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CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the Vancouver Stock Exchange Act (Bill No. 5). Mr. Lauk. Introduction and first reading — 395

An Act to Amend the Supreme Court Act (Bill No. 85). Mr. Gardom.

Introduction and first reading — 395

An Act to Amend the Succession Duty Act (Bill No. 86) Mr. Williams.

Introduction and first reading — 395

An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter (Bill No. 50). Mr. Cummings.

Introduction and first reading — 395

Budget debate (continued)

Mr. Macdonald — 395

Mr. Schroeder — 401

Mr. Dent I — 405

Mr. Lea — 415

Reports Interim Financial Report of the Overall Medical Services Plan — 421

Statement Statement by Hon. Mr. Hall on volcanic eruption in Iceland — 421

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Second Member for Vancouver–Little Mountain.

MR. R.T. CUMMINGS (Vancouver–Little Mountain): Mr. Speaker, we have a group of students from Sir Charles Tupper High School accompanied by their teachers; Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Hazel, and Mr. Hardy. We ask the House now to welcome them.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Dewdney.

MR. P.C. ROLSTON (Dewdney): Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House, it's an honour to recognize the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, David Somerville; and the Assistant Rector of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver, Bob Pinn.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Chilliwack.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Mr. Speaker, I'd like the Members to welcome back to the floor of the House a gentleman who is well accustomed to the confines of these four walls; a man who served 20 years as a cabinet Minister of the former administration, Mr. Kenneth Kiernan.

Introduction of bills.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
VANCOUVER STOCK EXCHANGE ACT

Mr. Lauk moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 51 intituled An Act to Amend the Vancouver Stock Exchange Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 51 read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE SUPREME COURT ACT

Mr. Gardom moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 85 intituled An Act to Amend the Supreme Court Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 85 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE SUCCESSION DUTY ACT

Mr. L.A. Williams moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 8 6 intituled An Act to Amend the Succession Duty Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 86 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE VANCOUVER CHARTER

Mr. Cummings moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 50 intituled An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 50 read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Orders of the day.

ON THE BUDGET

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. First Member for Vancouver East.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, this is a good budget and I intend to support it. (Laughter).

Interjections by some Hon, Members.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Where were you the night of 1952 to 1972. (Laughter).

I want to welcome too, Mr. Speaker, Ken Kiernan. We couldn't use his name when he was sitting as a Member of this House for many, many years. But we admired his advocacy and his swift sword and his dedication. And we hope he's not really lost to the public service of the Province of British Columbia. And I want to say a word of welcome if I may, to Bishop Somerville, whom I have had the great pleasure of knowing, very casually perhaps, over many years. I've formed as much of an admiration for his literacy and culture as his religious qualities.

I defend this budget, Mr. Speaker, which has been variously labelled: by the House leader of the Social Credit Party, "a Social Credit budget;" and by the First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison) yesterday, "a tinker toy budget." I don't know who their coach is. (Laughter). It has been labelled — I think we ought to be a little proud of this — by the other Opposition parties as a "socialist budget." Because…

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Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Did you get his name? (Laughter). They say, Mr. Speaker, that we've done nothing in this budget with respect to unemployment. I say that the budget has put $64.8 million of new money out into the community in the hands of those who need it most. If that isn't a stimulus to employment and to a thriving economy, I don't know what is. We have put in this budget $10 million into land acquisition, heavily criticized by the Hon. Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) in respect to one purchase where the area has never been seen by him.

Yet, this is an investment in the future in a humming housing industry. It is job creation combined with the federal moneys which, largely through the same Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer), will be made available in this province. I say this is wealth creation. It is job creation. It is a provision of decent shelter in the future to the people of the Province of British Columbia.

I look at a few little words in the Revenue Act which gives the people of British Columbia, where the need arises and the opportunity presents itself, the right to be partners in one of the dynamic enterprises of the Province of British Columbia. I say that that, too, is potential job creation.

I look at the sections with respect to petroleum royalties that have been decried on the other side of the House. I say for too long have the natural resources of the Province of British Columbia been exploited, with only a pittance going back to the province. I say that the people of the province — the inheritors of their own natural wealth — are entitled to more than a mess of pottage.

When I see our natural gas flowing out across our borders into the great United States of America to be sold in the American market at scandalously low prices, in terms of competitive market fuels in Washington, Oregon and California, I say it is time that someone like the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) began to put a stop to that kind of thing. For too long have some foreign speculators and profiteers crossed and crisscrossed this province like predator ants, leaving nothing behind for the people of this province but devastation. I say that this budget signals that those days have come to an end.

I want to say something about a serious subject. (Laughter). That is the visit of the French warships to British Columbia waters. We should be the first in British Columbia to extend the cordial hand of friendship to the French people and to their representatives. Yet I want to make it abundantly clear that the Government of the Province of British Columbia is unequivocally opposed to the French nuclear testing in the Pacific. I share the regret of most of mankind that France, le deuxième pays de tout le monde, should not have joined the nuclear test ban treaty. I see the proliferation of nuclear weapons and I see the danger they pose to the human race — the illusion of safety that is presented by a madcap arms race edging mankind closer and closer to nuclear holocaust.

I trust that we will not fulfill the prophecy of St. John the Divine: "And behold, a pale horse. And the name of him that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed after him and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and death." We've got to do our part, even though we're only a province, in preventing that slide into Armageddon. I sometimes think that the missing link between the lower animals and truly humane, enlightened beings is ourselves. What we can do as a provincial government to raise our voice against this kind of nuclear testing and to stand out clearly against the proliferation of weapons and the war clouds, we most certainly intend to do.

I want to say something in a lighter vein about the provincial courts. We're very proud, as I attempt to give some stewardship to the Legislature of the Department of the Attorney General, of our provincial Bench. I believe we have in the gallery — but I haven't been able to pick him out as yet — one of our distinguished provincial judges, His Honour Judge Nick Mussallem, whose brother has served with distinction — if only with an occasional lapse of judgment — in this House (Laughter). I think a lot of us know Nick Mussallem. I don't know whether it was he or my brother who said that it's better to know the judge than to know the law. (Laughter).

We're proud of our provincial Bench, even though it has sometimes been said that judges are only law students who have earned the right to mark their own examination papers (Laughter). Our provincial judges, 189 strong, handle 90 per cent of the matters that come before the entire judicial system of the Province of British Columbia — criminal, civil, family and juvenile. They're closest to the people. They're a people's court.

We seek actively to upgrade the quality of justice in this province, without criticizing in any way what has gone before. We have appointed a full-time chief judge of the Province of British Columbia, to whom I wish to pay tribute because he has dedicated himself finally to an evaluation of the direction and supervision of our court system. We want to have better judges in the sense that they are more legally trained. Again, I don't say that disparagingly of anyone who is giving service to the Province of British Columbia, but of our 189 judges some 84 are now legally trained.

I think, it bears saying again what was said on this point by Chief Justice McRuer, the former Chief Justice of Ontario, in his report on civil rights:

"It is an unjustified encroachment on the rights of the individual that he should be compelled to

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have his rights determined by one untrained in the law, or have to submit to the alternative of taking his case to a higher court in order that he may have a decision from a legally trained mind."

So in upgrading the judiciary, we do want to find, particularly in the hinterland areas of British Columbia, more dedicated legally-trained judges. I'm glad to say echoes I began, and which have been begun before with respect to a second law school in the Province of British Columbia, are hopefully bearing some fruit. Since when I made this suggestion recently I was speaking as much to the Treasury benches in this Government as to the other Members of the Legislature, I would like to read a letter I received — just summarizing it — from the acting president of the University of Victoria:

"All concerned of course were delighted with your expression recently in the Legislature with reference to the need for a second law school in this province. To this end the University of Victoria, in conjunction with the Victoria Bar Association, has established a small committee to prepare a report relating to curriculum, et cetera."

They wish us, as a government, to nominate a member to that committee, which we will be very pleased to do.

We see here local initiative from the university, the community, the bar, with public participation. We see a chance, without a great expenditure of money — because compared to the medical schools my friend the Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance (Hon. Mr. Cocke) needs, law schools are relatively inexpensive. Yet it seems to me that with the limited stream going through the existing law school, good as it is, too many are being turned away. It's part of the democratic rights of young people in British Columbia to have a chance, if they're qualified, to learn the laws — to learn about the rule in Shelley's case, for example, if only to grow up someday and abolish it.

So I hope that that project will proceed with proper planning and execution and full participation on the part of the community.

I'd like to say, among other things, that the chief judge is available in terms of difficult areas in the administration of justice in the province. He has reported to me in connection with Port Hardy, where we have had some community problems. I'm pleased to tell the Legislature that on his recommendation, Chief Alfred Scow is going to come south from the Prince Rupert area into the Port Hardy area. Chief Scow speaks the Salish tongue and I have told the local lawyers, who are far away — I think they're all in Campbell River if I'm not mistaken — that learning the Salish tongue in order to practise in Judge Scow's court will not be all that difficult.

We expect in that kind of court — in that sort of somewhat, and I don't want to exaggerate, a troubled community — that we will be able to shortly train the probation officer; that we will shortly be able to go to the Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley) for assistance in the provision of the facilities that are needed for a court and supporting services — and that request has already been made — and that we will have in that area hopefully an Indian court worker. And I want to say a word or two about that in a moment.

But first, let me just finish off, Mr. Speaker, what I am saying about the quality of justice in the province and our objective, which is that no area of the province shall receive second-class justice. I want to say that the provision of legally trained judges is a necessity to my mind in terms of the administration of justice, because otherwise the judge has to lean for advice upon the Attorney General's Department or upon the prosecutor or upon the police. I don't think that can be or can seem to be fair to an accused, I think too, that many of our excellent part-time, non legally-trained judges of course have to have other jobs. Some of them are civil servants, and so they represent an arm of government at one time and a judge at another time and that's not quite right.

They may be employees of a big corporation in the area and they represent an arm of the corporation at other times and a judge when they sit as a judge.

I think we can take experimental areas — a pilot area — and let's consider possibly the Peace River area where you have Dawson Creek, Fort St. John; where you have now one legally trained judge — a very good judge, Levis, with I think it is six part-time, non-trained judges. Total cost: $53,000. But two full-time, legally-trained judges, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, justices of the peace to assist in the other areas, and some travelling on the part of the judges and the court. Cost, as I estimate it: $51,000.

So I think if we have the people, that we can in this way improve the administration of justice so that the same standards of justice for all in this province will prevail, not only as they are at the coast, but as they should be in the interior, urban and rural areas alike.

Let me say one or two words about legal aid. We have increased our estimates in this budget for legal aid to $1.5 million, and I will be glad to answer questions in detail on my estimates. But may I say briefly that we are actively working on how the expansion of legal aid should take place.

I might list four fields in which we see that expansion at the present time. The first is the civil field of course, which has been neglected totally in terms of legal aid in this province. The second is neighbourhood law offices. I would like to think that

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in many of the major areas of the province, as we now have in Vancouver, supported through legal aid funds, that we can have drop-in legal clinics where people can get a rough opinion of where they stand — with a company, with their landlord, with their neighbour, with the law.

You know, I think quite apart from law and the administration of equal justice, that that's kind of mental therapy in a community, for poor people who are afraid or who don't have the funds, to walk up the steps and go into a lawyer's office, to be able to drop in somewhere and say, "Have I got a case or not? Or am I away off base?" I like the idea of the young people who are staffing them. And we should be able to expand the system of drop-in legal clinics into other areas of the province.

I'd like to think we could have duty counsel. Duty counsel are trained lawyers who serve in a very onerous kind of job. They might be, say, in the Vancouver provincial courts in the criminal area — where somebody who needs bail in a hurry, or somebody who doesn't know whether or not he should plead guilty, or somebody who doesn't know whether or not they should invoke legal aid — can speak to them informally. He's there on the doorsteps of the courtrooms and he's available to help them plan their future legal course and to give them an idea of where they may stand. I think that may lead in fact to possibly more guilty pleas on the part of people who sometimes fall — and I have to say this — into the hands of criminal lawyers who are ready to make a federal case out of what is really a simple case and charge a big fee — to such an extent that the cure proves to be worse than the disease. Duty counsel can give that kind of informal help so that people can have some perspective of their problem when they're called before a court.

Now finally about the Indian court-worker programme, in which I wish to pay tribute to the Hon. Minister without Portfolio (Hon. Mr. Calder) who has sat with the groups. He has sat with the Union of Indian Chiefs group and he has sat with the group for the non-status Indians. He has achieved — and if I've helped a little bit along the line, I hope I have been able to do so — cooperation between these two groups. Some programmes have not achieved that. But I want to say in British Columbia there is full cooperation. I have the letters here from very excellent people, Fred House, the president of the non-status Indians; and I think it's Bill Mussell for the Union of Indian Chiefs. They agree upon the setting up — you'll see something in the estimates to this effect; and there will be federal money to help us with what is in the estimates, because those overtures and discussions have already taken place with Ottawa — they have agreed to set up an independent association or a public society which will administer this exciting new programme in the administration of justice — including counseling in the fields of alcoholic, narcotic and drug-prevention; how to use on the part of an accused person existing agencies such as legal aid, law foundation, alcoholic and narcotic foundation; to hold work shops in different parts of the province to allow native people to be more socially, culturally and economically aware of what their legal and civil rights are.

This programme will have to be geographically limited to begin with. It will have to be limited in terms of the funds that we're able to devote to it. It will be experimental. But if it works, it holds a kind of bright new future in legal administration in the Province of British Columbia in the areas of our Indian communities.

Now I want to say something about the speech — and it was a good speech — of the Hon. Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Brousson) on the question of mortgage interest rates and bonuses. Let's call it frankly what it is — loan sharking. I think he raised a point which has certainly been of concern to me in the last few months. Because nothing hits the poorer, weaker sections of the community worse than the credit systems of the society in which we live.

If I can remember Isaiah, "To him who has shall be given; to him who has not; even that little bit he has shall be taken away." Maybe that's a true description of capitalism, because in the credit field you find that those who have get the good credit rate and the low interest rate. The people who have not — the divorcee, the widow, the poor — have to go back down through the banks and the trust companies and the mortgage companies until they finally fall into the hands of a mortgage broker and they're never quite sure how much interest they're really paying between the bonus and the stated interest rate. Sometimes it's 40 per cent.

What we can do in this field we ought to do, and I make these proposals as to things that are underway. First, there is registration of mortgage brokers, and the numbers who are now registered are 284 mortgage brokers, 615 sub mortgage brokers working for them — mostly reputable businessmen, with exceptions; with unscrupulous exceptions of people, six or eight of whom are now under investigation and two of whom have already had their registration cancelled. And others who keep within the law — and the law of Canada, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately is that interest rates are a matter, in terms of their quantum, of federal jurisdiction.

I'm not going to pass that buck. I intend to be down in Ottawa. I intend to make sure that that Small Loans Act — which is archaic, which doesn't affect loans whatsoever over $1,500 and which has not been updated for years and years — that the federal government give attention to that and revise it so that there will be some broad over-all interest protection for the people of this country. So we are

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going to enforce the registration sections as carefully as we can.

Now there is another remedy that we are actively pursuing, and that is — I think it's part 4, of the Consumer Protection Act, where there has been an amendment. Where somebody who is the victim of a harsh, or unconscionable transaction or one, to use the added words: "where the transaction is otherwise inequitable giving the court a broad equitable jurisdiction", can look at that transaction, and in a proper case, can rescind the transaction and put it back together again on a fair basis. We intend — and we have been examining some of these cases that the Hon. Member spoke about — that the Legal Aid Society shall afford help to those people who can make a case under that part. We want the law tested. It was tested some time ago in the case of UNRA versus Modern Finance. But that was before the amendment to the Act.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, that's good. I hope that's the case — that the courts will recognize a jurisdiction to right this kind of usurious wrong which is happening in our communities. We intend to support cases, and we're looking very carefully at 10 or 12 cases at the present time and I think writs will be issued any day now. But I don't say in all of those cases. And I don't say I'm initiating them. It is not up to me to go into court on a civil matter and initiate suits. But I do have the right to advise council and assist. And I intend to exercise those powers to the fullest.

Then there are the disclosure sections of the Act, which have not been proclaimed, which are under discussion, and which offer difficulties in terms of really disclosing true interest rates, The Hon. Member when he was speaking, spoke about an interest rate say of 25 per cent, or something, then a bonus. And I don't think even the Hon. Member gave the rolled-up effect of that interest rate.

There is a form which is being discussed — in terms of disclosure — with the mortgage industry, people engaged in this field. It's so complicated that I can scarcely understand it. You know, if you want true disclosure, you have to go into survey costs, legal fees, discount, finders, costs, interest rates, bonuses, discounts — and we have to find something that's simple.

I want to see in this form — and I've been actively working on that — a rolled-up interest rate which would sum the whole thing up in saying, "you're paying so much interest," and I think we can work that out. But we've got to make that as simple as possible because too many people sign their documents in blank, and particularly the weaker, exploited people I've been talking about — they don't read the mortgage. We could amend this Act to provide that the mortgage should show the rolled-up rate of interest, not the amount including the discount allowance. The true interest rate. And that would be an amendment to the Act. And perhaps my friend should bring in an amendment to that effect.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Right, he's going to — that's good. That's. one thing that can be done. But disclosure is a difficult matter to bring home to people when they need the money. A great many of them, even when they have had full disclosure made to them, need that home and have no other recourse to any lending institution and they go ahead anyway.

And that brings me to the final suggestion that I would like to make in this field.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It's working reasonably well. The consumer protection parts of the Act — in regard to advertising of interest rates and disclosure in that field — I think it's working reasonably well.

Another suggestion I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is this. I want to approach the industry — those who lend on mortgage and I mean banks, trust companies, mortgage companies, and mortgage brokers. I want them to set aside a pool of funds, somewhat like the Assigned Risk Plan in auto insurance as it used to be — where people who need credit and are referred off to mortgage brokers charging exorbitant rates would be able to apply to that pool. It may be that there should be legislation requiring people engaged in this business to provide that kind of financing to people really in need.

I don't see it as a risk matter really for the mortgage companies over the whole thing. Maybe their interest rate on these kind of assigned pool loans would be slightly higher in terms of a percentage or two of interest than the normal lending rate. But, that would be nothing compared to the 20, 30, and 40 per cent charged to these people without anywhere else to go. Therefore, I suggest to the industry that they voluntarily, if at all possible, look at some kind of pool of credit lending.

But really in this field we have to look to the Premier of the Province of British Columbia — to his budget, to his Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer). Because if there are shortages of houses and high costs of land and a desperate need out there for shelter for a person and his family, you're going to run into these unconscionable interest rates. In the field of rentals you might say — the best answer, perhaps the only answer to high rents may well be vacancies. And the real answer to exorbitant high interest rates that are victimizing the people of this

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province, and the other provinces of Canada, is really the kind of social democracy upon which we're making a small start at this time in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say something more about the high cost of land and houses before I sit down — in terms of the real estate industry — which I think I should give some attention to. Because I see fairly serious social problems in the realm of the real estate industry as it now exists. You can start almost anywhere and you can see something that requires the consideration of this Legislature, and debate in this Legislature.

I see the figures for the enrolments in the University of British Columbia pre-licensing course for real estate salesmen. The figures are huge — 2,565 enrollees in 1972. And of that number, 50 per cent failed the course. Of those who go on to become salesmen, the turnover rate is about 15 per cent per year. You have to ask yourself whether or not these people are providing a pool of talented sales labour for the great real estate combines that are springing up in the Province of British Columbia. And underpaid talent, if I may say, so. Some do well, some starve.

But the over-loading of our schools, the turn-over in that kind of industry, the lack of democratic participation of the sales force in the industry through the real estate boards — which are made up solely of agents, and shouldn't be made up solely of agents. The real estate boards like the Vancouver Real Estate Board, where as I say no salesmen sits on the board — and yet the board acts as a commercial agency, as a judicial agency with powers of control over its members — and as a quasi public body, and an employment agency at the same time.

I'd like to say that we should be concerned about the extent of the real estate commissions that are paid in the Province of British Columbia. You know, they are 5 per cent, 7 per cent multiple listing, 10 per cent on vacant land or farmland. Nobody said that there's, any competition involved there. Occasionally you hear of a rate of 4 per cent on a sale, but I note that in the Province of Manitoba the commission rate for multiple listing is 6 per cent. In the Province of British Columbia it is invariably 7 per cent. I note in passing that the Vancouver Real Estate Board, to which I have made mention, gets 0.5 per cent of the real estate commission return for the operation of the multiple listing service. And that 0.5 per cent accumulated, up to the end of 1967 only, into a fund — after they had paid for the service — of $ 710,000. I don't know what it is today — and that was not returned to the salesmen, I presume that was the money of the agents. But, I would presume that the multiple listing is lucrative, and I think we, as a public in this kind of a field have a right to look at the rate of commissions and see whether they're justified. Because what we're talking about has a lot to do with the price of land, and has a lot to do with the price of houses.

As I say, I think we have to at least be concerned with the growing concentration within the real estate industry — the rise of Block Bros., Wall & Redekop. A.E. LePage from Toronto took over, first Boultbee Sweet, then Bell-Irving Realty — very large organizations. We have to be concerned whether or not, as I say, the salesmen are really being protected in this kind of an industry. So I say that we should seriously think in terms of looking at the rate of commission.

We should be daring enough to be willing to look at the Act in terms of whether or not a municipality might set up a real estate exchange of its own. I don't think this would happen on a wide scale. But if they had that power, then somebody could drop into their local municipal office. They could take with them a picture of their house. They could discuss with somebody there, for a modest fee, what the house should sell for. Somebody wanting to buy that house would come in and he would see what the building inspector had said; what the health inspector had said; what the assessment had been doing, and what were the comparable market prices in the area. It may be that the transaction would be thus expeditiously, easily and cheaply consummated between two citizens of this province.

I think we have to look at the minimum earnings of salesmen who are going through this course and who go out into the world in such large numbers, having very little protection in terms of their employment. I think we should look at bonding too, because agents, and I'm speaking of the small B.C. agents increasingly under pressure from the big concerns that I mentioned — not just salesmen — but agents out there are being pushed to the wall in many cases.

They have trouble in many cases in getting a bond, and the provincial law requires them to get a bond. They have to go to some company, hopefully to get that bond. I think that the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) — who is seriously thinking, according to all the newspaper accounts, Mr. Speaker, of entering into the field of auto insurance — might consider whether, under a public statute which requires a bond, there shouldn't be something offered to those people.

I think we should look at the Act. The Second Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster) raised this point with me the other day, in terms of whether or not rental services should have to qualify as agencies before they can provide those rental services in a community. I wouldn't think so. But at the moment the Act prevents anybody offering rental accommodation, or directing people to rental accommodation, unless they are a registered real estate agent. I doubt very much whether that kind of a real estate course, and that kind of a qualification, is necessary for the people engaged in that field.

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Finally, I'd like to say…. oh, for the rental service? Well, in the case that was referred to me, the charge was paid by the landlord. It comes out of the rent directly, or indirectly no doubt — and there should be some control in that field.

Finally, let me say that in the Province of British Columbia we have increasingly salesmen, many of them not even British Columbians, who come into the province to sell Arizona pasturage, or Texas dry-lands, neatly subdivided. They do not at the present time, and I think this should be looked at, even have to sell through a B.C. broker. Now, maybe the prospectus is all right. But the stories I've heard of the high-pressure sales methods employed, the slickerism of these salesmen, putting on dinners — and it is mostly the older citizens of the Province of B.C. who are attracted by this kind of a retirement offer. The dinners that are provided free…in one or two cases, even the hotel was not paid. It's free to the prospective purchasers of the grassland and to the promoters. But in some cases the hotel has not been able to catch up to the people who really were responsible for the bill. We have boiler room stock promoters who have changed their spots and are now engaged in high-pressure sales tactics, which I think are unfair, and over which we in British Columbia should have some control.

So I say, Mr. Speaker, that this budge is simply a small installment of "maitres chez nous" — of masters in our own house, We have seen how a giant boulder adamantine against the sharpest steel, can yet be split down the middle by the roots of a bush; because the rock was dead, but the root of the bush was a living force entering, expanding. The policies in this budget are a living force. They're a little bit of the blue sky of a bright future for British Columbia, Mr. Speaker. This is a good budget and I intend to support it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Chilliwack.

MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted to stand again on behalf of the constituents in Chilliwack. I don't know how the rest of the new Members in the House feel but every time you stand, it feels a little more comfortable in the House. Eventually, I'm sure that we will grow so accustomed that we will bring others of our friends with us to sit here. (Laughter).

I would like to commend the Hon. Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) for his quick quotation from the scriptures. Very close, sir. (Laughter). I would like also to recommend — first I commend then I recommend — that he study the context of both of those references to find out who is referred to in these prophetic utterances; and how it is that he and his philosophy and those who, like him, hold his philosophy fit into that particular description. (Laughter). By the way, I'm glad to see the good attendance in the House today. I would like to invite you all to stay for the next 20 or 25 minutes. (Laughter).

AN HON. MEMBER: You've scared them out already!

MR. SCHROEDER: I like the Hon. Attorney General's story about "It's better to know the judge than it is to know the law." I'm reminded of the gentleman who was going to take out citizenship, Mr. Speaker, in the United States, the land south of us. However he was aware that, before he could take out citizenship in that country, he had to memorize the names in order of the 30-odd presidents from "day one" to now. He had to be able to recite in clear English the pledge of allegiance, and a few other things.

He was concerned because, you see, he was of Italian extraction and he didn't speak English too well. On the day that they came for his review he came before the judge and he was very apologetic, was the applicant, because he said: I'm a so sorry, Mr. Judge, because I'm a don't speaka pretty good English." And he said, "I'm afraid that today, because I don't speaka da English, I'm a don't be getting my citizenshipa."

The judge looked over the desk at him and he said, "Don'ta you worry, today you getta your citizenshipa." (Laughter).

AN HON. MEMBER: I want to read that in Hansard.

MR. SCHROEDER: This is the budget speech. In our study of homiletics they taught us diligently that whenever you stand up to say anything, always say something nice first. When the subject matter is the socialist Government's first budget — and I understand that there is some doubt, Mr. Speaker, from those who have studied it independently — some think it's a Social Credit budget, some think it's a socialist budget, others are not sure. But whatever the case may be, we as an Opposition may do well to subject that budget to some close scrutiny before we say anything, nice or otherwise.

I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that the Hon. Premier (Hon. Mr. Barrett) who is also the Minister of Finance, believes that it's a good budget — as we have heard parroted today by the Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald). In many instances I'd like to agree. You see, Mr. Speaker, it's obvious that whenever the Minister of Finance was uncertain as to what direction he should take in creating this budget, he took the previous year's estimates, he added a cautious 10 to 15 per cent, and said, "what a good boy am I."

I'd like to say that that's likely smart. After all, how do you follow a government who indisputably

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utilized some of the most sound budgetary principles that exist. Let's face it, Mr. Speaker; any previous administration that could hand over an economic base upon which anyone can project a $1.7 billion budget, can't have been all bad.

You know that is true, Mr. Premier, somebody, somewhere has done something right in the bygone days. I am a little disturbed at the vacillating attitude that I sensed from the Members across the floor, which is certainly fast becoming a hallmark of theirs. I heard the Hon. Minister of Finance say that we have a sound economic base in British Columbia, but it is the people of British Columbia that have built this sound base and not that administration as he pointed across the floor.

And then not too many breaths later he said, "We have a debt," which I am not sure he understands, but "We have a debt in British Columbia." Then, rather than say that we the people have created that debt, he pointed across the floor and said, "That administration over there is responsible for this debt." There is a sort of a dual personality there. (Laughter). I love you and respect you, Mr. Premier, but I cannot stand that kind of schizophrenia.

The Hon. Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) said, "The junkets are over." Then I looked at the budget and looked at the provisions that are made for travel expenses for various unnamed cabinet Ministers and I can't believe that the junkets are over. Unless it is, Mr. Speaker, that again we have this dual philosophy in effect and that maybe they don't mean j-u-n-k-e-t, maybe they mean j-u-n-k i-t, and that he said indeed they have looked at the plan of the previous junkets and said, "No way — we're not going to junk it." Maybe that's what he is talking about. I don't understand.

But let's look at the budget. It looks to me like there is some good news in here and it looks to me like there is some bad news in here, and I want to tell you the good news first. It reminds me of a story. I think in order to get the gentleman's attention, I will resort to the story and maybe he will listen.

In the Second World War there was an unexpected siege of the German forces which extended to some four or five weeks. They had been held to the confines of their foxholes and hadn't had an opportunity to refresh themselves, not even to change their clothing, Mr. Speaker, and the situation grew rather risqué.

As a result the commandant of the German forces came one day and he was as excited as could be. He said, "Gentlemen, today I have good news and bad news for you — first the good news. The supply truck has finally made it through and I want you to know we will have fresh food for dinner tonight, and also we are going to get a chance to change our clothing. Now, gentlemen, the bad news. The truck did not have any clothing on it and so in changing our clothing, Reinholt you will change with Hans, and Hans, you will change with Helmut."

I want you to know that in this budget there is some good news and some bad news and I want to give you the good news first. I am glad we decided to keep the homeowner grant. I am glad for both aspects of the homeowner grant — both the annual tax rebate type of homeowner grant and also the home acquisition thing. No one will dispute the value of this programme. To see it enhanced by increased benefits, and to see the increased source funds, does my heart good. Yes siree, hordes, you did it right that time. Do it again next year I would say.

Then the Guaranteed Monthly Income Plan is Class A. If I had it to do over for you I would take another $64 million and increase the benefits for those over 65, also those disabled, by another $40 per month. We are going to have to do it right soon in any case because if I have to listen to the spiraling inflation report that I heard from the First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison) yesterday, in not too many years the increase we have given them this past year will be eaten away by inflation and we are going to have to do something like this anyway.

I am glad to see the establishment of the Community Recreational Facilities Fund, and this is great doing. I also like to see that the stipulations which are normally attached to this kind of fund are not attached to this fund, and Mr. Minister of Finance I want to commend you for this. It isn't part of the written budget speech but it is part of the Hansard in the actual speech that was given.

These benefits are extended to civic groups and religious groups and I want to thank you for remembering them as well. I think there should be no problem in meeting the one stipulation that says that the facilities shall be available to any and all citizens of the area.

I am glad to see the extra exemption on the motor fuel for the fishermen and the farmers. All of this is a step in the right direction. I agree wholeheartedly with the gift tax amendment that will release family homes for transfer between spouses, All this is good and we as an Opposition would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that. More than that it would be misrepresentation to say that the budget stinks.

However there are some questions. There is some bad news in the budget and I think that the first bad news, Mr. Speaker, is not what the budget says but which, by the way the budget says it, is not said. It seems to me that there is a design by which the Minister of Finance either is not certain of what he means or is trying not to tell it to us exactly the way it is or perhaps not certain of the way it is.

The first question is this. The first statement on the excerpt over here says "no increase in general provincial tax rates for people." That might be technically correct but where does this blatant

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statement fit in with the rest of the budget? Does the Hon. Minister of Finance have some kind of an insulation that would keep the people from the effects of any kind of taxation?

Everybody knows that no matter where a regressive tax is applied it is the consumer who feels the pinch eventually. Let's take the gasoline tax as an example. When you tax the petroleum industry at any point the final result of that taxation becomes clearly posted on all the gasoline pumps all across British Columbia.

SOME HON. MEMBER: Not so!

MR. SCHROEDER: Oh no? I'll tell you….

AN HON. MEMBER: Have you been reading Shelford's speech?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, would you address the Chair?

MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, sir. I might suggest, Mr. Speaker, that I wasn't reading the speeches of a named Mr. Shelford but I was reading the speech — last year's response to the budget debate by the then Leader of the Opposition in which he talked of contingent liabilities and in which he very clearly made me to understand that he did not understand the words "contingent liability" let alone its meaning, Because he said, "I went to my banker today to see whether I couldn't arrange for my mortgage to be renamed and have it called a contingent liability because, you see, I don't want to pay the interest any more."

He is a smart banker. He is a smart banker that says, "No, there is no way you can rename a direct debt to be a contingent liability." What the Minister of Finance should learn, and I hope he does before too many days in office, is that a contingent liability and a mortgage are two different things. If I could give the Hon. Minister of Finance a lesson in contingent liabilities, just as a sort of a parenthetical thing in the speech today, Mr. Speaker, would you allow me this?

It is more as if the Hon. Minister were to undertake an enterprise, and did not have the necessary capital funds for that enterprise. Neither did he have a good enough credit reference, so that he could borrow from his banker the necessary funds, and he said to me, "Harv, you have a good credit rating, you have paid your bills all of your life — how about co-signing a note with me?"

I think enough of the Minister of Finance to say. "Yes, I would be happy to do that," and I would co-sign that note with him and I would say that now this becomes a contingent liability from my point of view. From his point of view it remains a direct debt. But 1, being the co-signor of that note am not responsible for that debt unless the Hon. Minister of Finance is in default, and in that case I become….

Mr. Speaker, you have changed! (Mr. Dent in the chair) (Laughter). In that case I become responsible for the debt.

Mr. Speaker, now let me come back to the example that I had begun before I was so rudely interrupted. When you tax the petroleum industry at any point, the final result of that taxation becomes clearly posted on all the gasoline pumps throughout British Columbia. 

Here is a given example. This was released by the Standard Oil Company of British Columbia, who tell us that in the 16 years from 1957 to 1973 there has been a hike in gasoline prices of 11 cents. There has been a 50 per cent increase in the government taxes, which taxes undoubtedly were never intended to have to be paid out of the pockets of the consumer but it was thought that there was some insulation that could be erected between the industry and the consumer.

But there it is — the price on the gasoline pumps has risen in those 16 years from 40.9 cents to 51.9 cents. I know this is right because there are pumps sitting right outside of my house. 51.9 cents — an increase of 11 cents. The amount of money that has been realized by the distributor or the corporation is 1.4 cents, which is actually the net increase in the price of gasoline as far as the producer is concerned, but the poor consumer pays 11 cents more for a gallon of gas that's only actually worth I cent more. Don't tell me that tax, at whatever point it is applied to an industry, does not always come out of the pocket of the consumer.

Another point that is made perfectly clear is that in these last 16 years taxes on gasoline have risen by 50 per cent, the price to the distributor only 6 per cent, and now I look at the budget and it tells me that the petroleum royalties are to be increased by another 30 per cent. Does this mean that we, the Government, expect the extra 30 per cent increase in royalties to come out of the 1.4 cents per gallon increase that is realized by the Standard Oil Company? It doesn't sound good to me, Mr. Speaker. As a matter of fact, I've got this labeled here as some of the "bad news" that's in this budget.

Now, Mr. Speaker, to have the average taxpayer out there go to sleep tonight believing that he is not going to be touched by the extra taxation is to let him believe an untruth. I think that it's bad news in the budget.

Secondly, it seems to me that the Hon. Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) is trying to conceal something in the announcement about increased corporation taxes. Why does he say, "The increase is from 10 per cent to 12 per cent, " saying by innuendo that there's a 2 per cent increase? Why not tell it like it is? It's 20 per cent. Giving the pill a candy coating

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doesn't make it any easier to swallow. More than that, it makes all of us a little uneasy about the rest of the budget. We look at each of the items with a scrutineering eye and we say, "Hey, I wonder where the catch is in this one." Could there be other fine print somewhere in between the lines?

Mr. Speaker, this brings me to a question on the whole philosophy of corporation taxes. It appears to me that the socialist concept of corporation control is to see how close they can come to eradication — I mean complete eradication — of profits. "Profit" seems to be an ugly word in the vocabulary of a socialist. Let me say this. If we didn't have profits of the past, we wouldn't have the development of the past. If we didn't have the contingent liabilities that we have in British Columbia today, if we had sat back like we had been encouraged to do so many times rather than to assume or underwrite the debt called "contingent liabilities," we wouldn't have the development in the B.C. Hydro programme and in the railway programme. We would have not realized the profits and we would also not have realized the benefits of those profits. We wouldn't have had the development or the jobs and we would be seated somewhere precariously close to where we're seated today on the job issue.

Let me say that if you wish to deny profits, Mr. Socialist, you must also guarantee losses.

AN HON. MEMBER: They tried it in Saskatchewan and it didn't work.

MR. SCHROEDER: It should be a blight on the socialist conscience that they stand back and ogle with a covetous eye the profits of a successful corporation and leap upon them like a vulture saying, "Let's take over that corporation." But if a corporation suffers a loss, you don't find them anywhere nearby, ready to reassess the tax structure to compensate for that loss. That would be a rip-off, you know. That would make a "corporate burn." Never does the socialist remember that, should he expropriate any corporation, he would become immediately responsible for its losses. For government-owned enterprises, the public underwrites losses but for private enterprise, the same procedure is called a "rip-off."

I just want to know one thing about this whole deal. Why do we want to squeeze these corporations, be they public or private? Why do we want to squeeze them out of existence? Why do we want to increase their tax burden and, at the same time, increase their operating expense through labour settlements? Then all the while we're doing both of these things, we talk about freezing the market price of their product.

It forces that corporation to do one of two things: either they shut down — by the way, I've got some figures here today about the number of businesses in British Columbia that have shut down and the cost to the economy of British Columbia. Here they are here. Now this is just for British Columbia. These are not Canada figures. These are filed, though, under the federal Bankruptcy Act and Winding-up Act. They've got nothing to do with the small businesses that never file bankruptcy but that just cease to exist.

In the 12 months of 1970 there were 195 bankruptcies in British Columbia, representing unpaid bills of nearly $14 million. That's 1970. In 1971, a 12-month period, bankruptcies were up to 215 bankruptcies, representing over $20 million of unpaid bills. In 1972, for a 12-month period, there were 280 businesses that filed bankruptcy, to the tune of $27 million. Can you see the increase? The increase in the rise of failure is directly proportional to the pressure that is applied to those corporations and that is just what I'm talking about here right now.

I'm further informed that, of new businesses that are begun, 80 per cent fail in the first year. Now why do we want to do this? It forces them either to quit or, through some advanced technology, create a more efficient operation. In either instance — I don't want you to miss this, Mr. Minister of Finance — jobs are lost. I thought that the reason why we were all here in the first place — was to create jobs, not to obliterate them.

I want to ask you — what is so undesirable about a corporation making a profit? All profits go either to shareholders, who are people who spend those dividends and contribute to the economic base, or they go to capital investment, which creates more jobs. It doesn't sound so bad to me. In both cases we win. The only time we lose is when profits are taken out of the country. It seems to me that this is where we need to apply the controls.

Now let's talk about education. I had intended to go only 20 minutes because the same homiletics instructor that said, "Always say something nice first," also said, "If you can't strike oil in 20 minutes, stop boring." But let's talk about education for just a minute.

We listened to endless debate during the recent election campaign about the socialists' concern for education. I want to commend you for it if it's for real. "Education should have a greater share of the budget dollar," they told me. "A 9.5 per cent annual increase is not sufficient to provide an adequate learning atmosphere," they said. Yet here in this budget we get a smaller percentage of the budget pie than we did last year — nearly a 3 per cent shrinkage.

I wonder how will the teachers out there take to that, especially when most of the extra dollars that make up this diminished share are eaten by salary increases. Where does the better education deal come in, particularly when the hue and cry out there was: "It's not our salaries that we're worried about. It's the education standard that we're worried about."

Here it is. We learn from the report of the B.C. Trustees Association that over 80 per cent of the

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increase that is given in this budget is going to go to increased salaries, meaning that even fewer dollars, Mr. Member, are going to be given to raise the education standard than last year. I'm wondering if the teachers that helped seat this Government, how soon they will help to unseat this Government if we follow that particular course of action.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Better salaries make better teachers, The Premier told us that.

MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, I heard it in this House — that better salaries make better teachers. I want you to know that we have in this House a Premier who voted himself a raise of $5,000 and I noticed that he isn't one whit better five seconds after he voted it than he was five seconds before.

I wondered, Mr. Speaker, as I pondered over the budget, why did the Hon. Minister of Finance design the budget on a projection of only 10 per cent increase in revenue growth? He knows full well that the economic base is there. He knows the econo-activity is presently out there. He knows the economic activity is presently out there. He knows the surpluses are there as an insurance against overspending. Yet his projections are not made on a realistic 13.5 per cent growth. Why? I think the Premier's been listening. I think the message has come through. I think there is doubt in his mind as to whether his policies are being subscribed to. He knows that the business and the industrial communities are holding back.

They tell you in their Press releases that they are just holding back. That's not just mining but that's also lumber and related industries. "We're going to sit back and wait to see which way the axe is going to fall," they say. He knows that the business and industrial communities are holding back out there. Maybe the Premier is right; maybe there cannot be the normal growth pattern that has been established in the past years, under a socialist government.

There's doubt out there on the flood plains. (Laughter).

Mr. Speaker, we're accustomed to benedictions in my profession, and I have written a special benediction for today. The Hon. Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) will be interested in this.

And now may the patron saint of all budgets look with favour upon this document; and by the grace of some miracle, grant the wisdom to administer these directives however feeble they may be; and to distinguish those that are truth from those that are hogwash, both now and through this coming year. Amen. (Laughter),

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Skeena.

MR. H.D. DENT (Skeena): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) presented an alternate proposed budget to replace the budget offered by the Minister of Finance (Hon, Mr. Barrett), because presumably he was not satisfied with the budget that was brought in by the Minister of Finance.

I suppose if we think in terms of ideals, none of us, including the Minister of Finance, would be satisfied with any budget that we brought in. But certainly, given the present needs and the present circumstances of our province in this, the year of our Lord, 1973, this is a sound and sensible budget and we will all support it on the Government side, I am sure.

MR. CHABOT: Speak for yourself. You're not speaking for them.

MR. DENT: Mr. Speaker, we're in a hurry. We're impatient. We want to get on with the serious business of building a democratic socialist society. I recognize that we cannot achieve these ideals of our party overnight. But that does not mean that we have lost our ideals, that we've watered down our ideals, or that we don't intend to realize them.

We have started on that road and this budget is the first step along that road.

Now I would like to propose a 1978 budget, you might say — at least this would be my idea of some of the things that might be in that budget — which would perhaps indicate the directions in which our present Government may go. I'm sure that if every Member — certainly on the Government side — did the same thing, we'd come out with 38 different budgets because all of us have different ideas as to what we would like to see happen over the next few years. Therefore, I'm presenting my ideas as to what I would like to see done over the next few years.

I'll consider it by departments in general terms, Mr. Speaker, because we cannot discuss specific votes.

First, legislation. I just happened to be out of the House at the particular moment that he said this, but the Hon. First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison), who is not in the House, made some reference to increases in salary or indemnity and expenses. Well, as applied to backbenchers who come from the north and the interior, I found this pretty hard to take from somebody who lives in Victoria. He doesn't have anything like the kind of problems that most of us have out in the country.

I just want to describe what's going to happen to me next weekend, financially, in order to give you an idea of what this means. I'm going to my constituency, Skeena, on the weekend. I'll take the plane from Vancouver to Terrace. I'll spend most of Saturday in Terrace, meeting various people, and then

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proceed on to a social evening in Smithers sponsored by our party, the NDP, in the evening. Then I'll stay overnight and return to Terrace. We have our club meeting in Terrace in the afternoon. Then I'll see a few more people after that and finally, Monday morning, I'll return to Vancouver and then Victoria — hopefully to get here in time for the 2 o'clock sitting.

Now what does this mean to me financially as a backbencher from that riding? Just in straight dollars and cents it means this: first of all, to get to Terrace and back it's going to cost me, at my own expense, $100. That is not what it costs the Hon. First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison) to visit his constituency from this Legislature — or the Hon. Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis), to his constituency. He was looking at me, so I thought I would refer to him. I just wanted to be sure he was listening.

That only lands me at the airport in Terrace. I keep a second home in Terrace. I pay rent there as well as paying rent down here. We get some assistance for that, for which I'm grateful. But nevertheless there is the inconvenience and the problem and there is additional financial cost involved.

Then, for the meeting in Smithers, I must proceed to Smithers by some means of transportation other than my car since I can't take my car on CP Air. Therefore, I'll have to take a bus or get a ride with somebody if I can. Probably I'll take a bus. Fortunately we have a pass, so that will be covered.

When I arrive in Smithers, I'll need accommodation overnight — special accommodation, maybe a hotel room for $10 or $15 or so, and meals of course.

Then back to Terrace the next day, again on the bus, remain in Terrace and then return to Vancouver, and so on.

Now the total cost for me, just for this weekend, will probably be between $150 and $200 to visit my constituency. The Hon. First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison) would not have to pay any of that money out to visit his constituency. So I rather resent him suggesting that we're inflationary, that we're trying to get more money. The fact is that just to keep up to the costs will be a major undertaking for MLA's from outside the lower mainland from both sides of the House.

Therefore, for my 1978 budget — taking into account increased costs for MLA's — I would probably estimate a minimum figure of $2 million under legislation.

There are other aspects under this section that I'd like to mention briefly, and that is that we are in dire need of full-time secretarial assistance. The volume of mail is somewhat overwhelming. I think that I have 1,000 individual problems to cope with that have been handed to me — mostly by mail — since I was elected. I haven't even worked my way through 600 of them yet. I haven't got to the other 300 or 400; some of them that I've just had to forget about temporarily until I can look them up and have a go at them.

It's somewhat overwhelming. The volume of letters that have to be written and so forth is tremendous. And this is not something that happens just during the session; it happens all year round. So that I would think it would be no waste of the taxpayers' money to ensure that the MLA's have adequate secretarial assistance so that they can do their job on behalf of their constituents and get through those problems. After all, these are the people's problems. These are not our problems we're looking after.

Similarly with office facilities. We now have better office facilities here but we need them in the constituencies as well. Again, this is the major expense item — we have to keep files, the mail has to be all carefully sorted and filed and this requires some office space. Not everybody has the opportunity to do it in their homes.

Then, under this section, there's the legislative committees. I think it's a wonderful thing to see that there's going to be more money provided — and I don't want to get into details here, Mr. Speaker, because this will be dealt with under the estimates — but I think it's a great thing that there will be more operation of the committees during the periods between sessions.

I was very impressed with my visit in Saskatchewan last fall where they make more extensive use of special committees and standing committees in order to involve the public in the decision-making process. Democracy is a wonderful ideal but to realize it, to actualize it, is another thing. Certainly to actualize democracy means that we must have continuous communication, not with a handful of people but with all of the people.

I don't think it's any waste of money at all to have committees travelling around the province on specific issues, such as liquor legislation or any other major problems that may be of concern to the public to get their input, to get their reaction, to propose legislation, to suggest legislation, to suggest ideas. So I think that this will certainly be money well spent and I foresee this money being spent over the next several years on a regular basis.

Now the Premier's office is the next thing on the budget — and again I can't go into the details of this other than to say it's indicated in the budget as a fixed amount here. I don't foresee that it will increase greatly by 1978 but it would probably level off at a reasonable figure, say around $160,000 or $165,000. This would be the result of normal salary increases and so on.

I think that the Premier's whole operation is a very modest one comparable to the Prairies rather than to the larger provinces, say of Ontario or Quebec. I

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think that this is a very modest budget for the Premier's office.

I was going to look up the reference — I don't have it at hand — but I'm standing in a position in this debate that was held by the former Member for Delta (Mr. Wenman), in the last House. I'm glad that I can refer to him as the "former Member for Delta."

However, he made the comment that he didn't think that we had made a very good choice in selecting our present leader. These words, as I said, were spoken as the very first words by the person who had my position in the debate last year. I think that these words would now come back to haunt him. I think we made a very good choice. Well we're here anyway as the Government and I think that speaks for itself.

Agriculture: I think that there should be a tremendous increase over the next few years in the budget for agriculture. I was raised on a farm as a boy. It's been my impression from travelling around the province and talking to farmers that they have not been getting the kind of consideration that they deserve from the previous government and now they're beginning to get more consideration. I look forward to increased consideration over the next few years by the present Government.

So I would foresee a budget by 1978 of, say, $25 million for the Department of Agriculture. I foresee a stable and steady growth in the agricultural economy of the province.

I say "stable and steady" because as more services become available to the farmer, as their problems are dealt with in a more businesslike manner, then gradually there will be a kind of growth take place which will develop a viable and effective and very necessary sound, permanent agricultural economy in the Province of British Columbia, including the Peace River, the Okanagan, the Fraser Valley and parts of the northwest where there is an agricultural potential — certainly in the Kootenays.

There will be a dramatic increase, I hope, in income for the farmers. They stand practically at the bottom in terms of their income compared to the rest of the population. The marketplace concept gives to the strong, tends to favour the strong. Those that are just plain hardworking and not necessarily strong in the marketplace are not getting their fair share. The farmers are just too darn conscientious. They work hard, they do their best and they figure, "If we just contribute and work hard, society will reward us." In the kind of marketplace society we have had functioning over the last few years, this is simply not so. They don't get rewarded.

But I foresee, as the atmosphere changes and as people are rewarded because of the contribution that they're making, and the legislation and the assistance from the Government makes this happen, then I can foresee a steady improvement in farm income — a dramatic increase in farm income over the next five years. There will be marketing assistance, research assistance — an increased amount — I would foresee again over the next five years. By the time we get to 1978, hopefully this will be more than adequate for the needs of our agricultural community.

Finally, I also would hope that the agricultural economy will become integrated with the co-op economy and with the small business economy. We're dominated at the present time by large corporations who are in a position to…Well, I can't use a vulgar term — but to shaft everybody. And they do. They shaft the farmer, the small businessman, the retailer, the co-op. Almost everybody is virtually under the thumb of the large wholesaler and large corporation.

But as this situation changes, then I see an integration of the agricultural economy with the co-op economy and with the small business economy. Gradually and hopefully, the large company will take a weaker position and the rest of the thing will become a much more cooperative effort. Everybody generally will benefit, except maybe a few large shareholders in Ontario and in the United States.

The Attorney General's department: I foresee a drastic decline in five years in the funding to the Attorney General's department. I think it's going to be about $48 million in the estimate in the budget speech here. I would say that $25 million hopefully will be adequate by 1978. The reason is because there will be reduced court costs: there will be fewer prisoners incarcerated in institutions; the increased probation and parole services will have rehabilitated a great number more of our young people.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: They'll cost money.

MR. DENT: They will, but as time goes along there will be fewer repeaters. Therefore, I see that gradually there will be a tapering off. First there may be an increase for a few years, Then there will be a drastic decrease.

There will be, I hope, a general reduction in crime because as we step up our programmes — in education, in recreation and so forth — gradually there will be less inclination to crime. We'll get rid of the root causes of crime. This in turn will result in fewer costs to the Attorney General's department.

Therefore, I would hope that this will be one department that within five years will show a decline in its financial need. In fact, if it declines far enough then it might be combined with some other department and eliminated altogether, but I don't think that will happen for some time.

Education: Maybe a budget of about $800 million would be adequate in 1978 — I thought of putting it higher, but then I realized that some changes could be made which would perhaps make it less necessary to

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increase the costs — of which about $450 million would be general education and $350 million for post-secondary education.

By that time I hope we will have the best educational system in North America. It may take us a while to have the best system in the world because we've got to catch up to such countries as France, Sweden, Britain, Germany and Japan and so on. They're all ahead of us in education because they consider the importance of education to the total needs of the people. That idea has not been held in British Columbia for some time — that education is really that important. All they think about is how much it's going to cost.

Now what improvements could we look for in education? Well, the obvious ones are reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio, integration with the community — I don't want to rattle that one off without explaining it a little bit.

It seems to me, as a former teacher, that one of the problems in education is that it is run with the idea of getting the kids out of the community for five hours a day at least, so that they're out of everybody's hair. They can forget about them. They can go on and do other things for five hours and they don't have to worry about the kids. They're in this building and there's some people looking after them. They're not getting into any trouble. That's the sort of feeling that a lot of people have towards education.

Education can be much more than that and certainly the first thing that needs to happen is that it needs to become a part of the community development and activity. I would see recreational and educational programmes more integrated so that facilities can be used both from a recreational point of view by the community and also by the educational system.

Also, an integration with the working community, so that young people are moving back and forth within the working community and gaining experience in the business of becoming mature adults and taking their place in society as contributors toward the general commonwealth of the people. There could be a great deal more integration there than there is now.

Other countries are far ahead of us in this respect. We still have a separated, segregated system of education — segregated from the rest of the community. We need to get the educational system back into the general community concern and welfare.

Also, we need to open up education to all ages so that anybody at any point could return and complete their education without any great financial difficulty. As it is now, once a person has a family, they cannot go back into the educational system. They can't afford it. Yet they may be very promising in terms of their contribution to society. They may be very bright and have great potential, but they can't realize February 13, 1973 it because they're in bad financial condition.

Now this has been rectified to some extent by Canada Manpower and so on, but we've got a long way to go to ensure that every person, no matter what age they are, can pick up and continue their education.

We have some students in the Legislature today from City College in Vancouver, and many of them are in that category. They're not children or just out of high school. They're older people who have gone back for further education and in this case they happen to be mainly native people. Native young adults, who are completing their education and I think it's tremendous that this can happen. It's got to be strengthened and improved.

Then there's another programme that I would like to see instituted in education. I think the day has gone when we teach children and adults about the world, by bringing the world to the student — that is to say, we bring the world into the classroom through the medium of the voice of the teacher, the blackboard, film strips, films or whatever. I think that we should turn it around and we should move toward the direction of taking the student to the world, as a more effective way of teaching social studies and of teaching world studies.

I was interested in an item in the paper the other day about a teacher, together with some students, who were raising some money in order to get a coastal ferry or boat that they are going to lease or rent for a trip and they're going to go to Alaska. And they're going to see Alaska. That's tremendous.

I would like to see the Department of Education by 1978 owning some jet planes, some large jet planes, and maybe two or three ships. They would take the students on a regular basis to visit different parts of the world. We would establish agreements with other countries that our students could be resident in these countries for periods of time, and do their studies — say, language studies, and this sort of thing especially — studying the whole social structure and the whole cultural nature.

What do we do, what do we have in B.C. now? Or what have we had? I wanted to show a film about the Eskimos once when I was teaching, so I ordered a film from the Department of Education film library. It was supposed to be a film about Eskimos, so that's fine, it came. It was made in 1932, I think or was it 1934? I've just forgotten. Anyway, it was totally useless for what we were trying to do. Now it had some value in terms of understanding what they were like way back then but we wanted a film to help us to understand what they were doing now. This film was of no value in that respect — or very little value.

This is the situation. The films in most cases are either irrelevant or totally inadequate to what you may be trying to teach. Once in a while you are lucky and you get one that is really good, but more often

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it's the other way. Rather than to go into great expense to get more films, though I think we should do this, we should start getting a more realistic kind of education by taking the young person and the adult to these other places of the world.

Technical and job training. There is the discovery method of learning, which is somewhat popular now, and there is also the sort of general liberal ideas of education, which I think are worth looking at, in terms of general education. But I think when it comes to job training — when it comes to developing skills — we have to look at the thing quite differently.

I think one of the outstanding institutions in British Columbia today is the B.C. Institute of Technology. If I was ever going to give any credits to the previous government, it would be for establishing the B.C. Institute of Technology. The reports that I've got from it are almost all good. The kind of students that go out seem to be well trained and well prepared for the jobs that they are going to take. Therefore, their procedures and their methods of training are sound from that point of view — from the point of view of job training and the development of skills. I would like to see more institutions of that kind.

The Mayor of Smithers, for example — I asked him: "Well, what are some of the problems? What are some of the things you would like to have in Smithers?" He said: "Well, we would like to have an institution built in Smithers like the B.C. Institute of Technology, so that our young people can really learn skills and be well qualified to get good jobs. Otherwise they may be badly qualified and may have difficulty getting jobs."

I think that education has to be seen in this way. If you are learning about the world, then let's learn about the world the best way and go out to the world. If we're learning job training, let's learn job training and develop some real skills, some real sense of discipline and what we are going to do so that we're of some use to somebody. I think this is extremely important.

In terms of developing our own potential as human beings, we should be integrated with the community. We should have the opportunity to develop our talents and our interests. If I want to paint, I can learn to paint. If I want to learn to write poetry, I can learn to write poetry, and so forth, so that a person is developed in his whole being.

Department of Finance: Well, I think a modest increase is all that's needed there by 1978 — maybe to $40 million. Most of this would be taken up with increased salaries and benefits. While we're on the subject of salaries and benefits, I'd just like to suggest a couple that I hope will be here in 1978.

I hope we'll have a four day week and a three day weekend by 1978 for all government employees and for all people of British Columbia. We're almost there, and I think that we should work in that direction very quickly, because it's no longer necessary to work all the days of the week that we're now working. When the Lord started out he said, "Six days work and one day rest." Then we went to the five day week. Now let's go to the four day week and have a three day weekend.

Another thing that I think we should have by 1978 is a sabbatical every 10 years for all the working people of British Columbia. That is to say, if they've worked 10 years, then they should get a full year off with salary. This would open up more job opportunities too. A sabbatical every 10 years. Now, maybe we won't get there by 1978, but I say we should aim for it, so that all the people have a chance to go around and have a look at the world and do the things they want to do, after they've done maybe 10 years work. Then, over a period of time we can gradually reduce that to five years.

"Department of Justice": "What department is that? you ask. Well, it's a combined department. In 1978 I would foresee that health, welfare, rehabilitation, day care and Human Rights will be combined in one department and called the Department of Human Justice.

What is the meaning of the word justice? Maybe we all sort of assume that we know what it means. That was one reason I was grateful for studying Greek when I was in the theological college, because they have some meanings for words that are very interesting.

In fact, I might point out that Bishop Somerville, David Somerville, who was in the House earlier this afternoon, was my professor of systematic theology in my last year of theology and he was the principal of the college at that time. So I got to know and appreciate and love that man very much. I might point out that he is a fine spiritual man and, as has been pointed out by the Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), he is also a man of culture and humanity in every sense of the word.

But I want to come back to the meaning of this word "justice". The Greek word, and I probably pronounce it wrong, is [original illegible] and it can be either interpreted in English as "justice" or "righteousness", depending on how it's used. So when they talked of the god of justice, they meant the god of righteousness. And when they talked of a god of righteousness, they meant a god of justice.

But then justice was looked upon not as something you receive, nor was it looked on in the strict sense as a legal thing, but rather it was looked on as something that everybody was entitled to, and everybody had a responsibility to practice simultaneously. The whole balance of justice requires that both things happen — that you receive justice and that you give justice.

Now, a Department of Human Justice would be a department in which the people, through their government,

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would ensure that every citizen received justice. They would be giving justice to the citizens and they would be receiving justice as citizens. I'll just repeat that. The Department of Justice would be the means through which justice would come to all citizens; it would enable everyone to give justice and it would enable everyone to receive justice. It would include, as I said, health and welfare, rehabilitation and day care.

Basically it would mean that we would be concerned for the happiness of everybody in our society, consciously. We would be consciously anxious to ensure that everyone was as happy as possible. If they were sick, we would help them to become well, and provide them with the medical services they required. If they were lonely, we would try to take away their loneliness. We would become a friend to them.

This can be done to an extent by legislation. The whole method of whether we have large urban sprawl or whether we have small communities can be determined to some extent by legislation. That determines whether people become lonely or don't become lonely.

I say that we have a responsibility in that area, to ensure that there is justice for the lonely, that there are as few people who are genuinely lonely as possible. To ensure that everyone is adequately fed and clothed and housed — that's the responsibility of us all. If they're crippled, they shouldn't have to go begging. If they're blind, they shouldn't have to live on a pittance. If they're old and past the age of work, they should be able to live out their years in dignity. It's our responsibility to give them justice through this vehicle.

There was a preacher in the last century named Charles Finney, and I think he was probably one of the last really great preachers of modern times. Now there's been a lot of preachers since, but he was, I would think, one of the greatest.

He preached a sermon called "Moral insanity." He suggested that when people become disoriented from each other, when they become wrapped up in themselves. When they become greedy and concerned about their own needs, they develop a moral insanity.

It becomes like a ward that I saw in Riverview Hospital when I visited there as a theological student, where there were 80 men in this small ward. Their beds were tightly packed together, and I think they may be still that way. They had a recreation room where they would go and sit, and a TV and so on. The thing that struck me about this place was the fact that practically none of them were talking to each other. There was very little communication between them. They were each suffering by themselves, even though they were in a group.

There was an insanity in a sense there. But our nation is becoming like this. Our province is becoming like this. People are becoming wrapped up in themselves, in their own needs.

The answer for it is to develop a sense of giving, a sense of giving justice to others, of bringing happiness to other people. There is no limit to the potential that we have for giving happiness to other people.

You know, there was a Pentecostal man who was a patient in the hospital. Even though he had some problems, admittedly, the fact was he taught me something in about 20 seconds. He said, "I want to show you something." There was a man, an immigrant. He couldn't speak English and he was a big hulk of a man. He was walking along toward us and, when he stopped, this Pentecostal man went up to him and took ahold of his hand and put his arm on his shoulder and shook his hand and said, "How are you today?"

How are you today? And the guy looked at him and he thought he was crazy. And then suddenly he brightened up and he realized somebody was taking an interest in him as a person. He brightened right up and he smiled and he was so happy. We had made his day.

It's so easy to bring happiness to other people. Much easier than bringing it to ourselves. And yet, as we become alienated and isolated, we develop a moral insanity. I would submit that the motivations of the capitalist system have been primarily responsible for this. They've developed a sense of alienation in large urban areas. They've pitted one group against another. They've done all kinds of things to make people concerned only for their own needs, for their own status, for the kind of car they drive, for how big a house they're in and so on.

We need to change all of that. We need to have a spiritual revival, a moral revival that will cause people to become interested in one another instead of in themselves.

The question was put by the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) yesterday, to me, "What is a legitimate profit?" Well, in this context I'd like to give my definition of what I consider to be a legitimate profit.

I would consider a legitimate profit to be what I need to sustain my family in a decent standard of living and what I need to be able to give them the best that I'd like to give them. And then perhaps to have something left over so that I can help other people.

That's what Paul said. You know what he said when he was giving advice to a church? He said, "I'd like you to work." Why would he like them to work? So they would have some money to give to the people who were in Jerusalem, who were in a famine. That's why.

I would consider a reasonable profit to be what a person could make as a reasonable return on what they did, which would enable them to have a reasonable standard of living and something so that

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they could assist in helping to build a better community.

The amassing of money I don't consider to be a reasonable profit — just for the sake of having more than other people.

Now transportation. This would include highways and considerations for railways and so on. By 1978 I would foresee that we would have an integrated transportation system in B.C., fully integrated. It's incredible; it's insane that we should have a fragmented transportation system, when obviously there's an interrelation between every kind of transportation.

Consider this: If you are driving up the Fraser Canyon some day in a snow storm, you may have to drive behind all kinds of large trucks carrying heavy freight. Now if we had an integrated transportation system, I'd like to see, all those big trucks off the highway and onto freight cars. Why do they have to go on the highway? Why can't they be carried by rail — certainly through the Fraser Canyon?

Under this integrated transportation department or system I would suggest that there would be three programmes that would be in operation in 1978. One programme would be a 10-year programme for highways and roads, built on a province-wide basis, run by traffic managers, without any politics involved.

I was in the Cariboo for a while as a church minister and I used to be amazed when I travelled from one part of my parish to the other. I'd see them with paving equipment in and they'd pave two miles of road. Then they would pull it out — and it would take them two days to pull it out — and they'd go to another place and they'd put another two miles of road in. Well obviously it was being done for political reasons. It was being done to placate a few people here and a few people there and a few people over there and win a few votes for the government. Well, I hope we never do that as a government. Because the waste of time of moving that equipment alone was criminal. And the cost to the public involved.

We should have traffic managers who understand the problems of traffic and who specialize in this in the whole of the province, and who'd take a look at the province and its needs and then develop an integrated highway and road system. They would work together with the transportation authority or with the transportation department. I hope this will come by 1978.

Then a province-wide programme of rapid transit is needed. Rapid transit is not just to move people from Richmond to Vancouver — although that's desperately needed. I think it should be a province-wide system. You know, we've got a huge province. We've got all kinds of space. We're loaded with space. We've got so much land we put it in piles called mountains, or somebody did. But we have so much space. Why don't we use it? Why do we pack everybody into a small area down in the lower mainland, or even in the valleys? Why do we stick them in the large centres like Penticton and Kelowna and some of these other centres where everybody's rammed in together?

Now you say, "Well, that's because they chose to live there." I'll suggest one of the reasons they chose to live there was because of the transportation problem; because of the problem of getting from one place to another it was handier to be there. It was less costly to run their car and so on. That's the reason they live there.

So if we're going to get people to spread out more — and that's what we should be aiming at — then we've got to have a better transportation system. We've got to have a better rapid transit system.

This is an example; this is kind of a dream. I don't know whether it'll ever be realized, but why not build a tunnel from Terrace to Vancouver? Now it sounds crazy, doesn't it? But I don't think it's so crazy when you think about it. Supposing it connected every inlet all the way up the coast and we established communities in each of these inlets where nobody's living now — or almost nobody. People could then move rapidly — they could even have some decentralization of industry and provide services in those areas.

Then, if people wanted to come to an opera or a ballet or something in Vancouver, they could climb on the rapid transit and they could be in Vancouver in maybe an hour or two hours, without any problem — or three hours.

It would enable us to have people spread out — living in the more ideal locations in terms of living. It would return a sense of community and put people back into communities where they could know each other and get to understand each other and share each other's burdens and problems. Instead of this huge, urban, uncontrolled sprawl that we now have in the lower mainland.

That's just one possibility. We could move out into the interior more. We could have better systems of moving people, Or we could perhaps have a publicly owned airline — like the B.C. Ferries — that would be cheap transportation for people to come into Vancouver by plane instead of having to pay the high cost of going by plane as it is now.

This would be a fantastic thing to have.

Then to complement that, we need a fast freight programme for the whole province, where there are uniform methods of transporting goods from one part of the province to the other. One of the biggest obstacles to keeping prices down in the north and other parts of the province is transportation. The transportation costs are too high. Now that's because we leave it to chance — or to the CNR, which is almost as bad.

What we need is an overall provincial programme of transportation for moving freight, so that we can

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use aircraft and trains and planes and buses and trucks and everything — all integrated. As I suggested, trucks could be carried part of the way on trains and part of the way they could be driven on highways where there weren't any railroads. Or they could be air-freighted in.

We could develop a system of moving freight that would revolutionize the cost-of-living factor in most parts of the province. It would make it much more attractive to live in the north or in other parts of the country.

So these three things I would hope by 1978: an integrated transportation system; the 10 year highway and road programme perhaps; province-wide rapid transit systems and fast freight programmes for the whole province.

What would this enable us to do? Well, now we can look at the Municipal Affairs department.

I think we are very fortunate in the Minister we have for Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer). I am very impressed with the Minister ever since I have known him. He is kind of a quiet-spoken person and I think he is a very good man for the job. I would like to offer my suggestions over the next few years about municipal matters.

First of all, once we move in the direction of establishing a better transportation system — and I think this is essential to the creation of the kind of municipal programme we want — then we need to move deliberately to decentralize our large cities and to move the people out of the cities and into smaller centres throughout the province.

This is not Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany so we don't take fixed bayonets and drive them out. We don't do that sort of thing. But we can make it easier for people to live in other places by having lower costs, better transportation and so on. But further, we can also ensure that no municipality that's built is built without adequate services of every kind: lights and sewers and every convenience that people can have.

Why should they have to do without telephones over on the west coast of Vancouver Island today? This is 1973. They should be able to have good telephones no matter where they live.

But if Municipal Affairs would consider looking at the whole province as the living space for the population of B.C. and then decide how they can establish new communities so that the people will like to live there and want to move there, they will be nice places to live. And yet they will be spread out and we will get rid of a lot of congestion both in the transportation system and in the urban areas.

There should be a system worked out so that property tax is about the same everywhere in the province. Why should one person who happens to live in a community that has very little industry have to pay a huge mill rate to get the same services compared to a person who happens to live in a community with a very high industrial base?

Consider Kitimat and Terrace. Kitimat has Alcan within its boundaries so they have a very large assessment. The result is that they can have a fairly low mill rate in order to provide the services they need to the people of that community.

Move to Terrace. Terrace has practically no industry or very little compared to Kitimat — low assessment and, therefore, in order to get the same services they have to pay a higher mill rate.

This should not be. There should be a system of equalizing to ensure that nobody gets penalized because they live in this community or that community as compared to another.

Department of the Environment: Well before I come to environment, I want to talk about industrial and economic development. Along with the system of moving people into different parts of the province, similarly there should be more decentralization of our industry. Now I am not denigrating Prince George in that sense. Maybe they might as well have all the smell in one place, I guess. But I can't see the reason for having three pulp mills in the same town and having all that concentration of foul air and what not.

There can be a better system of doing it. Industry can be better located in relation to population areas so that they don't have to put up with the smell; they don't have the congestion on the roads and services and so on. There is no reason why this cannot be planned adequately. Hopefully, along with the transportation proposals that I make and along with the municipal proposals, I would suggest that industry also be part of that design.

Now I would like to commend the Premier because of his proposed visit to Europe in order to establish trade. I hope that he will visit every country in Europe, not just one or two. I hope that he will then visit the Pacific Rim nations and visit them all, that he will go to Africa and to other parts of the world.

Now you say, "Well, why should our Premier hopscotch all over the world?" Well, if he can establish one trading relationship for each of these countries, it would diversify our economy and it would provide a great deal more stability for the people of British Columbia. I say I am glad that he is going to take this step, this move. It is long overdue.

The previous Premier (Hon. Mr. Bennett) and trade Minister (Mr. Skillings) did make the odd trip but they would mostly go to New York or Paris or London or one of the key centres. I trust that the Premier will go to many countries, especially the smaller ones, and establish individual trading relationships with each one. We can learn something from every one of these little countries. We can develop trading relationships with every one. We shouldn't tie ourselves in to a few big countries like the United

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States or France or Britain. We should diversify our trading pattern throughout the world.

Also, I am looking forward in the next five years to increased research and experimentation in developing new industry in B.C. There is no reason why we can't do what Holland or Belgium did and that is establish high-quality manufacturing plants. For example, I understand that the dictaphone equipment that we use here is made in Holland. They decided one day they were going to try to produce that kind of thing.

We can do that too. We can sit down and we can decide what kind of things that we can produce in B.C. We can develop our own high-quality industries. Why should Switzerland be left to do this, or Holland or Belgium or some other country? Why can't we do this here?

The previous administration seemed to think that we are very good woodchoppers. We are good woodchoppers. We have some of the best woodchoppers in the world. We have the best chainsaw operators in the world and I am proud of it. But I think that we could have good watchmakers and good precision equipment makers as well. We can diversify our industries and our economy and have a much greater variety.

I would just put in a pitch for the Hazelton area at this point. We are desperately in need of industry in Hazelton that suits the conditions there. Nobody, not anybody, has ever thought of an industry that suited our conditions because it is a very unique situation, We have a number of Indian reserves; the people like living on the reserves. It is beautiful country; they want to stay there. Why should they be forced to move somewhere else — like down to Houston or down to Prince Rupert or something — to get a job? Why can't they live in Hazelton?

The previous Department of Industrial Development decided "Well, you can go and get a job in Houston." That is 50 or 100 miles away. "Or you can go to Prince Rupert or Terrace and get a job. We don't have any jobs for you in Hazelton."

I say that we should try to develop industry that is suited to Hazelton where people can live where they are and work where they are, so that you don't have to uproot them and move them somewhere else.

Big companies move people around like they were sheep. They establish new operations and they bring people in. I have seen some of these company towns. I was at Mackenzie and nobody in the town hardly knew each other for a long time. They had a turnover of almost 100 per cent in the first year in personnel. People coming and going constantly, no stability. Because everybody they were bringing in had been uprooted from somewhere else.

I say that approach from a social point of view is wrong. We should begin to try to reshape our industries — even if it means it costs a wee bit more in some instances — so that people can live where they want to live.

Resources: land, forests, water resources, minerals — they all should be integrated into one department, the Resources department. Most of the other provinces have already done this.

And then the best people in resource management should be hired to work in this department to ensure that our resources are managed to the best advantage possible to the people of British Columbia.

There is no management of resources. There was none under Social Credit. They would just give the stuff away, give the stuff away and sell it at cheap prices. There was no thought for the future — for 20 years from now or 50 years from now — of what our needs would be then. There was the idea of making the money now.

We need to have managers who will be concerned for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren; who will ensure that our renewable resources are properly looked after so they will, in fact, renew. That there is the proper amount of tree planting and all the rest of it. And that the nonrenewable resources will not be simply shipped out before we have even had a look at them, without really producing any jobs.

On Texada Island they have a little place over there where they take iron out. It kind of slips out of the country without anybody really noticing that it is gone. And it is going, going, gone. Similarly with copper in other places and so on.

We need to develop our own secondary industries and processing here, along with this management.

Public Works: I foresee that by 1978 we will finally have a government building in Hazelton — or at least a place where people can buy their licence plates without having to go down to Smithers which is 45 miles and in the middle of winter over an icy highway where they might be killed, and sometimes they are.

Why should people have to leave these communities and go way off to a major centre in order to buy their licence plates. Why? Because we don't want to spend any money on putting in a service in that community. There are a lot of communities like Hazelton around the province where people have to drive long distances in order to get the minimal services from government.

Therefore, I would foresee over the next five years that there would be an expanded programme of attractive government buildings — not necessarily big ones — but small government buildings that would provide more services to local people in their own local areas. It would create jobs to build them, too. I hope that Hazelton will be one such place. I can name 50 others and that's just one.

Also, under Public Works, I would agree with the Hon. Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Gorst) that we need

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to have a plan for Victoria. It's just amazing when you're driving around Victoria here. You're driving down a street and you see a sign that indicates a certain government department; then you're over in another part of town and, in an old building, you see another government department. The whole thing is a hodge-podge. It's a mess, I would like to see a plan developed for the integration and the rationalization of our government offices in the City of Victoria, so that we will have an attractive, well planned capital that we will be proud to bring people to — and in which anybody can find their way around.

Now, if you try to find something in Victoria, it's amazing that you can find it.

Now the environment. I hope by 1978 we have a Department of the Environment — before then I trust, but maybe at least by then. They would have programmes too. They would have a pollution control programme, well advanced by that time, in which most of the pollution would have been cleaned up.

I believe it was good news when they decided to put in secondary treatment for sewage for the greater Vancouver area — or at least for that section of the greater Vancouver area. That's a good move. We'll be glad about that years from now, and it should be done all over the province. Hopefully this programme will advance to the extent that we don't have any more polluted rivers or polluted waters by that time — or polluted air.

Conservation of our wilderness areas and the beauty spots of the province: This again is a challenge for a Department of the Environment. Environment is everything around us, and they should preserve that which is beautiful. You don't see them stripping trees off Grouse Mountain in front of Vancouver. If they did they'd have everybody up there with shotguns driving them off. They have taken small patches at times — a little development going up the mountainside. But the trees are there.

The same should be true all over B.C. If you drive from Kitimat to Terrace, there are desert stretches along the sides of the highway where the trees have been stripped right off the ground. There's nothing alongside the road except burnt stumps — beautiful! Burnt stumps along both sides of the highway, done by man deliberately. It's not beautiful at all. It's ugly. Well, I hope a Department of the Environment would at least ensure that a strip 50 yards wide or so along each side of the highway was preserved, so that the roads would be beautiful — this kind of thing.

Beautification: I would see a Department of the Environment going into beautification programmes with young people being employed — well, all kinds of people being employed — to make our province look beautiful. You know, there's no limit to what we an do.

You take a housewife, give her a bare house and a little bit of imagination and she'll convert it into something beautiful — or a houseman for that matter. I've known a lot of men that have done this; who are their own housekeepers. I don't refer to a housewife or a house…. A housewife and a househusband. Okay?

AN HON. MEMBER: Homemaker.

MR. DENT: Homemaker…but taking a bare house and turning it into something beautiful.

This is where I'd like to speak just a word on behalf of the Portuguese people in my constituency, in Kitimat. You go into their homes and it's amazing what these Portuguese people can do with their homes. They can take some of those lousy looking houses they've got in Kitimat and really make them attractive — really make them attractive. With a little bit of paint and some imagination, it's amazing what they can do.

I would say let's get some of those Portuguese housewives, or househusbands, and get them out and let's say: "Here's the Province of British Columbia. Give us some ideas as to how we can make this place look beautiful, or more beautiful." I'll bet you they'd come up with all kinds of ideas.

Then we can put our young people to work making sure that these things happen. We can make our province so beautiful that we will be proud to bring people in from outside.

Finally, I just want to finish with recreation and culture. It is my opinion — I am sure it's shared by other Members of this House — that in the years to come, recreation and cultural consideration is going to be one of the major considerations of government. Perhaps it could well become the most important department of government — without question.

People are going to have an increased amount of leisure time. I know people who are afraid of leisure time — they're afraid of it. They want to work long hours because they don't know what to do with themselves when they've got leisure time,. But there will be increased leisure time.

Our young people are gradually going to learn how to use their leisure time. But this is where we come in as the government. We must ensure that there are recreational opportunities for our young people, and that there are cultural opportunities for our young people, that they can develop.

I want to give a practical example. We built an arena in Terrace not long ago and it was opened just last fall. Now it is open for minor hockey and for hockey generally. I don't know what those young people were doing before they opened that arena but, man, that place has just been booming ever since. They just come in there and they're practising at 5:30 in the morning — hockey. They come in skating whenever they can. They just love it there. It's a

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tremendous thing for them. They skate around. They breathe the nice crisp, cold air and they're in good physical condition — all because we've provided a facility for them.

Now what were they doing before? Well, I've seen what some young people do in their spare time when they don't have any recreational opportunities, or encouragement to recreational opportunities. They'll sit in a group on a rug in a house and they'll smoke pot. They'll just sit there, day after day after day, and they'll vegetate like vegetables. Or perhaps in front of a TV the rest of the time — half in front of the TV and maybe half just looking at each other.

We must provide leadership in getting them out of their houses, out of these pot dens, out from in front of the television — and outdoors into good, sound recreational programmes. Swimming and skiing and skating and every kind of thing that we can offer. Also, give them access to high quality cultural events; to symphony, to ballet and to travelling musical companies and so on — so that get a chance to see other things and have a look at the world in that way, and become a part of it.

I'm convinced that it's so important to establish sound recreational and cultural programmes. We're facing the choice between going into a kind of spiritual and moral decay as a failure to do this, or we could do the opposite and practically generate a new spiritual awakening in people.

One merely has to took at our hockey players on television in the last two or three weeks to see the direction we've been going — where the hockey players are appearing in court and being proud of it. I think that's tragic, really tragic, where athletes that are so capable and so much looked up to by young people, can sit in a car on their way to court because they've committed a criminal offence — and they're happy about it. What kind of an example is that to the seven and eight and nine-year-old children in our province? What kind of an example? I think it's criminal.

Instead of that, if we had proper recreational programmes everywhere in the province, properly led, we would develop an atmosphere of good sportsmanship and goodwill and pride in achievement — and not in something else.

It could become the means — as sports often is — to a mood, you might say, of goodwill in the population.

The British tradition of good sportsmanship was born on a playing field. It was born in sport. I think that that carried over into parliament, and into practically every other aspect of life. If we can develop sound, well-led recreational and cultural programmes, we can do the same.

I knew a man in Armstrong once who used to supervise badminton for young people every week. He said, "Not one of my badminton players has ever been in trouble with the police." Not one. And he brought in a lot that had never played badminton; never had anything to do with it, and might never because of their family background. But he said not one of them, when they became interested in that sport, ever became again in trouble. Because they had something to take pride in, something to do, something they could work at and achieve. That's, I believe, what recreational and cultural achievement can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Prince Rupert.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I think that it's only fitting at this point that I throw in a few remarks about our cabinet, because I think they deserve a few remarks.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LEA: I'll think that over.

I think that it's wonderful the kind of response that the backbenchers of the Government are getting from cabinet. They are responsive to our moods, to our needs, to our requests. It was only a few minutes ago that the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Dent) mentioned that, possibly, we should be digging a tunnel from the lower mainland to Prince Rupert for rapid transit purposes.

AN HON. MEMBER: To Terrace.

MR. LEA: To Terrace? Oh, I thought it was Prince Rupert.

Anyway, I'd like to point out how quickly the cabinet acts. The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) immediately went out and phoned the Mayor of Prince Rupert and said, "Mayor," he said, "we're building a tunnel. We're digging a tunnel between Victoria and Prince Rupert."

The mayor said, "You can't build a tunnel between Victoria and Prince Rupert."

He said, "Okay boys," he said, "fill 'er in." (Laughter).

I'd like to mention one or two points about the budget speech — or the budget, period. There are one or two points that I think I should mention I'm not too pleased with as a backbencher. I also would like to see a more realistic budget in terms of how much money we're going to get in and how much money we're going to spend. Although, I think that it's possibly a little too early in our political career as the Government in this province to go too far away from what has been practised and what has been found to be at least acceptable.

But one or two things make me ponder — for instance some of the criticism coming from the

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Opposition parties, Mr. Speaker, especially from the Social Credit — or is it the Socialist Credit Party? Because it seems that the only criticism they really have about the budget is that it isn't socialist enough. That makes me ponder.

They seem to be in accord with the figures but they can't quite come around to the approach that the Minister of Finance is taking. He's saying, "well, we're going to be a little more honest this time: we're not only going to say what we are bringing in, we're going to say what we owe." It's probably news to many of the people over there in the Social Credit party, because I believe the former Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Bennett) didn't tell the people of British Columbia, I don't think he told his cabinet or his back-benchers where we were financially. I believe it is a surprise to you but try to bear up.

Now, the Hon. Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) made a few points that I would like to comment on. He mentioned the kind of budget that was created by us and the kind of budget that was created over the years by the former Minister of Finance, by their government. I would like to re-emphasize what the Premier said when he was making his budget announcement — that it isn't one political party or another who makes the budget, it's the people in this province — and I quite agree with the Premier. We don't have very much to do with it. All we do is spend the money that is made by the people.

The Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) threw in an aside the other day when the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) was speaking and I think it's worth repeating so that everyone hears it. He agrees. Nobody else does — except me. (Laughter).

We are always hearing from the Opposition, "a fair return on your investment." What is a fair profit? Mr. Speaker, nobody seems to be able to come up with the answer to that question. Not even the so called "free enterprise" group — because there is no such thing. You can't say what is a fair profit — there's no such figure. What is it? Who knows? The Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre, I thought very appropriately said, "when you can show to us what an unwarranted increase in wages is, we'll show you what a fair profit is." And it's that simple.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Twenty per cent for MLA's?

MR. LEA: Is that fair?

MR. WALLACE: No. It's unwarranted.

MR. LEA: Don't take it.

Now, I believe that the former Premier would be not too proud of the way his people have been acting

I met the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) in the hall and he said, "you brought in a Social Credit budget." Then they turn around and criticize it.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): We haven't even spoken yet.

MR. LEA: That was in the hall. That was in the hall.

MR. CHABOT: Do you look through wastepaper baskets too?

MR. LEA: Yes, and you should be ashamed. (Laughter).

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. LEA: Yes, Jim leaves everything around.

Mr. Speaker, many things get around in this House it's by the underground telegraph system — and I heard that there has been another cablegram sent from that person who is sailing the high seas. According to the grapevine he is very pleased with the budget. In fact he only had one sentence to put in his cablegram and that was, "Have budget, will travel." So I don't know when we'll see him. (Laughter).

Now, the Liberal Party's criticism, if it can be called that — a shadow budget I believe is the way it was put — was presented to this House. This is my first time and apparently this is always done — a shadow budget by the Liberal Party.

I think I would like to be a prophet at this point and say that I suggest that any budget ever turned into this House, now or in the future, by the Liberal Party will be just that — a shadow budget.

I would also, Mr. Speaker, like to remind the Liberal Party that on the 19th of this month, there will be another budget brought down in Canada and there's another saying about people who live in glass houses. Maybe they should hold fire for awhile.

The Conservative Party, as always, had tried to be constructive, I believe, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Hon. House Leader for the Conservative Party is an honest intelligent man. I believe that he hasn't been exposed to the alternatives to monopoly capitalism, and when he is — I think that I'll put a suggested reading course in front of him, Mr. Speaker — that he won't walk across the floor, he'll run across the floor. And as he knows from past experience, it's not that far.

Someone, I believe it was the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker, touched on the Arizona land sales. We should really take a close look at what these people are doing and I hope that the warrant that was given to them to travel throughout British Columbia trying to sell Arizona land has been cancelled. They did

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have, Mr. Speaker, from the previous government an O.K. — that they could do it. I think that should be cancelled if it hasn't already. I went to about three of them, not because I believe them but wherever there is a free meal, I'll go along.

But first of all I wanted to find out what they were up to. I managed to have a talk with one of the people later — I didn't buy anything — who was selling this property from Arizona, if there is indeed property in Arizona to be sold by this group. He mentioned something to me that really frightened me. He said that they had been approached by realtors in this province to go down to the States and sell, in the same manner, land in the Cariboo. Under the previous administration that may have been allowed. I have faith in our Government that that will never be allowed.

Now, I would like to touch, Mr. Speaker, on one aspect of the budget that affects my riding directly and that's the lifting of the fuel tax from fishermen's boats. I would like to express my thanks on behalf of the fishermen in my area for this lifting of the tax. It's about time that the fishermen in this province were to get a break because they have been needing one for a long time. I hope this is only the beginning.

With that I would like to move on and touch on a number of factors in regard to the needs of B.C. fishermen. The number one need is that the fishing industry of this province should benefit the fishermen and the citizens of B.C. and not the fishing companies. I believe it has been a one-sided affair for quite some time, aided and abetted by the federal government Department of Fisheries. I believe that the fishing fleet in this province should be independently owned by the fishing people or at least in cooperatives. I don't believe the fishing fleet should be owned by the companies.

I would also like to ask that the Attorney General look into the legal aspect of the contracts between fishermen, especially Indian fishermen, and the fishing companies. From experience I can tell you that they have been had over the years and I think it's time that we, on their behalf, looked into it and righted that wrong.

I would like to mention one point before moving on — that the fishermen who are under contract to the fishing companies also lose money. They have to sell to the fishing company that they have a contract with. They can't move around and accept from the highest bidder. They are tied in contract to a certain fishing company and I believe that isn't a healthy way for the fishermen to make a living.

They should be allowed to own their own boats and there should be a fund set up by the provincial government to allow these people to finance at low interest rates their fishing boats. But as I mentioned, prior to doing that, the contracts between the fishermen and the companies should be looked into so it will allow us to free fishermen from these quasi legal contracts so that they can sell to the highest bidder.

Another area where I believe that the fishermen are exploited by the fishing companies is in the boat repair facilities of the fishing companies. First of all the system of accounting to the fishermen isn't the best. It's hard for them to know exactly what's been done, how it was done and how much they should pay — it's all added to their bill. As a matter of fact, at the end of the fishing season — where a fisherman can make thousands of dollars — he can end up at the end of the fishing season owing the fishing company, and having not a thing to go home with. Also the fishing company, by the terms of their contract, have first grabs at the money. He's sometimes not even left enough money to support his family in the winter months.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that if the federal government won't accept the responsibility — which apparently they will not — that we, the provincial government on behalf of the fishermen, will have to look out for them and protect the rights of British Columbian fishermen.

I believe that we should investigate the feasibility of financing boat repair facilities along the B.C. coast — as well as a fund to buy these fishermen out of their contracts with the fishing companies.

There are a great many people who are already trained to man boat facility repair shops. There are a great many Indian people who seem to have a certain knack for that kind of work — boat-building and mechanic work. I'm sure that they would rather work for a cooperative owned by themselves than having to work for the fishing companies which have exploited them in the worst sense of the word for many years.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to urge the Government to approach Ottawa with the request to have the fishing resource turned over to provincial jurisdiction. I think it's ridiculous that it's the one resource in our province that should be controlled by the federal body. I believe that because this is so, the fishermen are not being treated in the same manner and with the same fairness that they could be if it were treated as any other resource is in this province by the provincial jurisdiction, such as forestry, mining, agriculture, et cetera.

I contend that there is no good reason that the fisheries resource shouldn't be under the jurisdiction of the province. There is one prevailing good reason that it be looked after by the province. That good reason is that the federal government serves the fishing companies and not the fishermen and the people of this province.

While I'm speaking about the fishing industry, I'd like to mention that there really are only two fishing companies in all of Canada, and neither one

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Canadian, which I think was mentioned earlier in this House. I don't think they owe any allegiance to the fishing industry or the fishermen of this province. They owe it not only to their stockholders in their companies, but to stockholders who are not Canadian residents. I think we should move towards freeing them from that responsibility.

One might ask, "Should the province have a ministry of fisheries?" I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the answer is "yes". Some people might say, "Why, we don't have control over our fisheries resource, so why should we have a ministry?" I believe that's a very good reason why we should have a ministry — to protect fishermen.

In the fifties when the Social Credit Government disbanded the Department of Fisheries, since that time we haven't been building in this province a body of expertise to look after the needs of fishermen, to act as a spokesman for them in Ottawa. We sit back as a provincial government and we hear edicts coming down to us, to the fishermen of the province, from the federal government. We can't stick up for the fishermen because we don't even really know what it's all about. We don't have people working for this province who know what it's all about. I think that it's about time that we in this province looked after the fishermen.

I believe that the only way we can do that competently is to have a department of fisheries, a ministry of fisheries, whose sole purpose is to look out for the interests of the fishing industry and the fishermen in this province.

I spoke about freeing the fleet from the fishing companies but I would hope in time that we can free the fishing resource completely from the fishing companies, either to be nationalized by this provincial government or, at the very least, to be a cooperative effort owned by the people of this province. I believe that we have a chance as a provincial government to take that first step. I think it's in regard to the Port Simpson cannery.

I believe that we as a government should back this group of Indian people to the fullest in trying to achieve, along with them, their goal. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to go into just a bit of the history of the Port Simpson cannery project, into a bit of the background. I believe that there are many "firsts" that we're dealing with — good "firsts."

The proposal to build a fish cannery at Port Simpson originated with seven Indian bands which make up the North Coast District Council. I believe it's the first time that different tribes and different bands have gotten together and come up with a consensus of where they feel that the fish processing plant should go. They've managed to overcome what could be parochial feelings for their own community and said: "For the betterment of all of our bands, we had better decide what we want and where we want it." They have done that in the North Coast Council on the north coast of this province. They decided on Port Simpson together. Representatives from other fishing communities decided against their own community in favour of another community. I think that this is a "first" and that group of people should be congratulated on taking that step.

I believe that there has been entirely too much stress put on the economic feasibility of Port Simpson. Port Simpson has a population of about 1,000 people. Most of them are fishermen or would like to be fishermen.

When we talk about putting a Port Simpson fish cannery in, or a cooperative cannery on the north coast, out of 28 fishermen from Port Simpson who fish for B.C. Packers or Nelson Brothers — Nelson Brothers being the same thing — out of that 28, not one of them owns his own boat. They're in debt to the company, usually in two ways: they owe on their boat to the company and they are also tied in by a legal contract; or they are renting boats from the company and don't have the means to buy their own boat.

That is why I said earlier that we have to set up a fund to make sure that these people are available with boats to fish for a cooperative venture.

One of the Social Credit Members mentioned across the floor that we scuttled the Port Simpson plan. Let me suggest that there wasn't really any plan, that it was a quick measure put through in the last days of the campaign before August 30. It wasn't well thought out and we were left with that mess to clean up. We're trying to clean it up and we're trying to deal with those Indian people and we're trying to do it four years before an election.

The plan that the Socreds put forth at that time was that they would put up some money, as if that solves everything. They didn't realize….

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): How can you build a cannery without money?

MR. LEA: They didn't realize, Mr. Speaker, that along with building a cannery, you have to have fish to put in the cannery. Possibly coming from part of the country that doesn't have much to do with fish, it's understandable why the Member for North Peace River wouldn't understand that, but it would seem to me that common sense would prevail — that you have to have fish, you must have boats and you have to have licences. That was overlooked and that's why they were a great deal of money short, first of all in their proposal, and secondly, if the people in Port Simpson had a cannery to put at the end of every road into that community that was promised during election time, they'd have seven canneries over the last seven years.

Talking about roads, they need a road into Port

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Simpson. It's a town of 1,000 people with no medical facilities whatsoever and no means, except by boat during the winter months, of getting in to medical facilities in Prince Rupert. Every year people die on that trip.

MR. CHABOT: Tell the Minister of Highways. Where is he?

MR. LEA: Well, I mentioned it to a Minister by the name of Black a few times but it didn't get done — and another one by the name of Gaglardi. I'm sure that I'm going to have a lot more success in the next 20 years in building roads where they're needed than they have been in the last. Not for political reasons, but because they're needed for sociological and economic reasons.

I mentioned earlier that we shouldn't consider the economic feasibility of Port Simpson as the only factor. I think we should look at the sociological reasons why we need to build a fish-processing plant in that community. I'd like to quote from a report that was done by the United Church who were looking into whether or not there should be a cannery built at Port Simpson. It says: "Sociocultural considerations are given relatively low priority," in whether or not this cannery should be built, "by the federal government."

I hope that we will pick that priority up and put it first and the economic factor second, although I believe, from looking at the plans that these people have put forward, that it is an economic feasibility. I'd like to tell you of an experience that happened to me, because I was becoming convinced that it wasn't. All the fishing company officials were getting to me and saying, "We've been in the business for a great many years and, believe me, it isn't economically feasible."

Later I talked to two economists, who, I think, were more socially aware and probably better economists than the people who were in the fishing industry, and I threw it to them. I said, "I've talked to a great number of people and they don't think that it's really economically feasible." They said, "For who — Weston? For the big fishing companies? Of course they don't want a cannery."

Now, with all these plans — a year of planning — that went into this cannery at Port Simpson, it was turned down not by the provincial party of ARDA, not by the federal part of ARDA, when they applied It was turned down arbitrarily by my old friend, the Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Davis. He did it again on the basis of "no plans."

The last time I spoke to Mr. Davis about this particular subject was in Prince Rupert when he was addressing a meeting there. He suggested that maybe we shouldn't go to Port Simpson. Maybe we should be looking at a place called Cassiar Cannery, which is on the Inverness Passage.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, there's an old cannery there that was built at the turn of the century. A man owns that cannery who, I believe, is a Liberal member but I'm not sure. But Mr. Davis now is talking about spending $2.7 million to buy that cannery for another group of Indians, with no study done whatsoever. I might mention that it just so happens that a Liberal senator heads up that other group of Indians.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LEA: You're never a Tory or an NDP when you're appointed to the Senate.

I pointed out to the federal Minister that the water supply was not adequate at Cassiar cannery to run a cannery out there — especially under modern conditions with modern processing practices. That didn't seem to bother him. I mentioned that the buildings were old and he himself, two years previous, had said that the cannery, because of pollution control, wouldn't be a workable plant within two years. And also that every year the pilings were washed out by iceflow down the passage.

He shoo-shooed that aside and said, "Well, we'll just tear it down and build a new one."

In other words, instead of going to a location where there's been careful planning and you don't have to tear anything down and you don't have to pay a member for what's there now, a private person, he'd rather go the other way. It makes me wonder why.

To add further to that, Mr. Speaker, I believe that within three days there's going to be an announcement made in this province that a private firm….

Before I get into that, one of the objections that Mr. Davis had to the Port Simpson cannery project was the lack of fish — the lack of availability of fish. Since that time, one of the largest canneries on the north coast burned down — which of course leaves an availability of fish, I would suppose. Now that cannery, with his sanction, is going to — and I believe that this will be coming out within three days — they will be building a large, modern cannery in Prince Rupert. I would suggest that they're doing it with no fish in mind.

I don't believe, Mr. Speaker, that the canneries want to see a cooperative venture in the fishing industry. And I don't believe that the representative of those companies — the federal Minister of Fisheries — wants to see one either. But I believe that it's the duty of this House to ensure that those people do get a fish processing plant — maybe not in Port Simpson, but in that area; maybe not exactly the way they'd planned, but I believe we should negotiate with those people and come up with a plan that will work. I believe it's our responsibility to those people, because

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the responsibility has been turned over to us by default from the federal government.

I'd like to…one moment, Mr. Speaker, I'm being whispered at.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's going to be announced in three days?

MR. LEA: What's going to be announced in three days? In three days I believe there's going to be a major announcement in regard to a fish cannery project in Prince Rupert by a private fishing company. It's good in a way. At least it'll put a few people back to work who were forced out by the fire. But it also leads me to believe that there are fish there to be had and I believe that the Indian people — who after all were the original fishermen in that area — should have first crack at those fish.

The Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Dent) mentioned, I believe, a few of the inequities that we have between living in the north and the south, and I'd like to re-emphasize those inequities. Beginning by saying that I don't believe that we should be penalized in the north for living in the north. I believe that we are being — not only in the north, but rural areas such as are represented by the Hon. Member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) and the Hon. Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Nimsick), and all of the rural areas — we're being penalized.

I'd like to point out a few of the areas where I believe this is happening. I don't believe that we're asking for special privilege; all we're asking is to have an equal chance, an equal share of the booty.

For instance, why should we pay more for groceries in the north or in rural areas? Why shouldn't there be a set rate for groceries all over this province and we share the load together?

The same with gasoline and above all — and I'd like to mention this while the Government is listening — hydro. Why should people in rural communities have to pay more for hydro? Aren't we in it together? I believe we should be.

I'll give you an example. Right now in the Queen Charlotte Islands there's quite a long stretch of road where there is no electrification programme. They don't even qualify under the rural electrification programme. Now some of those people are paying $1,200 a year, some are paying $1,500 a year, to supply their own hydro through their own machinery. Now they'd be quite willing to pay $400 a year to get hydro. I don't believe they should have to. I believe that what we should do is to lump the cost of supplying hydro to the people of British Columbia together. Then we share that equitably among the citizens of this province. I believe that is socialism and I believe that's the direction we should be going.

Household heating fuel. Why should we pay more for that?

Health services. We not only pay more for them, but we don't get as good a service. So we're suffering in two aspects.

Education. Again.

Now it was mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, by Members of the Opposition, that you don't necessarily get good teachers by paying good wages. Well, you know, I'm surprised. I thought the whole free enterprise line of thought was that you pay for what you get. But you don't really in some aspects.

Look at it this way. I know the school district where I live. Because there isn't enough money supplied to them to pay for well-experienced, knowledgeable, well-trained teachers, they tend to hire the least experienced with the least training — so they can get around their budget. Consequently, a teacher with a great deal of experience in this province, with a great deal of training, with the best training, has a harder time getting a job than the person with barely enough training. I believe that we should be making the kind of money available to the teachers. Pay them what they're worth, and they're worth a lot. They are the ones that are going to teach our young people in this province. Those are the ones that we should be paying more than we pay people in this room.

Now what about car insurance? In my area, under the present free enterprise system, we pay one of the highest rates in the Province of British Columbia. I would hope when the Government brings in, Mr. Speaker, the government car insurance, that again this is equalized, so that the costs are distributed throughout this province so that people living in the north don't have to pay more for their car insurance and their coverage than the people in the south.

I realize that it's going to be a little bit of a surprise for southerners to help pay for those services in the north. But if you'll check over where all the resources are in this province, you wouldn't be living too well down here if we weren't up there. We share our resources with you; how about sharing some of the costs of living with us?

Now we can equalize it in different manners. I think it would become very cumbersome to start taking each one of these individual items and trying to work out an equitable manner of pricing. But there's one way we could do it, and I believe that's with a tax exemption. I believe there would have to be a lot of careful study done. We'd have to look at different regions of this province.

In order to do that, first of all we'd have to set up a provincial cost-of-living survey, to find out exactly what a certain region is paying over and above — and just use Vancouver as the yardstick and set it at 100 and go either way from there — find out exactly how much we're paying in different regions of this province and then work out an equitable tax exemption. So that if a person is making $10,000 in Vancouver, he ends up with the same amount of

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take-home produce and goods as the person making $10,000 in Dawson Creek. I don't think it would be that difficult to do.

I think, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, that we have to work on the premise that we're all working, living, loving in this province, together. I believe that the only way — and that doesn't include the Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre except for working and living — I believe that we are all in it together and the only way that we're going to survive as a people in British Columbia is to once and for all realize that we shouldn't be parochial in our thinking. The south, the north, the interior, the Cariboo, the North Peace, the South Peace — we're all in it together. Let's share it together and let's share the costs together.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Provincial Secretary.

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to make a statement of some importance to the House on the matter of the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the Members of the House that the Government is in communication with the Honorary Canadian Consul General in Iceland. The concern of the people of British Columbia has been expressed to him for the consequences of the recent disaster on Heimaey Island by virtue of volcanic action, and particularly the destruction of the town of Vestmannaeyjar.

We've also indicated our concern over the destruction of the Icelandic fishing industry because of the disaster and we've requested from him an indication of what assistance — financially or otherwise — might be necessary and appropriate for us to consider Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Second Member for Victoria.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure all Members of the Opposition agree with the Hon. Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) and we bring to the attention of the Provincial Secretary that there's a similar humanitarian motion in the name of my Hon. friend on the left (Mr. Williams) number 5 on the order paper.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to withdraw question No. 44 standing in my name on the order paper and replace it with the same question addressed to a different Minister. Apparently these two Ministers are not in communication.

MR. SPEAKER: No, I think the answer is that you must address it to the correct Minister. If you do not then you should ask leave to withdraw it….

MR. ANDERSON: I will ask leave then, Mr. Speaker, to withdraw question No. 44. I shall submit a new question to another Minister.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Cocke tables the interim financial report, exhibits A and B of the Overall Medical Services Plan

Hon. Mr. Stupich files answers to questions.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. First Member for Victoria.

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, I wish to withdraw motion No. 4 standing in my name on the order paper.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald files answers to questions.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:14 p.m.