TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1972

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby North.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby-North): Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join me in welcoming a group of New Democratic Party ladies from the Municipality of Burnaby.

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

MR. E. WOLFE (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, in our galleries today are 50 students from King George High School in Vancouver's high-rise district of the West End, and it should be mentioned, I think, that King George School is one of the first schools to adopt what is known as the modular time table, which wouldn't be a bad idea for this Legislature. They're accompanied by their teachers Mr. Buium and Mr. Kelso, and I would ask the House to welcome them.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby Edmonds.

MR. G.H. DOWDING (Burnaby-Edmonds): Mr. Speaker, I also would like the House to welcome some men from Burnaby.

Introduction of bills.

HON. R.R. LOFFMARK (Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance): Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a message from his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE PODIATRY ACT

MR. SPEAKER: The Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Podiatry Act, and recommends the same to the legislative assembly. Dated at Government House, March 21, 1972.

House in committee on Bill No. 99.

On the recommendation of the committee, Bill No. 99, An Act to Amend the Podiatry Act, was introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

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

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to introduce a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Pollution Control Act, 1967.

Motion approved. Bill No. 102 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Orders of the day.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I move the House move to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Resumed debate on Bill No. 49, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE SOCIAL ASSISTANCE ACT
(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: Adjourned debate on the second reading of Bill No. 49. The Honourable the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, the principle of this bill is to put into the hands of the Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement what was originally absolute authority — undefined authority now — in terms of determining social assistance rates for the people of British Columbia.

This Minister is asking for complete authority to make decisions over funds that are not exclusively the funds of British Columbia. Because, Mr. Speaker, 50 per cent of all social assistance costs are paid by the federal government. That's part of the equalization process that the Premier rejects. But nonetheless, 50 cents of every welfare dollar — that's not equalization in actual fact but it's certainly a federal grant of trying to equalize the shared programme to provide people of all parts of this country with a basic income. That's what it is.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, I know that the Premier says that he believes in guaranteed annual income. But I keep on pointing out to him that under the Canada Assistance Plan such a programme could be implemented right now in the Province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to the Minister that at the present time the cost-sharing under these particular programmes is 50 per cent Ottawa, 35 per cent provincial government, 15 per cent by the municipalities.

Yet you wish by this bill, through you, Mr. Speaker, to take 100 per cent of all the authority. Have you consulted — I ask this question, Mr. Speaker — with the federal government, and the federal Minister, Mr. Munro? Is he in agreement with this particular bill? Have you consulted with the federal government, Mr. Minister?

Well, Mr. Minister, I don't think you have consulted with Munro, the Honourable John Munro, who is the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and after all, if the federal government is going to pay for half the costs, then perhaps this Minister through this legislation may be jeopardising the federal share of social assistance rates. Does the Minister know whether or not he is doing that?

Mr. Speaker, I will bring to your attention questions recorded in Hansard, March 13, 1972. And I'll read the questions and the answers.

Mrs. Grace Maclnnis, Vancouver-Kingsway, asked the following questions.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Can the Minister inform the House whether in light of the provisions of Canada Assistance Plan with respect to persons in need and

[ Page 896 ]

the appeal provision included in that legislation he has studied Bill No.49 introduced in the British Columbia Legislature by Welfare Minister Gaglardi, which would give the Minister absolute discretion to decide who should receive social assistance and who would deprive welfare recipients of the right of appeal?

Now, this is his answer — the Honourable John C. Munro:

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the Honourable Member that I have just heard about this proposed legislation in British Columbia, and I'm looking into the matter now. After I have had a chance to study it I will be pleased to report back to the Honourable Member.

No consultation! Who do you think you are, Mr. Minister? Who does the Minister of Social Improvement and Rehabilitation think he is? Fifty per cent of social assistance paid by the federal government — he brings in legislation dealing with a federal Act, no consultation whatsoever with Ottawa. But even worse he places us perhaps in jeopardy of receiving those federal funds.

Because I read the next question. Mrs. MacInnis:

In looking at the matter would the Minister consider measures to deal with the problem, including the withholding of federal money from British Columbia and all other provinces that are violating the Canada Assistance Plan, if he finds they are, and make an early statement to the House on his findings?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Well we don't know. We've had no consultation, we certainly might be; the federal Minister has announced that he's going to look into it and this is the federal Minister's answer. Mr. Munro:

Mr. Speaker, with all respect to the Honourable Member, the question is truly hypothetical at this stage. I should like to have a chance to find out what the legislation is all about; then I'll report back.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that the Minister should fly back to Ottawa right now, or get on the phone and discuss this legislation with the federal Minister right now. We're dealing with vast sums of money that the federal government has direct share in. It may be a violation of the Canada Assistance Plan, and before any legislation like this is brought into the House all these things should be checked out.

What is the point of bringing legislation into this House when the federal Minister himself has not even had the opportunity of consultation with the provincial Minister?

We've been through this before, we've had other Acts passed in this House that we'd have to set aside because they violate federal laws. There's been little preparation done on this. This is a propaganda bill, Mr. Speaker. It's a bill based on propaganda and pique. The Minister did not like the idea of someone actually having a right to go to court to question his decisions in terms of welfare matters.

Mr. Speaker, we're not here to create petty tsars, or mandarins, or any other kind of emperor-like device. You were elected by the people, we're all elected by the people, and the people should have the right to an appeal procedure from any decision by any politician.

Look what the U.B.C. law faculty thinks about the government's legislation, Mr. Speaker. Here's a statement signed by 28 of the 31 full-time teachers of the faculty of law at the University of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, with the Minister's experience with lawyers, more than any other Minister he should recognise that any time you've got 28 lawyers out of 31 agreeing on something then there must be something really bad with what this legislation is.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: These are the law faculty themselves. The students also signed it, but I am just referring to the fact that 28 out of the 31 law faculty signed it. "The recent proposed amendment to the Social Assistance Act would confer upon the Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement the power to grant social assistance in such amounts as in his discretion he considers advisable." That's right.

You haven't checked with Ottawa. Mr. Speaker, how can the Minister be so absolute when he knows nothing about what the Act really means? That's why he's absolute; he's reduced himself to communicating with hand signals that are generally a reflection on his own interests rather than examining the bill, Let the record show that part of the Minister's answer was some kind of gesture with his hands. The amendment would repeal that part of the present Act which sets out the standards for determining grants. It would substitute no standard at all. There would be no control over the decisions made by the Minister, as those decisions would be within his discretion. What about the appeal boards? You're abolishing the appeal boards.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Well, the legislation itself says that that kind of authority means that any kind of appeal that you would set up would have no way of getting around your discretion in this bill. There's no standards.

They go on, Mr. Speaker, to say:

Our system of public administration has evolved along lines which recognise the need for administrative decision-making to take place in an environment of articulated principles and standards. Administrative decisions are subject to review if the decision-maker disregards those principles or standards, or if the decision-maker allows factors to affect his judgment which are irrelevant to the principles and standards he is directed to apply.

Mr. Minister, you have no right, in my opinion, to take unto yourself such powers as to make these decisions on the basis of people's behaviour or attitudes. And I quote further:

Legislation which fails to include standards or principles but confers an absolute discretion on the decision-maker constitutes a frontal attack on the system of public administration and represents a major threat to the rule of law and to any idea of decency in public affairs.

And they quote a very interesting comment by a judge, Mr. Speaker. "As former Chief Justice McRuer of Ontario noted, excessive or unnecessary power conferred on public authorities corrupts and destroys democratic institutions, and gives life to all forms of tyranny, some petty and some extreme." Well, Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned about the principle in this bill that defines that the Minister himself will have this kind of authority.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: No way!

MR. BARRETT: No way? Then withdraw the bill, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker. Withdraw the bill.

[ Page 897 ]

Consult with the federal Minister and make sure that you are working in harmony and cooperation with that federal government. Because of all pieces of legislation before this House, none more directly affects the lives, the hopes, and the aspirations of people than this bill does. The whole poverty cycle, Mr. Speaker, has been a dilemma in North America that many, many administrators and many governments have tried to break to allow people to forge forward into new horizons in their life. And more than anything else, that poverty cycle can only be affected by flexibility.

Mr. Speaker, when that flexibility is not guaranteed by law, is not imbedded in the legislation, we find that we retain attitudes that psychologically prevent people from ever breaking out of that poverty cycle.

If we pass this legislation we build up in the public's mind the idea that one man is boss over all people in need, either it be temporary need or short-term need, and the effect of that is for a person to focus on how does one gratify the boss rather than how one gets oneself off welfare and onto another path of fife.

The psychological damage created by this concept in terms of one man calling all the shots goes toward conditioning people who are already conditioned to be dependent on the state. It goes further and conditions them to be dependent on one individual in that state.

That's bad. The idea that welfare recipients must look toward one person, whether it is that Minister or someone who replaced him, the idea that they must look toward one person as their benefactor or their detractor because under that legislation it now gives that power…. Mr. Speaker, that kind of absolute power means only one thing — that those people who are already on welfare will be frightened to show any initiative to get off welfare.

At the present time under the present conditions and now more sharply focused under this legislation, people spend more time trying to figure out how to beat the system within the system rather than their energies being focused on getting off welfare. With this kind of legislation all focus will be made to gratify one person — one person's discretion — rather than concerted efforts being made to get out of the welfare poverty cycle.

Have you examined this bill closely? The principle in it means that the Crown will pass on to one Minister that absolute authority. It could even mean that if someone wrote a letter to the Minister protesting his particular decision — I don't say he'd use the power — but he would have the power to punish a critic of his who happened to be on welfare. He'd have the power.

There would be no way that that critic could appeal. I'm not saying that the Minister would do it. But I am saying that the potential of him taking that kind of action exists in that legislation. I tell you people who are so beaten now, in the present economic system, and who have been on welfare for years, will be even more frightened and more cowed by the interpretation that this legislation could have on it.

It's not wise. It's not just, Mr. Speaker. It's not valid in the present context. We have fought for years to accept what is considered to be a human obligation to other people, by saying that there are basic needs in our society that all of us must provide through a welfare scheme.

After having arrived at that level of interpreting need, we're now going to abolish 50 years of fighting to bring it to that level by this kind of legislation. I don't think that the Minister — to be fair to the Minister — I don't think he really understands how damaging this bill is. I don't think he really appreciates the effect this will have on many, many people as individuals and groups within the welfare system who are trying to break out of that poverty cycle.

Mr. Minister, you have obviously not examined what the implications of this bill are — not only in law but psychologically. Mr. Minister, if you reflect on the public reaction, through you, Mr. Speaker, to your role in decision-making in this process, you must understand that there is a lingering attitude out there towards your whole approach.

You came into this House and you attacked people who were "dead-beats." For many people that definition, of the word "dead-beat", meant everybody that was on welfare, and if that didn't throw the fear and anxiety and hostility down through those people who are on welfare, no other word did.

You already have a bad image. A very bad image. Most of the work dealing with people is around a humanistic feeling — it's a psychological attitude that one must develop to make people feel confident and secure while they're facing adversities in their life.

When you build up that confidence and security, only then can they forge new corridors, new avenues, new approaches to get out of the welfare cycle. But Mr. Speaker, this Minister has created an image of himself that he's against the poor, and now with this legislation he wants to be the lord of the poor, and it only does further devastating damage to these people. It's oppressive, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker.

I suggest this bill be withdrawn and immediate consultation take place with the federal government, and let's get on with the business of getting people out of the welfare cycle, instead of spending all the Minister's time looking for jungle legislation that keeps these people trapped in a system of life that never allows them to develop new horizons or new hope. Not just for themselves, Mr. Speaker, but for their children.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Cowichan Malahat.

MR. R.M. STRACHAN (Cowichan-Malahat): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It's not a pleasure for me to speak on this particular piece of legislation. I don't think it's a very happy day for the Province of British Columbia when we're faced with such legislation.

It does a number of things — (1) the amount of money that's involved in here in total indicates that no longer will the Premier be able to avoid the statement or misconstrue the statement that we're now engaged in deficit financing. That's point number one.

I think we can all agree that we are all concerned about the welfare situation in the Province of British Columbia. Certainly in my constituency the people have been very concerned at the rising numbers of people who find themselves on social welfare. I said in an earlier debate the fact that we do have able-bodied, capable men and women drawing social welfare in this province in 1972 is a reflection of the failure of this government in its economic policies and its failure to develop jobs in terms of industries in British Columbia.

The Premier has said time and time again that it's not his intention to develop job-intensive industry. He takes ads in newspapers all across the country which practically beg people to come to this province, and then he says we can't help the unemployment because people keep coming here. Then he starts this campaign, along with the Minister….

[ Page 898 ]

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: He's not that small that I can't see him.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: Oh, he's not there, all right. He's gone. I don't know where's he gone — by plane or by helicopter — but he's gone.

However, that's all right. The fact still remains that we have these people — we can do two things with them. We can either see that they're adequately fed and housed and clothed and that their children are taken care of, or we can let them starve to death.

Now, what we've done in this — so far as being a Christian nation — is that we don't allow people to starve to death quickly. We prefer to let them starve to death slowly, and that basically is what we've been doing. Then we heap scorn on their heads and drive society against them.

The Minister calls them dead-beats, even though they live in an economic system that has failed and failed to give them the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families, time after time. You can say: "Oh there's jobs available."

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: Yes, whose fault is it they didn't inherit money? I want you to remember too, that people in our society have differing intellectual ability and differing capacities, and in the kind of society that we have developed more and more it requires people with special training. The jobs that were once available for the man whose capacity was limited to digging with a pick and a shovel has finally disappeared. There's just no place for these people to fit into society.

I've travelled around this province — gone door to door and met many, many of these families just living on the edge of the world ready to fall off. Holding on desperately. The man finds himself out of a job and leaves Vancouver, and he goes up to the interior, gets a job at the end of a green chain in some little gypo-mill. Just about the time that he's got enough money to get his family there and he finds some abandoned shack somewhere to live in, he gets his family there for a month, and the job folds.

So he takes off for Prince George or somewhere else and gets a job splitting a few shakes, and again just about the time that he gets enough money to get his family to move to where he is, that job runs out. These are the people who are trying to stay off welfare, but there comes time after time when they just can't run any more — because of our failure. I've met hundreds of them all over this province.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: I have. We have failed to provide them with the bare necessities — above what all Canadian standards say is the poverty line. So we're all concerned about it, but part of it is the failure of this particular government.

I looked at this piece of legislation, and I find that the wording, as it's now before us, allows the Minister in his absolute discretion to determine what will or will not happen. And in the explanatory notes this is said to be "redefining." That's moving it from a situation where there was a chance for appeal and where appeals had been won onto the Minister and his desk and gives him absolute discretion.

Now, I know he intends to remove the word "absolute", but what is the difference between "absolute discretion" and "discretion"? If the Minister in his absolute discretion can do something, then the Minister in his discretion can do something. What's the difference?

It doesn't say in here that the Minister "at his discretion and in consultation with others" may do something; he still has exactly the same dictatorial powers under the amendment he proposes as he does under the Act that is written.

What is he allowed to do? I know the Minister doesn't want to listen, but that's all right. He doesn't care anyway. Let the record show that while the bill was being discussed the Minister was wandering in and out in his usual way — let the record show that the Minister was chatting with other Members, let the record show that the Minister was yak, yak, yakking all over the place while this most important piece of legislation affecting the poor people of this province was being discussed.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: No, that's not contempt. I can't find parliamentary words that would describe that kind of conduct.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's true, that's true.

MR. STRACHAN: It's him using his absolute discretion to act in contempt of the House and contempt for people, as is his normal attitude, so I'm not a bit surprised. He has absolute discretion to do so.

It allows the Minister to fix the rate or amount of social assistance for those persons and discontinue, reduce or increase the rate or amount of social assistance.

Now, before the bill came up for continued second reading today, the Minister went out yesterday and made an announcement about increases in the rates. Tremendous increases in the rates, Mr. Minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Premier made the announcement.

MR. STRACHAN: The Premier came in here and made it first, and then I guess the Minister was told and somebody else was told….

But when we work it out, Mr. Speaker, we find that for the single person on welfare it amounts to 17 cents per day. But don't forget that under the Canada Assistance Act the federal government will pay 8½ cents per day. But don't forget that the municipalities pay about — in my constituency — about 25 per cent of the total social welfare costs — so it's about 4 cents or 5 cents per day for the single individual on social welfare.

Let's go to when it's a two-unit situation. A man and wife. That addition adds about 10 cents per day for a wife.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: The federal government pays 50 per cent of it, the municipality pays 50 per cent — that's 5 cents per day for the wife. Out of the exchequer of this government. Big deal! A nickel a day for the wife. A nickel a day for the wife — that's what he's giving.

[ Page 899 ]

Let's go to the dependents. What does that work out to? The dependents — it works out to 6 cents a day — 50 per cent by the federal government, and that leaves three. The municipality pays half of the rest — 1½ cents a day for a child. That's what they're giving to the social welfare recipients in the Province of British Columbia. A cent-and-a half a day for the needy children of this province.

This man who wants to be absolute dictator, out of the public purse of this province we pay almost $4,000 to keep a suite for him in the Vancouver Hotel — $4,000 a year, and he's going to give the kids in this province 1½ cents a day. $4,000 a year to keep him a suite that he's not in one-tenth of the time.

I've been through the public accounts — he doesn't pay any attention to social welfare. He goes all over the country making speeches to conventions and contractors' associations and businessmen all over the place — all over the world — all over the country. There they are. Dozens of them.

Look at them. Look at the lists of them. San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal — not on the people's business — political propaganda all the time. A cent-and-a-half a day for the kids. Almost $4,000 a year for a suite in the Vancouver Hotel. A cent-and-a-half a day for the kids — 3 cents for the wife.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: After this bill came in, I kept looking for a sceptre and an orb, a sceptre and an orb. A golden sceptre and a diamond-studded orb — this king of kings. This dictator. This absolute discretionist. But I did find a few things. I found the throne. There is a vote here somewhere for furnishings and so on. But under the Provincial Alliance of Businessmen — that blank cheque he's got….

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! One moment please. The Honourable Member is not now discussing the principle of the bill but is probably dealing with matters that could be more properly discussed during the Minister's estimates. They don't belong in the discussion of this bill.

MR. STRACHAN: All right. I just want to draw your attention, Mr. Minister, by way of comparison — the absolute section of this bill, how he applies the funds which as Minister he controls. That's what I'm addressing myself to. He has absolute discretion as to how he uses the funds he controls. And we find, under purchase order 372479, "Pacific Office Equipment Ltd., One only 1352 executive swivel tilter chair, $356." Oh no, no. It's a slight reduction — less 15, less 12 — $299.58.

MR. SPEAKER: Order please. I know the Member realizes that he is not talking to the principle of the bill in discussing office equipment by any Minister, or this Minister is particular. He should get back to the principle embodied in this bill, which has nothing to do with either travelling expenses or with the purchase of furniture, as he knows full well.

HON. P.A. GAGLARDI (Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Is it possible for me to answer these outlandish charges when I get up to speak?

MR. SPEAKER: I think the Minister should be allowed that privilege, yes.

MR. STRACHAN: You know, it took about two weeks to find that chair, it's definitely in the Minister's office, and nobody believes it would cost that much because it didn't look as if it was worth that much….

MR. SPEAKER: Order please! Will the Member get back to the principle of this bill, or his speech is over.

MR. STRACHAN: Yes, yes, I'm speaking to the bill. I'm talking about how this Minister uses his absolute discretion. you see, and how little attention he actually pays to the matter of social welfare, and that's why this bill should not be supported the way it is.

You know, there is all these problems of meeting the needs of the people on social welfare. When the man rents a helicopter at $135 to fly the 40 miles from Kamloops to the opening of Logan Lake, well….

MR. SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the Honourable Member to get back to the principle of this bill for the last time, or his speech is over.

MR. STRACHAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was under the impression I was speaking to the absolute discretion of the Minister in the moneys. It says here: subject to this Act and regulation, the Minister may grant, out of moneys appropriated for that purpose by the legislature, social assistance and amounts and so on and so on, you see. He has absolute discretion, and he's the Minister. And this is his Act.

However, I just want simply again to register my protest against the bill. I think it is unfortunate there are people in our society who find themselves dependent on the rest of us for their well-being. I suggest that we must have some sympathy for them.

We have two choices. Either we have sympathy and understanding for them and provide for them in a fair, just, honourable manner so that justice will be done and seem to be done with some form of appeal other than to the Minister who makes the decision. Or we can provide them with jobs.

We've failed to provide them with jobs. I think the least we owe them is a fair system of welfare with the right of appeal.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In speaking to the principle of this bill I think there is only one principle in the bill, and that is something which I think is undemocratic in giving such total power to any one individual — to any individual, be he the best example of humanity you could find. I still do not think that we believe in this province, or in this country, in legislation which gives total power to one man.

I think that from the letters that I have received that this particular bill perhaps has drawn more correspondence than any other bill perhaps, other than Bill No. 3, this session. And actually the principles are somewhat the same, in that people are having imposed upon them decisions which could be more correctly taken in other avenues.

I mentioned earlier in the House when I spoke, and I think this point can never be mentioned too often, that among people receiving social assistance a very high percentage, between 80 and 90 per cent, are unfortunate individuals in a

[ Page 900 ]

modern society where they're unable to compete. They're either unable to compete for medical reasons or for social reasons or for reasons of marriage breakdown and families to look after and so on.

I think too often, Mr. Speaker, that when we discuss social assistance either in this bill or in general context we do tend to lose sight of the fact that those members on social assistance who get the most attention — one might even use the word "notoriety" — are by far the minority of people receiving social assistance.

In my experience most of the people in this province receiving and requiring social assistance are well deserving of it for reasons beyond their control. And I also think that if there's one group of society that requires the broadest range of social assistance in a wide sense of the word "assistance" — I don't just mean financial assistance, I mean in terms of counselling and further education, sympathy and consideration on a wide basis — that is this group in society. It's for this particular reason that I feel it is totally wrong that in such an area of human needs one man should be given such excessive and total power. And I would repeat, Mr. Speaker, I am not referring personally to the one man concerned. I would oppose this bill no matter who that one man was, holding this absolute power. The bill is spelled out in such a way there can be no mistake; the subsections and section 2 are very clear. It covers every possibility regarding rates to continue to reduce, increase, decrease and so on, and in section 7 the regulations are very widely spelled out.

I may add this is one reason that I have concern about this government in total, and one of the reasons why I personally decided to leave the Social Credit government was this ever-increasing tendency to give greater and greater power into the hands of one man. In this particular case we are now dealing with, I think this merely accentuates a very dangerous trend in this province, a trend which brings in legislation which in my view and from my correspondence is widely unacceptable in this province. And I certainly oppose the bill.

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

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, I just want to speak very briefly on this bill to indicate the dismay of the Liberal Party at yet another instance of the rather cruel streak that seems to run through our social policy in British Columbia.

So much is made of the good life here in our province. Vast amounts of the taxpayers' money are spent by those in power advertising the riches of British Columbia, the successful budget — Time magazine, the Eastern Press — the bragging about the surplus funds which the government has accumulated. All of this going on at a time when the government is standing up demanding that the taxpayer be protected, playing upon the ill luck of those who have chronic disease, those who are unemployed, those who are on the poverty line.

I must disagree, Mr. Speaker, with the evaluation from the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace). I've sat here in this House for 10 years now — I said nine the other day, and I had forgotten that this is really the tenth year. Mr. Speaker, I have seen no change in philosophy during that time. I think the Social Credit government has always been arrogant, I think that the bills it has presented have always given far too much power to Ministers and particularly one Minister, the Minister who is never in the House when critical bills like this are being discussed — and of course I refer to the Premier and Finance Minister (Hon. Mr. Bennett), and this bill is quite obviously for his benefit.

Mr. Speaker, during the time when the Member for Oak Bay supported the Social Credit movement and stood on the platform with the former Minister of Health there was no question about how the luckless in British Columbia were being treated at that time. The streak that ran through our politics was just as cruel then as it is today.

More people in politics and in business and in every aspect of our lives in British Columbia must begin to speak with some compassion, and reveal this streak of cruelty for what it is. Because we have wealth in this province, there is no question about it. The government has wealth — there is no doubt of its huge surpluses. Business has wealth, and individuals have wealth. But the disparity grows ever wider because there is huge unemployment in this province.

There is a large proportion of our population who are elderly and retired, and there are those who are too ill, or otherwise handicapped and kept out of the work force.

Because our province is wealthy, Mr. Speaker, we do not receive the kind of bulk government assistance that goes to the deprived areas of Canada. We do not get the help in regional and economic development that goes to Newfoundland or the Maritimes. We do not get the assistance that comes in equalization payments. But, Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to every dollar that the federal government makes available in any of its shared-cost programmes.

MR. SPEAKER: I do wish the Member would get to his point, because at the present time he is not talking to the principle of this bill.

MR. McGEER: But, Mr. Speaker, I am talking to the principle of this bill because…

MR. SPEAKER: Not yet.

MR. McGEER: …the federal government allows money to go directly to individuals through the social assistance programme.

MR. SPEAKER: This bill is not concerned with such a programme. This bill is concerned with social assistance as administered by the Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement.

MR. McGEER: But, Mr. Speaker, he determines in his absolute discretion what federal moneys shall reach individuals in British Columbia, he determines that — not the Minister for Welfare for Canada, but the one for the Province of British Columbia. And, Mr. Speaker, he acts as the impediment to those federal funds flowing to the luckless in this province. In his absolute discretion, Mr. Speaker, because that's what he is asking from this Legislature through this bill, he is asking us to give him absolute discretion which controls not only the provincial funds, but the federal funds as well.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. McGEER: No, he doesn't have it now, Mr. Speaker. Because we have established a mechanism in this province — and I submit it's an essential mechanism, a mechanism of

[ Page 901 ]

appeal which allows people who have different judgment about need in this province, who have more compassion, who have better feeling for the needs of the underprivileged. I quite agree with what the Member from Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) said, because I've seen how this Minister lives, and he lives like a king on public money, Mr. Speaker, there's no question about it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

MR. McGEER: And we'll have a great deal to say about how this Minister lives. He's not at the poverty line. He might have been, Mr. Speaker, had he not been elected to politics, but I can tell you he's not at the poverty line now.

Mr. Speaker, we must have a change in philosophy and direction in this province. We've got to rub out now and for all time this streak of cruelty which is a curse on British Columbia and which is emphasized by this particular bill.

Compassion has gone out the window in British Columbia, and the general public, those who are rich, are invited to support a government who is cruel to those who are poor. This bill is no break from the past; it's no different from what the Member from Oak Bay used to support, Mr. Speaker. It's exactly the same. Our position has been known in the past, we make it known today, and we make it known for the future. And that is to bring social reform to this province, and we oppose this bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby North.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People on welfare must exchange their right to privacy for the payments which they receive. And now through this bill, Mr. Speaker, with this incredible bill which we have before us in this Parliament, the welfare recipients are not only going to lose their privacy for the meagre payments which they now receive, but they are also going to lose the security of that payment.

Because all through this bill we have stated that those payments are now going to be made in the future and based on the subjective decision of one man. So not only are our welfare recipients losing their privacy, what security have they when they now find that no longer are there any amendments to this Act which point out that they will have to receive their basic needs, as required under the Canada Assistance Plan?

Now there has been a discussion on whether this actually contradicts the law — the Canada Assistance Plan. Perhaps that will have to be decided and perhaps the Honourable Minister will inform us about this when he stands up.

However, it still contradicts the Canada Assistance Plan in spirit, also. Because the Canada Assistance Plan says that assistance must be based on need. And yet in this Act there is no reference to basic requirements of people — food, shelter, clothing, food utilities, household supplies and personal requirements — no reference left at all. And this is well described in the Canada Assistance Plan in section 2A-1, as the Minister well knows.

Also nowhere now in this social Act is there any reference, as there is in the Canada Assistance Plan, to the provisions of adequate assistance to and in respect of persons in need.

This has been completely removed. This is the great concern that we on our part and any other people in the Province of British Columbia have, Mr. Speaker, with reference to this Act.

I wonder if the Honourable Minister when he stands up to reply to the number of comments that have been made would explain to us why he has removed those specified provisions from the Act. What is the rationale for removing them? Did he have any discussions with social workers, with welfare recipients? How did you come to this decision Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker?

So first of all I would hope that when you stand up that you will answer why you have decided to exclude reference to the basic intent of the Act which should be the provision of adequate assistance to those who can't provide for themselves. Also, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the Minister would also explain to us why he has removed the appeal to the courts by persons who believe that their basic requirements have not been met.

I think you owe it, not only to the people on welfare, but to the other citizens of British Columbia who see a great threat to the individual and the individual needs, the individual spirit and dignity of the people in our province, with such an Act, Mr. Minister. Who, actually, are being affected? It always gets down to children, Mr. Speaker.

You know the one-parent families constitute as much as 40 per cent of our welfare rolls in this province. Those welfare one-parent families all mainly have a number of children. So, who's going to suffer from this, from this absolute discretion of the Minister? Who's going to suffer from this lack of security of not knowing what payments are going to be made?

Also, who makes up another large group of our welfare recipients? Thirty per cent are handicapped, at least 30 per cent. Can you imagine the state these people are in, wondering what is going to happen to them if this Act passes through this Legislature? And what about the people who are unemployed through no fault of their own, but just through the fault of a government that cannot provide a proper economic system to provide jobs for them?

Mr. Speaker, I don't believe ever has such a piece of legislation come forward in any House with reference to welfare. I would call upon the Honourable Minister to stand up and vindicate to the House why you have brought this in. Mr. Minister, I don't think there can be any vindication for any such legislation. We're ready to listen, but I can assure you that we are frightened by this Act and we will vote against it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Surrey.

MR. E. HALL (Surrey): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Coming from Surrey with a higher-than-average social welfare roll, coming from Surrey where there's been a great deal of trouble in the last year on social welfare, some of which has been occasioned by rulings from the department, I feel I've got to add my voice in opposition to this bill.

Firstly, on the grounds that I consider in my view, and in the view of others, that the bill is likely to be challenged on the grounds of being unconstitutional. We'll leave that to a later date, to a later challenge, as I'm aware of the numbers in this House as much as anybody else.

What the bill does seek to do, however, is to take us back into the 1850s, take us back to the days of the poor law administration, the absolute discretion of the work master. What will happen next, if this Minister follows the kind of attitudes that have been developed in the area that I

[ Page 902 ]

represent, is "work or no welfare, work or no welfare."

We had instances last summer where the people in his department supported the fact that nobody could get social welfare in my area as long as there were berries to be picked in the fields. As long as there were berries to be picked in the fields, you couldn't get social welfare. Completely at variance with the principle of the Act, both here and in the Crown federal.

But investigation of the department of this government that has to do with this Act, Mr. Minister, showed that when the social welfare recipients of our province go to court, and I use the word with a small "c," the only court that's available to them, they show conclusively, Mr. Speaker, that they're not getting a fair shake. Every year since I've been here, I've asked the question of the Minister, whoever he was at the time, about boards of review, which this amendment seeks to eliminate. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that the figures are rather interesting.

In the year 1968, even though the question of boards of review are not well known to the vast majority of people on social welfare, there were 24 boards held. There were 24 boards of review held. In 50 per cent of those cases, the board found in favour of the applicant.

If the department were a judge, I'm sure the benchers or somebody or the government would have something to say about his batting record on a 50 per cent failure rate. But the following year, which happened to be the year that this current Minister took office in this department, the rate went to 19 cases heard, 15 cases resolved in the favour of the applicant — nearly 75 per cent of the cases resolved in favour of the applicant, 75 per cent. That means for all the time that they were existing under this government's rules prior to the hearing of the case, they were not getting what they were entitled to.

AN HON. MEMBER: Have the Minister open every case.

MR. HALL: Now in 1970, Mr. Speaker, the figures were roughly 70 per cent — 70 per cent of the cases heard resolved in favour of the applicant. That's a shocking batting record for any department of government.

Then we come to the last year. My question was answered on February 15. Mr. Speaker, the question is the same question I've been asking for six sessions. This time the answer is much longer because of the case that we know prompted some of this legislation that's before us.

Mr. Speaker, there were 62 boards of review held in the Province of British Columbia during 1971. Fifty of those cases were resolved in the applicant's favour. That's 80 per cent of the cases resolved in the applicant's favour. It shows that those people were not receiving the kind of justice that one would expect.

Now we've got the kind of discretionary power that does away with that appeal procedure. Those figures only include, in the case of a number of areas, those applications received up to August.

In fact, Mr. Minister, 473 applications were filed in the City of Vancouver alone. Let's look at this list. I think it bears interest to all the Members of the House. In the Municipality of Abbotsford, Mr. Speaker, two cases were applied for, and in both of those cases, the board of review found that they should receive better treatment than that which they were getting — 100 per cent. The same in Chilliwack, four out of four. Dawson Creek, one out of one. Duncan, where my friend, the Member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) represents, six cases out of six found in the applicants' favour.

We're going to do away with the ability of a social welfare recipient to try and get a better shake, to question somebody regarding the rules and the application of those rules.

Kelowna, 100 per cent resolved in the applicants' favour. Langley, two out of three. Mission, 100 per cent. Murrayville, 100 per cent, Nanaimo, 100 per cent. Nelson, 100 per cent. Port Coquitlam, 100 per cent, Prince George, eight cases heard, seven resolved in the applicants' favour.

It goes right the way through, nearly 100 per cent in all the cases until we come to Vancouver — 473 applications, only one was resolved; the rest are pending regarding the decisions and the appeals in the courts.

In my own area, it's been the case for some time now that the boards find 100 per cent of the applicants to be justified, the applications to be justified.

Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that by doing away with these regulations, by doing away with these procedures, it makes meaningless the appeal procedure which was set up and transgresses a longstanding position of Canadian justice.

Any time we see that take place in our Legislature and in our courts, we have to squeal. Mr. Minister, I'm telling you: I'm squealing about this one. All the time I've been in this House, I've tried to explain to the Ministers having this portfolio about the problems that I face in an area that is growing at a rate that's not possible to administer successfully by my municipal council.

Problem after problem. It doesn't matter, Mr. Speaker, what report you look at that's laid on the table of this House by any department of government, whether it's School District No. 36 or the municipality of Surrey, as an authority from which our problems come and are traceable, we find they're always higher than the average in the rest of the province.

I for one, Mr. Speaker, must stand up and complain bitterly that this legislation is not only unfair; it's badly designed; it's cruel and absolutely needless in this day and age. I will vote against it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

HON. D.R.J. CAMPBELL (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr. Speaker, as most of the Members of the Legislature are aware, it was during the time that I was then Minister of Welfare that the Canada Assistance Plan was signed. It's quite clear that the operative sections of the Canada Assistance Plan apply to the agreement as reached between the federal authorities and the provincial authority, and it's so stated in the Act.

The provincial authority, of course, must be in a position by nature of the Act itself to establish the conditions under which allowances are paid.

I only want to make one point here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, and that has to do with the suggestion, presumably by intent, to suggest that the Minister in British Columbia is attempting to take upon himself powers which are not common across the land or in fact is trying in some vicious way to be responsible absolutely in some other fashion than that which exists elsewhere.

I take particular exception to this because one of the provinces that the Members opposite happen to currently have the responsibility for government has an Act as well.

[ Page 903 ]

The suggestion being thrown around British Columbia now that this government is attempting in some way to take on dictatorial powers is completely false, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to specifically state why that is so.

I'll read the Act, my friend. This happens to be Manitoba, for which my friends opposite have the responsibility. Establishment under the Canada Assistance Plan, the establishment of the cost of basic necessities which is in effect the language of the Canada Assistance Plan.

The Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may by regulation made by order-in-council establish for the purpose of this Act and as to the time of making of the regulation the cost of the several basic necessities or of those the cost of which should in his opinion be established from time to time.

I read on:

The fixing of the amount by the director. If he deems that an applicant should receive a social allowance, the director shall in accordance with the regulations and subject to sub-section 2 (Which is the operative section establishing by order-in-council the rates) by his written order fix the amount of the social allowance that shall be paid to him.

I read on, Mr. Speaker, because if we're going to have a fair discussion of what's involved in this bill, we should certainly make some attempt to keep to the facts.

Regulations under the Social Allowance Act of the Province of Manitoba, section 19.

For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act according to their intent, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may make such regulations and orders as are ancillary thereto and are not inconsistent therewith, and every regulation or order made under and in accordance with the authority granted by this section has the force of law, and without restricting the generality of the foregoing, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may make regulations and orders not inconsistent with any other provisions of this Act:

A. Approving the kinds of expenditures made by municipalities that may be included by the municipality in the cost of municipal assistance provided by it.

B. Establishing the cost of the basic necessities as provided in section 6 (which is the establishment of the rate of allowances and other things, rates of adopted care and foster care and so on).

C. Prescribing the rules for determining the income and the financial resources of applicants and providing that certain income or classes of income shall be excluded from or included in the calculation of the income and the financial resources of an applicant.

D. Prescribing the rules for determining the amount of social allowances that a recipient is entitled to receive.

E. Prescribing procedures to be followed in the administration of the Act and prescribing forms for use for any purpose under the Act or the regulations or providing the forms prescribed by the Minister shall be used for any purpose under this Act or the regulations.

F. Prescribing conditions that a recipient is required to comply with in order to be eligible to continue to receive social allowance.

G. Prescribing the manner in which and the time at which returns and information required to be submitted by the Municipalities under this Act or the regulations shall be submitted.

H. Respecting the work activity projects or welfare services that may be approved by the Minister under section 14.

I. Prescribing the costs that may be included in the cost of a municipality for work activity projects or the welfare services.

J. Defining special care for the purposes of section 5 (which is the section having to do with ancillary services and additional services and special benefits to special categories of recipients).

Mr. Speaker, we have had a diatribe throughout this afternoon which is completely contrary to the facts across this country, and is obviously for political purposes. I will go further, Mr. Speaker, and say right here that if the Members opposite would care — I've just taken the document from the Statutes of the Province of Manitoba.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hand it over.

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: You can read it all. You can go and get it yourself. It's going back to the library.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: But I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, the statute in Saskatchewan, the statute in Ontario, just for openers, the statute in Alberta, I have found to be exactly in the same fashion and in exactly the same language.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby Edmonds.

MR. G.H. DOWDING (Burnaby-Edmonds): Mr. Speaker, the thing we object to in this bill, I think can be simply stated, is the distinction between the bill that the Honourable the Minister read to the House and its present proposal in this bill.

It says here: "The Minister may in his discretion" and of course it used the words, "his absolute discretion determine the eligibility of persons for social assistance" — not the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council setting rules. The Minister in his absolute discretion may fix the rates or amounts of social assistance for those persons, and the Minister in his absolute discretion may discontinue — that means take away, take away the right of a person to have welfare. He may, in his absolute discretion, reduce -- that means the Minister may reduce. Or the Minister in his absolute discretion may increase the rate or amount of social assistance. Now our complaint is not at the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council applying certain rules…

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. DOWDING: …but this Minister in his discretion whether "absolute" or just using the word "discretion." When I look at the judicial definition of the word discretion in Words and Phrases and Legal Maxims, a book lawyers often turn to for interpretation of words, I find the following judicial opinion of the word "discretion."

In plain honest language the word "discretion" as used in a will giving certain powers to the trustees "when and as the trustees in their discretion may deem it advisable," means do as you like.

Do as you like. That's what, whether you say "absolute discretion" or "discretion."

In the wording and the context of this bill it's obvious

[ Page 904 ]

that what the Minister's going to do is not consult with the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council. Not ask for the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council to sit — specific rules to fit all classes of persons. He's going to be able to do as he pleases, like any feudal lord. Any feudal lord.

This is the problem arising from what can only be described as a fit of pique by the Minister when, in a decision before the board which had the right to review cases of hardship, to examine whether a particular case was appropriate for a change in the amount of a subsistence allowance, the Minister lost those cases. Because he lost those cases, like the king of old in a feudal state he said: "Do away with the court. Do away with the court" — and he wouldn't be bothered with this problem.

Of course, the 60 or 70 per cent of the people who had appealed to that board for review, they'll still be there. Those people year after year will still be seeking justice and redress of wrongs in the amount that they're getting in terms of survival. But the Minister will have done away with that court. No one will be able to question his decision.

So I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister is seeking this change in this legislation without regard for the effects it may have on the federal share paid for social assistance in the Province of British Columbia. Without regard for the constitutional implications of what he's doing and without providing for any means of justice where he does an injustice knowingly or unknowingly to individuals that he may harm in the exercise of that discretion.

Now, the legislation which the Minister of Municipal Affairs read out to us is not the same order. That's empowering legislation. Empowering legislation. What we're dealing with here is absolute power. Not empowering legislation.

I therefore cannot help but draw that distinction which is evident to anyone who examines those two Acts side by side. The bill here, rather, and the Act which the Minister read.

Aside from that, there's another question, Mr. Speaker. Should there be 120,000 people more or less on the welfare rolls dependent on the bounty of one man and one man alone without any grounds for review, means of appeal or any manner by which they can by law change the situation of any of his rulings? Should there be such a situation for 120,000 people in this province?

I say no. Not when a man has a greater power over an individual's life in this particular field and any other field in British Columbia. Somebody else does you a wrong in your business or in your travels about the province in an automobile or any other way, you have resort to justice. You have a right to take your case and obtain redress.

But there's 120,000 people that, if this bill is passed, will have no redress anywhere for one of the greatest wrongs that they can suffer. That is suffering their right to live at all.

I think that is too much power for any man regardless of who that man may be, and of course, the man in whose hands this great power is given has more than once demonstrated that he does not have that lofty, judicial attitude to the rights and wrongs of society.

He's a man who can brush all these little trivialities of the niceties of justice aside and say they're deadbeats, talking about the people whose lives and fortunes he administers like a feudal lord.

It's bad enough now. What will it be when this feudal lord is given the powers in this bill if we proceed to pass it in this House? I say hold it. Take another look. Postpone any decision on this matter. Confer with Ottawa. Give some thought to the question of a means of appeal from this absolute power.

Mind you, this may be our last chance. Because in the bill it goes further than the Manitoba Act by far. In the bill it says also: "For purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act according to their intent, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may make such regulations and orders as are ancillary thereto and not inconsistent therewith, and as are considered necessary or advisable; and every regulation and order made under this section shall be deemed part of the Act and has the force of law."

Then it goes on to list all the means by which it takes from this House the power to ever change the law again. From here on it will be the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council who will legislate in the field of social welfare. Not this House, if the government has its way.

When you read the various changes that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council could make in this very legislation there's no need to come back to this House. It's another example of a tottering kingdom in its last days trying to take even greater and greater power unto itself. The new monarch in this department is the Minister.

I say that this has gone too far, much too far in terms of the fate of the future of many thousands of British Columbia citizens. These are citizens who are not permanently on welfare. Out of the 120,000 there's only a hard-core group out of those many thousands, a small percentage who are what you might call permanent recipients of welfare.

In their case most of that can be justified by the state of their health, by their inability or incapacity to make their way in a jungle society where even the skilled find difficulty in getting work. For this Minister to have such power over these helpless individuals without any recourse being provided in this bill makes a mockery of democracy. It's too much to ask this House to give these great powers, and if this proceeds it may cause lasting harm to the people of British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Attorney General.

HON. L.R. PETERSON (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the >Members of the Opposition this afternoon have raised a great hue and cry about this bill. They've also indicated some legal implications concerning the bill, which I would like to deal with this afternoon.

They decry the discretionary powers that are given under this particular bill to the Minister, saying that this legislation because of that is bad, saying that it's dictatorial, unheard of. The Member who has just taken his seat attempted to distinguish the statute that was raised by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, distinguishing it on the ground that that particular Act referred to discretionary powers of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council rather than to the discretionary powers of the Minister. At least that was my impression of the basis of the distinction.

Well, whether the distinction itself is valid or not, Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the Hon. Member and indeed to the Members of this House many statutes passed by the N.D.P. government where discretion is given to the Minister and indeed in the very same words "absolute discretion," even though the word "absolute" is being withdrawn from this bill. And they decry it here in this province, content quite for their party to pass it in other provinces. They can check the statutes themselves.

[ Page 905 ]

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Look at the statutes themselves.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hypocrites. Hypocrites.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Certainly this is hypocrisy that we're hearing this afternoon.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Here is a bill, a very recent one. This is a very recent one.

MR. DOWDING: It is not hypocrisy — I sincerely hold those views.

MR. SPEAKER: I agree. Order, please!

HON. MR. PETERSON: I'm not intending to reflect on the sincerity….

MR. SPEAKER: Would the Hon. Minister please withdraw the word "hypocrisy"?

HON. MR. PETERSON: I certainly will, under those circumstances.

Let me refer to very recent legislation in the Province of Manitoba. Bill No. 58, the Department of Health and Social Development Act. And don't tell me this has nothing to do with the topic under discussion because here is section 10 of that bill, and this repeals, I might say, the Department of Welfare Act in the Province of Manitoba, which is contained in the revised statutes, 1970. This is the 1971 Bill No. 58, section 10-1, and I quote:

For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of other Acts of the Legislature and to provide for the existing and continuing agreement the Minister may…

Now we all know that "may" is discretionary, not mandatory.

the Minister may provide a system, may provide welfare services and develop programmes of welfare services.

(C) In writing authorize a person or agency to accept applications for types of assistance specifically approved by the Minister in respect of that person or agency, to determine eligibility for types of assistance specifically approved by the Minister in respect of that person. To provide or pay types of assistance specifically approved by the Minister in respect of that person. Or to provide welfare services specifically approved by the Minister. To carry out projects of work activities, et cetera, specifically approved by the Minister.

And then how does it end:

Or do any or all those things as agents for the government and the Minister may in writing revoke the authority at any time without notice.

Without notice, revoke it at any time. First of all, it's discretionary, and secondly, even after exercising his discretion in one instance he can immediately revoke it without any notice, and yet they have the temerity to say in this House that these powers contained in this bill are dictatorial in nature.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. PETERSON: And the Liberals needn't complain too. I can point out the same kind of discretion that the Liberals have given themselves in federal legislation, if you want to look at the Pension Act, the Canada Pension Plan, for example, and other federal statutes similar in this respect.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: The Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Dowding) attempted to define discretion and ended up saying that it means just that you can do as you please. "Do as you please" was his definition after reading a legal authority. I would like to refer him to a case in the Supreme Court of Canada quoting from the judgment of Mr. Justice Rand in the case of Ron Carelli vs. Duplessis. I quote:

In public regulation of this sort there is no such thing as absolute and untrammelled discretion, that is that action can be taken on any grounds for any reason that can be suggested to the mind of the administrator.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Well now, there are many. The Hon. Members certainly don't want to hear the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada on a specific matter raised by the Member for Burnaby-Edmonds which demonstrates, Mr. Speaker, that the kind of discretion quoted by the Hon. Member for Burnaby-Edmonds does not apply. Since I've been interrupted by so many Members, I'm going to start over, and I quote again:

In public regulation of this sort there is no such thing as absolute and untrammelled discretion, that is that action can be taken on any ground or for any reason that can be suggested to the mind of the administrator.

No legislative Act can without expressed language be taken to contemplate an unlimited arbitrary power exercisable for any purpose, however capricious or irrelevant, regardless of the nature or purpose of the statute.

Discretion necessarily implies good faith in discharging public duty. There is always a perspective within which a statute is intended to operate, and any clear departure from its lines or objects is just as objectionable as fraud or corruption.

So, Mr. Speaker, the word "discretion" is not defined in the same fashion as the Hon. Member for Burnaby would have had this Legislature believe.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Then, Mr. Speaker, there have been references made to the constitutionality of this bill by several Honourable Members. Not only today but in previous debates as well. I'd like to deal with that point. That is whether this bill is beyond the jurisdiction of the Legislature because as they say it contravenes the provisions of the Canada Assistance Act.

In June of last year, Mr. Speaker, a decision was given by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals regarding the Saskatchewan Assistance Act. This, Mr. Speaker, is another statute that gives discretion to the Minister. The case arose as a result of a refusal to pay social assistance to an applicant on strike. It involved an order-in-council making such a person ineligible for assistance. This was an order-in-council of the

[ Page 906 ]

Saskatchewan government, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Well, the date of the decision — I'm not sure that I have the date of the order-in-council — the decision is a recent decision. It's reported in 1971, 22 Dominion Law Reports, Mr. Speaker, so it's a recent decision. Whether the order-in-council was passed by a previous government and continued by the New Democratic government in that province or passed by the N.D.P. is not entirely relevant to the point that I am attempting to make, as to whether the legislation is within the powers of a provincial legislature to enact or not. I'm quoting now from Chief Justice Culliton. In giving the judgment of the court he said, and I quote:

Learned counsel for the applicant argued that the order-in-council was invalid as the terms thereof contravened the statutory provisions of the federal statutes intituled Canada Assistance Plan and the provisions of the Saskatchewan Assistance Act, 1966. In presenting this argument, in my respectful opinion, learned counsel has misconstrued both the purpose and effects of the federal legislation. Part I of the Canada Assistance Plan creates no right to assistance by any person in this province. It does no more than provide the legislative authority for the Government of Canada to enter into a cost-sharing agreement with a provincial government with respect to social assistance granted by the province, and specifies in some detail the areas in which such costs may be shared.

To ensure that the agreement complies with the authority granted by the Act, provision is made for the incorporation of certain specific terms in the agreement. It in no way restricts the legislative competence of a provincial legislature in the field of social assistance.

If after entering into an agreement a province adopts legislation and regulations contrary to the terms of the agreement, that would be a matter entirely between the governments, affecting only the respective obligations and rights under the agreement.

The fact that the provincial legislation and regulations contravene the term of the agreement would not render such legislation and regulations invalid if it is otherwise within the legislative competence of the province.

And the same reasoning, Mr. Speaker, applies to the Act that we are now considering. I don't have the precise date — it is June 1, that is the date of the case in the Province of Saskatchewan.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Well, I don't recall at the moment when the election was, but I don't think that's relevant as far as the court of appeal of the Province of Saskatchewan is concerned, and this is a judgment of that particular court which touches on the constitutionality of this bill which has been brought into question by several of the Honourable Members who have taken their part in this particular debate.

Now, dealing specifically with the amendments, Mr. Speaker, which the Honourable Members claim give excessive power….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: I'm not defending anyone in this House, because I'm sure any Member on the treasury bench is capable of defending himself. I'm speaking to some of the implications that have been raised by the Honourable Members on this specific legislation, and the changes that have taken place, whether there is an appeal to the appeal boards that have been referred to, for instance, by the Members across the way, these are set up not in the statute. Tell me where you find them in the statute that we now have?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Not necessarily. They have still the same powers to make regulations. But look at section 3 of the present Act, and that now provides social assistance may be granted out of funds appropriated by the Legislature, and it gives no direction in this respect as to who is responsible. Until you go down to another section, section 13, which gives power to the directors to establish regulations and formulate policies for the administration of social assistance throughout the province. This director, of course, Mr. Speaker, is a civil servant employed in the department. And so, the fact is that at the present time the power to decide policy with regard to the granting of social assistance rests with a civil servant, a permanent official of the House. And the legislation….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Well, that can be the policy of the N.D.P., but it's not, I suggest, a sound policy because this legislation, this bill that we're now discussing, places the responsibility of making policy decisions where it rightfully belongs — and that is with the Minister and the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council, because it certainly does say "Lieutenant-Governor-in-council," and the Member should read the bill. It certainly says it. It starts out, Mr. Speaker: "3. Subject to this Act and the regulations the Minister may grant out of moneys appropriated for that purpose."

So it's right in the very empowering provision of the bill, and far from enabling the Minister to act capriciously or frivolously, as the Members of the Opposition would have us believe, in fixing the rates of social assistance or determining eligibility or the many other matters that have to be done under this Act, this Act makes the exercise of the Minister's powers expressly subject to regulations passed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council pursuant to the provisions in the bill.

In turn the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council must make those regulations in a manner that's consistent with the intention set forth by the Legislature in the Social Assistance Act and not otherwise. That expressed intention is to assist in whole or in part individuals, whether adult or minor or families unable to provide for themselves. That, I suggest, is a clear statement of policy contained again in proposed section 3 of the Act. It's simple, it's straightforward, it clearly expresses the intention that is to be carried forward by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council in making the regulations and in turn the administration of the Act by the Minister and the staff, including the director.

Because the Honourable Members should well know by now, Mr. Speaker, that when power is given to the Lieutenant-Governor or to a Minister, under our system of government, the detailed administration of the Act in

[ Page 907 ]

keeping and consistent with that policy rests with the permanent officials of the department. I'm sure that this situation will not be any different in that respect.

So, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that those who have expressed their opposition to this bill — and I'm including not only the Members in this House, but the other statements that we've read in the Press, and communications that some of us have received — those who are opposed to this bill are misinformed as to its intent and as to its content. Or they stand opposed to responsible, orderly and normal administration of social assistance programmes in this province and indeed in the other provinces in Canada.

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

MR. B.A. CLARK (North Vancouver–Seymour): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had intended only in this debate to rise and register my opposition to the bill. But a little earlier this afternoon just prior to the contribution of the Attorney General we heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Campbell) attempt to justify this bill by referring to a statute of another province. Feeling that he was ringing some familiar bells, Mr. Speaker, I went to the library as well to get that statute which I had previously read.

As a result of re-reading the statute, Mr. Speaker, I wish to comment on what the Minister has said. The rules of this House and your interpretation of them, Mr. Speaker, prohibit me from calling the Minister exactly what I feel he is this afternoon.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't get personal. You guys….

MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, and I will be absolutely specific in the point I'm making, I accuse the Minister of distortion, I accuse the Minister of misrepresentation, and Mr. Speaker, the only thing that prevents me from accusing the Minister of knowing misrepresentation is acknowledging the fact that he must have blind spots in his eyes.

Because, Mr. Speaker, he quoted from the revised statutes of Manitoba, and he attempted to justify the power that we will give by this Act to the Minister beside him by quoting the regulations of Manitoba. He went to great lengths to point out the power that the Minister and the director in Manitoba have. But, Mr. Speaker, he was selective in his quotations from that Act, and because he was selective, Mr. Speaker, I do accuse him again of distortion, and the worst kind of misrepresentation I think I've ever heard in this assembly.

Because in the same Act, Mr. Speaker, one page away from the quotations he read we come to a section entitled "Right of appeal."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh, oh!

MR. CLARK: And, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Municipal Affairs did not read that section to us this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister did not tell us. And I remind the House that the Minister passed the Act to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General looked at it, and then he spoke and did not correct the Minister.

An applicant or a recipient, or a person who has applied for, or is or was receiving municipal assistance from a municipality which has by bylaw made this section apply in respect of assistance granted by it to needy or indigent persons, may appeal to the appeal board.

There are many sections under which the person may appeal, Mr. Speaker, one of which is — and I quote this specifically, because this was the matter the Minister raised — "the reduction or increase of the amount thereof."

Then, Mr. Speaker, we get to notice of appeal, the holding of meeting, the notice of meeting, hearing of appeal, and here's the section the Minister also didn't quote. The disposal of appeal. Again this is why I accuse that Minister of distortion.

The order of the appeal board is final, and not subject to further appeal.

And, Mr. Speaker, I again quote:

If the appeal is allowed, the director or the municipality (and I insert here, Mr. Speaker, that the definition of the director is the director of the Department of Social Welfare in the Province of Manitoba), as the case may be, shall thereafter, subject to sub-section 7

which is a general operative clause that the Minister referred to….

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: Right — "subject to subsection 7"….

MR. CLARK: "Subject to subsection 7," which only outlines matters pertaining to real property and the necessities of life.

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: Read sub-section 7.

MR. CLARK: I'll read the whole section….

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: You do that.

MR. CLARK: O.K. Mr. Minister, I'll read the whole section.

MR. BARRETT: Resign, resign! You should resign.

MR. CLARK: All right, Mr. Speaker, the Minister wants me to read the section. "Section 7. In fixing an amount under sub-section 2" — do you want me to read that one too? Sub-section 2 is the definitions of the Act. Mr. Speaker, I assume the Minister will accept the definitions.

In fixing an amount under sub-section 2, the director shall, in accordance with the regulations, take into consideration assets and income of the applicant and, subject to the regulations, may deem to be part of the income of the applicant, all regular periodical receipts or revenue, including an amount deemed by the director to be the income value of any of the assets of the applicant and his dependents, if any, from any source, and he may, subject to the regulations, include in that amount an amount that in his opinion is the net value as income after payment of any charges applicable thereto….

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, we'll carry on.

Regarding the occupancy of any real property or other premises owned by the applicant, or any of his dependents and occupied….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

[ Page 908 ]

MR. CLARK: Do you want me to continue?

…in which he occupies as living quarters without payment of rent or be any food, clothing or other necessities of life, or other essential services regularly supplied to him and his dependents, if any, without charge therefor.

That's section 7. After the appeal board had heard the appeal, Mr. Speaker, they can dismiss the appeal. They can dismiss the appeal and order the social allowance for a municipal assistance to be revoked or discontinued. They can allow it and direct that a social allowance or municipal assistance in an amount stated in the order be paid to the applicant. Or, they may allow it and vary the order or the direction made by the director or the municipality as the case may be. And the order of the appeal board is final, and not subject to further appeal.

If the appeal is allowed, Mr. Speaker, if the appeal is allowed, "the director or the municipality, as the case may, be shall thereafter, subject to sub-section 7, pay…"

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Subject to sub-section 7!

MR. CLARK: "…a social allowance or a municipal allowance to the appellant from the date of the order of appeal board as provided in that order." Absolutely clear, absolutely final. The director's order is appealable; the Minister does not have the power he suggested he does….

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. CLARK: The director, Mr. Speaker, does not have power the Minister suggested he does, and Mr. Speaker, that is why I say that Minister distorted the statutes of Manitoba, clearly distorted them. The worst debate I've ever heard in this assembly. When a Minister of the Crown will get up and knowingly quote only certain sections of an Act.

AN HON. MEMBER: He knew the other sections?

MR. CLARK: I assume he knew them. If you're worried about the word "knowing," then, Mr. Speaker, I will state "unknowingly read only certain sections of the Act," which is even more disgraceful, considering that that Minister at one time filled the same seat that we are now discussing.

Mr. Speaker, if there is any more reason why we should oppose this bill, it is surely the defence of the bill that that Minister tried to place before us this afternoon.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the Minister rising to a point of order?

HON. MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, the Member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Clark) has indicated that I did not read sub-section 7 to the House. I specifically read sub-section 7 to the House, and sub-section 7 happens to be the operative section which makes the appeal a limited appeal, and therefore I would suggest that the Member's remarks about me having distorted the fact are completely contrary to what was enunciated on the floor of this House this afternoon.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Esquimalt.

MR. H.J. BRUCH (Esquimalt): Mr. Speaker, I think we are hearing the Opposition advocate absolute irresponsibility. Because when they talk about constitutional responsibility you cannot have democracy without the principle that you cannot have taxation without representation. What they are advocating is that someone on some board not elected with the responsibility to both the welfare recipient and the taxpayer, that someone should be able to fill in a blank cheque, the amount on a blank cheque, that the Minister has to affix his signature to, drawing on the taxpayer of this province.

Mr. Speaker, we have case after case where the Opposition are advocating exactly that, just because they can gain some popularity in Press headlines. But they are negating the very principle of our system of government, and our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be no part of any legislation that is going to allow anyone but the responsible people who take the oath of office to reach into that taxpayer's pocket and sign a cheque without the right to put the amount on that cheque.

That's the principle we are debating here, and the lawyers opposite know full well that it is because of interpretation — the Member for Burnaby-Edmonds can read interpretations all he likes, but he of all people knows that the judges don't always accept those interpretations and that they make decisions other than those interpretations.

MR. DOWDING: They don't always agree with what I have to say,

MR. BRUCH: No, I can readily see why. Because if we did what you're asking today, we would completely negate the principle of democratic government here in British Columbia.

MR. DOWDING: You'd have a court of appeal and justice.

MR. BRUCH: Mr. Speaker, the final board of appeal must not only consider what the welfare recipient will receive, but it must also consider what the taxpayers shall pay. You cannot separate the two. On a basis of just trying to gain a few votes, those Honourable Members are prone to ignore that particular responsibility that this Legislature has to the taxpayer who pays the bill. On that basis, Mr. Speaker, if it is necessary to put the word "absolute" in, then let's put the word "absolute" in.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. BRUCH: We'll take our responsibility to the electors as to how we administer that responsibility and authority that we take.

I want to say one thing more in regard to this bill, Mr. Speaker, because among the taxpayers and the citizens of this province there is very much concern today. Because the Members opposite can talk all they like about Ottawa's authority. The authority of welfare and the payment of welfare under the constitution is the responsibility and the authority of the provincial government.

We've had enough messing by the federal government in what these regulations should be. The Hon. Minister read something in that Act from Manitoba. I think it's something that we should make an absolute issue of, and that is the issue that every able-bodied, employable, unemployed person should be required to contribute something useful to the society that is required to pay him the welfare cheque.

Because today you have to give them the welfare, I say

[ Page 909 ]

that that individual, if he is able-bodied and capable of work or retraining, should be required to contribute something to the society that has to pay that cheque.

Now, we've got lots of problems. We need ditches cleaned out, we need highway beautification, we need parks improved, we need many of the pollution problems resolved, and Mr. Speaker, I maintain that this Act should go even further and say that in these cases, within logic and reason, those individuals should be asked to contribute something to make this a better British Columbia in exchange for the taxpayer's responsibility to pay him his welfare cheque.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, I'm tempted to say if they do bring in an Act that requires something useful from everybody I would wonder what the last speaker might contribute.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. COCKE: Thank you. That was the kind of attack that we're getting sick of around here. That Member stood in this House and talked about votes when we're talking about a serious matter, Mr. Member from that side of the tracks.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'll let that Member take the mike after. Let him put his words on record with respect to this Act.

Mr. Speaker, it's interesting to me to listen to the last speaker indicate that the civil service rule that we've been enjoying for the past 20 years must now stop. He said it loud and vociferously. Where's his voice been for the past 15 or 20 years? Where has he been?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. COCKE: The fact of the matter is, and what we've been talking about right from the outset is, where are the standards? What are we discussing here? We don't know what we're discussing because of the fact that the Minister has the right — according to this Act the Minister sets the standards…

AN HON. MEMBER: How can you appeal?

MR. COCKE: …and how can one appeal it?

AN HON. MEMBER: No rights.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, it's odd. You know this bill came in, in a very odd way. I ask who was the ghost-writer of Bill No. 40. Because it hit the floor, then suddenly the same day we had another bill, Bill No. 49, which is the one we're now discussing.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. COCKE: You know, it's been a disaster right from the outset. Nobody knows what's going on. But mainly the debate should be around the fact that nobody knows what we're debating because it's in the Minister's head, Mr. Speaker.

HON. W.M. SKILLINGS (Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce): It's sure not in your head.

MR. COCKE: That Minister has every right to speak about heads.

MR. H.P. CAPOZZI (Vancouver Centre): So do you — you've got two of them.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, it's a matter of fixing rates, fixing general rates, and I feel in this province that there's somebody getting caught in the cross-fire.

Now, since that Minister has taken over that portfolio there's been a tremendous upheaval with respect to welfare recipients. The poor people in the province are afraid. I don't think the poor people in the province need speeches like we've just heard with respect to putting them to work in strawberry patches or in the ditches or whatever.

I think what the poor people need is what that department was really named when that Minister took over. It was a good idea, the rehabilitation aspect. But you know, what I find is the fact that people are not entitled to the kind of a system that this department should be giving them.

They're not entitled now to even a consideration unless the Minister feels that they are in line, in his judgment. No standards!

Mr. Speaker, the kind of thing that's going on now is kids are being deprived. I'm talking about kids between the ages of 16 and 19. They're probably the worst hit by this welfare department, by this rehabilitation department, in the whole province. With the exception of the old age pensioners who are hit all the time.

But the kids that are on their own who leave home and possibly have worked for a little while and because of our lack of economic development in the province find themselves out of work, then they go and apply for welfare. The first thing that they're told by the administrator — go home.

You know, many of them can't go home. Many of them are totally alienated from the home. But for one reason or another they can't go home. Yet they're out in the world absolutely left alone.

As a matter of fact, there are some that I'm dealing with at this very moment that are caught in this kind of a cross-fire. It's because of these kinds of ministerial decisions that have been made with respect of forcing people back into an alien situation that I feel that none of us in this House should vote for a bill that provides the kind of discretionary powers that this one does without having everything nailed down with respect to standards.

Now, the Attorney General got up a little while ago and he started using the Canada Pension Plan as an example of legislation, and he was talking about the Liberals' legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the Canada Pension Plan has standards right from the bottom up. You know precisely what you qualify for in every way, shape and form. There's no way a person can be dealt out. I can say right now, Mr. Speaker, that there's many ways for a person to be dealt out with respect to this legislation.

I feel that there should be an appeal process in the regulations. It should be spelled out as it is in the Manitoba Act so that people have access to appeal. There is no justice

[ Page 910 ]

served as long as things are left in the hands of an arbitrary administrator and/or Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly cannot in any way, shape or form endorse this bill.

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

MR. CAPOZZI: Mr. Speaker, the questions and the discussions of the debate today have roamed back and forth across the floor of this House as we are trying to determine the so-called rights of appeal within the framework of this bill. In my view, Mr. Speaker, we have lost sight of the fundamental principles which are at stake every time we move into the field of welfare.

My basic concern, Mr. Speaker, is not in the field of appeal. The concern that we should have as Members of this House, the prime purpose of discussion of welfare, is the actual position that the welfare person finds himself in today. The concern we should be having is not whether he should be able to appeal a rate which is too low or conditions which he might find unfair, but the question whether we as legislators have made it possible for those rates to be as high as we can possibly afford in the Province of British Columbia.

That is the point and the very point of any discussion that we should be having in this House. I listened to the good Member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), and he threw his various insults back and forth across the floor.

I listened to other people debate whether a statute in Manitoba is a better statute that we have in the Province of British Columbia. But I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is one responsibility that cannot be shirked. We have a responsibility to determine in this House whether those obligations of the Minister himself are being fulfilled.

Are the obligations of retraining people in welfare being carried out by that Minister? That is his responsibility on his shoulders. Are the obligations to provide a dignity of payments within welfare? — 85 per cent of the people, Mr. Speaker, in spite of what everyone says, are not employable on welfare at this time.

Let us not assume that these people in many cases are there because they want to be. They are there because they are not capable of moving off the welfare rolls in the condition that they are at the moment. It's like suggesting an athlete that has never trained can go back into the field immediately and perform at his top performance. That's a ridiculous assumption.

Here in the House today, instead of discussing and going back to the principles, the Minister is responsible for the areas of dignity, the areas of retraining, the areas of providing a total sense of welfare for those people who need it. We've seen the question, and we're discussing the question of what should the welfare recipient be entitled to? The question of an appeal centres around where does the responsibility find itself? Where is it placed? I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that if there is a decision made to an appeal board that I as a legislator in this House cannot stand up and challenge that appeal. I do not want the structure of welfare moved outside of the responsibilities that I can debate in this House.

I want to be in a position to make the Minister stand up and be counted. I want to be able to say to him, "I'm not happy with what you're doing. I'm not satisfied with what you're doing." Or — "I'm pleased with what you're doing."

I want to be able to stand in this House and directly place the responsibility on the individual that has been given that oath of office. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that long before we consider all the ramifications and all the areas of responsibility that find themselves placed in appeal that our greatest responsibility today with the people that are on welfare is to assist the Minister is assuming those jobs, making sure that he is responsible for those various areas that come under his jurisdiction.

In this House, I can say that I have at times endeavoured — the question of the businessmen's alliance came out of suggestions that came out of a speech in this House. The same discussions have come forth in the proposals of retraining. Those are your responsibilities, Mr. Minister. They are not to be taken lightly.

For this reason, I believe that this bill is moving the responsibilities in a direct line on to your shoulders. The very questions of people's dignity, the very question of payment. Certainly from the discussion today the assumption would be made that our payments are lower than anywhere else in Canada, that we have not done the job in providing the material things that can be provided under a welfare programme.

I know the good Member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) and the good Member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Mr. Dowding) wouldn't suggest that it is feasible for us to have much larger welfare payments than they would have in any other province.

Is he suggesting that it would be possible for the Province of British Columbia to have an extra $100 a month over any other province in Canada? Doesn't he appreciate the ramifications of that type of discussion? Doesn't he understand that there are areas in which we can function and work?

What we really are talking about in this House on this bill is whether legislators shall have a direct line of responsibility. Whether the Minister himself shall have a direct line of responsibility and shall be the man responsible for welfare in the Province of British Columbia.

Whether the words say "absolute" or whether they have any other indication, Mr. Speaker, as to what his concern is I want him to be the man, when it comes to the moment of truth, that I can put the finger on. I want him to be the man that I can direct my questions to on a correct, complete responsibility, and for that reason, Mr. Speaker, I definitely intend to support this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Well, I can certainly see one thing, Mr. Speaker, having listened to the remarks of the last speaker and also the remarks from the Hon. the Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch) that the leadership race is on in the Province of British Columbia.

We had a very definite position taken by the Member for Esquimalt, his statement of sublime belief in the Minister and his desire to equip this Minister with absolute power, and then we find the next speaker saying that he's going to lay the finger on him, so I suppose that these two members are totally apart in their attitudes as to which of the two of them are likely to succeed.

But notwithstanding, Mr. Speaker, the very slippery displays on the part of the government to attempt to salvage this thing, we still have before the Legislature for our consideration and vote this afternoon, in my view, a very bad bill.

It is a patent abuse, in my understanding, of the powers of

[ Page 911 ]

the Legislature, and it delegates omnipotence to this Minister. Also for better or for worse, depending upon one's point of view, if you'll take a look at this particular section, too, it gives him unlimited powers, himself, to delegate his powers or any portion of them to anyone he may chose.

There are no checks, there are no balances, and there are no standards. There's not any definition of public policy. There's not any definition of any philosophy to guide him.

You know, taking the word "absolute" out is just nothing more than a little bit of political salve, as it was when it went in. Because with or without the word, "discretion" means exactly the same kind of a thing. I think the Minister favours the word "absolute" in there, as did his first lieutenant who spoke a little bit earlier today, but it's out and it's just the same thing. So they may be fooling a few of their own troops but none of the others, Mr. Speaker.

As I said, it's the totality of power, and it could deny for any reason whatsoever the determination of eligibility of people to apply for social assistance. It could deny for any reason whatsoever the fixing of the rate or the amount of the rate, and I'm reading a portion of the statute today. It could establish any kind of guidelines insofar as the establishing of general qualifications are concerned. If that's not a totality of power, I'd like to know exactly what is.

You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that in the Province of British Columbia we are a jurisdiction which really and truly denudes the right of the individual. We don't have a charter of human rights in this province. There are no guidelines within the Province of British Columbia to assist people through administrative tribunals, to indicate what a fair hearing may or may not be, and certainly there's nothing in this Act. There's no rules or procedures set forth, we don't have a right of appeal from any kind of abuses — be they deliberate abuses, be they errors or be they excesses in any form whatsoever.

Most important, there's no right to the court because in B.C. this government hides behind the veil insofar as permitting the individual to go to the court.

So I'd say, Mr. Speaker, that for any rinky-dinky reason whatsoever that the Minister may choose to use, or for any rinky-dinky reason, he may delegate his power to, whatever that person may choose to use, he or they can refuse to act or they can act with inconsistency or they can act arbitrarily or they can not act at all. And in my view, Mr. Speaker, this bill does absolutely nothing more than to install this Minister As the godfather of welfare in B.C.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. L.T. NIMSICK (Kootenay): Mr. Speaker, this bill here and the way it is written is one more step that this government has carried out in many other bills — and that is to pass the authority, or use this Legislature to give the cabinet or a Minister the power that actually in many cases should stay with the Legislature.

To set up a poor people's tsar under this bill will segregate the people, the unfortunate people that have got to apply for welfare. This means many people who have children, mothers with children, people that are physically unfit to look after themselves, and people who this system has not been able to give the opportunity to make their contribution.

I was surprised at the Honourable Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch) when he spoke about the unemployed employables. There should be no unemployed employables if our system was operating right. The unemployed employables should have the opportunity to work. In a rich country like this, everyone should have the opportunity to make his contribution.

These people have a lot to worry about. I would just like to quote what Munro, the federal Minister of Health, stated:

"Poverty means never having sufficient food or the right kind of food to ensure that children and parents can physically cope with the basic demands of day-to-day activity. Poverty means having an entire lifetime to provide a deep escape from one's immediate environment. Poverty means humiliation throughout one's life, whether humiliation in front of your children because you cannot provide them even the minimum comforts of affluence, or humiliation in front of some faceless, nameless source of small amounts of money to keep you going, or humiliation in front of yourself because you believe you have failed in life but you still have decades to live."

Now, we're going to go further than that with these people. We're going to have them paying homage to an individual Minister. They're going to have to bow and scrape to be able to get it. The Minister has the power to say what applies generally to a certain person or classes of person, or to individual persons. If a person has got too-long hair, he could say he can't get any social welfare.

I'm sure that this would be a happy moment for the Honourable Member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. Campbell). He might get those people down in his area, they got long hair, off the welfare rolls if they're on, I don't know. It would be all those different groups of people you could isolate out. Maybe if you don't go to the right church, you could get isolated out too.

But nevertheless, to me it's poor legislation when you don't leave room for them to appeal their case. You're creating a subservient class of people, and you're making them bow in deference to the Minister to be able to get any welfare.

The Act that was read by the Honourable Member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Clark) from Manitoba outlined certain basic principles from which your regulations are built. But in this bill there are no basic principles at all, and the whole thing is going to be left — the regulations will be left with the cabinet, and the Minister will have the power to do almost anything he likes in other cases. And I cannot support that kind of legislation in a democratic society.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby-Willingdon.

MR. J.G. LORIMER (Burnaby-Willingdon): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to repeat the words that have been spoken already and state that this is certainly a bad bill. It gives absolute power to one man to determine the quality of life for a great number of our people — the poor people and destitute people in our society. Their quality of life will be determined by the Minister. By edict from on high he will determine whether or not a person is entitled to welfare or assistance, and likewise by edict from on high he will determine whether someone should be refused.

The test is no longer the test of whether or not the person is in need. The test will be based on the discretion of one man. And if that man is in a Christian mood at the particular time, help may be granted. If he's not, help may be refused. There is no standard test given any more if this bill is passed.

There is another bill that we have been looking at which

[ Page 912 ]

ties in directly with this particular bill we are discussing today. In that bill it gives the power to a municipality to give welfare or help to people in the event that the provincial government refuses. Now what this means is that if someone is in need in an area, in a municipality, and no assistance can be obtained from the provincial government — no assistance can be obtained because the edict of the Minister has said no — then that poor or destitute person must go to a municipality for assistance. The municipality can give assistance, but 100 per cent of that cost is borne by the municipality and no refunds from the provincial government.

Now it seems to me that it must be time that the provincial government realizes that the responsibilities for our poor and destitute is a provincial responsibility. It is not the responsibility of municipalities. It's strictly the responsibility of the provincial government, with assistance from the federal government. I suggest that the Minister and the government should accept this responsibility and leave the Act as it is and make improvements on it rather than take things away from the present legislation. In closing I would just say that I endorse statements made by the previous Members in opposition to this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Vancouver East.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS (Vancouver East): The bill really seems to me, Mr. Speaker, a kind of an ego trip for the Minister. He was in that previous ministry where he could use his discretionary powers to the full, where he could make or break fortunes at will — in the big leagues, in the big leagues was really his kind of bag.

Now that he's the lord of the poor, as one Member said, he still wants the same kind of action: to give and take at whim, and that's really what it is, as we see it, Mr. Speaker.

I have the feeling that the Premier was seriously thinking about hoisting this bill, seriously thinking about pulling it back. The Premier just recently announced the increase in welfare rates, and that may have generated some friction between the Minister and the Minister of Finance. I suspect it probably did, and it's interesting that the bill is up before us now.

The Member for Cowichan (Mr. Strachan) made it very clear what these rates will mean — 1½ cents per child, for dependent children in the province. And one wonders how any Minister of the Crown can rest easily with this kind of miserly approach to the needy in this province.

One wonders too, why the previous Minister of Welfare in this province who has sprung up to the defence to the Minister in this debate, one wonders why he didn't need the same legislation when he was Minister. I don't think we had any explanation from that Minister in that regard. Because he was able to operate his Department of Welfare without the kind of legislation that the Member from Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Gaglardi) desires.

The approach of the Minister seems to be one that is common on that side of the House, that it's a crime to be poor in this society. And this legislation also clearly seems to be a recriminatory response to the appeals that were forthcoming this year mainly in the City of Vancouver.

It's the beginning of recrimination, with respect to the poor, to the people on welfare.

You know, Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) is extremely tolerant, kind and gentlemanly with a crew that he was formerly with. He says no matter what man it was he couldn't support this kind of legislation.

I agree the legislation is bad, but we can't ignore the kind of man it is. We can't ignore the kind of man it is, that wants this kind of discriminatory power. It's frightening at best with a Minister with the best will in the world. But the Minister we've got isn't that kind of man. He's the former Minister of Highways — the man that made and broke fortunes along the routes of British Columbia. He's the man that knows how to discriminate like no man in British Columbia. And he wants the same power with the poor.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Go on, go on! The Honourable Minister, go on!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: I demand that that Member withdraw the statement that I made and broke people and made them fortunes and lost them fortunes. I demand he either name them, or withdraw.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the Member very definitely imputed improper motive. Would he please withdraw the statement?

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: The evidence is in, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the Honourable Member please withdraw the statement?

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: If the Speaker wants a withdrawal and….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I ask the Member to withdraw.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: It's a straight kind of megalomania drive that has been consistent with this Minister, Mr. Speaker. It's the kind of attempt to be the man like the Premier. It's a megalomania drive. He wants to bring more and more power to himself in this ministry which he obviously isn't happy with — which shows every day in the way he handles himself in the House and outside and in dealing with the problems of the poor. Because the Minister never, you can never get an appointment to see this man.

We're voting against this bill, Mr. Speaker, because we are convinced that the Minister can and has been and will be capricious in terms of how he deals with the problems of individuals.

We expect recrimination from this Minister. We expect those that are activists among the poor, that want change and call out for change, and use the media of this province, to suffer at the hands of this Minister. Because that's the way he operates, that's the name of the game with this Minister, in my books. And that kind of situation is one that cannot be tolerated in a free society. For that reason we vote against this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Member for Yale-Lillooet.

MR. W.L. HARTLEY (Yale-Lillooet): Mr. Speaker, this can be wound up with the greatest of case. Two words — "vile" and "incomprehensible."

[ Page 913 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister will close the debate.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, I've listened with a lot of patience this afternoon to an awful lot of things that have been said. I have listened to a lot of personal attacks, and when you can't attack the legislation on the basis of the legislation then the only thing you can do is make a personal attack against an individual.

I'd be happy to challenge anybody on the other side of the House any day of the week, on any platform. I'd take them on. Because they know that in the Province of British Columbia what these people have enjoyed through my ministry has been acceptable. And that's a common acceptance among the people of this province. I appreciate that, I'm indebted to the people of this province, and I'll never take a back seat since my Ministry as the Minister of Highways was recalled on the floor of this House by the Member from Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), who always takes a personal attack. I'd defy him or anybody else.

The N.D.P. charged me and challenged me. For seven weeks we sat at the taxpayer's expense to the tune of thousands of dollars with these accusations, and they came out with an absolute goose egg.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you came out a millionaire!

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, I demand that the Member from Lillooet take that statement back. An imputation that I came out with something, I demand that that statement be withdrawn.

He sure won't say it outside, because he hasn't the intestinal fortitude to say it outside Or anywhere else. That's right.

It's a tragedy that individuals will sink to such low levels of personal incrimination and discrimination on the floor of this House. The Member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) brought up about my hotel bills. I pay my hotel bill out of my own pocket with my money, Mr. Member. That's how it's paid for.

MR. STRACHAN: That's not what the public accounts show.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: I don't care what the public accounts show. Any day of the week you can go up into my office and pick up the cheque stubs. I pay for it out of my own pocket.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Minister come back to Bill No. 49?

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: I'll defy you or anybody else on the floor of this House — III defy you or anybody else on the floor of this House to show otherwise. I'm paying those bills out of my own pocket.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Furthermore….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: May I point out to the Honourable Minister and the Member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) that we're not debating public accounts. We are debating Bill No. 49. Will you please stick to that bill?

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, I was given the permission, by the Speaker of the House, that I could answer these charges that were made against me. I was given that permission.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: You bring them — bring all the vouchers in, because I'd be happy to see them. I'd be proud to see them.

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, we've got them.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Certainly, you can name off anything you like.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: This debate has taken on a personal vendetta against me, because they couldn't find anything else. I want to tell this House, and I want the Press to listen to it — can I help it if all over the United States of America and Canada they ask me to be a speaker at conventions? Can I help that? Is anything wrong with me going to those places?

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) please take his seat.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Because in all of those areas I'm representing the Province of British Columbia, and in an admirable fashion.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member for Vancouver–Point Grey quit abusing the rules of this House, and take his seat and stay seated? Will the Honourable Member stay seated? The Minister proceed.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, I've been asked by people all over the United States and all over Canada to speak at their conventions and just a few days hence I go to Ontario to speak to the national trucking organization, which I've been invited to be a speaker to.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would ask the Honourable Members to come back to Bill No. 49.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Might we have a little order in the House, please?

[ Page 914 ]

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: The Liberals have half a dozen standards — one for everybody else and another for themselves.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Certainly! Sure, you'd like that.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the Honourable Member for Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) does not desist, I'll have to throw him out of the House. I'm asking the Honourable Member to keep quiet.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to the purpose of the bill. The bill — a few weeks ago there was a court case in the City of Vancouver, and in the court case the learned judge brought down his ruling and he stated, and I'm reading verbatim:

"The regulations are vague about the powers of the board of review and also do not state by whom the referral to the Attorney General should be made. So that this matter will not be left undecided I direct that the same be referred to the Attorney General of the Province of British Columbia for his decision on the most important point of interpreting this Act and regulations.

The regulations provide that a new board of review is set up for each appeal by an applicant on social assistance. One can easily visualize how overly generous boards of review could bankrupt any funds that any government might allow for social assistance unless the intention of the provincial Legislature is laid down with definite guidelines for such boards of review."

Now, it's the same in every province. I would like to read for you what this Act is endeavouring to do. Here I've been called "a dictator," called "a little god," "Lord" this and "Lord" that and so on.

I don't mind, but I'd just like to bring you back to what the bill says, for I have no power at all under this bill. I've no power at all, because this is actually what the bill says in clause 3, section 3. It says: "Subject to this Act and the regulations."

Who makes the regulations? Who makes the regulations with the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council? "The Minister may grant that the moneys appropriated for that purpose" and so on. Now the control word is "subject to." I'm subject to; so I've no power of my own at all.

Every bit of authority that's placed in any Minister of the Crown in the Social Credit government is vested in the Crown. This government doesn't act irresponsibly in that way. So it's very clear.

Then if you read section 7 of this Act it states here again:

For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act according to their intent, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may make such regulations and orders as are ancillary thereto and not inconsistent therewith and as are considered necessary or advisable; and every regulation and order made under the section shall be deemed part of the Act and has the force of law; and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, may make such regulations….

That's the government that makes the regulations. Clause 3 says that the Minister is "subject to" all those regulations. I don't know what you people are reading about this Act.

Then there have been statements made in the Act that the Minister will get up in the morning and go ask people what their religion is and what their race is and what their creed is and so on. I'd like to bring you to clause 8 of the Act, section 8. It says very plainly here, and this has never been removed and never will as long as this government's here.

In the administration of the social assistance, there shall be no discrimination based on race, colour, creed, or political affiliation.

That stands. That will never be removed by this government, because those are the principles that we believe in.

The basic principle of this bill is that the government is responsible for its actions toward people, that it governs by mandate. It's a basic principle. I don't see anything to quarrel with in that mandate.

Now it has been brought to the attention here of the House that maybe these regulations and this Act do not comply with federal responsibility under the Canada Assistance Plan. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) raised this point. Why don't you contact Ottawa? Ottawa has an Act. We've got legal people in our province. They interpret the Act. It says here in chapter 45, section "I".

A person who by reason of inability to obtain employment, loss of principal family provider, illness, disability, age or other cause of any kind acceptable to the provincial authority, is found to be unable on the basis of test established by the provincial authority that takes into account that person's budgetary requirements and the income and resources available to him to meet such requirements to provide adequately for himself or for himself and his dependents, or any of them….

and it continues. Then in clause "H" it says: "'prescribed' means prescribed by regulation." That's in accordance with our Act. And "provincial authority" means the provincial Minister. So this Act is drafted with the provincial Minister responsible because of the Canada Assistance Plan. It places the Minister in that position of responsibility, and that's the only way we could bring the Act in accordance with the Canada Assistance Plan.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: What about the Manitoba Act? I want to read you the Saskatchewan Act.

Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other Act, the director may make provision for aid to an indigent person to such extent and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by regulation.

There again, the same thing. Now it also has been stated on the floor of this House that there is no appeal. I don't know what the Members of the Opposition are speaking about. There were 29 professors — he waved a big old piece of paper saying 29 professors of law at the University of British Columbia said that the Act didn't do these things.

Those professors, if they know how to read, I wish they'd read. Because that power doesn't happen to be in the hands of this Minister at all, that they're talking about. They must be reading your Press report. I'd suggest they read the bill.

Now, I'd also like to suggest that the appeal procedures are in the agreement signed by the former Minister with the federal government. So the bases of appeal are already established regardless of the regulations.

[ Page 915 ]

I don't know why, but the Leader of the Opposition, with all his gerrymandering and all his speaking on the floor of the House has done nothing but mislead the House with those statements because they're not in accordance with the facts.

I'd like also to bring to your attention something else which places a lot of responsibility. The Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Capozzi) stated that he wanted to have someone to hold responsible. He talked about social assistance cases and so on.

I might suggest to you, Mr. Member as well, one of the other Members on the floor of this House read — I think it was the Member from Surrey (Mr. Hall) — read out all kinds of areas where there were appeals and 400 or some odd from the City of Vancouver, but by whom? By whom?

People coming into our province today from all over Canada and from south of the border, making demands, and the learned judge said one could easily visualize how overly-generous boards of review could bankrupt any funds that government might allow for social assistance.

Do you want these people to get all the funds and rob the children? And rob the people who are deserving of this type of attention? Is that what you're advocating? Mr. Member, is that what you're advocating?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: You're advocating that. You're advocating complete irresponsibility. That's what you're doing.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: After the appeal board gave their rendering and sent it over here, I received letters stacked on my desk about that high, and every one of them were from working men and working women who are sweating out day by day in every type of weather and all kinds of conditions to pay their taxes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Good Christian stuff!

HON, MR. GAGLARDI: Good Christian stuff is right! Well, the book says: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I wish you'd follow that once in a while. It might do you a little bit of good.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do unto others yourself.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: That's exactly what I'm doing. So, I practice it every day and I enjoy it, and further….

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Ridicule all you like, because that kind of ridicule I've put up with for 20 years, and I'm happy to put up with it for another 60 years, if I have to, on the floor of this House. I like the people of British Columbia, and I enjoy serving them, and they seem to appreciate me, and I enjoy that as well.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to state emphatically that there are many things that no Minister of the Crown likes to do necessarily. But because of facing up to responsibility we have to of necessity take responsibility.

I'm not afraid of this kind of responsibility. I know that the public in this province and the people on social assistance — there is a record that has already been established. It's there for anybody to read. My telephone is open to any recipient anywhere, any time, and I've yet to turn anybody down.

That's the biggest pile of hooey that you ever peddled in your life because everybody gets through to me.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Nobody has ever been cut off from me. That's true.

I'm not looking for this kind of power. I'm not necessarily wanting to lord anything over anybody, but on behalf of the people of the Province of British Columbia and for good government, I move second reading of this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 49 be now read a second time. Will all those in favour of….

MR. STRACHAN: While he was speaking, the Minister said that he paid all of the Vancouver Hotel bills himself, and the Minister made the statement….

AN HON. MEMBER: Point of order!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I advised the Honourable Member and the Minister at that time that this is not a matter of debate under Bill No. 49. The Honourable Minister ceased debating that issue, and as far as I am concerned we are not dealing with that under Bill No. 49.

MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, under the rules of this House, if a Member has made an erroneous statement, the minute he sits down I have the right to stand up and correct that statement. I wish to …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

AN HON. MEMBER: There should not be more than one person on their feet at one time.

MR. STRACHAN: I wish to correct that statement.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just one moment.

MR. STRACHAN: I just want to state that in refuting the statement that the Minister made about me. Because he inferred that I was lying. The public accounts show that on May 4, 1970, May 5, May 6, May 10, May 11, May 14, 15, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26 and 31, the public of this province did pay toward the Vancouver Hotel bill on behalf of that Minister, and I have checked with the comptroller.

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: Point of order! Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

HON. MR. GAGLARDI: The only time that the inference was made by the Member from Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) that I was not paying my own hotel bills was when staying in the Vancouver Hotel on my own business. When

[ Page 916 ]

I'm there on government business, the government pays my bill. When I'm there on public business, they pay my bill. I pay my own bill….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There's been sufficient argument, and it's all out of order. The question is that Bill No. 49 be now read a second time.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 33

NAYS — 18

Second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 49 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 67, Mr. Speaker.

SAFETY ENGINEERING SERVICES ACT
(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 67. The Honourable Member for Surrey.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, we are still waiting for further information to come in on this bill, and I wonder if the government would accept another adjournment.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, the bill has been the subject of a great deal of debate in the newspapers last year, and a number of proposals which did not see the light of day have worried a number of important sectors in the community.

For instance, my own school board is concerned about the possible dilution of labour and the lack of skills that may be called upon and available to the school board by virtue of this Act. In short, it may be possible to employ people who are not entirely qualified to do the work that has hitherto been done stringently by regulations contained in the legislation to determine the qualifications of the tradesman.

As I said earlier in attempting to adjourn, that information is not entirely through yet from the school board in my district nor is it through from a number of associations which have expressed some dissatisfaction with the Minister's committee.

A question on the order paper comes to mind, Mr. Speaker, when I asked the Minister of Public Works whose responsibility this bill is — to tell us who were the committee that was supposedly receiving all the delegations, all the briefs from the concerned parts of industry. I noticed that the committee was made up of the senior civil servants in the department chaired by Mr. McSorley, who was one time a Member of the House and who, I understand, is in possession of one of the necessary tickets — stationary engineer's. I don't think Mr. McSorley, Mr. Speaker, has practised his trade for some 30 years. However, he may indeed be qualified.

He's qualified to the extent that he got $3,820 for chairing the committee, which isn't bad going for that kind of work — chairing committees. I think that we might talk later under vote one about that. But nevertheless, Mr. McSorley did chair this committee.

But the information we get from some of the operating engineers, the stationary engineers, the I.W.A., the pulp and sulphite workers, the Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada, the I.B.E.W. and other unions is that consultations did not take place in the way that they envisaged when the bill was just a show-boat bill a year ago.

It was for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that we wanted a little bit more information.

However, there is some information available to us at the moment, and it simply is that there appears to be some doubt that the public safety is adequately protected by the changes in this Act.

The public should be concerned about safety in our schools and our hospitals and our public buildings as well as in the residential areas that are contiguous with industrial development.

It seems to me that this bill should be the subject of a great deal more discussion than has gone on to date, even though it's been all this time in the making.

The next point that has come to my attention is the fact that the instrumentation people — mechanics and supervisors and installers — the people who are dealing with control features in these devices that heat our schools and our public buildings, the pressure vessels, the generative facilities, are too very concerned that their situation, their position in society, in the working society, that this bill seeks to control, hasn't been recognised either by the Minister of Public Works.

I think that the Minister of Public Works thinks that this instrumentation in the bill is just simply an on-and-off switch, and that's not the case. Many people who are not qualified to replace some of the rather sophisticated instrumentation that is in our public buildings will, under the auspices of this bill, be allowed to take a screwdriver and simply get to work without the necessary qualifications.

I don't want to see that situation develop. I would urge the Minister to hoist this bill until the unions and industry have been more fully questioned and given ability to get some answers.

I have in front of me, just received, Mr. Minister, a series of questions that come from industry, in which it talks about whether or not the government intends to have gas fitters doing work on large industrial boilers.

I realise that it is difficult to deal with the principle of the bill on second reading with such questions, Mr. Speaker. It's so unfortunate that parts of the Act are dependent upon

[ Page 917 ]

other parts of the Act, and if we accept the principle that amalgamates the various statutes into one — dilutes the labour, takes away the trades qualifications out of the Act and puts it in regulations — you quickly see that it is very difficult to deal with the essential principle without referring to certain sections.

The definition of "electrician" seems to me to be somewhat inadequate in the Act, and maybe it should be — and I'll listen to some guidance if you so desire, Mr. Speaker — that these perhaps will be better done on third reading.

In short, I will say that the principle of the bill, that is, amalgamation, of taking away the trades qualification and putting it in regulations, the dilution of labour therefore involved, does not sit too well with this side of the House, and at its present stage we intend to oppose the bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, as was indicated by the Honourable Member for Surrey (Mr. Hall), we have some grave misgivings about this bill, and the grave misgivings were brought about by having sat down at some lengths with many people affected directly by the bill prior to the advent of the bill on the floor of this House.

You see, this isn't a new concept that has suddenly been foisted upon the Legislature. The kite was flown two years ago, and then last year it became almost fait accompli — it was about to be presented, but never was.

At that time practically every stationary engineer in the province was running around to meetings and discussing his grave misgivings and his concerns over the kind of legislation we have here. I recall having attended a meeting in Burnaby in the constituency of the Honourable Member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Lorimer), attended by the Honourable Member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Mr. Dowding) and also the Member for Surrey (Mr. Hall), and at that time the president of the Social Credit League from Delta, who is an engineer, stood up and shook his fist and he said we must stop anything that will put the three Acts together. Anything.

Mr. Justesen was his name. I recall his speech well. He was an engineer, a stationary engineer, and he was crying how they had to get political persuasion or any kind of persuasion on the Minister in order to discourage him from bringing these three Acts into one.

He made very good sense that night, and I hope that he makes very good sense in the future. I hope that he's given his Member some material to discuss in the House. I haven't seen anything since the advent of Bill No. 67, but I certainly saw a lot of information come out of that particular individual prior to the advent of Bill No. 67.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when we're dealing with pressure vessels, and as far as I'm concerned I believe that this bill modifies…. Because it incorporates the other aspects — the electrical workers and the gas workers — I believe, because it incorporates these three in one, that it intends to modify the Act with respect to pressure vessels. Certainly, in some cases it definitely does. Even the new Act and some of the regulations that are incorporated in the Act, and I'll get to regulations in a moment.

One of the things that I'd like to discuss just for a moment is what about the whole matter of the order-in council whereby under this new Act any area in the province can be isolated and not be covered by the Act

By order-in-council — the way I interpret this Act, and I haven't found anybody that's prepared to argue this point against me — but from the way I interpret this, if you wanted to, you could take the Burrard thermal plant in Port Moody and have it not covered by this Act if you wish to by order-in-council. That's section four of the Act.

Any area that isn't covered by the Act is obviously not covered because of the fact that you want to modify the control in that particular area. That being the case, let's just talk about the Burrard thermal plant for a minute.

What if it were left unattended with all those televisions — and I've been through that place, because when this was first discussed I thought, well, I'd like to see what a large thermal plant would look like. And boilers. Boilers. If the boilers in the Burrard thermal plant blew — and as I said, they're monitored by television and there is no reason why that monitor couldn't be 25 miles away, and this is what the engineers were talking about. Competent engineers could be off-site, and if they were off-site and anything went wrong, what a catastrophe.

What about other areas? What about large manufacturing plants? Large factories might have the ear of the government and they set up some sort of remote kind of procedure in order to monitor their boilers.

Again, Mr. Speaker, this could happen under this Act. If it did, and if by virtue of the fact that that boiler was not attended and an explosion occurred, it could occur in the midst of an industrial area. It could occur in an area where there were a great many people. The consequences would be devastating.

In many jurisdictions in the United States they have modified laws concerning pressure vessels. The record's very clear on this. Every M.L.A. in this House has received the same kind of information as I have. If you've read it, you know perfectly well that the record, in those areas that have relatively loose laws with respect to the operation of pressure vessels, the ratio of disasters, is extremely high compared to anything that's ever happened in B.C.

Boilers left unattended, boilers not properly attended, boilers attended by people who do not have the qualifications, are a threat, are a real threat. Mr. Speaker, I don't want to be part of the process that leads us to a position where we aren't going to have all the teeth we need to satisfy everyone in this House that everything is being done to protect the people of the Province of B.C.

What about a school? Section 44 of the Act changes the horsepower rating. You don't need anybody looking after a boiler from 3 to 75 horsepower. Mr. Speaker, we have inadequate, in my view, controls with respect to boilers. We had hoped that the Premier would give us time to get all the professional advice that we need in order to discuss this matter. But the Premier has seen fit not to. The Premier nodded no, no, when the Member from Surrey said: "Would it be possible to get another adjournment?"

The reason we want an adjournment is because we want the people's business done properly. Well, Mr. Speaker, I think it's important that professional opinion be fed into this House. How many people in this House know anything about boilers? I bet there isn't an engineer — well, there's one over there, he's a professional engineer — I bet there's not a stationary engineer in the House, certainly a highly-qualified one.

As far as I'm concerned, I would like to hear firsthand from people with respect to something that could in fact endanger the lives of the people of British Columbia in schools. Why don't you read the information that comes over

[ Page 918 ]

your desk, and then maybe you might know.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, there are a great many areas that I think should be discussed.

There are three unrelated areas. The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Chabot) knows very well what every other province in Canada has. Under every other jurisdiction in this country, the Minister of Labour is the Minister in charge of pressure vessels, not the Minister of Public Works.

This is odd. Why is it that in British Columbia alone do we have the Pressure Vessels Act under the Minister of Public Works, whereas in every other jurisdiction in Canada the Minister of Labour takes care of it?

We feel that there is something besides the pressure vessels situation, besides the safety factors, that keeps it out of the Minister of Labour's department. But in any event, I would hope that you'll think about it, Mr. Minister, that you'll think about hoisting this bill and making it possible to feed the kind of input in that's necessary to both sides of the House.

Mr. Speaker, when we attended the meetings in Burnaby, in Vancouver and elsewhere, there was unanimous opinion that the three bills should not be in one, that they were not complementary in any way, no more so than you should have three different bills with respect to labour relations or health.

We feel, listening to the people that were talking in the different meetings, that there is becoming established in your department, Mr. Minister, some sort of empire. In this empire, they want to build the controls over this general field. In so doing, Mr. Speaker, they tend to modify the Pressure Vessels Act.

Now, if the Minister could stand up when he closes the debate and indicate that there's some way he's improved it — has he improved it by letting areas opt out?

AN HON. MEMBER: The old bills provided for opting out too. There are certain fields where you have to.

MR. COCKE: The second thing the Minister could do when he was closing debate — would there be any possibility of him putting it before a standing committee?

HON. W.N. CHANT (Minister of Public Works): There are lots of things that have to be opted out. You know I'm not authorized to….

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: I would also hope that the Minister will say that because of the fact that he waited so long to have this bill put forward — it's only been in here a two-week period — since he's waited less than that, since he's waited so long to put it in, that he will take this bill before a standing committee so that we can listen to witnesses — professional witnesses, experts who can tell us precisely what's best. That's right. That won't cost the $3,800 that the McSorley committee cost.

HON. MR. CHANT: That was money well spent.

MR. COCKE: It might have been money well spent, Mr. Minister, but their recommendations — will you tell this House whether or not they were followed? Will you tell us whether or not those recommendations were followed? Because by virtue of the submissions…

HON. MR. CHANT: We considered all the recommendations.

MR. COCKE: …that I have seen that went to the McSorley commission, there wasn't too many of the recommendations followed. The new Act is very similar to that kite that was flown in 1970.

Mr. Speaker, another area. I particularly feel that when you're dealing with a responsibility like we are, why didn't the Minister table the regulations? Why wouldn't he table the regulations, if in fact all the regulations are not implicit in the Act? Why can't we know what areas of safety are going to be looked to and governed? What are the regulations going to be, Mr. Minister?

We would like to see that kind of discussion. We would like to know just exactly what your regulations, your rules and procedure are going to be before we give a carte blanche to something like this.

Mr. Speaker, there's been a down-grading of certification of engineers in the new bill, a down-grading of certification of engineers. Those engineers that are not properly trained can, under certain circumstances, now operate pressure vessels, according to the informants that I have. This is another good reason why it should go before a committee.

This is what we get from the scant amount of evidence that we have before us. That's right. So, I assume that that is the case.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the Minister will give this serious thought and put this before a standing committee of the House where we can hear representation, that's professional representation. I don't want to see us see an explosion in the province that can be laid before the Legislature as our fault.

Everybody knows the devastation in a very small way that was caused by that explosion in Haney. Parts of that boiler were found half a mile away.

HON. MR. CHANT: You're using that for propaganda. How could you know?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, that's right. It happened because it was unattended.

HON. MR. CHANT: It happened because of malpractice with the man looking after it.

MR. COCKE: Not properly attended; it was obviously not properly attended. If it was properly attended, it wouldn't have blown.

HON. MR. CHANT: If the man hadn't shut off both inlet and outlet, it wouldn't have blown up.

MR. COCKE: So, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the Minister will take this before a committee, a standing committee of the House, and give us an opportunity to hear what's proper.

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

[ Page 919 ]

MR. D.M. BROUSSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr.Speaker, I think the last speaker was evidence of the kind of approach that the N.D.P. take to this kind of bill. I would suggest that the only horsepower that Member understands are those that are defined in the Pari Mutuel Act. Mr. Speaker, it shows the approach that the N.D.P. take, just because a labour union organization — for which I have a great deal of respect…. Just because a union organization jumps on their back about a bill, without knowing anything more about it, they do exactly what they're told. I think this clearly spells out….

AN RON. MEMBER: Power engineers.

MR. BROUSSON: This clearly spells out the irresponsible approach the N.D.P. take towards legislation. Mr. Speaker, I welcome this bill.

There are some problems with it, which I'm going to explain in a few minutes. But I want to say what some of the good things are about it, first.

It consolidates the three bills into one. That's a good thing. As a matter of fact, the last speaker tried to tell us that the opinion before the McSorley committee was unanimous that they should not be consolidated. This is not true. There were many briefs put forward to the McSorley committee which proposed amalgamating these bills into one or, alternatively, making them reasonably parallel instead of the divergences and the differences in definition and that sort of thing which we've had to suffer for many years.

They are parallel now. The definitions are parallel. The definitions and practices have been updated. They were long overdue. For many, many years they've been out of date. Under the kind of format in this bill, Mr. Speaker, it's going to be possible in the future to keep it up to date without having to go through the kind of speech that we just heard from this Member on horsepower.

It takes the highly technical problem of this kind of subject out of the legislation, from having them enshrined in this kind of legislation, and putting them in regulation, where I believe this kind of technical problem belongs. Now I'll talk about that in a few minutes and how I consider that should be done.

I would agree in one way, Mr. Speaker, with one comment of the speaker before me who suggested that this was the kind of bill that could well be taken before a special committee of the House, because it is quite a technical problem. There are very, very few people here who do understand. I would certainly welcome that. I would say this would be an excellent move to debate it clause by clause in such a committee.

Now I want to refer briefly to the McSorley committee that has been spoken of in regard to this bill. I presented a personal brief to that bill not as a legislator in any way, not as an M.L.A., but as a member of the industry and as a professional engineer and on behalf of my own company.

I presented a brief which the Minister, I'm sure, has seen. But I want to say, in criticizing the organization of the McSorley committee: it was not well advertised. There were a great many people in the industry, various segments of this industry, who were not aware of the McSorley committee hearing and did not learn of it until really too late to make a proper presentation before it.

It takes a good deal of time to prepare such a presentation. I think a better advertising job could have been done; more segments of the various industries involved would perhaps have come forward and presented opinions and views. Further, I completely agree this was a report that could very well have been made public. But here we're following the usual pattern of this government: if they get a report, be it from a Royal commission or a committee of this sort, they keep it secret, they do not tell the public or the others concerned. I don't understand the reason for this kind of secrecy. I think this kind of thing should be put forward.

Now let's look at some of the problems that are in the bill. First, a number of trades have been omitted from the definition of responsibilities. This includes, as was mentioned before, the instrument tradesmen. This is a relatively new T.Q., just last spring. This is certainly one that must be provided. There are others; electronic technicians, there are several of this kind.

I think provisions must be made, Mr. Speaker, and as the Minister just called out, this can be made and probably is best made by regulation. I have no objection to this. I just want to draw this out. This is one of the problems.

There are probably, as time goes along, going to be other trades or definitions of this kind that will need to be added because the technology in this area is growing very rapidly. It has grown greatly in the last four or five years and will continue to grow. It's important that we don't have to wait for an amendment by the Legislature before these kind of things can be added. I support the ideas of including them in regulations.

There are jurisdictional problems between trades. True, the industry has presented some of these. These are going to have to be very carefully dealt with in regulations and, I think, are best dealt with in regulations because of their technical nature. There are certain industrial practices — pulp and paper mills and areas of that sort — that must be dealt with in regulation.

I'm sure the Minister, when he closes the debate, will comment on this. I have discussed this with the people concerned in the department who are going to have to draw these regulations. They have certainly convinced me that they're well aware of the problem, and they know how to deal with it. But I'd like the Minister's comments on this.

Now it's very clear from what I've just said that these regulations to make this bill work are going to be very, very important. They are going to make or break this Act as a successful Act for administrative purposes and for safety purposes. So I call, as I called in the presentation that I sent the McSorley committee, I call for provision of an adequate and proper and responsible advisory board to advise the director of the department and the Minister.

I would be much happier if this advisory board were actually enshrined in the Act. And I think there is no reason why it could not be. Perhaps some amendment might be put forward which would actually enshrine the function of the advisory board within the Act. What the advisory board does can be spelled out in regulation.

But I think the establishment of that board and its makeup could well be in the Act. Because we can see that the development of these regulations is going to be extremely important, and I'd like many people's opinion — a good deal of input from various areas into those regulations.

Let's consider what that advisory board should consist of. We've got several industries involved. We have gas, electric, boiler and pressure vessels, refrigeration, and so on. All of those areas need to be adequately represented. And they overlap and interlock, which is the reason for having these areas into one bill; this is the proper reason.

Then we have various levels of people within this industry.

[ Page 920 ]

Now there are certain practices in the present regulations, as presently under these bills, that are very restricted. And the reason they're restricted is simply that one small segment of the industry gave advice on it. So I want a much broader, a much wider breadth of advice in setting these regulations.

Therefore I would suggest we need representatives at the tradesman level, at the consulting engineer or professional engineer level, at the level of the manufacturers who manufacture the equipment that is used, and also from industry itself, which has to use it in the large plants. All of these levels, if you like, from the industries need to have representation on these advisory boards.

This is going to ensure the safety that we talked about. This is going to ensure that there will be no restrictive clauses using the regulation to restrict to a particular kind of union, or class, as it were.

And I would suggest to the Minister, Mr. Speaker, that such an advisory board should be called together by the director of this division at least twice a year.

Now, we've had a good deal of talk, Mr. Speaker, about explosions. The stationary engineers widely distributed stories of an explosion at Haney, one in Ohio, and others. And I think before we get too excited about those we should consider what was actually happening.

The Haney explosion I already mentioned in one of the earlier debates. The Haney explosion was in a boiler, a greenhouse, which had been oil-fired; it had been installed without a permit, without any inspection by the members of the fire marshal's department in the Attorney General's Department, and had been operating under these conditions for some 10 years.

There is nothing in these Acts that we are talking about now that would have solved that problem. Actually, the reason it exploded was simply that the man that owned the greenhouse was using a hot-water boiler for steam. He built up too much pressure to sterilize his soil and blew the whole thing up. Now, there's no way that anything in this Act could have solved that problem, unless we were to bring the fire marshal's regulations into this Act, and we'll get to that in a moment.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BROUSSON: Virtually, that's what he did. The real danger, Mr. Speaker, that causes boilers to explode, that causes a boiler under some conditions to be like a ticking bomb in the basement, is not the number of horsepower. The number of horsepower is not the problem. Whether it's two horsepower or 500 horsepower is not the danger.

The real danger is the kind of boiler, the construction of the boiler, and how much fluid or water or what-have-you is in it. Now, if you've got an old-fashioned cast-iron boiler that has a couple of thousands of gallons or more of water in it, and you build it up, build the pressure up, it's a bomb in the basement. Wherever it sits, when it explodes you'll get shrapnel all over the place for a mile, for half a mile. That's dangerous.

If you have certain other kinds of boilers that probably have nothing but a few coils of copper tubing, instead of hundreds of gallons or thousands of gallons of water, they have only a few quarts of water, and they're operating with the proper control. You can blow them up and there's nothing to go anywhere; there's no shrapnel; there's no heavy pipe; there's no large casing. Those can blow if for some reason they should go, and there's no danger.

So what I'm trying to say, Mr. Speaker, is just saying whether it's 75 horsepower or 50 horsepower is not the problem. That's not what determines if the boiler is dangerous or not. And that's where we've been misled by a good deal of this kind of literature and stuff that's been distributed to us.

Now, in that regard, Mr. Speaker, the new Act is not very much better than the old one in this regard. But I think it is going to be some time before this comes into effect, and perhaps there is time to get some changes along the direction I'm talking about.

The Province of Ontario, Mr. Speaker, has done exactly this. Last fall they brought in some of these additional definitions to cover the technical changes that are taking place. And that's why we need this kind of thing in the regulations, not enshrined in the Act.

The real disappointment, of course, to me in the Act is the problem of propane. The very fact that propane is included in the Act and then left out, I think, is a great shame. Now, I'm told that in the future this can be brought in merely by an order-in-council. I've outlined in great length the dangers of explosions from propane and from oil installations in this province because they come under the Attorney General and the fire marshal's office and the kind of inspection that he has over there, which may be the R.C.M.P. constable, or it may be the Mayor, or it may be the local assistant projectionist in the theatre or what have you around the province.

I'm not going to go all through that argument again. I've had that speech once, Mr. Speaker. But the fact remains that those charges exist. The Minister has already said that it will take a year to bring this Act into effect. Well then, why doesn't he include the provisions for that in the Act right now? All he has to do is declare it when the time comes.

HON. MR. CHANT: If you will look at 3C you will see it's provided for.

MR. BROUSSON: Mr. Speaker, there are some other difficulties in the Act. They're small ones. Some of them I have mentioned to the Minister, and I think perhaps some of the amendments he has already brought in take care of them. I am hoping that perhaps there are one or two other smaller amendments that may take care of the balance. But in general the principle of the bill is good, and we support it as a step forward in progress.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby Edmonds.

MR. DOWDING: Mr. Speaker, the bill has a provision in it that delegates from the Minister and from the department complete and utter control over what instruments, vessels or equipment used in the Province of British Columbia or brought into the Province of British Columbia are certified. I think that would be a retrograde step. I think that it would be a mistake to allow any testing agency anywhere in the world or in Canada run by private interests who have a monopoly in many cases over equipment, wiring, switches, meters, valves, or tubes to have the utter control over who does business, how they do business in the Province of British Columbia, and abdicating your responsibility with your experts to determine what is used in this province and what is not used.

[ Page 921 ]

I am looking, Mr. Speaker, at one section of the bill which says "no person other than the testing agency shall apply, or cause to be applied, this certification mark." Today under the present legislation the Minister, and the department, have the ultimate say in what is certified as proper, and what is certified as inspected. To allow the independent, outside, private monopoly to control what is used in this province would be ludicrous. I'll give you an example to show you what I'm talking about.

You'll see in subsection 5 it says, "in case any codes or standards propagated by any association or body of persons and available in printed form or adopted in whole or apart, with variations by regulations…."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The Honourable Member might agree that some of these smaller points that are quoted in various sections or subsections of the bill might be better handled in the committee. I'm not going to alter his….

MR. DOWDING: I'm not going through all the detail, but in principle there is a primary abdication of duties by the department if it allows anybody from outside this province, or outside this department or any branch of government, to make the ultimate decision on whether a particular light is used in a light standard, whether a particular machine is used on a pump, whether a particular stove is used in a camper, or any other matters which then leads to the evil that somebody in a particular outfit happens to be a member of an outside testing committee stationed in Toronto or elsewhere, or indeed in England. And that person in a private company can have the ultimate say….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. DOWDING: Listen, I know the C.S.A. is here, I know that. But it shows how little the Minister knows if he says that's the answer. Supposing a manufacturer in Idaho has an Underwriters' Laboratory seal of approval from the private testing laboratory in the United States. The C.S.A. requires that they pay all the expenses of C.S.A. to go down to their plants wherever it may be; it could be in Timbuktu, it could be in Idaho, it could be in London, England, anywhere. And they charge as much as $600, in some cases double that, for the right to get a seal of approval.

Now under the present law, under our province here, the Minister in the Department has the jurisdiction over what material is used in this province, whether it be a kind of wire, a load of tube, a kind of a burner or any other thing that requires inspection.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. DOWDING: And as a result of having that under the government we know that no private interest, we presume that no private interest, is going to have or exert control over what is done in this province in the way of selling equipment.

I've had complaints from people in the manufacturing business who say that their particular brand of pipe that is used in the sewers and streets, or in water mains, are denied admission because they don't have C.S.A. approval. And they say they're just as good, and they meet the same standards of testing as C.S.A.

I've had others who say that they have Underwriters' Laboratory approval, but every time they get approval, the boys up here who don't want anything imported into Canada change the rules, and it's another way of preventing things from crossing the border.

I think the Minister better get wise to what these big shots are doing in General Electric and Westinghouse, who are on the boards who do the testing. They decide whether their competitor will come into this province or into Canada. You don't need a customs barrier, you don't need anybody at the border to stop them. All you need is a private gang sitting at a table with government approval allowing anybody they want to stay out, to stay out.

That's the kind of monopoly you would be creating if under this bill you abdicated your function to allow somebody else to tax both the consumer and the manufacturer who seeks to sell his goods in this province.

That's what you're doing. Instead of this province taxing people for the inspection of equipment, you're going to allow a private outfit to charge $1,000 to get a seal on there, and nobody else can put a seal on it, and you won't let it in the province unless it has that seal, a C.S.A.

It's going to cost thousands of dollars, and it's going to limit the kind of goods available in this province for people to buy — whether you're talking about furnaces, whether you're talking about boilers, whether you're talking about wiring, switches, valves. You name it, everything has to have that C.S.A. approval.

You've fallen under their control, and no longer is this department in charge of this Minister — he's going to be in charge of a group in Toronto. They'll tell you what's going to be used in this province if you buy this line somebody's tried to sell you. I'll tell you why they're trying to sell it to you. I know why they're trying to sell it to you. Because they think it will save your department work. But, I say this, you should write out your own regulations. Any C.S.A. standards you think are right, adopt them. But don't delegate to them the right to give seals of approval. That's your job, you hang on to it; otherwise, they'll take you up the garden path so far it won't be funny.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Cowichan Malahat.

MR. STRACHAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This bill has an interesting history; it has rather a long gestation period. It started out in 1970 when the chief administrator of the safety engineering services division of the department was asked to update and combine the Boiler Act and Pressure Vessels Act.

This was done; the first draft was prepared and circulated in June of 1970. A second draft was given wider circulation in October 1970, but because of the criticism made at that time by hundreds of people engaged in various sections of industry as instrumentation men, as steam engineers and electricians, that particular bill died a-borning.

Then the Minister embarked on a new course. He set up the McSorley committee to have hearings. They had their hearings; they prepared their reports. No one was given any chance to see what that report was recommending. Before the session met, no one had any indication of what the McSorley report recommended. We don't even know if this bill reflects the recommendations of the McSorley report. We've no idea.

The bill was certainly kept well hidden, and his recommendations were kept well hidden until a week or so ago when it was introduced to the House.

I don't profess to understand all the ramifications of the bill itself.

[ Page 922 ]

But the very manner in which it was brought in, knowing the history of this government, then you know, naturally I am just a trifle suspicious about the concept of the bill. Why was it brought in, and why is it being done?

You know, there's something called the boiler inspection advisory board, and that board has pretty wide representation. It includes the chief administrator of the safety engineering services division. It includes the chief boiler inspector. It includes the Pulp and Paper Industries Relations Bureau, a member of industry. It includes Forest Industrial Relations Limited, again a representative of industry.

It includes a member of the Vancouver Vocational Institute, a teacher, presumably, of the technical aspects of these services, a member of the Vancouver School Board, the Institute of Power Engineers and the International Union of Operating Engineers. A pretty widespread, far-reaching group of people.

The first meeting of the board was held on November 12, 1970. At that meeting the chief administrator, the chairman of the board, stated that the weekly 2½-hour meetings would be held and the bill had to be in Victoria no later than December. That would be December of that year. That bill was prepared so rapidly that even a three-month period would have been inadequate completely. That was how the last bill came into being.

Then the committee was appointed, and the committee brought in what recommendations we don't know. So we have no way of knowing whether on the basis of representations that were made to the McSorley committee this bill was drafted or whether you just went ahead and drafted the bill, ignoring completely the recommendations that were made by the other group.

When we examine the bill itself we find such things as electrical equipment means a whole list of things including supply control. Now, here we're getting into the whole matter of instrumentation — automatic controlled-feed regulation, call it what you may.

The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Chabot) some time ago under the Tradesmen's Qualification Act set up a special classification of worker in the Province of British Columbia, an instrument technician. The definition under the Tradesmen's Qualification Act of an industrial-instrumentation designated trade is "means the repair, maintenance, replacement, calibration and general servicing of all process monitoring and/or control instruments to include indicators, recording devices, control loops and computers, whether these instruments are pneumatic, hydraulic, electronic, electrical, mechanical, fluidic, nuclear, optical or chemical, including signal transmissions, telemetering and digital devices in industrial operations in British Columbia."

That's the definition of industrial instrumentation under the laws of the province, the Tradesmen's Qualification Act.

But we find that under this bill, as nearly as I can determine, this particular category of persons with the qualifications recognised by the laws of the province will have some of that work of theirs allowed to be done by other people who are not necessarily, and unlikely to be, of the same quality or have the same training.

Early last year the Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau indicated this very clearly, when they said: "In the matter of determining the scope of the designation of the trade it is suggested that the federal definition should be avoided because it appears to limit itself to descriptions of instrumentation as it relates to the armed forces and civil service projects. It is not adequate to accommodate the complexity of the pulp and paper industry."

What the pulp and paper industry of this province is saying is that the kind of electronic control equipment they have cannot be left to half-trained, semi-trained or partly trained personnel.

HON. MR. CHANT: It won't be.

MR. STRACHAN: It won't be?

HON. MR. CHANT: You're presuming.

MR. STRACHAN: But there's no assurance in this Act that it won't be, because the Act opens wide the door.

HON. MR. CHANT. It will all be covered.

MR. STRACHAN: …the Act opens wide the door for all sorts of things to happen. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, there's a section of the Act which says that for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act according to their intent "the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may make such regulations and orders exempting any area of the province from the application of this Act or any part thereof."

HON. MR. CHANT: I've got a whole list of things that don't come under it.

MR. STRACHAN: It's right in there. You can exempt any area of the province from this Act or any part thereof.

HON. MR. CHANT: Yes.

MR. STRACHAN: Which eventually means….

HON. MR. CHANT: Don't you think we have the good sense to do the right thing?

MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Minister, in 20 years I've had a good many criticisms of the good sense or lack of good sense of this government.

HON. MR. CHANT: Well, I criticise your good sense.

MR. STRACHAN: Now, that's not a fair question to ask me — "Don't I think you have enough good sense to do the thing right." Your whole record shows you haven't.

HON. MR. CHANT: Well, your record proves you haven't, anyway.

MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, there's really no urgency for the revision of this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Come off it, Bob!

MR. STRACHAN: The only people that seem to be trying to hasten the bill into the law are the officials, are the Minister himself.

HON. MR. CHANT: It's been a long time coming, and now you want to leave it alone.

MR. STRACHAN: You know, the workers in the industry itself are very concerned. The workers in the industry are

[ Page 923 ]

concerned. The steam engineers, the electricians and the technicians are concerned. I think a great deal more study should be given to it. I have material here about actions other than the ones that the Member for North Capilano referred to.

Mr. Strachan moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

The House met at 8:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Health.

HON. R.R. LOFFMARK (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, Dr. Foldi, Director of the Health Education for Thailand, is presently visiting….

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Is the Hon. the Minister making a statement?

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: No, I'm introducing a guest, Mr. Speaker, if I might.

MR. SPEAKER: Oh, I'm sorry.

HON. MR. LOFFMARK: Thank you, sir. Dr. Foldi, Dirtector of Health Education for Thailand, is presently visiting British Columbia, and he's sponsored by the Colombo Plan and the Canadian International Development Agency in Ottawa.

I would ask Honourable Members to join with me in welcoming him to British Columbia and to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Member for Esquimalt.

MR. H.J. BRUCH (Esquimalt): Mr. Speaker, we also have a former Member of this Legislature in the gallery tonight — Irvine Corbett, the former Member for Yale, and his wife.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Lady Minister without Portfolio.

HON. P.J. JORDAN (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to advise you that in the gallery this evening are Professor Pollock and a number of students from the University of Victoria who have origins in the Okanagan in common, and I hope the House will welcome them.

Introduction of bills.

FIRST READINGS

The following bills were introduced, read a first time, and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the first sitting after today:

Bill No. 103, intituled Credit Information Protections Act.

Bill No. 104, intituled An Act Respecting the Broadcasting of Debates and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.

Bill No. 105, intituled An Act to Amend the Coal Act.

Bill No. 106, intituled An Act to Amend the Protection of Children Act.

Orders of the day.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves that the House proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 67.

SAFETY ENGINEERING SERVICES ACT
(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 67, intituled Safety Engineering Services Act. The Honourable Member for Cowichan-Malahat adjourned the debate.

MR. R.M. STRACHAN (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Speaker….

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: Shall I move that the House do now adjourn? (Laughter).

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: I'm always in a good humour. I don't know where you get that background information from — I'm always in a good humour.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: Just before the dinner hour, Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the fact that this Act allows the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council to exempt any area of the province from the application of this Act or any part thereof. The Minister appealed to my faith in the government as assurance enough that this would act in the best interests of the province. I indicated that in view of my experience with the government in their last 20 years there have been many, many times when my faith in the government was sadly shattered and obviously misplaced. And you know, there's an old saying, Mr. Speaker: if you haven't suffered enough, it's your God-given right to suffer some more. I've suffered enough, and I'm not going to suffer any more.

MR. SPEAKER. I think I've suffered enough preamble. Maybe we could get now to the principle of the bill? (Laughter).

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's have the dessert.

MR. STRACHAN: I refer to the area which allowed the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council to exempt any of the province from the application of this bill. There are other areas that I question in the principle of this bill. Section 23 — it's over the page — here it is.

[ Page 924 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: You've got the wrong bill.

MR. STRACHAN: No, no I have the right bill. Where it says it allows the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council to exempt "any particular part or type of construction, installation, operation, alteration, or repair of a boiler, pressure vessel or electrical equipment, gas equipment, refrigeration machinery or any equipment to which this Act applies from the application of this Act or part thereof."

In other words, not only does this Act allow the government by order-in-council to exempt any area of the province from the application of this Act; it allows the government by order-in-council to exempt any particular vessel, any part of any vessel, any time, any place, anywhere from the application of this Act. So where is the safety? Where is the protection? Where is the assurance in the Minister?

I don't think we can be asked to buy the bill on that particular basis. What's involved in this? When you look at the definition of "boiler" in this particular Act you find it includes "valves, controls and safety devices." Valves, controls and safety devices — so that in this Act we give the Minister the right to exempt any part of the province, any vessel, and the boiler includes valves, controls and safety devices. Any time he likes he can exempt any of this from the implications of this particular Act.

You know, as I pointed out earlier, Mr. Speaker, there was an advisory board set up, a boiler inspection advisory board consisting of representatives of every area of industry and union and government involved in the safety features of boilers and boiler inspection and boiler legislation in this province.

But who was the committee that heard the recommendations — that committee whose report we have not yet seen? It was chaired by Mr. McSorley, who is not unknown to this House. He sat on that side of the House for some years, one parliament, I believe. The chief boiler inspector, the chief electrical inspector, and the chief gas inspector. No-one in the committee that heard the recommendations were among the professional people operating in the field. No-one sitting on the committee represented any of the workers involved in the field. The report is still secret, and all we get is the bill introduced.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. STRACHAN: In other jurisdictions, the Province of Ontario, for instance, we find they have a standing advisory board of 21 members representing all of those directly concerned with the application of the safety Act. The Government of Ontario seeks out the advice of these people because the Government of Ontario knows that there's no safety in secrecy and there's no safety behind closed doors. Yet that seems to be the attitude of this government and this Minister — of the safety in secrecy and the safety behind closed doors in the preparation of this particular legislation.

You know, the bill was not discussed in any way prior to being brought into this House, even in a general way, by any representatives of industry or those who are going to work in the plants where these boilers and vessels and so on operate.

I was talking earlier about the instrumentation end of this, and this is where that matter I referred to earlier about the government having the right to exempt the control from the operation of the Act…. This is from the Canadian Controls and Instrumentation journal of January of this year. I find a quote there, from a G.R. Blythe, which says:

The complexity of the control systems which are being promoted today is such that there is no acceptable substitute for the technical serviceman.

"No acceptable substitute for the technical serviceman." Industry itself — the pulp and paper industry itself, Mr. Speaker, says:

We do not accept the concept that by an additional month's training the ordinary operator can handle or supervise or take care of the control equipment. It must be something he works on all the time. Not just on a part-time basis.

Later on they say:

As far as we are concerned it identifies the need for specialisation in the trade of industrial instrumentation. We cannot open the door to this sophisticated control equipment that is now part of the pulp and paper industry of this province to any opportunity or any possibility of accidents taking place.

There have been accidents in the pulp mills of this province — in pressure vessels. Not necessarily boilers — pressure vessels related to the operation of the mill. There was that one over in Woodfibre a few years ago where the thing blew sky high. Four people were killed. Well, I don't know that they ever actually found out exactly what happened there — but I remember it happening.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many were killed?

AN HON. MEMBER: Seven.

MR. STRACHAN: Seven were killed. The Minister says there were seven killed. This can happen even in a plant where there are fully-supervised first-class engineers and electricians and so on. So that any move to reduce the safety factor, in my opinion, must be questioned.

HON. W.N. CHANT (Minister of Public Works): What about the safety problem then?

MR. STRACHAN: Boiler operations inspection, this is a letter that was in the Vancouver Sun recently, Mr. Speaker. It says:

Boiler operations, inspection and maintenance by properly trained and certified engineers is of paramount importance if we are to maintain our excellent record of safety in steam boiler operations.

This article goes on to say:

On Sunday, October 10, 1971, a so-called automatic boiler exploded in a church in Mariette, Ohio, killing five persons and injuring 14.

These smaller boilers are usually found where large numbers of people are congregated, such as schools, churches, apartment blocks, department stores, office buildings, small hospitals and other institutions and in large and small manufacturing and process plants. So I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister didn't consult with either industry or the three groups involved in this particular legislation.

This legislation was drafted behind closed doors. You have kept the recommendations of your own committee completely secret, and therefore, Mr. Speaker, because of the wide-open bill this is, I intend to vote against it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Skeena.

[ Page 925 ]

MR. D.G. LITTLE (Skeena): Mr. Speaker, I'm working under a bit of a disadvantage because I have the glasses from the Member for Haney over there, or whatever constituency that is, and I can't see very well through them, but really maybe I don't need them.

I became concerned about this bill, Mr. Speaker, because 20 years of my life at least I spent running through saw mills when I never had less than two steam engineers in my employ. Representation was made where they pointed out the dangers and so on that were involved, and I was concerned for fear that the department was trying to cut down on the fact that engineers had to be in attendance for certain horsepower and that we worked to 75 and 128 and 450 or whatever figures may be.

But when, Mr. Speaker, I investigated it I found out they'd created not only fourth-class but now we have a fifth-class engineer. These engineers are going to be in attendance and watching their controls at all times and certainly we have all the supervision we ever had before plus additional supervision if we're talking of heating plants. We must keep in mind one thing: there's horsepower in boilers, but also there's high and low pressures.

I consider a low-pressure boiler is not a dangerous vessel at all if the pressure of the water system exceeds the pressure of the boiler. This is what we find in schools in, oh, different areas that they use heating plants in, hot-houses and so on.

Where is the danger if you can automatically turn water in and the pressure of the water system exceeds the pressure of the boiler? There's no danger there.

In this bill it says that if the building is occupied extra care will be taken. We had, you know, mothers out parading in front of the building. It was so amusing really. They're worried about their children in school because they thought the government was going to take off caretakers on the heating systems in the schools and so on.

Actually, Mr. Speaker, we have one of the finest departments in government, and I'm not speaking about electrical, or I'm not speaking about gas, but I'm speaking about the boiler inspecting department that's under the Department of Public Works. These are the highest qualified and best men that we have working for government. They are first class engineers, and if anybody knows what they're doing in this government these are the men that know.

When I found out this bill was drawn up by them and approved by them, then certainly I don't hesitate to support it. Thank you.

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

MR. L.T. NIMSICK (Kootenay): Mr. Speaker, you know, I wasn't too sure about what I was going to do with this bill until I listened to the Honourable Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Brousson). After I listened to him for a while and added up all the dangers that were in the bill and the "buts" and the "ifs," I figured right away that the bill was not a good bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: It needs a few more gauges on it.

MR. NIMSICK: There may be, I'm no expert, in the thing that we're dealing with, but, Mr. Speaker, there are so many groups that are opposed to it, people that are experts in the field — they know a lot more than I do — the Engineer Joint Council, and the power engineers, operating engineers and all these different groups, they are very interesting.

I don't know whether the Honourable the Minister and the committee took it up with the compensation board, but I do know one thing we are dealing with something that you've got to be very careful with. There have been many accidents due to boilers and pressures, and….

AN HON. MEMBER: How many?

MR. NIMSICK: Well, there have been plenty of them….

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Will the House come to order please?

MR. NIMSICK: You wouldn't know, because you never worked in an industry, probably, where there were any. But you come along sometime when we get alone and I'll tell you about them, I'll tell you the ABC's about it. You're just a young fellow yet, you know.

I don't understand in this bill how the government can exempt any part of the province from this bill. Because safety is a necessity, no matter whether it's in Victoria or Grand Forks or up in Prince George or any of the little, small places around the province. Wherever there is a boiler and there is danger, then we must have safety in those places. And if it is necessary that these restrictions or these regulations be placed upon boilers in the larger places, then I don't understand how we can exempt any area of the province from coming under the Act.

It says there, it says you can exempt any part and I know a lot of the accidents no matter how many regulations you've got, many times these accidents come from familiarity. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt. And this is one of the reasons why many times you have accidents. People get so accustomed to do a thing a certain way that finally they forget about some of the little things that are the real safety regulations that are covering them.

I don't see any reason why…. Due to the fact that many of these professional groups are rightfully concerned with these instruments and are questioning the bill, I don't see any reason why the government or the department after the report from the committee came through, why they didn't take it up with these people and have them give a double check to the bill and see whether it was all right. I don't see why it shouldn't be held over for a year so that they could do this.

MR. SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 67 be now read a second time.

Motion agreed to on the following division:

YEAS — 37

[ Page 926 ]

NAYS — 12

Second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 67 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 81, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
MUNICIPAL FINANCE AUTHORITY ACT
(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill No. 81. The second Member for Vancouver East, on behalf of the Member for Cowichan-Malahat, adjourned the debate.

MR. STRACHAN: I have read this bill, Mr. Speaker, and there are a number of principles. One is to make sure that the chairman of the authority also becomes chairman of the trustees because under the adjusting of the previous situation it would have been possible for the chairman of the authority not to be chairman of the trustees. It also makes clear the right of the authority to portion the funds within the district. Some of the sections are housekeeping, and I have no objection to this bill, and I will support it in second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 81, An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority Act, be read a second time.

Motion approved; second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 81 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 78, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE INSURANCE ACT

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 78, An Act to Amend the Insurance Act. The Hon. Attorney General.

HON. L.R. PETERSON (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, these amendments to the Insurance Act are designed to speed up the settlement of automobile insurance claims in the province, as well as to provide a direct right of action to passengers carried in, or entering, or alighting from vehicles for hire, other vehicles mentioned in section 234 of the Insurance Act.

There are four principles in the bill. The first being the section which will permit payments by an insurer prior to liability being determined. And at the same time this will not prejudice the fair adjudication of liability between those involved. The second provision relates to giving a passenger in a rented vehicle or other vehicles referred to a direct claim against the insurance company, which is a claim that he does not now have.

The third provision, Mr. Speaker, is intended to put a stop to delays caused by uncertainty as to which of two or more insurers has first liability. This is set out now clearly in the second section of the bill. And the final provision will ensure that every claimant for damages arising out of a motor vehicle accident claims his no-fault benefits for which he has paid a premium. They will as well, Mr. Speaker, make it clear that the amount that's collected is to be deducted from any other payment that he may receive and will thus answer a question raised in two recent judgments of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, which is one of the major reasons for this bill being brought forward at this time. I move the bill be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Yale Lillooet.

MR. W.L. HARTLEY (Yale-Lillooet): Mr. Speaker I would like to move adjournment on this bill, until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 82, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT, 1968

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 82. The Honourable the Minister of Labour.

HON. J.R. CHABOT (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, in 1968 following a Royal Commission enquiry conducted by the Honourable Mr. Justice Charles Tysoe this government completed a major overhaul of its Workmen's Compensation Act. As a result of the changes made at that time British Columbia's Workmen's Compensation Act was honoured with the International Legislative Achievement Award for the most progressive workmen's compensation legislation in the world.

This award, which is given by the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions, recognised the many unique features that this government has built into its new Act.

Our province was the first in Canada to incorporate a cost-of-living formula in its pension payments to disabled workmen and widows of fatally injured workmen. This built-in feature provides a 2 per cent increase in pensions for every 2 per cent rise in the consumer price index. Among the other unique provisions of the 1968 Act were the removal of the word "accident" from the legislation as the basis on which injury claims could be approved. As Mr. Justice Tysoe pointed out in his report the true test should be whether or not the workman's disability was truly work-caused. The basic coverage formula of the 1968 Act became personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment.

This change in the Act made compensation available to many workmen with injuries or industrial diseases not previously covered. Coverage was extended in 1968 to include replacement or repair of appliances such as glasses or artificial limbs which were damaged in an industrial accident.

[ Page 927 ]

First aid provisions were broadened and the board was given greater authority to require employers to provide first aid facilities for their workers. The board was also given authority to add new classifications of industrial diseases to those already covered by the board.

As the result the board has stepped up its industrial hygiene programme to make it the most comprehensive provided by any board in Canada. Rehabilitation of injured workmen was given high priority in the 1968 legislation, and no limit was placed on the expenses that could be incurred by the board to help an injured workman regain his position as a useful contributing citizen.

Since 1968 British Columbia has been looked upon throughout North America as the leader in the field of workmen's compensation. Other Canadian provinces have copied our legislation, and some American States have invited representatives of a board to describe our legislation to them.

However, our government is not satisfied to rest on its laurels — 1968 was four years ago, and this government is concerned with keeping our workmen's compensation legislation in the forefront. The purpose, therefore, of these amendments is to ensure that the Workmen's Compensation Act of British Columbia continues to be the leader in the field of workmen's compensation.

The suspension of the three-day waiting period for compensation payments which we are proposing is a major step in enlightened workmen's compensation. The $10 increase for widows' pensions, the increase in the minimum total disability pension from $150 to $250, the increase in funeral allowances from $350 to $500, are all designed to keep up with the financial needs of the people of British Columbia.

Our Workmen's Compensation Act is basically a humanitarian Act, and it is being administered as such. We are concerned not only with increasing benefits but with increasing the categories of people who are eligible for compensation for injuries. We are therefore proposing to cover certain students who would not otherwise qualify as workmen under this Act, to cover certain people, such as mountain rescue teams, who perform voluntary services for the public, to introduce more enlightened provisions with respect to common-law relationship, by reducing the period of cohabitation from seven years to six years…

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh, oh! (Laughter).

HON. MR. CHABOT: …and to two years where there are children involved. This government is determined to keep the Workmen's Compensation Act of British Columbia a humane and just piece of social legislation and to make sure it continues to be a model for the rest of the world. I move second reading of this bill, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, in listening to the Honourable the Minister read his oration on the compensation Act I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't read it, but nevertheless….

AN HON. MEMBER: Now you're going to read yours.

MR. NIMSICK: No, this is just notes; he read it. But the purpose of the Act — he said it was the most progressive compensation Act in the country, and this is one of the great habits of this government — always trying to make out they're the best in the world.

The purpose of the compensation Act was started in the first place because there was a lot of litigation and a lot of court cases and one thing and another and a lot of injustices to working people, and we got the compensation Act started in the early part of the century.

The cost of compensation originally was borne by both the wage-earner and the company or the employer. Today, due to the fact that it's cheaper for the employer, he pays the whole works.

A lot of people get the idea that the employer is paying the total cost of compensation, and this is not so. The worker shares in that cost, and it was to facilitate matters that they placed the total amount against the employer. All you have got to do to find this out is to sit at a bargaining table sometime and you'll find out that the cost of compensation is totalled with the wages that the worker receives.

We had a Royal commission — we had a series of Royal commissions — every 10 years practically.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Well that is amusing because I don't think we've had income tax on the statute books any longer than we've had employers accepting the responsibilities of collecting the both halves.

You know yourself that deducting it off the employee every month was quite a costly affair, so they found it was cheaper the other way.

That's right. I was there at the time. I know. The Tysoe Royal commission was the last one that we had. It cost us around $200,000. The results of that commission were drawn up. Some of it was placed in this Act in 1968. One of the recommendations in the Tysoe Royal commission….

Mr. Speaker, I can hardly hear myself.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm having a little difficulty myself.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

MR. NIMSICK: One of the recommendations the Tysoe Royal commission set out was the cost-of-living bonus in order to prevent the amounts getting too far apart by the time the next Royal commission would come along. In addition to that he said that there was no necessity of having so many Royal commissions, that this Act should be turned over to a committee — a standing committee of the House every so often to go over the whole thing.

This has not been done since 1968. I'm sorry that the Honourable Minister didn't see any good reason why he shouldn't do it at this time except that he thinks that the few crumbs that he's throwing out in the Act at the present time is going to be a political fortune for him. That's exactly what it is.

One of the first things I'm going to ask is I see an awful lot of advertising in regard to workmen's compensation and it is compulsory. I wonder sometimes why so much. But Bill No. 82 — the Honourable Minister with Bill No. 82 has only tip-toed through the tulips. He's only tip-toed through the tulips, and he only touched on some of the things that should have been done.

What did you do? You didn't solve any of the real

[ Page 928 ]

problems in the Act, and I can only give you good marks on one issue alone, and that is the one where you increased the amount for a person with a total disability from $150 to $250. That's the only full marks that I would give you.

The maximum figure today is $7,600. You base your compensation on the maximum of $7,600. Even if you make $10,000 it's based on $7,600. The poorer provinces of the country have got a higher figure. Quebec has got $9,000, I believe; others have got $8,000; and here in British Columbia, where we are supposed to have the highest average wage earning in Canada, we've got $7,600. I think it was time that the Honourable Minister should have upped this because when a person receives 100 per cent disability based on $7,600 — and don't forget that when you're 100 per cent disabled that is for life….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: The permanent disability. I'm talking about permanent disability. Total, permanent disability.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member for Skeena (Mr. Little), you know, I think he's getting tired. We've had a lot of night sittings, and I don't wonder at him not wanting to listen or anything else. I think I would suggest maybe it would be better for him to retire and sleep off his tiredness.

The $7,600. When a person is 100 per cent disabled, he gets paid on 75 per cent of the maximum amount. He receives a maximum of $475. Because it's based on the maximum, he doesn't receive the cost-of-living bonus and neither does anybody with a permanent partial disability. At 50 per cent disability you'd receive $237.50 and you'll not receive any cost-of-living bonus until that $7,600 goes up. I say that everybody should receive the cost-of-living bonus. Because he, after all, is only being paid on the total. His 100 per cent disability is on 75 per cent of that.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Never mind the formula. I'm talking about justice and what should be done. If you had 50 per cent disability and you were earning $10,000 before and you got $237.50 for 50 per cent disability, then you wouldn't receive the cost-of-living bonus.

This is one point I think the Honourable Minister should have covered, and if we had a committee, these questions could have been gone over and we could have thrashed the whole thing out.

A recurrence of an injury is another point. If you have an injury and it prevents you from going back to your own job, your compensation at the time of that injury is based on what you're earning at that time. But if five or six years later and during that six years you had to take a job with a lot less pay because of your injury and that injury recurs, then they can base your compensation on your new rate, on your lower rate.

Most provinces, if you look at the Act, have this so that they either take it one way or the other, whichever is the highest. This is what they do, and this is another point that should have been covered in these amendments — a waiting period. The Honourable Minister made a great deal about doing away with the waiting period,

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: You didn't do away with the waiting period the way you should have. You've got it in there that the first working day after your injury. First working day after the injury. Now if I'm injured on Tuesday and I've got four days off, I'm working on a 12-and-4 scheme and I've got four days off, I don't get started on compensation until I come back to work.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Mr. Speaker, if I got injured on Thursday and my days off were Saturday and Sunday, I'd get paid for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But if my injury is on Friday, I don't get any pay until Monday, and I say that that man is injured and he should be paid from the day following the injury regardless of whether it is a working day or not.

This is what you haven't seen. Mr. Speaker, I don't think the Honourable the Minister knows what's in the amendments even.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. NIMSICK: They all get paid on Sunday. When you're on compensation it's based on the full week. It's not based on five days a week. Compensation is based on seven days a week, and you in the lumber business as long as you've worked should know that by this time. Surely to goodness you've had enough experience that you know that. You should know that.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: But the man that gets injured on Thursday, he can get paid Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But the man that gets injured on Friday, he loses two days.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, it's all very well. I realise that very few of you understand the Workmen's Compensation Act, and I realise that, and I think that instead of throwing sarcastic remarks across the chamber you should be out to find out a few things about the Act. That's what you should be doing. You should be listening to know what's going on in the Act.

Interjection by Hon. Members.

MR. NIMSICK: Then there is silicosis. You state in the Act that anyone with an industrial disease that is contracted more than a year after he leaves the industry will be covered. But you didn't take the five years out of the silicosis pensions. I've got cases because the silicosis didn't disable them until after five years; they're not covered by silicosis pensions. I think that should have been taken out.

Then the widow's pension for people receiving a silicosis pension. Now this is a case we've talked about before, and he himself when he was a back bencher, the Minister was in favour of it. Here is a woman who goes through life with her husband, and he's 100 per cent disabled with silicosis. He's wheezing and having trouble. She lived with him and looked after him all her life, and then because he died with something

[ Page 929 ]

else besides silicosis, she doesn't receive any compensation pension.

Now that man was to all intents and purposes when he's 100 per cent disabled, he was dead as far as being of any value goes. I say that when that man died 20 or 30 years later, whether he died from carcinoma of the lungs or got run over by a car, he was still 100 per cent disabled.

When you look at a family — a man and a wife — that's a unit. When half of that unit is gone, the other half should be looked after because they've gone all through life that way.

To desert the wife just because the man dies, I think it's wrong, and I think that this is another question that the Honourable Minister fell sadly down on in bringing in these amendments.

Increase in the widows' pension. Peanuts! Peanuts! $9 a month, $9 a month — from $146 to $155. A little better than welfare. A little better than welfare.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: $155 for widows' pension. Don't forget that widows' pensions should have some relation to the man's pension if he was totally disabled. If a man with a maximum income is totally disabled he'll get $475 a month. Now why should she — if he was killed outright — why should she have to completely lower her standard down to one-third of what he would get? One-third of what he would get. This isn't fair. We talk about — I heard the Honourable Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement went out and said the minimum was $176 for a person on welfare — for an old age pensioner. He should have said the maximum was $173, I think it was.

But my goodness' sake, a woman who has lost a husband in an accident, surely to goodness she should get at least as much as we think senior citizens should get. Why shouldn't she? It's cheaper for industry for that man to be killed, than for him to be totally disabled because if he's totally disabled they'll only have to pay $475 a month if he gets the maximum. They'd have to pay that if he's totally disabled, but when he gets killed all they have to pay is $155 a month to the widow. I say that that is peanuts, Mr. Minister. Absolutely peanuts when you talk about the widows.

You should have brought that up to at least $200. It's all right to make fun, but don't forget these women who lose their husbands, they've got to make out too. It's all right for somebody that's earning $20,000 or $30,000 a year to make fun about it. To laugh at it. But $155 is below the poverty level.

I don't think that any woman who has lost her husband in the industry and in an affluent society like British Columbia should have to lower her standards down to below the poverty level. That's something for you to think about, Mr. Minister.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, this is not the question. We're not arguing about this. You're talking about putting them on a means test.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: You certainly are.

HON. MR. CHABOT: No I'm not.

MR. NIMSICK: You certainly are. You're talking about them because they might have other income or they might get other income. $250 a month for the minimum — for permanent total disability. Now this is the one I gave you the marks for. The only one.

But what did you do when you brought that up to $250? You immediately made another amendment right afterwards in section 27 to deny the people who are partially on a permanent partial disability, you denied them the right to the pro rata amount of the $250.

Mr. Speaker, I say that that is discrimination. I think that if a person is 75 per cent disabled, or 50 per cent and that's a total permanent disability, permanent partial disability of 50 per cent, and he gets less than $125, it should be brought up to $125.

He should receive 50 per cent of the $250 if he's in one of these low income brackets.

Why was that section changed? Prior to these amendments, all the partial disability was pro-rated according to the permanent total disability. Why isn't it done in this one, Mr. Speaker?

I'd like to ask the Honourable the Minister, through you, when he gets up to close the debate, I hope that he answers that question and tells me why he changed that cause. Because what he did do actually….

HON. MR. CHABOT: How could he get up if you won't sit down?

MR. NIMSICK: I'm talking about when he gets up to close the debate. Mr. Member, through you, Mr. Speaker, I hope you get up and say something on this debate too, because I think this is a very important Act.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: I think that anyone that has a partial disability, a permanent partial disability, it should be pro-rated according to the total disability.

AN HON. MEMBER: There's no relation.

MR. NIMSICK: You've done away with that, if you look at the Act properly in section 27.

Now, the volunteer groups that somebody banged their desks here, and a young fellow we'll say of 22, he's never had a job, just come out of school and he comes out and he gets totally disabled. What kind of a pension is he going to get? $25 a month — a week.

Mr. Speaker, here again I think it is ridiculous when we talk about giving people pensions today of $25 a week. I think that that is ridiculously low, and it should be at least $75. Don't forget that that individual has never had a job. He's a young man, he's got his whole life to live ahead of him, and to say that he's got to get by on $25 a week is wrong. That's why I say you only tip-toed through the tulips when you made amendments to this Act.

Then the responsibility of proof…. I didn't see you change that. The Workmen's Compensation Board, in the one section of the Act it states quite definitely that it would be assumed that it was done at his job. But in many instances they're leaving it to the responsibility of the individual to

[ Page 930 ]

prove, and I say that we should change that to make it definitely the responsibility of either the employer or the Workmen's Compensation Board. Because I think, as the Honourable Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) here said the other day, that when you're dealing in workmen's compensation if there's any doubt, the worker, the man that is injured, should get the benefit of that doubt. There's no question about that. He should get the benefit of the doubt, and he's not getting it.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: He's not getting it, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister.

He's not getting that benefit of the doubt. Because I've had case after case where people have been cut off. I've had plenty of cases where people have been cut off their compensation. It's been terminated. For what reason, I don't know.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Lately, yes. Lately, I've got one. I was just phoning on one the other day. Last December they were cut off completely. He hasn't worked since, but it was terminated. And why? Sometimes I wonder.

One of the cases they terminated, the party was screaming with pain every once in a while, and they said, well, it was a probability that if they took him off compensation that he'd get better quicker. So, I'm not too sure; it led me to believe that they cut them off with the idea, sometimes, I think, that they're swinging the lead, as we call it on the job.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Yes, that you're swinging the lead. I'm not going to say that there isn't the odd case, but I think that sometimes we're too apt if we can't find anything really wrong with a person — and when it comes to back injuries it's pretty difficult sometimes, Mr. Speaker, to tell whether a man's got a back injury or not. The only one who really knows is the man himself. These are the cases that cause the most concern when you speak about them — it's back injuries that I find where the most trouble is.

Other injuries where you can see it physically, they deal with them quite well. But when it comes to back injuries, it's a difficult problem. I'm sure everybody in this House has some time or other had cases of back injuries come to you and talk, cry about not getting compensation, and sometimes you wonder why.

Then there's the medical appeal. There's a 90-day limitation in there, Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister. I'm going to be finished very quickly, Mr. Minister, so don't leave. The medical appeal for 90 days limitation, I think, should be wiped out. Because after a medical report it may be six months before a person realizes that he isn't as physically fit as he thought he was. He may want to go back.

Dependents that go to other countries. You didn't take that one out, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker. The dependents of injured workmen that move to some other country — you can pay them according to the value of the money in the other country. I don't think this is right. Because these people earned that money in this country. Just because they don't remain here, I don't think that they should get a lesser amount. That doesn't….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: That's none of the business of the compensation board. It's just the same as if you get your old age pension and you want to go down to Mexico and you think you can live there — your money will go further.

The government doesn't say: "Well, we're going to cut your pension down to 75 per cent." Why should you do it with an injured workman or his dependents when they want to move to some other place? I say that he should receive the full amount because as it is what are you doing with the balance? You're putting it into some kind of a fund for something else. I don't know what for, but nevertheless, when a person is injured and he has either an injured person or a dependent if they wish to live in some other place that should not be the responsibility of the compensation board to determine a lesser amount for him.

The fishermen and the farmers have been wanting to get in on a workmen's compensation. They're not allowed in yet, and I think that's another amendment that should be there. There are the questions, Mr. Speaker, that would have been discussed had this bill been placed in committee.

I don't see any reason why we should be having little bits of amendments every year. Why don't we every few years have it to committee, call in these people that are experts in the field — in the compensation board and others — and go over the whole Act every so often? Instead of leaving it up to a few in the labour department or in the workmen's compensation office to decide what kind of amendments that you're going to place on the order papers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Esquimalt.

MR. H.J. BRUCH (Esquimalt): Well, Mr. Speaker, the last speaker went quite lightly over the remarks of the Minister.

I think that we should all in this province be gratified at the recognition and award that our compensation Act has received. Because the statement of the Minister was "that British Columbia's Workmen's Compensation Act was honoured with international legislative achievement award for the most progressive workmen's compensation legislation in the world."

This award is given by the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and is not something that we have taken unto ourselves, Mr. Speaker. It is recognised as one of the best — as the best that is in existence. This is a credit to the Members of this Legislature and to the former Minister of Labour and to the committee that worked many, many hours in this regard.

When I look at the conditions that I had to deal with when I was a compensation case and when I look at the conditions back in the late '40s when on behalf of the I.W.A. I appeared before the Sloan Commission, I must say that we've come an awful long way. And of course, this should be a good indication, Mr. Speaker, of the way this government deals with the legislation. Because although we could sit on our laurels and say here we have the best Act in the world according to international standards, there are still amendments and improvements coming in at this session of the legislature. Certainly I welcome the addition of coverage for public bodies such as sled patrols. I welcome the shortening of the waiting period. I welcome the increase in the maximum. I welcome the increase for the widows and the children. But there is one point, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased that the surplus revenue — the Minister tells us that there is sufficient revenue

[ Page 931 ]

there and that it is now going to go into benefits instead of advertising. I am pleased that this is happening.

I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that most of the complaints that I receive on compensation are usually due to the doctor not getting his report in. I'm pleased to see some change in the Act at this time, and I hope that we can push this point and feature. Because very often the individual is left dangling because the doctor doesn't get that report in on time and sometimes the reports to the compensation board, of course, are not the same as the story told to the individual who is on compensation. This has created most of the problem, but most of them are working out quite satisfactory.

There's just one little point that I want to close with, Mr. Speaker. In the explanatory notes to section 19 and 23 it says that this will clarify the pay-as-you-go system of payment.

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

MR. H.P. CAPOZZI (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to comment on one particular section of this Act. That is that specific part which refers to compensation for those people who are working, as they say, in the public interest.

I can think of no section which deserves more support and more compliments to the Minister. The Member for Kootenay (Mr. Nimsick) suggested that it was $25 a month, the figure he used.

MR. NIMSICK: $25 per week.

MR. CAPOZZI: No, you said a month, I'm sorry.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member corrected his figure.

MR. CAPOZZI: Oh, he did? Well, I would point out that it doesn't say that. It says that the average earnings shall not be less than $25 and that the compensation can be fixed at figures above that.

I would suggest through you, Mr. Speaker, that the Member isn't aware of the many people who will be covered who are on ski patrols, et cetera, who are dealing with in most cases the pastime or an avocation and are younger people who are at high school or at university. Certainly they should be compensated for the loss of time, the loss of possible earnings, and they require this money, perhaps, to put them through and finish off their schooling.

Dealing with that, I'm sure, will be the largest single section of people covered under the part of the Act. They are a group of people, Mr. Speaker, who deserve a great deal of support and a great deal of assistance, because every weekend they donate their time. They are part of the organization which makes possible a great enjoyment of the leisure activities for a great number of the people in the Province of British Columbia.

I think that the compensation that is here is basically a bottom level for those people who at the present time may not be drawing any income and therefore are dealing with enough money to compensate for the difficulties of getting around and operating with a cast or with some further injury.

The question of total compensation in case of a severe injury, the Act still provides for that — it's only a minimum compensation they're dealing with here, Mr. Member. It can provide for as high as the maximum payments within the whole framework of the Act. It's within there. It states that that is the minimum and that is what they're dealing with. I suggest that he hasn't truly understood that section of the Act, Mr. Speaker.

I also suggest that we really should be making this portion of the Act known to a great number of the people of the Province of British Columbia. Because there are a great number of organizations that contribute their time in helping to safeguard beaches, who help to safeguard the ski areas, who donate their time in rescue work on many of the camping areas, who have gone into the hills and the rock climbers who have gone on rescue parties.

This bill for the first time will really provide a sort of a golden rule section of the bill sort of "doing unto others as you would have someone do unto you." This is the suggestion that is made within the framework.

I certainly commend the Minister for introducing this in this legislation. I'm sure again it's one of the first in Canada. It may not be the first, but it is among the first provinces to take a step in this direction.

I suggest that from this these will gradually become, there gradually will come larger benefits. I would think that it would have been almost impossible — and I don't intend to infringe on the other bill that is before the House — to have provided protection for victims of crime and yet at the same time not provided some compensation for those people who voluntarily endanger their lives, endanger their limbs. Having put this in, Mr. Speaker, I through you would extend compliments to the Minister, and I certainly intend to support this bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I feel that any bill dealing with compensation must inevitably have the fundamental aim of trying to give fair play and justice to the worker. I will be brief in my remarks because, contrary to the reassurances that I have had from the Minister that the worker gets the benefit of the doubt, I would with respect, Mr. Speaker, have to disagree.

Section 5, for example, is moving in the direction that I am referring to where it states that disablement or death occurring more than 12 months from the date he ceased to be employed, that compensation will be provided. I have personal experience, particularly of the case that I raised in the Legislature last year, and one of the earlier speakers tonight mentioned the whole problem of asbestosis.

In talking of the general principle of this bill, Mr. Speaker, I really would like to emphasize a point that I obviously didn't get across last year. That is the fact that there are many conditions which affect workmen — which affect human beings — where the best doctor in the world cannot prove that a patient has a certain condition. The best that can often be done is that the medical person concerned can state there is a strong likelihood that the patient has a certain condition.

In the particular case I raised last year of Mr. Jack — and if I may have your tolerance Mr. Speaker, I'd briefly like to recall that Mr. Jack was a man who worked in the federal shipyards — he was lagging pipes in confined spaces using asbestos material, covering up and insulating pipes using asbestos material.

He happened to work under circumstances which were subsequently admitted by the federal government to be totally inadequate and not meeting the requirements of the

[ Page 932 ]

federal Act as to safety of workmen. He happened to work beside two other men, brothers, both of whom subsequently died, and both of whom had previously been told there was no disease. At autopsy both of these workmen were found to have a malignant growth called mesothelioma — we needn't get technical, but it was a malignant growth which has been clearly established to be due to exposure to asbestos.

Now this same man, Mr. Jack, is alive today, he is seriously disabled, he is breathless to an increasing degree as time goes by, and he worked in the same circumstances that these other men did, subsequently deceased.

Now all I'm trying to get across, Mr. Speaker, is that the Workmen's Compensation Act does not seem to be aware of this element of doubt whereby you cannot prove without any doubt that a man has a certain condition. And I must put on record, Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Minister of Labour last year did all that he could in the light of my request to investigate and set up a special medical review panel, in the case of Mr. Jack.

It is with some regret that I have to say at this point that I think that my medical colleagues sometimes fall into the trap of being too scientific and not being able to see that with the best of intentions a medical man is limited in the degree to which he can give a fine, clear-cut diagnosis.

But anyway, without getting into too much detail on this particular man, all I can say is that in my opinion there is equal doubt in regard to the cause of this man's severe respiratory distress. And there's as much chance that his distress has been greatly aggravated by his exposure to asbestos as it was to any particular disease that he might have had when he first went to work in that environment.

This is exactly the point I am trying to make. That there is no one on the face of this earth, no medical man, who can prove to me or to anyone that the exposure to asbestos did not damage this man's health. This is the point.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. WALLACE: Well, whatever the legal terminology might be, I'm just an ordinary guy who sees people getting sicker and sicker, and nobody can prove to me, just nobody can prove to me, that asbestos did not harm this man.

We cannot prove that asbestos did harm this man, but the probability of the evidence is — as maintained by the compensation board medical men — that this man had some pre-existing lung condition, and their argument is that the asbestos did not make it worse.

All I'm trying to say, Mr. Speaker, is that this is the kind of sad situation where it is not possible to produce scientific proof. But I think if you have an open mind in this situation, you really must accept that if the man has any kind of lung problem and you put him down in the hull of a ship breathing asbestos fibres at close contact without the protection, which actually the federal government admits should have been present, in the form of face masks and filters and what-have-you, I ask you, is it not reasonable to suggest that whatever condition he might have had when he first went to work for the shipyard worsened? Incidentally, he was discharged from the forces in A-1 condition, before he went to work for the shipyard. He proceeded to work in this confined space exposed to asbestos under conditions which were illegal, and now at this stage of his life he is seriously disabled.

All I'm saying is that any reasonable person would surely assume that this kind of exposure certainly didn't help any pre-existing condition. But unfortunately, for the reasons I have already mentioned, it is often very difficult to prove a degree of disease in a person's lung caused by exposure to asbestos. It is a well-known scientific and medical fact that the actual proof often follows many years after the person's exposure.

But all I'm saying is that we know this and that there is a probability that he did suffer harm. I'll quickly get off this case because I feel very strongly about it and I know I'm dwelling on it at great length.

The other case that I mentioned the other day is something similar where a man is proven to have pre-existing disease, in this case arthritis of his spine. Here again, Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that this man was doing a full day's work, quite a heavy job in a factory in Victoria, and something fell on him and injured his skull and fractured a bone in his spine.

However difficult it may be to attribute the degree of damage to this man, the fact is that now he's a cripple and he can't work. And it seems to me again that medical men, and I say this with the utmost respect, that medical men — myself included — are too prone to want complete and total proof. In dealing with human beings you cannot always get that proof.

At this point I would certainly state, Mr. Speaker, as the Honourable Minister said the other day, am I asking him to overrule medical opinion? No, I'm not asking him to do that at all. I am simply saying medical men try to produce proof of a diagnosis — it's just part of the situation.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I think the Honourable Member has made his points and made them well. However, I think with great respect that he is speaking about the administration of the Act itself, and more particularly the medical administration section of the Act, and that hardly has a great deal to do with the principle of the bill, which is before the House this evening. But I've allowed him to proceed because he's recited instances that I think are of great interest both to the Minister and to this House. Nevertheless, I think I cannot let him dwell on it at any further lengths.

MR. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I accept that direction, and I would just finish, then, by saying that section 5, in talking to the principle of this bill, certainly shows, in my opinion, a most welcome move in the direction of accepting the fact that decisions might have been made 12 months ago saying that the workman was not in fact injured or diseased as a result of employment, and 12 months later evidence might be forthcoming which would prove it.

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

MR. STRACHAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Workmen's compensation, since it was first introduced in 1917, in its present trend has been an important part of the legislation affecting the working force of this province. Prior to that there was an unfortunate type of compensation where the worker had to sue, and it was most difficult for any injured worker really to get compensation.

I agree with the Member from Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch), strange as it may seem, that there has been improvement in compensation over the years — not only in the last 20 years but for many years before that.

[ Page 933 ]

But I would say to this House that most of the amendments that have taken place in the last 20 years have been in large part due to the persistence, the hardihood, the doughtiness and the hard fight that the Member from Kootenay (Mr. Nimsick) has put up for improvement to the compensation Act in this House year in and year out. Three o'clock in the morning I've seen him on his feet fighting for changes to this Act to bring some amity, some right and some justice into this legislation and humanity into it for individual cases, for general changes.

It is because of Members like this in this House over the years that the government has been forced finally to bring in the Act that we now have, and the Act which we hope to improve under these particular amendments.

I've a particular affinity or interest in the Workmen's Compensation Act because when the original Workmen's Compensation Act was introduced in 1917 the Socialist Member for Newcastle, which forms a large part of the constituency which I now represent, had fought for workmen's compensation for many years — the establishment as we now know it.

When the bill passed the Legislature the then Premier of the province asked the Member if he would like to become commissioner of the Workmen's Compensation Board, and he was one of the first commissioners for the compensation board. His name was Parker Williams, and he lived not far from where I live until just comparatively a few years ago.

This Act went through a good many years when there were simply too many cases turned down. Too many years, too many cases turned down. And I don't know how many years ago — five, six, seven years ago — the trend started to go down, until I think it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3 per cent of the claims actually being turned down. And I have the feeling now, I haven't got the figures, but I have the feeling now, according to the complaints I'm getting, that perhaps the turned-down rate is going up again from what it was a few years ago. The Minister probably has the figures. I haven't got them, but that's the feeling I get from the complaints I get, that the turned-down rate is increasing.

I appreciate everything this bill tries to do. Entertaining a claim based on industrial disease that was contracted more than a year from the date of the claim. And it's in this area that so much of our problem really arises because of what the medical profession calls a pre-existing condition. The man gets hurt on the job, and he puts in his claim, and as long as the immediate force of the injury is still evident he gets compensation.

Then he finds after a while his payments are cut in half, then he's cut off altogether, even though he's unable to work. Because by this time they've settled down and they say because of a pre-existing condition, arthritic or some other kind, it's not due to the accident.

But, Mr. Speaker, if the man had not had the accident, he would still have been able to carry on working in the same job in the same way. And this is the sort of claim that I ask the Minister to bring in the legislation so that claim is recognised.

That claim must be recognised, because if the man had not had an accident he would still be working. Because all of us, I'm told by the medical profession, have certain items or things built into their system. And only when certain conditions arise do these come to more concentrate and create a permanent problem.

There are too many of those cases. These are the tragic cases, and I think we have to recognise this and in every case give the worker the benefit of the doubt.

The other thing I find disturbing is when a workman finds his compensation is cut down he's told he's fit for light work. Now I ask you, in today's economy where is a man going to find "light work," when we have 6 or 7 or 8 per cent unemployed, with his home established, hoping to go back to the same job that he left? It is this long period of time where, you know, we have to look after him one way or the other. We either look after him through compensation, where he still has his pride and dignity, or he has to go on social welfare, where because of the climate in our community his dignity is destroyed.

But society has to pay him one way or the other. And we've found it necessary on occasion to take money from public funds in order to help the compensation Act achieve its purpose. And if, in the opinion of the government, industry should not be charged with this amount, then rather than see this happen, this man put in this position of suffering financial hardship because he's not ready to go back to work, but they say he's fit for light work, then I suggest there should be an additional grant somewhere — if necessary, from general revenue — in order to allow the man still to receive from compensation enough money to allow him to keep himself and his family.

MR. SPEAKER: Like the Honourable Member who spoke prior to the Honourable Member now on his feet, I think we are talking more really about the administration of the Act having to do with the government grants, and having to do with the medical administration. I hope the Members would try to confine themselves to the principle of the bill.

MR. STRACHAN: With regard to the same section there is one other aspect of this situation and again I'm speaking to section 5 of the Act in general, something that occurred more than a year from the date of the claim. I submitted a brief to a hearing on the Workmen's Compensation Act many years ago, and I paid particular attention at that time and emphasized the hearing situation — the fact that many people had their hearing destroyed in industry at that time. We now have the regulations that call for the big car-covers and all the rest. But I do wish that within our compensation Act we would not limit the compensation payment to the loss of wages due to the accident. I think compensation in its fullest purpose and its fullest extent should recognise the fact that an individual who has been injured permanently one way or another is entitled to compensation for the reduction in his ability to enjoy life. Very often we find people whose ability to enjoy life, in the same way they had been before the accident, is destroyed because of the accident. But our compensation Act is set up specifically to compensate for loss of wages. And I think we have to enlarge this Act to compensate for social loss, reduced ability to enjoy life. I would ask the Minister to consider that, too, before we go into committee, so he could bring an amendment doing so.

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

MR. E. HALL (Surrey): Mr. Speaker, when I was first elected to this House I knew next to nothing about workmen's compensation. And when I was dealing just shortly after the election in 1966 with some constituent cases in an office I had opened in Surrey, I was approached by a man who was crippled, who was about 6 ft. 6 in. tall, who hadn't worked for two years, who was enjoying the rather

[ Page 934 ]

dubious levels of social welfare in the province. He was suffering from caisson disease, a disease which was not covered by workmen's compensation even though the man had shown the board that he'd worked under atmospheric pressure in the Highbury tunnel in the City of Vancouver.

It took two years before the time came to pass when the legal people and the Workmen's Compensation Board altered the schedule of diseases.

Here again, Mr. Speaker, in this bill we see slow but sure bringing up to date of our Workmen's Compensation Act, and I must say that I welcome the changes, but I am alarmed at the slowness.

It's become a tradition in the province, Mr. Speaker, that a Royal commission investigates workmen's compensation about every 10 years. I don't think a once in every decade review is adequate. But I do notice that the Minister has indicated since his appointment that he is aware of some of the problems of workmen's compensation and is indeed bringing this bill before us.

There should, in my view, Mr. Speaker, be a continuing review of the Act and the administration of that Act, which could of course be done in a number of ways. At the same time, as long as we've got workmen's compensation legislation, there will be a place in this Legislature by bill for a periodic review of the legislation.

Certainly we welcome this opportunity at the first session we've had our Minister of Labour to look at workmen's compensation. It's a pity we don't have the report, which perhaps would be of use to us during discussion on second reading of workmen's compensation.

The reason I say that will become perhaps obvious later on, Mr. Speaker, when we deal with some of the figures that are implicit in the principles of extension of coverage and so on that are in the bill. Certainly, we welcome the bill, and we will be supporting it. We would like to see, when the Minister closes second reading, some indication of the Minister's future plans regarding periodic review.

Now when we deal with workmen's compensation with this bill, Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with, I think, a number of basic principles that are contained throughout the bill. We must remember that it was in 1968 that we last had an opportunity to look at the bill in any depth, when Bill No. 22 was presented to us at that time.

At that time there was a great deal of discussion regarding what indeed the Workmen's Compensation Act sought to do. Again, I think we can apply ourselves to this bill in front of us, about what it is attempting to do in the amendments. And I think it should be resaid that one of the problems in our legislation is that we don't make it completely clear what we consider to be an accident.

The Acts of our Legislature define an accident as a wilful and intentional act not being the act of the workmen. It also includes a fortuitous event occasioned by physical or natural cause. And the trouble, Mr. Speaker, is that that definition does not help us in solving the problems of workmen's compensation. Because it doesn't take into any account and militates against claimants establishing that they have become disabled over a period of time.

When the Minister announced that he was bringing these changes in, Mr. Speaker, he announced there were going to be some new and drastic changes. I should say there were going to be changes and drastic changes of principle in the Workmen's Compensation Act. And a drastic change of principle, I am searching for it in this bill and to date Mr. Speaker, I am unsuccessful in finding a drastic change in principle. But I am suggesting to the Minister that that would be one that would certainly qualify for such a heading — a redefinition of the word "accident." I think that the Minister would know, as the expression is, full well, that a change in that definition is long overdue.

Mr. Speaker, in the bill we are extending coverage to a certain group of people, and I'm suggesting to the Minister that this bill and the Act that it seeks to amend is remiss in so far that it should apply to all employees within the province, every employee within the province — except those which the Minister, and the government, and the Legislature see fit to specifically exclude.

Again there's a parallel in this in that other statute, that is the Privacy Act. When instead of excluding the act of invasion of privacy totally and erecting a list of those who should be able to do it, we do it the other way around.

Similarly in workmen's compensation we list those who are covered. Instead of saying everybody should be covered and then specifically excluding those that the passing of time and the occurrence of evidence indicates should be excluded.

This would enlarge the coverage and would obviate the difficulties that now often occur in trying to determine — and I'm sure this was happening across the Minister's desk frequently — trying to determine whether a given employment covers within a list of industrial undertakings as mentioned in the legislation, and mentioned in the schedule.

It's a well-known fact that agricultural workers and fishermen aren't included. And this is where the absence of the report comes to pass, Mr. Speaker, because the evidence that was given at the time of the last Royal commission into workmen's compensation indicated clearly that there was a reduction in the percentage of work people of the province covered by workmen's compensation.

This bill seeks to increase it by including certain classifications of work. But I suspect, Mr. Minister, that the percentage of employees, the percentage of workers in this province covered by workmen's compensation is going down. I hope that I am wrong. But I suspect that it is going down.

That's why this bill is welcome, although I can't find in it sufficient evidence that it will rectify the slow slippage in terms of the percentage of the people covered by workmen's compensation.

So my first point is the accident definition, and my second point is those employees who should be covered by the Act.

The third point and there is a principle, I think, of the Act of this bill, that there should be some evidence that the Minister is prepared to accept the recommendations of the commission that when there is any doubt it should be resolved in the workman's favour.

If there's room for error at all in the administration of the Act, and I appreciate I might be getting into the administration of the Act, it should be made in favour of the workman. I think that's a principle which flows into the administrational difficulty, Mr. Speaker, and I hope you will bear with me for a second.

I think that that assumption by the Minister, and he nods his head, is well in keeping with the social conscience of the day. And that was the direct quote from Mr. Justice Tysoe, and I would hope that we would see some evidence of some action by the Minister on this.

The fourth and last point, Mr. Speaker, is that the ability of the workman to communicate with his M.L.A., with his employer, the ability of other legislators to make a sensible change in the statute, the ability of the Minister himself in

[ Page 935 ]

drafting this legislation must be seriously hampered by the fact the board is not called upon to give reason for its decision.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that the benefit of the doubt that I referred to as my third point has indeed been acted upon if there are no reasons given for the decision.

Mr. Minister, in conclusion on this point let me say that the commissioner felt that reasons should be given in every case. He said he preferred to leave the matter to the good faith of the board, and the Commissioner Justice Tysoe went on to say that if the board did not mend its ways and give reasons for its decisions. the Act should make it mandatory for the board so to do. Those four points which I consider the high principles of the Workmen's Compensation Act, let alone the schedule of disease, the review panels and all the administrative stuff which was better served I think, to be discussed during committee stage, we'll leave until later. But those four high principles of workmen's compensation should be continued, should be countenanced by the Minister, should be part of the bill, should be part of an overall examination of the Act, should be indeed the drastic changes in principle and the new approach in workmen's compensation legislation the Minister mentioned in his speech.

But, Mr. Minister, they do not in great measure appear to us in Bill No. 82, and we regret that, even though we support this small step forward.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, I had a conversation with the Minister this evening, and therefore I'm not going to produce a file which the Minister magnanimously asked us to do during the labour estimates with respect to compensation cases. I would say however that the one thing that I feel that is very necessary in this whole question of revisions of the Act with respect to workmen's compensation is the greater degree of empathy on the part of the board.

Now I know, Mr. Speaker, that the board has had, over the past few years had had a great deal more empathy or sympathy that they had prior. But the fact of the matter is I have had a few too many cases that would indicate to me that if others are in the same position as I am, that there are enough cases being overlooked that certainly should have qualified for compensation; after the fact is too late, Mr. Speaker.

This particular case, as the Minister will find out in due course, was a case that it was found out conclusively after an operation that a man was suffering as a result of an accident. However, he was only compensated for the first few weeks after the accident and after that was cut off, and lived a very uncomfortable life for some three or four years.

It was a back case, and I realise that the back cases are the most difficult. But now in retrospect I'm sure that this particular case will show that the man actually had a case, but because of the fact that the compensation board were somewhat intransigent I feel that this is an area that I think the Minister should watch very closely with respect to updating the Act from time to time.

Therefore, I would certainly hope that this kind of thing is going to be embodied in new amendments that come forward to the Workmen's Compensation Act. I, as does the Member for Surrey, certainly support this revision, because it's an improvement, in second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister will close the debate.

HON. J.R. CHABOT (Minister of Labour): A few words Mr. Speaker. We've had a relatively mild discussion. It's quite obvious that most people agree with the principles that I'm trying to bring forth in this legislation. However, I was a little disturbed by some statements made in this House. On February 15, 1972, the Member for Kootenay (Mr. Nimsick) had statements to make relative to my notice that I would be bringing in amendments on the Workmen's Compensation Act. And this was on February 15. He said in the House: "That increased benefits for some widows and dependents and other changes proposed by Labour Minister James Chabot are not good enough. And if you're not going to take it to a committee, then it's just a bunch of eyewash you're bringing here." On February 15, that's what he said.

The bill didn't come into the House until March 10, He said this is nothing but a bunch of eyewash. One million dollars more benefits for the widows and the workers of this province is nothing but a bunch of eyewash. The elimination of three-day waiting periods, fantastic increases to total disability pensions from $150 to $250, is a bunch of eyewash, that's what you call it.

I want to assure you we've also covered many other realistic areas such as the industrial diseases. We're recognising industrial diseases where they occur or become evident beyond the 12-month period. I want to assure you that the legislation will continue to make the compensation Act of British Columbia not only the leader in Canada but the leader in the world.

But I do want to say this that at the moment the basis for assessment and the establishment of disability compensation is now at the $7,600 level in British Columbia. And this was established on June 1, 1971. It is a particular formula which has been established, which is spelled out, which indicates when and how much it rises. I want to announce tonight that effective January 1, 1973, we will have reached a higher level, we will have fulfilled the formula spelled out in the Act, we will be able to move from a maximum earning for benefits purposes from $7,600 to $8,600….

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that a fact?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Yes, that is a fact, I am announcing it right now, and that widows instead of receiving a maximum allowance of $475 per month in British Columbia, or $5,700 per year effective January 1, 1973 it will be $537.50 per month, or $6,450 per year with no income tax.

MR. NIMSICK: Why don't you do it now?

HON. MR. CHABOT. Because it's only during 1972 that we will reach the established formula, and we can't do it until the formula has been reached, and it's only during the course in 1972 that we will reach that formula. So we're making it effective January 1, 1973.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, it's great legislation we are introducing, and I am sure it will be supported by all sides of the House. I move second reading.

[ Page 936 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 82, An Act to Amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1968, be read a second time.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 49

PAIR

Second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 82 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 89, Mr. Speaker.

KOOTENAY CANAL LAND ACQUISITION ACT

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 89. The Honourable Minister of Lands and Forests.

HON. R.G. WILLISTON (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): Mr. Speaker, the Kootenay Canal plant is being built at the present time, as most Members in the House know. Part of this project is a three-mile canal that moves down the south bank of the Kootenay River to a point of discharge just below the South Slocan power plant. Action has now been going on this project for some months, and in the middle of the right-of-way there's a 25-acre parcel that's owned by the City of Nelson, and it is in part associated with the power utility of that city.

That is the partial reason for this Act that's before you tonight, because even though Hydro has been negotiating with the City of Nelson since August, 1971, it has not been possible for them to come to any fundamental agreement on this parcel of land. It's rather significant tonight that at 4:00 o'clock this afternoon the Libby project closed its gates.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: Well they've been moving throughout the day. Actually it wasn't supposed to have started until April 1, but due to discharges from Kootenay Lake at the present time and to accede with our interests and the control features on Kootenay Lake, they've actually acceded to our request and not to theirs. But the fact of the matter is this, that we're down to the point now on the whole project where six weeks is a critical time.

When it became apparent that Hydro officials could not consummate the agreement on this 25-acre parcel of land, myself and the Honourable Minister of Highways together went to Nelson, opened negotiations with civic officials there, came to certain understandings as a result of meetings we had with them on certain matters, which would have led to the release of the 25-acre parcel of land. As we moved back and forth, though, in the days that went by, it became impossible to finalize the situation.

Now you might ask why didn't Hydro expropriate this 25-acre piece of land, and the reason is that under the Hydro Act it's against the law for Hydro to expropriate any public utility. It has been interpreted, there's a possibility, at least of interpretation, that the expropriation of this piece of property on which there happens to be the hydro line of the City of Nelson established, that it could at least create a court decision where it could be argued that this was in fact an expropriation of a power utility.

We have now reached the point where because of the time situation as I have indicated, where we're in a closed period of about six weeks, that it's absolutely impossible from this point on to even countenance such a delay without serious cost factors insofar as Hydro is concerned and our general obligations are concerned.

So it was deemed that the only way of making sure that this proceeded and would still proceed by independent arbitration was to do so by way of an Act of this Legislature.

This is the purpose of the Act that is before you. It says no more nor no less than the acquisition of the 25-acre piece of land by expropriation if necessary, by independent evaluation as to worth.

I emphasize again, Mr. Speaker, that if this is not passed, insofar as the project is concerned which is now proceeding, we will be placed in a very, very serious position insofar as the construction of this structure is concerned.

There is nothing more contained in the statute, Mr. Speaker, and I move second reading.

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

MR. P.L. McGEER: (Vancouver–Point Grey): There is much, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Lands and Forests (Hon. Mr. Williston) left out in this presentation of this bill to our Legislature.

What he has invited the Legislature to do, and indeed almost demands that the Legislature do, is to bully the City of Nelson. This is nothing less, Mr. Speaker, than "gun at the head" legislation for that city. If we go back over the history of this project, Mr. Speaker, it amounts to this.

I wouldn't have to raise my voice if some of the Members over there, including the Member for South Okanagan (Hon. Mr. Bennett) would listen once in awhile.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, the negotiations for this land commenced some time ago, and until this moment they were negotiations. First of all, the City of Nelson attempted, in exchange for this land, to obtain water rights on the Kootenay River so that their power plant could operate at its

[ Page 937 ]

maximum capacity. No deal, Mr. Speaker, as far as the B.C. Hydro was concerned.

The second thing the City of Nelson attempted to do was to obtain a guarantee from the B.C. Hydro, in exchange for this land, that the B.C. Hydro would sell the City of Nelson the necessary power so that they could continue to operate and to supply their customers. Again — no deal.

The third thing that happened was that the chairman of the B.C. Hydro, Dr. Shrum, wrote to the City of Nelson, and said in effect, "turn over this land or else."

The next thing that happened, Mr. Speaker, was that the Minister sent up his deputy Minister to tell the people from the City of Nelson that they had better do what they were told and that is to give the land up to the B.C. Hydro without a quarrel and take whatever the B.C. Hydro was prepared to toss that company in the way of crumbs, and they were small crumbs indeed, Mr. Speaker, and it's not baloney.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. McGEER: I've read the correspondence that went on between that Minister, the chairman of the B.C. Hydro, the City of Nelson, and the consultants to the City of Nelson.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where did you get the correspondence from?

MR. McGEER: It's a pretty shocking state of affairs, the way that city has been bullied, first of all by the B.C. Hydro, then by the civil service and now finally as a last resort, by this Legislative Assembly.

The next thing that happened, Mr. Speaker, after all these avenues failed, the Minister went up there with the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Black), told the City of Nelson in effect that they had better give up the land and sell the power supply of the City of Nelson — sell that system to the B.C. Hydro to take over.

Then they began to negotiate a price, because at this point the City of Nelson — that city council — was beginning to yield a little bit to this blackmail, and they came back with a series of proposals for selling their power supply to the B.C. Hydro in exchange for a price that would guarantee them into the future the kind of profit that that electricity system had been making.

In order to understand this situation, it's necessary for the Members of the Legislature to realise that power rates today, in the City of Nelson, are not much more than half what the cost is in the rest of the B.C. Hydro system. For 500 kilowatts, standard price around the system is $15; 1,000 kilowatts, $22.40. But in the City of Nelson today it's $8.80 and $13.80. Not only do the people in the City of Nelson have a substantially lower electricity rate as a result of a very efficient power plant — not the expensive project that the B.C. Hydro has embarked upon — they enjoy a low rate of power for their customers, and the city makes a profit of something in the order of $600,000 a year.

So there's a profit to the city which helps to subsidize, among other things, the high cost of education on the land in that city as well as other city services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what the City of Nelson is faced with, if this bill passes, is to give up their land which is necessary for the B.C. Hydro, without gaining anything in exchange except a piddling amount of cash. A piddling amount of cash. They held high cards in a genuine negotiation, until the government brought in this blackmail bill.

The second thing is that they will be forced to sell their electricity plant to the B.C. Hydro, because there is no way they're going to be able to obtain enough power in the future. Heaven knows what that price will be. Supposedly they will be guaranteed a good enough price that they can invest the money and gain in perpetuity the current profit from that system. But for the people of the City of Nelson, this is what I say to them, Mr. Speaker, through you, they are going to face price increases for their electricity supply that will amount to 60 per cent for 1,000 kilowatts and 70 per cent for 500 kilowatts.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

MR. McGEER: Irresponsible. That's what the Member says. Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what happened to the City of Cranbrook, because as soon as they sold their power supply to the B.C. Hydro, their electricity rates went shooting up, and Cranbrook's increase, once they sold their system to the B.C. Hydro, was 58 per cent for 500 kilowatts and 30 per cent for 1,000 kilowatts.

So, Mr. Speaker, what's happening is that areas of British Columbia that had efficient power systems that allowed them to give favourable rates to their customers are being rolled under, one by one, by the B.C. Hydro.

Secondly, those cities and municipalities around the province that obtain power in bulk and then retail it to customers, making a profit which they then apply to tax relief in their cities, also are being destroyed. Those profits and those advantages are disappearing into the maw of the B.C. Hydro which is taking advantage of those systems to subsidize the rest of the operations.

Mr. Speaker, nothing that we have been able to discover, either by data that has been presented via the B.C. Hydro or via its representatives on the board of directors, has justified a cost benefit of any reasonable proportions for this Kootenay Canal project.

The consultants that we've talked to — one of them a consultant to the City of Nelson and another as a consultant of independent stature, Bartholomew, have presented figures that this is not an economical hydro-electric power development.

For the capital cost of $100 million the money might well be invested in another portion of our potential hydro-electric development or thermal development to bring a much better rate of return and therefore lower costs generally in the system. That's an energy decision, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps that isn't the main issue that is presented by this particular bill.

The real issue that is before us, Mr. Speaker, is whether we are to permit as a Legislature any city or any group of people to be blackmailed. Because that's what this legislation does. There's been no meaningful negotiation, Mr. Speaker, between the B.C. Hydro and the City of Nelson. They in effect have been told: "Do what we say or we'll get you." The City of Nelson held out and held out and held out. Now in the dying days of the Legislature we're being presented with a bill which takes away all of their rights.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a disgrace to the democratic process in British Columbia. Nothing that the Minister can say will ever erase the approach that this government has used over the years to the rights of citizens and private corporations. It's not a negotiation — it's a confiscation. Mr. Speaker, we oppose the bill.

[ Page 938 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Provincial Secretary.

HON. W.D. BLACK (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, speaking to the principle of this bill, after having heard the last speaker I am more convinced than ever, and what was it Charles Dickens said in A Christmas Carol when speaking of Marley: "There's more gravy than grave to this man."

Now, I say in relation to that argument, there is more politics in it than any care for the people of Nelson. I said on a previous occasion, and I say now, that as far as the Liberals are concerned they don't give a damn for the people in Nelson at all.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BLACK: It's straight politics.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Minister withdraw that remark?

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BLACK: I'll withdraw it. Sit down and shut up. You had your say — and for too much too.

I want to tell you when my colleague and I were up there it was very apparent where you got your advice from. The entire council was there. There was only one member that didn't have his papers. Every alderman entered into the discussion — all except one. He couldn't have intelligent conversation because he didn't have the material before him, that's why. You'll have to be a Grade 2 kid not to see that. That's where you're getting your information from today.

AN HON. MEMBER: Name names.

HON. MR. BLACK: Don't you worry. Don't you worry, I will. If it had not been such an amicable meeting that we were at Nelson I would have, and only by naming names would you embarrass the other people.

So we know where it came from. Now, let's look at those negotiations.

First of all, my friend opposite says it was blackmail tactics. I of course, was not in Nelson when Dr. Shrum was. Indeed, he was there — I wasn't there. But the Mayor and some of his councilmen have been in my office time without number in terms of discussing this entire matter and arranging meetings with my colleague, which took place. Many meetings took place between the city council, or at least councilmen and the Mayor, either in my office or in my colleague's office. So there were meetings for negotiations.

As far as the City of Nelson is concerned, they knew right from the very beginning and from their point of view their bargaining base was certainly the 25 acres of land — no question about that. We knew that. In a meeting that my colleague and I had with them in Nelson, we offered them an extremely good deal. They wrote the terms of that and presented them to us. We did not present them to them. They presented them to us.

We went away in the company of two civil servants thinking, perhaps naively so, that the matter was amicably settled, and believe me I said as much — that I thought it was amicably settled. Then time went on and the time element relative to the 25 acres was explained by my colleague, that he did not have time on his side, and at no time did he ever hold any gun to their head and say: "You must do this or else." At no time.

I say it then, and I say now, as far as I am concerned I want to see the rights of Nelson and their equity in that plant protected. I'm not going to back away from that either.

In recent days I have been in touch with the Mayor of Nelson and assured him that Mr. Williston, without reflection on anyone else, would carry on the negotiation simply because the Act had to come into force, which they know it did — they know that, so there was nothing done behind their backs or anything of that sort. When my colleague gives me his word that that negotiation will take place, I know perfectly well it will.

Secondly I have assured the Mayor of Nelson and the council that they have nothing to worry about because all my friends opposite tried to mesmerize everyone that we went up there with horse whips or something else to try to persuade them to do this that or the other thing. "Bullied them," you said, and that of course, we didn't do. He doesn't know what he's talking about, but that's not unusual here. Simply because he gets his information second- and thirdhand.

Now, as far as Mr. Bartholomew is concerned, I'm not acquainted with the gentleman. But I am acquainted with the different turn of mind that he has than what's been promoted by Hydro, and my colleague is in a better position than I to explain that when he closes debate on the second reading of this bill.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Members please address the Chair?

HON. MR. BLACK: At the risk of using a hackneyed expression, I know the name of the game. I know where you got your information from, friend, so don't try to kid the troops. I know where you got it from.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BLACK: Certainly do. You got it straight from Bartholomew — that's where you got yours from.

AN HON. MEMBER: He couldn't name….

HON. MR. BLACK: No, he certainly couldn't. Name 10 people in Nelson, friend — you can't do it can you?

AN HON. MEMBER: More than 10.

HON. MR. BLACK: How many — 11? Terrific!

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BLACK: I just want to say this. That as far as I'm concerned, I repeat, to protect the equity that Nelson has, I think we offered them a good deal.

Now, perhaps there could be here a little give-and-take in negotiation — there always is. Because in negotiation you must have lots of elbow room. I'm positive that the benefits will accrue to the City of Nelson. "A piddling amount," says the leader of the Liberals. Many millions of dollars were they

[ Page 939 ]

offered to set up a trust account, put it out for bid, and the interest accruing from that plus the capital sum itself would more than pay for those things that the City of Nelson are subsidizing themselves.

The bus system is one of them. They subsidize the bus system from the electric rate. They subsidize the gymnasium and sports complex, they subsidize that.

So in any event, Mr. Speaker, I'm a member of Nelson, I know exactly what the bill is all about. I know exactly what the negotiations that took place were. I have no hesitation in supporting the bill, and I think all fair-minded people in Nelson, knowing perfectly well that negotiations are not complete, will be in support of that too, because if this project is going to go forward we have no alternative, and the City of Nelson has known that right from the very beginning.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, in order to create a cooling-off period between these two armies, and knowing that the bill just came in a day or so ago, I'd like to move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 91, Mr. Speaker.

STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1972

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bill No. 91, Statute Law Amendment Act, 1972. The Honourable the Attorney General.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Mr. Speaker, Bill No. 91 is an omnibus bill that deals with technical amendments to several statutes. I suggest, therefore, that it can be best dealt with in committee, when we can discuss each statute independently, so with that in mind I move that the bill be now read a second time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we agree that because there are so many principles involved here it should be debated in committee.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 91 be now read a second time.

Motion approved: second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 91 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 92, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
MUNICIPAL ENABLING AND VALIDATING ACT

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 92, An Act to Amend the Municipal Enabling and Validating Act. The Honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs.

HON. D.R.J. CAMPBELL (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr. Speaker, Bill No. 92 carries forward a number of specific validating provisions and also a number of enabling provisions — all of which are basically separate. I would think it would be better as well to discuss the various sections of this bill in committee. I therefore move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby-Willingdon.

MR. J.G. LORIMER (Burnaby-Willingdon): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I haven't seen the bill yet. It was brought in yesterday, and it's not yet in my book. So I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 98, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
POLLUTION CONTROL ACT, 1967

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bill No. 98, An Act to Amend the Pollution Control Act, 1967. The Honourable Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: Mr. Speaker, there are only two principles contained within the amendments to the Pollution Control Act which are of substance.

As many people know, emanating from the City of Vancouver for some years there has been air pollution controls — monitoring systems set up there — and there has been an extension of that service and there is being throughout the whole of the Vancouver regional district. The municipalities have responsibility for air pollution control in the field of commercial domestic discharges, and the director of pollution control has responsibility within the field of industrial emission.

One purpose of the Act within the Vancouver Regional District is to consolidate the air pollution control administration within one unit and for the Vancouver Regional District to act as the agent of the director of pollution control insofar as industrial air pollution is concerned, and to carry out the requirements and the standards which have been set forth. There is still allowed, as everyone else has, the general appeal procedure insofar as industrial air pollution is concerned outside of the regional board administration governing their domestic pollution and their commercial pollution.

But from the standpoint of administrative efficiency and of monitoring, Mr. Speaker, I think this makes general sense for everyone.

The second fundamental principle involved in the Act has to do with the deadline which was established for the registration of liquid effluents originally set as at January 1, 1970. As I have reported to this House previously, the large number of the permit applications came forth right at the end of the year.

Because we had no experience ahead of time of even realizing the total diversity and nature of the types of effluent with which we would have to deal, it was well into the year 1971 before a very clear picture of the total job could be set forth. The consequence is that we have moved through some overly zealous people, and when we've been

[ Page 940 ]

moving to the permit situation, we did find that certain people had not registered by that date. But people with sufficient knowledge and with further publicity had been registering through the year from January 1 as we were proceeding, working through the other permits before they were dealt with.

Before these people were even approached, they had made application for their pollution control permit running well through the year. However, when you take this up and some overly-zealous people from the standpoint of legalese get mixed up in the situation, even though the people had acted in good faith, we were still dealing with the permit matter because the original application had not been filed by January, 1970, as had been set forth. They have seen fit in some instances to create legal situations which really have benefited no one.

Now with the organization of the department to handle the situation which we feel will be efficient, now we have established standards. We have organised to move, and we will have the people as of the passage of the present budget. We have determined to move that date forward, to legalize everyone as of January, 1970, as you will notice in the Act, until March, 1972, or until the new people are appointed to the Act, within the next matter of days.

People who have registered within that period will not be considered to be in violation of the Act and therefore subject to any type of legal action.

Apart from that, Mr. Speaker, there are some housekeeping amendments in the Act. Again the most important one is the allowance for the pollution control board to issue a temporary approval of a permit when a person happens to apply. Certainly during this back-log period, until they're cleared up and a person has to legally have a permit, we have made provisions in this Act for the issuance of temporary approvals until the permanent permit can be issued. There are no more fundamental issues contained within the Act, and I move second reading.

Mr. Hall moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, we just have a slight pause in waiting to see if the Opposition are ready to proceed with the private bills that have gone through the private bills committee, 50 and 51.

Second reading of private Bill No. 50, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE VANCOUVER CHARTER

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. second Member for Vancouver-Burrard on behalf of the first Member.

MR. B. PRICE (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the first Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Merilees), we have with us again, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter. There's been quite a number of small changes made from the original Act, which will be noted when the bill comes into committee, but otherwise they're mostly housekeeping provisions which have been asked for by the City of Vancouver, and mostly all of them have been conceded by the committee. I now move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable first Member for Vancouver East.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): One of the changes the committee made was with respect to the right of tenants to vote on all bylaws, whether money bylaws or not. The committee came up with a proposal that the tenants would have such rights if two-thirds of the Vancouver City Council approved.

Now that's not what some of us on the committee thought should be the case. We thought it should be an affirmative answer to Vancouver's request, but this is a reasonable compromise, and I don't think that the city council should have any trouble in mustering two-thirds of their Members so that at long last all of the people of Vancouver will vote on all vital matters in that City.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 50, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, now be read a second time.

Motion approved: second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 50 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of private Bill No. 51, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
TRINITY JUNIOR COLLEGE ACT

MR. PRICE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Member for Langley (Mr. Vogel) I wish to move second reading of An Act to Amend the Trinity Junior College Act. This is a very simple Act, because all it meant was the change in one word from "Trinity Junior College" to "Trinity Western College." A very simple move, and this has been recommended by the committee, and I now move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 51, An Act to Amend the Trinity Junior College Act, now be read a second time.

Motion approved: second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 51 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 62, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE PIPE-LINES ACT

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Committee on Bill No. 62, intituled An Act to Amend the Pipe-Lines Act.

Bill No. 62 committed, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 11: 00 p.m.