gains when we get this foreign exchange in here, it's all of Canada, make no mistake about that.

Regarding our exports, if we're going to continue to maintain our level of export in this province as time goes on I can assure this House that from my observations it's going to be based on power and the cost of power. And the critics of hydro development are, I think, very, very short-sighted. As time goes on in my estimation we'll have to carry out the development of every possible kilowatt that we can get from hydro power in this province and probably within the next generation.

You know, prosperity is largely a matter of public confidence. I think there's one thing that this government has managed to do and that is to create an aura of confidence among the people in this province. This is the most important thing that we can have because as soon as you have no confidence in the future, you have a depression. This is exactly what caused the depression back 30, 40 years ago.

Well, I'm only going on whatever I've read. The United States set up a Senate committee to discover the cause of the depression and they come out with the finding that the depression was caused through the failure of business to reinvest its profits. Now you go on from there. I'm telling you that as soon as you lose that little bit of confidence people have in the future, this is when your investment stops and you're into a depression right off the bat.

I think all of us in British Columbia have reason to be particularly proud of the home acquisition grants which have been created in B.C. and we're told that there are 2,500 enquiries every month regarding how to get within the benefits of the plan. This is so important. I believe the government should outline a course that could be given in the high schools of our province so as to prepare young people for the time when they are going to purchase a home and let them know the benefits and how best to use them. I think this is very important and I think it would be a worthwhile thing to do.

Another thing that interested me about the budget — it's contained on page 40 — shows up where this money is coming from to make up the total of $1,453 million revenue. The income tax, succession duties and gift tax are going to be up $97 million from 1970 to the end of this year. Social services tax up $15 million, cigarettes from zero to $20 million and this I think is a very sad thing if anybody wants to reflect on it a little bit. Because if we're going to have $20 million in taxes it's obvious that if you're going to spend at least $100 million then, in just tobacco, that you're going to set fire to — it's a most unfortunate thing.

Minerals and petroleum up $15 million and motor vehicle fuel is going to increase from 1970 to the end of '72 by $39.9 million. It's nice to see that the revenue from ferries is going to be up $5.5 million. The returns from the Canada joint services plan is going to be an additional $29 million.

All this done — we're going to spend $260 million more this year, $115 million which is coming from surplus revenue, into special funds designed particularly to aid citizens and to create jobs and the important thing is that all this has done without any more taxes and without borrowing.

These are things which we can indeed be proud of from one end of this province to the other. Where else can you do it? Where else can you see a situation like this? Nowhere in Canada and nowhere in the United States.

The Hon. Member was talking a few days ago about a federal election that took place 25 years ago when our Premier failed to be elected. I wonder, did you ever think of what might have happened on a financial basis had he been elected 25 years ago? Because it's quite obvious that had he ever had the opportunity he would have put Canada out of debt in exactly the same way he has managed to put British Columbia out of debt.

I noticed a little article in the Vancouver Sun of a few days ago and it's headed up: "Alcoholic Programme a Success, Problem Drinkers No More." This came out of a seminar which was put on by the Workmen's Compensation Board and it came from Toronto and this programme maintained that of 382 of the 450 problem drinkers referred to the centre were now back on the job.

This is so important that I think it should be taken particular notice of by our Department of Health and also the committee that takes care of the drug, alcohol and tobacco fund. If we can institute a programme in British Columbia that will aid in recovering 85 per cent of the alcoholics and we have 50,000 of them in British Columbia, I think you'd be doing those people a favour that you couldn't duplicate in any other manner and I think it will be a great step ahead for the humanitarian benefits that British Columbia has been able to do. This is something which I think really should be taken notice of.

While I'm speaking about workmen's compensation I would like to point out some things I disagree with, inspite of the fact that the Workmen's Compensation Board has a wonderful record — it has less complaints with their awards, I think, than any other compensation board in any jurisdiction in America. There's no doubt about this.

But nevertheless when a man has been on a pension through an industrial accident and then he dies probably 10 or 15 years prior to what he would had, had he not had that accident and then you cut the widow off cold, I think this is a disgrace. It is.

Maybe you can't blame the board. They do what they're permitted to do by statutes, but I would like the Attorney General and the Minister of Labour to look into this and see if we can't change the Workmen's Compensation Act so that widows can carry on after their husbands have died as a result either as a direct result of the accident, the industrial accident or as something which has led toward their earlier death. Because this is not fair.

You know, widows of men who worked hard during their lifetime and then had an accident, they don't want to go on welfare. Welfare is completely foreign to most people. They don't go there willingly and I know personally of widows who have gone to work and are working for $1.50 a hour and trying to carry on paying for their homes because their husbands died and Workmen's Compensation Board sent them a very kind letter with the balance of maybe $35 or $50 which was for the few days in the remaining month in which he died. That's a bad deal and it should be changed.

We have heard, Mr. Speaker, our Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Loffmark), complain about how money could be saved if only pharmacists were able to use a generic name drug instead of a brand name as prescribed by a doctors.

I'm all in favour of some action being done on this. I read where a seminar was held in New Westminster — I think it was about a week ago — a hospital man from the east talking about tenders which they had sent out to acquire a certain drug and they had prices on this drug from $6 to $22 and the

[ Page 599 ]

story behind it all — what made it interesting — was that in this case, every one of those drugs were exactly the same, made by the same company under the same name.

It is just indicative of the situation which is going on in the pharmaceutical world and I certainly agree with the Minister of Health when he says that there is money to be saved and I think the public should have the benefit of any legislation which the government can put through in order to stop them being subjected to abuse and this is exactly what it is.

I think that if we were able to save this kind of money on drugs we might even be able to produce enough money that might include dental care for minors in the B.C. medical plan. You know, if you don't take care of your teeth when you're young, first thing you know, you got no teeth to take care of. To me this is quite an important measure. I don't know how it's going to be done, but it's something which should be given earnest consideration and at the earliest possible moment I think dental care should be included in the B.C. medical plan.

Another thing too, if I might mention it, and that is that I think the B.C. medical plan today is being subjected to costs that should be charged somewhere else and I'm referring to people who enter hospitals and have to have medical care as the result of automobile accidents.

People who are injured in automobile accidents today, that have either medical care or hospital care, it's charged up to the hospital plan or the medical plan. I think it should be charged to automotive insurance. If that was done, I wouldn't be surprised in my own mind that you could save enough money from that in order to pay for dental care for children without any extra money. I think it should be done.

Another thing, Mr. Speaker, which I think might lead to less accidents on the road, is if we could install breathalisers in every beer parlor. Now this I indicated should have been done before. It's all right for you to squawk and squabble over here and make a noise about it, it doesn't worry me one little bit, but it worries me because you know that 50 per cent of our accidents can be traced to liquor.

Very often people get into their cars, thoroughly unaware that they are impaired. I believe that you could put up a breathaliser and have one used by anybody that wished to use it for the price of a glass of beer. You notice that the amount of money which they expect to get from liquor is going to be increased by $17 million this year and perhaps we could use up some of that, just a few pennies out of the $17 million, to supply these meters or some other instrument in a beer parlor so that people could use them.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. PRICE: Yes they would use them. It's a matter of education. Supposing they wouldn't use them to start — as time goes on they would use them. This is the important thing.

Now a word about testing stations, Mr. Speaker. This to me is a little bit important too because I like to see a little tolerance, I like to see a little reason when government opens new stations. I was at the testing station in Burnaby along with the Minister. Enjoyed the demonstration of what was going to take place there, but I was rather disturbed when I had a phone call a little later from an individual who lived close by and he said along with all the other motorists in the area, he had a letter telling him to take his car without delay to the testing station to have it put through the test.

Well his car happened to be in a garage and because it was foreign it might be there for some time before he could get it back on the road. So he phoned the testing station to find out his dilemma and said he would go down to the station as soon as his car was repaired and on the road. They told him, just take the plates off the car and bring them in.

Now, you know, Burnaby has been without a testing station for the last 20 years and I think action like this from the part of the people in the testing station is unreasonable and I think it's unnecessary and it only makes bad friends.

I listened to another case the other day and perhaps some of you other Members did, stating that a similar thing was taking place in Richmond where they would examine a car and if they thought it was not as safe as it should be, they took the plates off the car and told the fellow to have it towed to a station, get it fixed and then come and get his plates after he had a warranty from the station that it was in good order and then he could take them back. Now I really object to this treatment. As I say, I just think it has an air of intolerance and I hope that the Attorney General will take a look at this.

I also think that the general public needs protection from the type of gift offer which is being advertised now and comes into pretty nearly every home and every mail because they are being fairly misled I'm sure, into the fact that all they have got to do is sign here and send in the return self-addressed envelope or card and get something for nothing.

They get something all right, they also get the remains of the contract which was part of their accepting the gift and they're pressured into a further sale. This is something which I think the Attorney General should give a certain amount of consideration to and try and prevent people from being hornswaggled in this way. It's just not a fair deal.

I listened to a story the other day from a woman that I think was very well meaning and I think she had something behind what she was talking about. She was trying to point out the need to permit young boys, 14, 15 and 16 to go into apprenticeships and some trades and the reason was that these boys — there's only a few of them perhaps — but they do get tired of academic work, they have no interest in it and they don't take an interest in school, they try to drop out and if they're over 15 they do drop out.

Where do they go from there? They go to school and even if they're in an industrial course, today the industrial courses are so mechanised and the schools have a minimum amount of equipment with the result that a boy can spend three or four minutes out of a class of 40 minutes in order to work on a machine. He gets discouraged and I'm of the opinion that if these boys had some area of apprenticeship that they could drop into that they would become much more useful citizens than just merely wandering the streets as school drop-outs.

If you try to get into the vocational schools, I think they call for Grade 10, you're lucky if you can get in if you haven't got Grade 12 and certainly Grade 11, for the simple reason that there is a limited amount of room and there is a great number of students trying to get in.

So the type of boy that I'm talking about is denied the chance to become a tradesman. I would suggest that there are a great many qualified tradesmen today that never got past Grade 8, not because they couldn't carry the tuition but merely because they had to go to work to help support their family or their brothers and sisters.

Nobody denies the benefits of higher education, it's something that you can't take away from somebody, it's a

[ Page 600 ]

benefit to you no matter what you do or how long you live. On the other hand, not everybody can absorb a higher education.

I think some of these boys need help and I think it's far cheaper to train them than it is to keep them after they drop out and get into trouble. This is one place where I think there might be more educational research because it's been mentioned here quite a bit that it's necessary to have our education geared to the times.

In some cases it's going past a certain amount of people who have gone up into a higher strata of education that some people can't reach but I don't think you should neglect them. It's all right to have the emphasis on academic training but I think practical training is equally important. I would certainly beg the Minister to give a lot of thought to opening vocational schools or try and encourage the apprenticeship when these boys are very young.

I spoke a little while ago about the $45 million lift for British Columbia and I don't think that's going to go very far, not in creating jobs. There's no doubt that the need to create jobs is probably a federal responsibility, much more so than a provincial responsibility. Because if this province tried to create jobs for every person that comes into this province we'd soon have a third of Canada here for sure. I'm all in favour of guaranteed work, not welfare. There must be a change somehow because it's just not a fair deal to go and give a person a hand-out when they are capable of doing a job. And the first place they don't want it in most cases and in the second place it's degrading and it's the last thing in the world a government should try to initiate.

I think that one of these days it may be within the realm of government to invest some of their surplus and industry in order to create jobs. And I'm not suggesting that you should create a hand-out, I think the government should be in business to make a profit. And there's no reason in the world why this can't be done.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. PRICE: No, it's not against any rule. It's not against the policy, I'm sure, of this government. The only thing is that B.C. can't start something that it can't finish. And the government is probably very wise to give it that consideration to the subject. It's a federal responsibility and has been ever since the federal government undertook unemployment insurance. And they should put their money where it will do the most good.

When we're talking about workmen, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a word about the need for a standard for auto-mechanics. You know there's an article in this week's Better Homes and Gardens, I think is the name of it, of February and it says: "Is the Auto Industry Overdue for an Overhaul?" And it points out that in the United States they waste one-third of the repair dollars. It further states that 11 per cent of all repairs and 22 per cent of all warranty repairs have to be brought back to the shop because either the job was not done right, or it was not done at all. And the situation is getting worse, and I think this applies to Canada as well as the United States.

In the United States today there are 130 cars for every mechanic. Ten years ago there were only 80 cars for each mechanic. Mind you the situation in Canada is better than this because we do have apprenticeship training, we do have certificated workmen here, that they don't have in many parts of the United States. But nevertheless there is a great need in my estimation to have a certification of a mechanic before he's allowed to work on a car. And we've got to start sometime, and I hope we can start as soon as possible.

Another place where I think the public needs a little protection Mr. Speaker, is in organisations that get on a telephone in order to collect money for some agency. There seems to be no penalty for this, but there certainly should be. Because undoubtedly the public has been policed and where they haven't been policed their time has been wasted and they've been put to a lot of bother answering the phone in order to say no. And I think the government should take a hand in this and try and stop these phoney agencies using boiler room tactics for collected money for agencies and the money never goes, or only a very, very small percentage of it goes, to the place where they indicate that it does go.

And another little item that I think the public needs protection from, and I think it's long overdue is the fact that I don't think surveyors, land surveyors, should be allowed to tresspass on private property in municipal areas. Now, this Surveyors Act was passed probably 60 years, 70 years ago when most of B.C. was wild land and of course there was nowhere to go but on wild land. But times have changed and today surveyors use their rights just as much today as they did 70 years ago. They have no consideration of letting a person know what they are doing on their property, and they neither get the permission nor even indicate that they're going to go on property. And I think this is wrong. I think it is time we changed the Act so as to make them indicate to an occupier or an owner that they're going to run a survey line through or over their property.

Another point, Mr. Speaker — it may not be important to too many people, but I feel that it's important. And that is that we read, and have read in the last few days alarming reports about the condition of the sheep, and the elks, and the grizzly in their wild life areas of the province. I had, and I guess every other Member did, a submission from the Kootenay Wildlife Association a little while ago, pointing out to the government how necessary it was to preserve the game up in that area and do certain things and so forth.

But don't forget the only reason the Kootenay Wildlife Association wants you to look after the animals is so they can go in there with a gun and shoot them. And I don't have much consideration for the wildlife association as far as that goes. Because that's all they want to do, is preserve them so they can have the pleasure of killing them. And when the lives of these sheep and elk and grizzly are in danger to a point where they may become extinct in certain areas why not have a four-year moratorium on these animals and let them build up their herds? I would strongly recommend that the Minister give this some consideration.

And my last point, Mr. Speaker, and it's one that I have brought in before. I think it has value, it is being used in the State of Washington at the present time. And they put a turnover tax on real estate of l per cent, maybe 1 per cent is too high. But nevertheless the way real estate has been increasing in value in recent years I don't think that anybody would be hurt with a 1 per cent tax on real estate sales. Furthermore since we have our capital gains tax in effect now it's quite obvious that if B.C. had such a tax it would be deductible from the profit which you made on a piece of property and therefore the B.C. individual would only be paying part of the tax, the federal government would be carrying some of the load.

I think it could be collected through the Land Registry Office or if necessary the real estate offices, it could be

[ Page 601 ]

earmarked, and I think it should be earmarked for municipal help and there's no doubt that it could be used for capital costs of school buildings or properties and to me this is quite important.

I think the municipalities need some help in this regard and I think this would be a most equitable way of applying a tax so that it's spread out over all the property which will be sold in the future in this province. I can't think of a more economical way in which a tax could be used, or could be placed. And that's my last point for tonight, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much indeed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Saanich and the Islands.

MR. J.D. TISDALLE (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear at the very outset that beginning at this hour of night was not my idea — it was the people who spoke before me. So we've got the record straight once and for all.

I've had to explain that 18 hours of speaking so many times when I spoke from one month to the next, and I don't intend to do that tonight.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. TISDALLE: I appreciate your support — may it be continued throughout the time I have to talk to you.

I'm glad to discuss the features, the tremendous features of this budget. And some of the things come across the conversation and the debate that has taken place here. Especially am I interested in the final remarks of the Minister of Health and Hospitals. I think that he made a tremendous impact and statement that should be not only heard by this Legislature, but by all of the people of British Columbia. At one time we weren't serious but the seriousness in which we are approaching this problem that has had such tremendous effects upon the healing professions, and I say this because they are stretched many times beyond their ability to cope with the sickness and the needs of people. In that respect we have taken very little cognizance as to what preventive measures each one of us could practice in the way of our own health, that the strain would not be upon the institutions that are at this time jammed and waiting lists are there.

So I associate with his remarks in respect to the seriousness of alcohol misuse, and tobacco misuse, and drug misuse. I recall that I'm glad to be associated with those who now view it with a tremendous seriousness that they have because when I spoke in this Legislature 19 years ago, 18 and so on, on through the years I was ridiculed because I took that approach to the health of my fellow man.

I felt at that time that not only was he injurious to my health, because I had to not only breathe it but look through it and it stings in your ears and your eyes and your nostrils and everywhere. And every night when I go home I wash my head because of the filfthy smell of tobacco that's in your clothes. If I could wash my clothes I'd do that too. It's a filthy habit and then when I have had to stand alongside of the beds of many of my sales friends and people in the world in which I have had to live in the business world, and also stand at the casket side I've had enough of that injurious effect upon our people. And the words that the Minister spoke were not at all too strong when we realise that the institutions we supply today for our health, it's our responsibility to protect our own health and surely I'd like a lot of you people as well as the Opposition to be around a long, long while, not necessarily in this House as Opposition though.

Well anyway, I wanted to say in reminding the Legislature of the things that we have talked about here from time to time in respect to sea culture that after that last address I made I was pleased to see that the Vancouver Sun came out with a full page of what was happening with the Lummi Indians and the federal participation on aquaculture. I recommend it again to the Minister of Industrial Affairs, and the Minister of Agriculture along with cooperation in the federal field of A.R.D.A. I think that we could really perform a tremendous service. Those biologists down there said: "We'll come up, we'll help you, we'll give you our time free if you want our cooperation." In Washington they were more than glad to come and participate.

Now we heard some facts, some rumours, or something that this government was trying to capture the Press. The Member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Hartley) was talking about this government's attitude in respect to the legislation that was preventing advertising of cigarettes, and alcohol, and that we were controlling the Press and endeavouring to capture the attention of the Press and that we were inserting ads on our own, and therefore capturing the Press. Well, that very small newspaper in Manitoba that the Minister of Trade and Industry is trying to help small businesses. There's an N.D.P. ad just recently hot on the press of what they're capturing the Press, intimidating, rewarding the Press, call it what you want. But it talks about Honourable Leonard S. Evans, Minister, and I don't know whether it's his picture, it doesn't say, but it's smiling all over as he's helped this little newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press. It says for small businesses so I suppose that's a small newspaper maybe and this ad is out to help them. But we get this kind of criticism without any knowledge of what their own parties are doing elsewhere. Well, that's so much for that newspaper and the ad which is probably garbage. Well, the N.D.P. are capturing the newspapers.

The thing that he accuses here his own party and Manitoba, it's got to be very clear I realise for the slow learners on the other side of the House.

Now, one little thing that I would like to talk about, it's a little here in this House, but to people on Salt Spring Island and to the students over there they've requested, and I'm sure the Minister of Education would like, the cooperation and see the cooperation of the school board over there that the auditoriums and the gymnasiums should be open for students and in the weekends on Saturdays and Sundays. Someone else mentioned that this is a good way of giving our young people something to do around the school yard which is a complimentary thing to our community and not something to be frightened of or detracted from.

Then we have another point that I'd like to draw to the attention of the Minister…the Attorney General. With driver testing, a lot of the senior citizens find that in coming to have a driver's test they are not only given a very thorough screening which we wish, but they seem to feel that there's a note of harassment and that they are not sure where they have failed. I think that it's time that the department could consider making the test in such a fashion that anyone can read on what area they failed, how many points they failed with. I'd like to see a programme of testing for our people — all of us, not just the senior people — but all should be able to know where they are weak at, what the report card says, and what it means to them as far as upgrading in their

[ Page 602 ]

training. It's anything but clear. It's vague, it depends on the testing driver who's alongside who may indicate how valuable and how many points the person is losing in respect to that test.

I would like to draw to the same Minister's attention that notary publics are now doing very heavy business in real estate and are handling a lot of deposits, and I would recommend similar bonding to other agencies that are responsible for large sums of money be instituted or covered. I do not go for the group co-insurance that they are doing amongst themselves. I think this can be not sufficient in the case of some of the large deposits and the time elements that lapse in the handling of deposits and the missing of the funds it can be very, very dangerous.

I'd like to see for the sake of a notary public profession themselves that bonding be instituted so that it would cover in all phases, whatever might happen in the administration of other people's money.

There's been a lot said about this budget. Being the time is running on, I'd like to just talk to you a few minutes of some of the aspects that I see and consider important in this budget.

Mr. Speaker, as the cover indicates on the budget it is a document in black and white this year. It's a "good morning" budget to the dawn of another 100 years in British Columbia history and the speech of this budget is bright and cheerful, optimistic as the dawn of a new day too. It avoids the grey and misty areas of Socialism, the graveyards of Liberal promises, and the wishful thinking of Conservatives and presents its arguments from a position of strength, not a position of weakness, thus avoiding the pitfalls of the old and the new line parties of the past have fallen into. The pitfalls and arguments based on weakness of those parties, produced the give-away programmes, the promises of something for nothing. Wells without water; broken cisterns they were, that could hold no water; clouds without rain that produced the dry and thirsty lands of the 1930's and that produced the poisonous mushrooms of the inflations of the fifties and sixties.

Where are the cries today of those politicians of the past, of yesterday, whose slogans blazened across the papers and the media said: "Elect us and get the economy rolling."

Where are they? Full employment was just about within their grasp, but they could also feel the hot breath of the charging-'bull of inflation on the back of their necks and those politicians, frantic for their lives said, "Let's cool it." The cooling-off was not at their expense but the expense of labour today. It was expense of the small man, the little fellow, the person who had insecurity because he was a new worker on the job.

They didn't care. If that government that's in Ottawa today had promised the people unemployment, joblessness, I dare to declare that the charisma would never have materialised.

Well they said: "We must cool it off, this economy", and they grabbed the inflationary bull by the tail and found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. With a federal election in the air, they were both flying around this country so fast that you can literally see bull flying everywhere and it won't matter how thin you slice it either.

Now the Socialists — here's a description I feel that fits the Socialist concept. It's a theory mostly and it's very airy theory. The Socialists would like to get in the act, and their theory is that if you cross the inflationary bull with the cost of living index, you would end up with a plus or minus of some sort, which would neither have tits, horns, or tails, and would require a subsidy, thereby putting everyone back to work trying to find a name for it. This would fulfil the Socialist's concept of work without profit, because they're against profit, but all labour would be meaningful and motivating.

This being the latest edition — this is their last thesis and the latest edition of an explanation of Socialism, it naturally will mean that the Marxist Bible of "Das Kapital" will now have to be revised. Hail Mao, Kruschev and Stalin, not overlooking Castro and others that may like to associate themselves with that group of Socialist peers.

Now let's take a look at some of the attributes of this budget and in so doing, comparisons must be made. Not only is it necessary to look into the future, but past performances are good criteria for guaranteed results. The Opposition doesn't like us to look at the past, because they know it is a credit to the people of this province and to the leadership that we have experienced.

Looking from the top floor of a 20-storey building can command a very magnificent view, but if you really want to know the structure of that building, you have to look at the design, the blueprints and foundation. Foundation stones are important if you are going to carry the full weight of a superstructure, floor upon floor, tier upon tier. The 20-year structural building of the Social Credit in this province, demands that we look at its foundation principles, one of which was clearly stated from the beginning and that was a policy or a foundation stone that has not altered and has been unfalteringly flawless and that was a pay-as-you-go.

Out of that firm foundation has grown the superstructure involving all of the province to its length and breadth. The Social Credit policy foundation stones guarantee the support for superstructures such as home-owner grants. That's an addition that was put on in about 1957. It's grown until it accommodates $68,370,000. Then there is the per-capita grant structure of $121,570,000 this year.

Taking a look at that home-owner grant, just think what it has done in our communities. It hasn't just been a grant to the home-owner to the tax position of the municipalities to ease the burden of the home-owner, but has created a sustenance and a stability in the tax area for tax gathering and for the expenditures of the municipality. It's given them a better credit basis.

Then there is the structural support for education, hospital care and social services; $743 million plus, which equals an expenditure for every minute of the day and of the year of $142 a minute. Let's take a look at the structural support for local employment, small contractors and trades, and sub-trades in the housing developments. You will see every corner is mitred perfectly to fit in this particular need; would-be home-owners, tenants, growing families from the acquiring of second mortgages and first-line grants to the purchasing of used homes to the acquiring of and building of brand new homes that have literally become the lifeblood of the small contractor.

The communities that have prospered because of this do-it-yourself, among the small contractors who were probably the sub-trades for a long while to some big contractor, now venturing out on their own, have stabilised the small industries in our community. They've become a primary and a secondary, they're a manufacturing agency and they've become the lifeblood of our local community.

They are the bread-and-butter contracts that keep the small man in business and even out the revenue derived from

[ Page 603 ]

the short-term tourist. The business community is kept alive by the thirst for work from those who take great pride in their trade. Millions of dollars for better living accommodations have also flowed back into the community, benefiting services and facilities therein. That's a real recycling programme of dollars.

This province is a huge province and we cannot keep it to ourselves. This is a land where milk and honey flows. Sweat and toil, and yes, sometimes tears, are honourable in the profession of those who tame the mountainsides and create the wealth that brings others to share in the luxury of working for a living. It is a luxury today with federal policies of slowing down this country's growing pace, have tried to make unemployment look respectable by adjusting the statistics, seasonally and subsidising indolence.

Hard work has also become a dirty word in Canada. It's "how much can I get for doing less." At one time, Canadians were proud of their record of turning out more production but recent statements by the head of the Bank of Canada, Rasminsky, could lead us to understand otherwise when he said that last year wage and salary increases rose to a high level of more than 8 per cent and consumer prices rose by 5 per cent and labour income rose by 7.75 per cent. Average weekly salaries paid by private industry went up by more than 8 per cent but productivity output per employee, rose by only 3.5 per cent.

I blame soft-soap Socialism, pinky brand of Communism that would wreck this nation on the rocks of foolishness; frivolous thinking that you can get without giving, that you can tax without impoverishing, that you can deficit-finance without indebting, that you can deflate without depression, that you can be on an economic high without L.S.D. as long as you've got P.E.T.

The federal government would sell its birthright to have a budget like this. In spite of the baffling years of Benson's policies, this government has gone right on past its critics, kept its true course, and has not faltered at any political storm that the Opposition can blow up. They have huffed and they have puffed but it hasn't made any difference, because the structure is built on a firm foundation.

Let's take a look at those Crown corporations. Those indirect liabilities. The federal government has them too — contingent liabilities and so do other provinces. But let's compare the British Columbia railroad with the C.B.C. Now which one do you really think is productive? Which one keeps the economy rolling? Not only has it opened up the north and married the industrial and financial centre of British Columbia, but it is responsible for thousands and thousands of jobs both direct and indirectly. Towns have sprung up, cities are growing, local industries established — it's a lifeline to greater things.

Let's look at the superstructure of that B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. It will light the way for British Columbians for hundreds of years yet to come. A contingent liability you say? You're loose in your socket. If I spoke for the rest of the evening, I could talk for hours about the benefits that are accruing, not only the Province of British Columbia, but many places throughout the world that are benefitting from trade with this province, for services and facilities.

Surely world positions are a two-way trade street. Trade must necessarily go both ways. I could go on and describe the tremendous structure known as 20 years of British Columbia growth, and it is a wonderful story, but I would only like to mention but a few more.

Some of this year's more recent additions, such as the accelerated reforestation fund, the $10 million work programme that will put our young people out of our universities back closer to nature so that they can shake off some of the musty ideas and superficial criticism of the establishment. The negative thinking that so many professional educators seem to develop within the cloister of the university complex. A restoration of ecology not only of the land and the forests, but the soil of the mind.

The seeds of a good day's work can produce some sound rest and clear thinking on what life is all about. A lot of our young people have envied the pioneers. Well this will give them something to be proud of.

Then there is the fund for the green belt and I'd like something to say here in respect to local policies. Let's see what the town planners can do with this one to screw it all up too. I wish your honourable friend was back. This should have been called — "Let's keep B.C. green fund."

Another is the powerline beautification fund, and I would like to apply this directly to what is about to happen in Saanich through the Colquitz Creek area within the communities that have endeavoured to beautify, now to become the basement of a high-rise pylon. I am asking the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority to innovate and become less dehumanised. I am asking them to innovate and see if they couldn't encourage and improve the landscaping of that Colquitz river basin.

Now that the water flow is becoming sustained and stabilised, is it possible that a marine cable, ditched and laying in the bottom of that, or at the edge of the river, could not be possible and in the long run accomplish two things, in one? Not only the servicing of the power but the retention and beautification of the Colquitz river basin.

It's only a suggestion put forward. I trust that they in their analytical engineering ability have other suggestions rather than the ghastly pylon towers that strew the countryside today.

Now I would like to get on to talking about some of the things that have concerned me, not only over the last year but over the years as I have watched the product develop and come out of the assembly line, called our educational system.

I've noted the respect for the dignity of the individual, for property, for those things that we hear a lot about — such as the love-in and all the peace moves, all of the things that we talk about that are so personal towards each other. Yet we see more and more disrespect for the rights of individuals, more emphasis put on the rights of an individual personally to do as he sees fit without any thought to what the duty or the corresponding duty might be.

Let me put it this way, Mr. Speaker, if you have a right to be in that chair, it's my duty to see you're there. It's corresponding to the word used as "tort." Too often we have said "it's my right" to something but we felt no duty to the other man.

I think this dehumanising that's gone on, it's come from a false premise that we're a mere speck of dust, a cog in the universe, swinging through space at 179,000 miles an hour thereabouts, space travellers in our own capsule but so dehumanised that we really don't figure there's any future.

We talk about the end of world as though we're going to do it ourselves, that's a do-it-yourself programme, and we talk about these things in such a remote way such as death today. The death that is "clinical death." We try to rephrase it and not talk about death at all. It's like I was born when air was clean and sex was dirty. It's the other way around now they tell me, but we have changed our values so that we…

[ Page 604 ]

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. TISDALLE: Do you want me to recycle that? We have changed our values to accommodate the thinking of a generation of people who are mixed so badly that they don't really know where they're going. They don't really know where they're going. The reason why — you haven't any excuse, you haven't any — but anyway, the reason why is that we're removed the principles and the landmarks that our predecessors and our forefathers established and we said "question everything and anything." Nothing is really established, north or south or east or west.

I think that I have something to say about the product that is coming out of the assembly line called our educational system. It's a tremendous system and to cover all of its facets would be quite impossible, but I would like to draw attention to one that has far-reaching effects upon our whole society, for it constitutes a foundation stone. In the great thirst for information in an age of unlimited communication, knowledge has increased but all information is not knowledge or educational and all knowledge is not truth.

For example, one could take a financial doctrine of the Keynesian economic theory, the capitalist free-enterprise theory, the Communist theory. Take any one facet of either of these, over-emphasise it and distort it until that particular facet of truth has become an error and perverted. It's like saying that all horses can run therefore all running horses are racehorses.

In the search of space, man's knowledge has increased, sometimes destroying that which he had already considered proven knowledge. It seemed that as his mind grew big, and his hands reached out to grasp the stars, his heart shrank and riding high on his throne of knowledge he began to deny the source of truth and take on the properties of a creator. Clever evil became more appealing than simple truth.

I stated that in this Legislature about five years ago. Clever evil captivated our childrens' minds and professing himself to be wise he became as a fool. It was a supreme court judge that said that, and he also added that when man knew God, he worshipped him not as God, neither was he thankful. I might add, that this is one of the characteristics of our society today, unthankfulness. This learned man went on to say that man became vain in his own imagination. Professing himself to be wise he became as a fool, even to the point where he considered nature as God and that animal life was more important than human life.

So often we hear that today. It was written many years ago by a scientist of that day, about 200 years ago, that man when he decides that animal life is more important than human life, sets up all sorts of reservation and conservation loses his way and becomes very dehumanised.

It was Miller, a husband of the late Marilyn Munroe, in describing the quotient for a good play, who said it is in that viewing, it suddenly gets to you and you see yourself in it. One day when he was previewing a new play, suddenly he rose in his seat and cried out: "Oh God, that's me." I wonder today, in the play and drama of life as we see our young people on a course to destruction and we know that without a doubt, do we look as parents and suddenly say: "That is me"?

Looking at the surface of society today and observing the account of the Jesus Movement and others — and I noticed in Time magazine there was a whole edition used for the description of this group — one might feel that there is a renaissance of evangelism sweeping the earth, and I'm thankful for that. Many people are.

But at the level of education in our institutions there is something else taking place. The question is, is it education or indoctrination? I'd like to develop that.

Indoctrination is an ugly word. But let's face it, our institutions for learning are intended to shape the minds and thinkings of lives and human beings who teach our children. They are not machines without feelings and without personal ideas, and the people who write our curriculums come from among us and likewise have personal feelings. Surely we don't perceive for one minute that they are robots moved with a neutrality of no opinions.

The subject is an immense one. But I intend to deal specifically with the theory that it is indoctrinating our young people. That theory is evolution. Let it be said on whatever level of science you wish to argue that evolution is an opinion and nothing else.

Some of the teachers are very careful to emphasise that to the students, that it is an opinion and nothing else. Now it is an opinion that surely other opinions should receive the same validation and confrontation with our educational process of learning.

The description of a bigot is one who uses the premise of an argument that no other or opposite view shall be uttered. If our educational systems can stand the light of day on all manner of subjects to be reviewed, taught, and some of the literature that I have read I hope would not pass the select standing committee on movies. Surely word pictures are powerful too. Let's take for example, some of the newspapers that go under the guise of news.

I've mentioned in this chamber before, that it would be impossible to read them in this Legislature without being forbidden by the Speaker of the House. One couldn't say that they were not informative, and some might even beg to argue that they are knowledge. Surely that which promoted and prompted men of great fortitude who sacrificed calling and security and their very lives for the sake of that which is known as the Gospel, as the Supreme Court Judge mentioned — Apostle Paul, or Timothy the Greek, and learned Peter the Fisherman, then coming forward into the century of Augustine, Francis Xavier; much later Martin Luther, John Knox, Queen Victoria, Abe Lincoln, to mention a few; Billy Sundee and Billy Graham, just to name some up-to-date.

These people have, without question, established the faith of millions across the face of this universe, regardless of the demonination, in the authenticity of the Gospel, that book known as the Bible. That book that causes us to open our Legislature with Our Lord's Prayer, and I'd like you to listen to that. When he replied to those who said, "teach us", and I wonder if we are teachable.

Academic freedom should guarantee the students the right to find his own way. What is science? The word science means essentially knowledge. The dictionary interpretation is this; We learn that science is a branch of study which is concerned either with a connected body of demonstrated truths or with observed facts systematically classified and more or less accumulated by being brought together under general laws, which includes trustworthy methods for the discovery of new trust within its own domain.

I could easily explain and simplify that, but I believe that a technical truth must be placed in a technical manner or else it will be distorted on the outside. I'm talking to learned people in here who should know the difference. This is dictionary languarge which I took from an interpretation of the dictionary.

[ Page 605 ]

True science is necessarily limited to the measurement and study of present phenomena and process. Data which has been actually observed in the present or which have been recorded by human observers in the historic past, are properly called scientific data. I studied this in my college days and in special courses I took a great deal of interest in the different theories of uniformism and catastrophic philosophy.

Laws may then be deduced from this data. Obviously there is no way of knowing that present natural processes in the law which described them have always been the same in the past or that the will always be the same in the future.

It is possible to assume, and I listened with a good deal of interest to the Member who spoke from Vancouver East, the first Member (Mr. Macdonald) on a very technical detailed account of what he thought municipal government is. So this shouldn't be too hard for you to listen to.

It is possible to assume this of course, and that is the well known principle of uniformism. To insist that this is the only reasonable assumption is nothing less than a tenet of a particular form of religion. That's what I maintain. When they teach uniformism they are teaching a religion.

Recently a Columbia University geologist, Stephen J. Gould, wrote in a journal of science: "Uniformism is a dual concept. It is false and stifling to hypothesis formation."

Then we have the groups that believe in catastrophism. Both uniformism and catastrophism are religious concepts when applied to questions of origin or destiny. One principle is as scientific as the other, he said. One may legitimately wonder why the former is taught as the only scientific hypothesis. Note that natural processes are unable to explain their origin or their properities of matter.

AN HON. MEMBER: I don't understand your budget speech.

MR. TISDALLE: We are budgeting for education and a tremendous budget in this House. I am amazed at the froth and the material that is going through as education into the minds of our youngsters who come out of these institutions unable to cope with the jobs of today. I am amazed at people who look with no favour especially on the crime, I hope, of this age in which we are in.

An elderly gentleman, who I know so well, the other night took his wife to the hospital with a broken hip. When he returned to his establishment — which is a nice home in this city — it was completely stripped.

This is the attitude to property and life and individuals because we teach in our institutions that man has really no values except as an evolutionary part of the whole creation of this earth. What a foolish shallow and stupid arrangement! No wonder we have no respect for each other, hardly in this House even.

I think it's time we listened to arguments that are placed without any other side against them in the educational services of this country, in our schools. No one dare raise their heads. Students have come to me who disbelieve this theory. Right on creative measures, right on creation, and they're right on. The ridicule — their examination papers are discarded, there's not a fair hearing for those who believe otherwise anymore than there is an attempt for a fair hearing in this place tonight.

We get up in here every day and most of us couldn't recite the prayers that go for our Queen and country and we've heard it for 19 years — that's how little it means to us. Most of us can't.

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak for yourself.

MR. TISDALLE: I'll sit down if you can recite it, word for word. You're not trying but you've got to recite it. You know you can't.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. TISDALLE: Would the Honourable Member — will you be less foolish and frivolous and sit down, Mr. Leader of the Opposition? It is characteristic of the physical sciences, such as chemistry and physics, sometimes referred to as the exact sciences, to waste no time attempting to explain their origin of matter and its properties like gravity and magnetism.

These questions are assumed to be beyond explanation by the scientific method, with a less exact science there seems to be an obsession to provide an answer to the scientifically unexplained question of the origin of man and the universe and still call it science.

Dr. Harold F. Blum, Princeton biologist and non-theist evolutionist, writes in "Time's Arrow and Evolution":

Energy appears in various forms: heat, light, kinetic energy, mechanical work, chemical energy, et cetera. Energy can change its form but not its quantity — this is a statement of the first law of thermodynamics. We know…

I'm quoting Mr. Blum, Harold F. Blum, Princeton biologist.

We know now that matter is another form of energy but that does not alter this fundamental principle which is also called the law of conservation of energy.

And you'd understand this, Honourable Members. I'm sure you do. In other words there is nothing which is now being created or destroyed. Under that thesis, they believe that nothing is now being created or destroyed. Everything exists as of now.

Now listen to the second of that. Evolutionists and uniformitarians claim that present natural processes may be extrapolated backward to account for the beginning of the universe. This law says that the universe cannot have created itself. But yet you can discover it by extrapolating backwards and yet nothing changes and is created only of now and exists from now.

What a contradiction! No wonder a student couldn't argue the point. I know in arguing with my professors and theologians I had a terrific time to get through on some of this too, like I am to you. That's fine, I'm glad you understand the words. But when you've used a double negative of backwards this law says that the universe could not have created itself.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. TISDALLE: I wish you would give just a little attention because I gave you people attention. I sat through this whole day. And if I laid it off here in layman's language I would have nothing but problems outside to say: "What did you mean in a technical sense?" If I read the technical sense into this and quote these men, then in the layman's language as I did over the radio I can explain exactly what's happening in our educational institutions under the guise of information but not fact. It is opinion, only. And it's your opinion I suppose if you're expressing it but you haven't been entitled

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to it because I have the floor, thank you.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. TISDALLE: Blum continues:

The second law of thermodynamics cannot be put in such concise form as the first; it is stated in his argument numerous ways, according to the kind of problem under study … It is one of the law's consequences that all real processes go irreversibly.

This law states that there's always a tendency toward disorder and decay.

You know I'm amazed, Mr. Speaker. I am amazed at a highly intelligent group of men who get elected to hear all the facets of arguments that can come up in a legislature and every area of life in this province, and yet they can ridicule that which we, this pap that we feed our young people in our institutions.

They don't understand it enough to go into an institution and say: "I don't believe our young people should be taught this and if they are taught it, that there should be equal time." That's the end result of this argument that I am coming to.

But in the basis of the argument, in the basis of this argument, I must lay the foundation of why there must be equal time for the discovery of all of the facets of so-called science and the creative programme that we have all understood as being part, not of a religion, but of a way of life. That's why I say these things.

I believe in the rights of my individual friends and my fellow man to a better way of life, not a way of life that brings him down to a kernel of sand, not a way of life that denies him that he has any rights hereafter that he's going anywhere and that it all ends here.

I believe that education is something that we should be most interested in — that it declares the whole truth, not half the truth as some of our young people are being fed today, not only on the financial areas of which I mentioned and I could have dealt with just equally as much fortitude, just equally as many arguments on the financial aspects of the falseness that's taught in our schools under the guise of it being financial truth and economic truth when it is not economic truth. It is not economic truth.

And so the first law says that the universe cannot have created itself. The second law says it must have been created. Now, here's a contradiction that you'd find in a school classroom. If they were to teach the whole truth of this matter, they would be saying the first law that the universe cannot have created itself, the second law says it must have created itself. But unless you put the two arguments together and follow through on this evolutionary theory, that you don't come face to face and don't be confronted with the opposite and contradiction of these truths.

Since the sun is still burning the universe cannot be infinitely old. At some time in the future the universe will become completely degraded or run down. It follows that at some time in the past the universe was highly integrated or wound up. There must have been a beginning of the universe in a highly-ordered state.

Evolution denies that. Science and theologians affirm it. Is man to become his own God, responsible only to himself, or more practically, to the intellectual elite who will become his spokesmen? But most evolutionists are not committed in this way. Many people sincerely believe in both God and evolution, though creationists hold this to be contradictory. Most people believe in evolution because most people believe in evolution. That's what you get.

Great pressure has been developed to persuade people that in order to be scientific they must accept evolution as a fact. Ridicule is the reward for any who reject the majority view, which I am experiencing here tonight. Ridicule is the reward for those who reject the majority view.

Why should a school — and I want to ask the Minister of Education this — which should be neutral in matters of religion, insist that only uniformitism and evolution be taught as having scientific merit when this position is offensive to many students whose religious tenets are better supported by the principles of catastrophism and creation which also have a comparable scientific basis?

And I'd like to bring to your attention tonight in this assembly, that even now people are presenting to our school boards a demand to bring into the classroom the — I'm trying to think of the international, what is it they call themselves? The international…

AN HON. MEMBER: Mothers' society?

MR. TISDALLE: I haven't got the name here but I know it's a meditation society but I'm trying to think of it. They believe…

AN HON. MEMBER: Transcendental?

MR. TISDALLE: Transcendental meditation. I couldn't think of the word.

We're at a time now when educational budgets are being pared but this type of information — that's all it is is information, there's no facts, there's no scientific data supporting. They come along with just of hearing and you're to bring this into the classroom and take over the educational facilities and the taxpayers to pay for it because they've gummed up a good case for themselves.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. TISDALLE: With a good case for themselves. I don't agree with it, if you want to know about it. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with it. I'm glad you came to attention.

Interjection by Hon. Members.

MR. TISDALLE: If we have academic freedom, and I'd like to make this very clear to you. If we have academic freedom it should guarantee the students — quiet for a minute — if we have academic freedom it should guarantee the student the right to find his own way. I have noted that California State Board of Education, and I've been in contact with them, has adopted guidelines for elementary and secondary schools. It is required that alternate theories regarding the origin of man and the universe be presented on an equal basis with that of evolution.

AN HON. MEMBER: Alternative?

MR. TISDALLE: If there are teachers in our institutions who unequivocally state their positions as pro-evolutionists, the converse of the situation should be equally acceptable.

I am aware there is about bibliography of the proposed college course studies in the origin of man in the universe which may be obtained, and I trust that those in the capacity

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of curriculum advisers shall look seriously at acquiring such books for study here. Not only are books available but tapes, slides and cassettes. The question still has to be answered as representatives of the people here. Are we in favour of education or indoctrination that our children are receiving today? I am only asking simply this, that those who send — now we receive in this House a great deal of pressure for private schools, that's fine. I'll listen to their arguments anyway and anytime. They've got a good case. They've got a good case for independent schools because they're able to retain the basic philosophy of the origin of man and the creator, that God has placed man on this earth. That's an important credential for living today. It's an important one. Never minimise it.

I appreciate the independent schools have fought their way through the tangled web of a lot of opposition to be able to retain that concept for their young people unadulterated with the contamination of a lot of stuff that goes through our schools that is unproven. Unproven. If it was only stated that it was information and not fact and not scientific fact.

I've read many, many scientists today who refute unconditionally any fact about evolution and yet our students are taught over and over at least by innuendo, implication by a teacher that it is a theory that need not or cannot be challenged. So much pap.

I'm asking that the Department of Education look at the books that are available down in California that school curriculums are placing within their studies. I'm asking that that be done on behalf of a generation of people who should have the right to make a choice on the basis of all the facts. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: More, more, more. (Laughter).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Mr. Brousson moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:17 p.m.