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CONTENTS

Statement Filing in House for technical test. Mr. Speaker — 1177

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia Act (Bill No. 120) Hon. Mr. Lorimer

Introduction and first reading — 1177

An Act to Provide for Public Scrutiny (Bill No. 125) Mr. Gardom.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

The Environmental Protection Act (Bill No. 126) Mr. Brousson.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

An Act to Amend the Age of Majority Act (Bill No. 127) Mr. D.A. Anderson.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

Committee of supply: Department of Health Services and Hospital Insurance estimates.

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1177

Mr. McClelland — 1178

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1183

Mr. McClelland — 1185

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1186

Mr. McGeer — 1186

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1189

Hon. Mr. Bennett — 1191

Mr. Lauk — 1192

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1196

Land Commission Act (Bill No. 42). Second reading Hon. Mr. Stupich — 1197

Mr. Phillips — 1202

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, we have had the assistance of the Canada Film Board in making a test film for us to determine some matters of technical equipment for the use of the TV committee. I hope this may be the last occasion you will have to endure this type of filming. It would be essential from the standpoint of the economics of the proposals made by the TV committee and will be made available to them after it has been completed. Is that agreeable to the House? Thank you.

The other matter — I rang the bill five minutes before the hour so that Members would be aware the House was commencing in hopes they would be here at the commencement of proceedings. Then the three warning bells would be given when the Speaker's parade has entered the House. The reason for that is that there seems to be a lack of attendance at the opening of the session most days.

The Hon. Member for Kamloops.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join me in welcoming a group of students from Cariboo College and one of their instructors, Mr. Richard Oleson.

Introduction of bills.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs.

HON. J.G. LORIMER (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE MUNICIPAL FINANCE AUTHORITY
OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ACT

MR. SPEAKER: His Honour the Lieutenant Governor herewith transmits a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia Act, and recommends the same to the Legislative Assembly, Government House, March 8, 1973.

Bill No. 120 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today

AN ACT TO PROVIDE
FOR PUBLIC SCRUTINY

Mr. Gardom moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 125 intituled An Act to Provide for Public Scrutiny.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 125 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION ACT

Mr. Brousson moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 126 intituled The Environmental Protection Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 126 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE AGE OF MAJORITY ACT

Mr. D.A. Anderson moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 127 intituled An Act to Amend the Age of Majority Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 127 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. SPEAKER: I wonder if Members would not pass between the Chair and the Member on his feet in future.

Orders of the day.

House in committee of supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
SERVICES AND HOSPITAL INSURANCE

On vote 86: Minister's office, $66,400.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your recognition so early in the morning.

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AN HON. MEMBER: You're looking well.

HON. MR. COCKE: Feeling not badly. Mr. Chairman, I would like to bring the House's attention to this little memento which is a heart. This is a memento of the opening of the cardio-thoracic unit at Victoria General Hospital, which was just opened this Wednesday.

I do hope that that aspect of health care is in line now and I am sure we will be able to keep up with the needs of the province in the future. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to indicate that this has another meaning — "Have a heart." (Laughter).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Member for Langley.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and our congratulations to go to the opening of the new unit at VGH. It is very welcome.

Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions I would like to ask the Minister of Health. First of all, we are very concerned about the future of hospital boards in the Province of British Columbia after some of the statements made earlier in the House by the Minister of Health.

I refer, first of all, to Hansard of February 20, in which Mr. Cocke said:

"Most important, we are proposing that the majority of board members represent the patient. We believe that to do that there should be wage-earners on the board as well as professional and business people. There should be women as well as men, Indians as well as white people and all the other varieties. There will be some adverse comment on our recommendation to ensure participation of non-professional staff on hospital boards."

Mr. Chairman, I don't know what the Minister of Health thinks there are on hospital boards now, but there are those kinds of people serving on hospital boards, all over the Province of British Columbia. The statements would seem to indicate that here is just another area of service, voluntary service, into which the Government would like to get its fingers.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you talking about?

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Minister says he wants to make the board more responsive to the community. Well, that's a word or a phrase we are hearing more and more and more in Victoria and it's the operative socialist phrase which means, "Let's get more socialists on the volunteer boards. Let's put our people on those boards and it will give us another base from which to start an election campaign."

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to suggest that if anyone truly wants to get on to a hospital board, it's very simple. All he has to do is first of all join the society which is a part of the community in which he lives. Then he runs for office. There isn't anything more democratic than that.

As a result of that, hospital boards throughout British Columbia are very well represented with all kinds of people: labourers, wage earners, professional people, non-professional people, shopkeepers, nurses, members of the women's auxiliary, women and men — they are well represented, and truly representative of the community right now.

Mr. Chairman, there was also an item in the paper the other day with regard to a brief presented to the Minister of Health from the Hospital Employees Union. I find that the Minister's response to this brief was a little unbelievable and certainly did nothing to case our concern about the fate of hospital boards in our community.

The HEU flatly called for elimination of all local hospital boards. It's a suggestion that sounds suspiciously like those comments already made by the Minister of Health. It's certainly in keeping with the practice of destroying all local input and keeping the thumbscrews on with the pressure applied from Victoria, just as we've done in so many areas of local concern. Centralization — the operative name of the game in Victoria today.

The HEU, in its brief, makes the bald statement that, "Boards are appointed, not elected, and are therefore not democratic." Well, I must say again that boards are elected. They are elected from among the people who are interested in hospitals in their own communities. And that's the way it should be. A member stands for election on a hospital board, and he generally becomes just another worker on the team.

AN HON. MEMBER: Seventy per cent of it.

MR. McCLELLAND: Seventy per cent of it. Any of the hospitals with which I've had experience have had no aversion to a good mix from the community. In fact, working people are on the boards. Anybody that suggests that they aren't just doesn't know what hospital boards are all about.

The boards should be slighted, I think, not only by the brief of HEU, but also by the Minister's comment when he suggests that those people are not representative of their community.

If I could deal, Mr. Chairman, just briefly again with the HEU brief. The HEU says:

"At best, the contribution of hospital boards is only marginally positive. At worse, they are obstacles to efficient decision — making and a source of frustration. So the boards should be eliminated and replaced by strong central direction and leadership; a super — board directed from Victoria."

Now is that what the Minister wants, Mr.

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Chairman? Surely not a five man appointed commission to tell us how the hospitals of British Columbia should operate. No local input.

Mr. Chairman, the health Minister should have vehemently denied those charges and suggestions as a slur on every hospital board in this province. Instead of vehemently denying those charges and suggestions, the Minister waffles. "It's unlikely the boards will go," he says. Why didn't you say, "They won't go." That's the thing you should have said.

"It's unlikely the boards will go," the Minister is quoted in the paper as saying anyway, "but they have to become more reflective of the consumer and the community." Once again read, "We've got to get more of our guys on those boards."

Mr. Chairman, if we could go on to the plans for improved health care in the future. I believe, and I truly believe this, Mr. Chairman, that you have, Mr. Minister, the support and help of every British Columbian, every legislator, in your efforts to develop a more meaningful level of intermediate health care in this province, an expansion of extended care in this province, expansion of home care, and preventative care. You'll have the help and support of everybody in British Columbia because we all know that we can't continue to construct expensive and over — equipped acute care hospitals in every community and local area that asks for them.

But we can't say either, "No, you just can't have that expensive acute care facility." We have to offer them some other form of health care in those communities so those communities are looked after. Your comments in earlier talks in this House about community clinics and home care — care which is just as responsive to the needs of the patient as is acute care — are very welcome indeed, Mr. Minister. We wish you all the success in the world in expanding that programme.

All of these developments, Mr. Chairman, are vital if we're ever to make health care really meet the needs of society at a cost that society can afford. That's the important thing.

Mr. Chairman, I was also happy when I read the other day that the Minister has publicly recognized the need to keep hospital and health care costs down as much as possible, and to admit that every once in a while Ottawa lays down the law and says, "Mr. provincial health Minister, enough's enough. If you don't keep your costs down, we're not going to help you out any more and we'll let you pay the shot yourself,"

I'm glad the Minister recognized that, Mr. Chairman, because it's been a fact of life for many years. One of the reasons why health costs have been such an important item for discussion in British Columbia is because of the stand that Ottawa has taken. They just will not participate if health costs keep escalating out of control.

Mr. Chairman, in the area of public health services, there is right now a critical shortage in British Columbia of public health inspectors. It appears that there's only slight relief at hand. There's an increase — I believe I've added the figures up correctly — of about 35 new public health inspectors in the Minister's estimates. But with the workload that these people have in their communities, I hardly think that that is nearly enough, although it is a welcome increase.

I would like to read a letter, Mr. Chairman, from the Central Fraser Valley Union Board of Health. This is dated January 25. It's addressed to the Hon. Dennis Cocke. And it says:

"At our last quarterly board meeting we spent considerable time discussing the great shortage of staff that this health unit is experiencing. We noted that apart from a senior nurse who has moved from office to office, the Mapleridge office received their last increase in nursing staff in 1967. Mission had its last increase in 1964 and we believe that Langley had its last increase in 1958 although there are few around that can remember that far back.

"Surely you must agree that this is a deplorable situation considering the great increase in population, particularly in the last five years where Langley has increased approximately 50 per cent, Mapleridge some 30 per cent, and Mission approximately 20 per cent. "It was not enough that they have added to their responsibilities the supervision of community care facilities without any apparent consideration given to extra staff needs. The health unit director, Dr. Robinson, has told us he just does not have the staff to properly supervise these homes and that we can expect deplorable episodes like we had with Whispering Winds in Langley to happen from time to time."

And the letter goes on in that same vein.

Before I deal with the letter itself, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to once again tell the health Minister that I share his comments fully when he congratulated in the House the excellent staff that he has working under his direction.

There was mention of a problem that we had in Langley with a rest home called Whispering Winds, the rest home that in my opinion was operating under deplorable conditions and was operating under those deplorable conditions for many of the reasons I've cited — because of the shortage of inspector staff in the health department. However I must say that both the Board of Health in the central Fraser Valley and the people in Victoria reacted with remarkable alacrity in not only containing this problem but going a long way toward improving it. And I thank them for that and so do the people of Langley.

But with regard to that letter, there is a comment in here about the transfer of responsibilities for the

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public health inspector to the Community Care Facilities Branch. The comments about the supervision of these facilities is one that I raised some time ago with the Minister in letters that we had. I must once again comment that the Minister is aware of this problem.

It seems to me that the supervision of community care facilities, Mr. Chairman, must be completely divorced from the normal responsibilities of the local inspectorial staff in the community so that these people can have a chance to really keep up to, the inspection of the community care facilities. They can then free their local people to keep up with that other workload that they have which includes the inspection of subdivisions, the inspection of septic tanks, the inspection of restaurants, the inspection of swimming pools and the inspection of health problems in schools.

Then, besides all of that work — and already you're understaffed I might add — they also are charged with the problem of answering complaints from the community. In many instances that keeps them on the go too much of their day so that they don't have time to do the real job that is necessary.

In the Minister's letter to me, he suggested that it is not the policy of the health branch to develop a centralized bureaucracy in the form of a community care facilities licensing board and staff in Victoria, which could not have an insight into the local need for these facilities. When the administration of this Act was transferred, it was expected that initially there would be a considerable load on the public health inspectors. However, this introductory phase is nearing an end and the administration of the Community Care Facilities Act is becoming a matter of routine.

Be that as it may, Mr. Chairman, I can't agree with that comment. It certainly isn't reflected in the community that I live in. Obviously many of the people in the field don't share that opinion either. By the people in the field, I mean the health inspectors themselves. The task may be becoming a matter of routine. I can admit to that. But the job isn't being done as well as it could be. The inspection of community care facilities need not be turned over to any centralized bureaucracy. We don't ask that and it isn't necessary.

The licensing board and staff is already located in Victoria. They direct the operation from here, so nothing will change then. The inspectors themselves, I would expect, would still be responsible to their local communities and responsible to their local boards of health. I don't see any change there at all. But their task would indeed become far more specialized. They could pay much more attention and devotion to working with the operators of these community care facilities, working with those people to help them make their operations better serve the community.

After all, they are looking after thousands and thousands of our senior citizens, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask the Minister, Mr. Chairman, if he would at least give that matter another thought.

Another problem arises with regard to community care facilities as well. That is, as I understand it, that each of these privately operated facilities is required to take a certain proportion of cases as directed by the Government. I have no quarrel with that. But very often in the areas which I've inspected, these cases which are directed to the community care facilities by the Government are alcoholics in various stages of deterioration, sometimes in the worst stages of deterioration. In many of the facilities that I've visited, it turns out, Mr. Minister through you, Mr. Chairman, to be a very unfortunate mix of tenants in these community care facilities.

Alcoholics in this stage of their life, I'm sure we'll all agree, require very special skills in order for people to look after them. They are a special problem; they take special care. They do not mix very well with the kind of people that we hope to find in many of these facilities that come under the care of the community care branch. They create these special problems and they therefore are not compatible with the elderly people who are in there.

We've placed those people in there for care. We expected, I suppose, when we placed those people in those facilities, that they would not be taken into an alcoholic hospital, for instance, but that they would get the kind of care that would allow them to live out their final days in some kind of dignity. They have a right to expect that, Mr. Chairman. I think we should take another look too at that practice of demanding that a certain number of government — sponsored patients be put into these homes, without first of all deciding what kind of patients those are. Perhaps those people should be placed into some other kind of facility, rather than in a facility where the people of the community have placed their fathers and mothers to spend the last years of their lives.

Just as a note of interest, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to comment on the health Minister's brief comment in one of his talks in the House about Canadians being in lousy shape. I notice there's a move in the Legislature to have some of the MLA's go play basketball and volleyball a couple of nights a week. I hope that was initiated by the health Minister and, if it was, I congratulate him for that. Personally, every time I feel the urge to exercise, I lay down and roll over until the urge passes. (Laughter).

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. McCLELLAND: It is contagious. (Laughter). Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make just a brief comment about the comments that the health

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Minister made about Royal Columbian Hospital in the House on February 1 of this year. It doesn't really disturb me, but I did want to comment about it.

He said, "There was the Royal Columbian Hospital problem." Mr. Chairman, that was really a problem that was just poor labour relations — management not speaking to workers and workers not speaking to management and therefore no communication. Really, that's what it was. Nobody really understood the other guy's point of view because of the fact that he had never heard it. He didn't even know what it was unless he read bits and pieces of it in the Press. There really was no communication.

"I'm happy to announce," said the Minister, "that things seem to be going along well." Well, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to suggest that maybe the situation at Royal Columbian Hospital improved because you pulled management out of that hospital and put them to work in Victoria. Maybe that was the problem in that hospital and it was solved for that reason.

Mr. Chairman, Dr. Foulkes has been placed in charge of the health securities programme. I'm sure that's a good programme. I hope it isn't just a programme in which the good doctor is being paid $45,000 a year or whatever it is to write newspaper ads. I hope it has more impact on the community than that. One of the other things that disturbs me about this health securities programme — this is including the cost of that programme, which may go to $154,000 a year, if the part — time people who have been employed suddenly become full — time people, as the practice is. But even without those part — time people becoming full — time people, the programme is going to cost us $118,000 a year.

Anyway, as I said on one earlier occasion, it seems to be a programme to find out answers to questions that the answers are already in hand for. If that's true, I hope that there will be some explanation of that.

There's one other thing I'd like an explanation about. The Minister has said also in Hansard — I don't have the place at hand right now, and I hope I quote him as accurately as possible — that the health services team is working very hard. They're going out into the community and they're finding answers and they're finding problems and they're getting mail and everything else. But he also says that there will be no reports until October. That seems like an unconscionably long time to wait for some indication of what is happening to this health securities team that is costing us $154,000 a year.

Is there no way, Mr. Chairman, that we can get at least some kind of interim report in this House so that we can find out what's happening with that health securities programme? We can't, I think, wait until October for that kind of a report.

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise as my final item a very important item. If you'll bear with me, this will take some few minutes to relate to you. But I want to read you a letter which was written by a Vancouver lawyer to Dr. Pauline Hughes, who is the superintendent of Woodlands School in New Westminster. Before I read that letter, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say that this is one of the most serious cases I've ever heard about in British Columbia. It's a case that, so far at least, seems to have been ignored in Victoria despite all of the pleas from all of the people, from the legal profession to the media to many other interested citizens. Not the least of those interested citizens is the person who is affected in this case herself. Mr. Chairman, I want some answers from the Minister. I want to know what is happening in this case and I want to know what's going to be done to help this lady. The letter begins:

"Dear Madam:

"We have been consulted by Mrs. Marie A. White, R.N., head nurse of your isolation ward, who has been continuously in the employ of the Woodlands School since January 28, 1963.

"We are informed that last month, acting on information provided by the assistant director of your hospital unit, Mr. Norman Roberts, you placed Mrs. White under observation for some three weeks. On November 3 you caused Mrs. White to be spoken to by a Dr. McKenzie, who has recently joined the staff of your occupational health unit. He was a complete stranger to our client.

"Dr. McKenzie didn't give Mrs. White a physical or psychiatric examination, but chatted briefly with her and later contacted Dr. R.E. Helgason, a psychiatrist who had seen Mrs. White professionally some two years ago. Later in the day, Miss Dorothy Curl, your director of nursing services, told our client that she was unwell and required immediate treatment. Neither the nature of Mrs. White's alleged illness nor the type of treatment was mentioned. Our client was then seen again by Dr. McKenzie, this time in your presence, and was told by him that she was to be taken to Hollywood Sanitarium immediately for treatment. Neither you nor Dr. McKenzie offered any information as to the nature of the alleged illness or the type of treatment. Upon asking the reason for hospitalization following a mere 15 — minute chat, Mrs. White was told that the step was being taken on the telephoned instructions of Dr. Helgason.

"Mrs. White questioned the validity of this alleged order, asking how Dr. Helgason could have her sent to that hospital for treatment when he hadn't seen her for two years.

"Dr. McKenzie's reply was a statement that, like it or not, Mrs. White was going to Hollywood Sanitarium. Mrs. White then appealed to you, asking if she had no civil rights. You stated, quite

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emphatically, that she had none. Mrs. White then asked if she could make a private telephone call but Dr. McKenzie, in your presence, refused this and said that Mrs. White would be taken away in any case, but that if she went voluntarily it would make it easier for her.

"Mrs. White pointed out that this sounded as if she was about to be taken to prison. Dr. McKenzie, again in your presence, told her that she was going to a hospital, not a jail.

"Mrs. White was by now fairly alarmed and offered her resignation. This was refused without any reason for the refusal.

"At this point a large man named George McKnight, accompanied by Mrs. Stewart, entered the room And in your presence removed Mrs. White against her will. She was first escorted to her ward for personal effects, and then to a waiting car in charge of Mr. Norman Roberts, who had obviously been waiting.

"Against her will she was driven to Hollywood Sanitarium where Mr. McKnight encountered some difficulty in having her admitted as he had no proper admission papers.

"Later, enquiries by our Mr. Inerson," and that refers to Mr. Stanton's law firm, "disclosed no proper documentation whatever to support your moves and those of Dr. McKenzie.

"Later in the day Mrs. White, while held against her will at the Hollywood Sanitarium, was seen by Dr. Helgason briefly. He told her it had been reported that she was a danger to herself, and said that he had telephoned her family physician, who allegedly said that she was in a depressed condition.

"A later check with the family physician discloses that Dr. Helgason's statement was wholly without foundation. Dr. Helgason also told Mrs. White that she was beyond the help of any lawyer and in a subsequent conversation with Mr. Inerson, again of the lawyer's office, said that it was his intention to force a sedative on Mrs. White and have her taken to Riverview for a 30-day admission.

"Before Mr. Inerson's arrival a member of the Hollywood staff pressed Mrs. White to take 100 milligrams of Demerol and when she refused, threatened that she would be given a hypodermic. Under this threat she took the Demerol. Fortunately, Mr. Inerson and Mrs. White's daughter arrived in time to escort our client from the building and she is now in a safe place.

"As you well know, the background to this rather fantastic series of events involves Mrs. White's concern to protect the helpless children entrusted to her care. She has, on occasion, reported grave abuses to her superior, including the sexual molestation of some of the children by a janitor on your staff and over dosage of certain children with medications, in violation of doctor's orders.

"She also complained about careless distribution of drugs from other wards to her area.

"We have had Mrs. White examined by her family physician, who has referred her to an independent psychiatrist. These doctors both report that she is in good physical and good mental health and that it is absurd to suggest that there was any ground whatsoever upon which the actions against her could properly have been taken.

"Mrs. White informs us that during the three weeks when she was under surveillance she made it known that she was concerned with abuses of certain administrative procedures and practices in Woodlands, and that she proposed, if necessary, to inform the media about them.

"As there were no legitimate or lawful grounds upon which you and the others concerned could have taken the steps above described, we can only assume that these actions were totally irrational That's an unlikely hypothesis. Or that you acted as you did in order to get Mrs. White away from the institution under a cloud, thereby rendering suspect any information she might give to the media as being the vapourings of a mentally ill person.

"In short, our client was seized, abducted, imprisoned, drugged, and reported as insane for the purpose of protecting certain improper procedures at the Woodlands School."

The rest of the letter is just procedural, Mr. Chairman, but to follow that up, on January 3rd of this year there was a story in the Columbian newspaper which says:

"Despite the fact that Health Minister Dennis Cocke has ordered her reinstatement, Mrs. Marie White says she has not yet received any official notification to report back for work as head nurse of the isolation ward at Woodlands. She also says she has not received the full retroactive pay ordered by Mr. Cocke. Mrs. White alleges that she was taken from Woodlands to the Hollywood Sanitarium, "

and the news story goes on to say that the Attorney General's department has said it will investigate the allegations.

"Mrs. White says she is ready and willing to go back to work but she has not yet heard from Woodlands. The medical superintendent of Woodlands, Dr. Pauline Hughes, refuses any comment on the matter."

And later on, as late as the 14th of this month of this year — I might say that there was an editorial on a radio station in Langley which said, "it took this newsroom some weeks of digging and pounding to get

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this story out into the open." Of the three dailies in the greater Vancouver area the only one that followed through on this story, to its great credit I might add, was the Columbian. Neither of the self-styled big defenders of civil rights and freedoms, the morning and evening editions of the Pacific Press, saw fit to do anything about Nurse White's story.

As of today, Mr. Chairman, and this is with confirmation from Mrs. White's lawyer, Mr. Stanton, there has been nothing done to help alleviate Mrs. White's case. She has been promised reinstatement; she does not have reinstatement as yet. She has been promised retroactive pay; she does not have retroactive pay as yet. The word that I get from the lawyer's office is that he is getting the run-around in Victoria.

Mr. Chairman, we should have some answers on a case as serious as this one, and not only answers about a case as serious as this one, but answers about what kind of thing will happen in the future and whether we are taking steps to make sure that it doesn't. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I didn't expect that this would be exactly a love affair, and I'm pleased to say that it isn't. From that side of the House, Mr. Chairman, I've heard some very startling statements this morning and there are some that I'm a little bit sorry about. I have some sorrow about the whole question of that last situation, and I'll deal with that last, too.

Let's talk about the future of hospital boards, Mr. Member, through you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of board members representing the patients. Is that so bad, Mr. Chairman? Doesn't that sound like a good idea to you, Mr. Chairman?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that is not the case and certainly wasn't the direction of that government that was in office before ours, and we'll allude to that in a few moments.

The fact of the matter is that he didn't understand, Mr. Chairman, what I meant by nonprofessional staff. I meant the staff of the hospital having a say on the board. I meant the doctors having a say on the board. Those are the kind of progressive measures that we're suggesting and we suggested it on the floor of this House, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, is there anything wrong with having the hospital boards more responsive to the community? What's all this socialist bugaboo you talk about over there? That organization of theirs that can't think of anything else. Totally preoccupied with this message to the people. You know, "Somebody's out there and they're going to get you." They can't exactly say how, but they can always make those phony charges. Mr. Chairman, I get tired of this phoniness that goes on.

So anyway obviously he hasn't done his homework with respect to this whole question of hospital boards and my suggestion in the House was completely obvious. He knew what I was talking about. Mr. Chairman, I said, "more representatives," and if Old Talkative wants to talk he can get up and do his thing in his own good time. We've got lots of time.

Well, anyway, let me tell you they're not representative, many of the hospital boards in B.C. They're not as representative as many of them tell me they should be. They'd like to be more representative.

Let's just for a second deal with a hospital board that was set up completely by the last administration. The former minister set up the board with over half of the members appointed by whom? By the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Now you tell me that's a representative hospital board, and I hear that criticism from that side of the House.

Let's take a look at the Coquitlam Hospital Board. Over 50 per cent of that board was appointed by the former Minister of Health. Now if that's a representative hospital board I just don't understand it.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): What about Glendale?

HON. MR. COCKE: He wasn't in favour, precisely. That's another situation. But the fact of the matter is we do want to bring the health care back to the community.

How many times do I have to say it? How many times do I have to stand in this House and indicate that that's our direction? And then I hear all of this "centralization" and "socialist phony representation," and that makes one a little bit tired.

Let's refer for a moment or two to the Hospital Employees' Union brief. The Member heard what they had to say, but he wasn't listening to what I had to say. All of those people up there. You read it in the paper — well, O.K. I would refer you to some of the Press — they heard fully what I had to say.

Where the hospital union called for the elimination of hospital boards, I indicated that that wasn't the direction at all. My words were that it would be counter-productive — counter-productive, to decentralize health care. So if that isn't plain enough, I'll say here publicly in the House, with your ears to hear directly, that I do not support nor do I favour elimination of hospital boards, period.

Let's not forget that that brief was not my brief. That report was not my report. It was sent to me. Well, you know, I'm listening to all of this business and it's as though these are my words, and they

[ Page 1184 ]

certainly weren't. My words were quite in contrast. So, Mr. Chairman, I hope that I've cleared up that little matter.

Mr. Chairman, he welcomed the discussion that we had in the House previously on this whole question of alternative health care measures. Well, thank you very much. We plan to do as much as we possibly can in this direction, and hopefully we can work together to reduce the hospital costs, to reduce the costs of the delivery of health care in this province.

Then I'll go on and answer as best I can the question about public health inspectors. As you said when you were reading the report of the Union Board of Health of the central Fraser Valley, the fact is there has been a real shortage of staff. It goes back well into the 1960's, as you were indicating by reading that report. We're trying our best to move into that area and provide the inspectors and the public health nurses and so on that are needed. Hopefully, we will have the staff that is necessary. But don't forget that the direction is still decentralization. We don't want to hire a bunch of people on our staff to do the work that should be done at the community level.

So that gets me down to that other aspect that you were talking about, and that was, why don't we provide special inspectors from here to do the community — that's what I understood — the community facility inspecting?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: That wasn't what you said. You wanted us to do the work that can be done by the Union Board of Health. If that's not the case, then maybe you can relate to that later. I'm glad that you indicated that we did a good job on Whispering Winds. I can remember Whispering Winds. I haven't seen the place in the last few years, but I had a rather intimate relationship with Whispering Winds a few years ago, in that a relation of mine was there. At that time it was well run, very clean, excellent food and so on. If it did deteriorate, and as you indicate, was not in good shape for a while — well anyway that was brought around to your satisfaction in any event.

Mr. Chairman, there are other aspects of this that I question. That Member indicates that we should be very careful about alcoholics being permitted in community facilities. You also indicate that we should be very careful about demanding that there be a certain percentage of welfare people as the inmates of any community facility.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: What did he say, Mr. Chairman?

MR. McCLELLAND: I said alcoholics.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that Member indicated that we were able to dictate that a certain percentage were welfare people, obviously. Well then if you're telling me that we indicate — that we dictate — that alcoholics, or this or that, I rather think that you're making a bad play.

Now what do you do with people who are ill? What do you do with people who are chronically ill? I suggest to you that in 1952, the City of Vancouver was at the point of getting a de-tox centre. Oh, Mt. St. Joseph Hospital was going to become a de-tox centre. That all went down the drain in 1952, and that fight has been fought for years and years.

We agree that there has to be an alcoholic programme in this province, and at last something is being done about it. We are doing it now, we are working our heads off. There are a number of sick people in our society who have to have help, who have to have care. And they're somebody's dad and mother too. I think that we don't turn our back on people under any circumstance and particularly in depriving them of a place to sleep and a place to eat. Especially if it's a place that's affording them some sort of dignity that they would lose if we just say, "Go and hide behind some kind of fence."

Mr. Chairman, I'll go on on the Royal Columbian Hospital. I'm not very happy about that solution to the problem that you suggest, through you, Mr. Chairman.

The fact that Dr. Foulkes left that hospital had nothing to do with the fact that we were able to mend a few fences around there. I wasn't talking about the administration of that hospital, I was just talking about something that had happened in this province. Since you bring it up and since you allude to it, why don't we discuss it more fully?

There was a situation that was artificially created in this province that alienated management from labour in every field, including hospitals, including industry, including the whole kit and caboodle. There was an alienation process going on and they were just part of that process. I suggested, after that little bit of discussion we had, that they were able to talk to one another again and I felt that things were a great deal more secure. I hope that they will be able to continue talking and continue negotiating.

The health security programme under Dr. Foulkes is a one year programme. So how can you suggest that it's going to cost X dollars per year? There's nothing, Mr. Chairman, that indicates that that programme is going to go beyond next fall. Nothing at all that says that that particular programme is going to go beyond next fall.

The Member said, "Let's get a report, let's get an interim report. Let's find out where they're going." We couldn't even get the Perry report on education

[ Page 1185 ]

after it was finished for years and years. We couldn't get the Carruthers report for years and years. There were finished reports. Finally when we became Government, we were able to have access to those reports. Mr. Chairman, what is the great huge hurry about getting working papers? That's really what you get — you get working papers from a group such as that.

The Premier and my Ministry called for that particular commission to do a job, and finish that job by October of next year. That job was the rationalization of our departments — the suggested rationalization. That's what I hope to have by next October. That is a monumental task and I'm sure that this particular group of people will do their level best to produce the report, and I'll be able to make it public at that time, but not before. Why would I make a working paper public before? All it would do would be to confuse the whole issue. So anyway, that's their responsibility. If in fact there are some papers that I feel should be dealt with in the House, you have my assurance that they will be dealt with.

Now last, I want to discuss just for a minute or two this Marie White case. Now that went all through the papers and let me say first that I want to congratulate the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, in this room right now, for not getting on that ball. Yes, sir, they resisted. I was in contact with those two papers, and I had a great deal of contact with those two papers over this case. They decided in their own wisdom that they were not going to drag people through the dirt just in order to get a headline. I want to congratulate that aspect of the papers in this province.

Mr. Chairman, that was an unfortunate case, and it's not over. It's not over yet at all. I'm very dissatisfied, Mr. Chairman, with that Member dragging what I consider to be an innocent person, through this. I really do, and I'm not talking about Marie White at this time. I'm talking about some of the charges that woman made, which have not been vindicated or justified, about other people who were involved — charges about people who are perfectly innocent in the eyes of most people.

Really and truly, I just don't see the relevance — that private letter should never have been read out — at least that part of it. Sure, we have a safety in this House, but I just don't think that that's the thing to do at this point. If you can prove that there was some sexual activity in that area, then come up and make those charges; but really and truly I just think that that's too much.

Mr. Chairman, this has been set up as a committee, and there's been no input to my committee, no input. The Columbian article as far as I'm concerned is just too bad, but that paper hasn't done their homework. The fact of the matter is they haven't checked to see whether or not this person has lived up to her end of the particular bargain with respect to this committee. She was asked to produce some evidence, bring it before this committee and it's never even been started. I indicated that providing she could meet certain standards, she would be reinstated that day and that would be it. She is to come to the committee and hasn't to date. Maybe it will happen.

Anyway, I once again congratulate the big dailies for having stayed from this case. After all, it is human beings we are dealing with and that is where it's at, at the moment.

Mr. Chairman, I think that answers most of the questions to this point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Member for Langley.

MR. McCLELLAND: Supplementary question, Mr. Chairman. Speaking of disappointment, I'm disappointed in the health Minister because rather than answering questions which is his role in this debate, he has twisted facts and attacked. I would rather see him do some constructive answering of questions rather than that kind of approach.

Mr. Chairman, I never said "hide alcoholics in some dark hallway"; I just asked if he could refrain from putting alcoholics in with our elderly people. We have placed our elderly people in there to be able to live out their lives in peace and not have to have that kind of care associated with them because it is a different kind of care. Mr. Chairman, we want that kind of care as much as you do. Don't forget it. Don't twist my implications, because they are certainly not true.

The other thing has to do with the health inspectors. I never said, "Leave them in Victoria and have them do the job" — I said exactly the opposite — decentralize them, put them in the community, but make them specialize in this kind of inspection. That's all I asked for; the way it was one other time. The inspectors have too much to do.

HON. MR. COCKE: Working for whom?

MR. McCLELLAND: Working for their community, but under the direction of the Community Care Facilities Branch which is already here. That's all we asked.

Mr. Chairman, as far as the problems of publicizing certain things in this House, this thing has been before the community for months — all kinds of media.

The news media, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister, is responsible for providing news and that is their job. There is nothing wrong with them doing their job. For you to suggest they should be muzzled from doing their job is highly irresponsible.

[ Page 1186 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health Services.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, just one or two words.

The Member was disappointed. He felt I should be dealing very quietly and very lucidly with this whole question of answering questions. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chairman, when one is attacked, then one counter — attacks. If you don't like it, don't attack.

I answered those questions the very best way I could.

The constructive answering of questions, the refraining from moving all over the place, is a two — way street.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we won't go through this alcohol thing again. Let me say this: old people sometimes are alcoholic. There is no conscious effort to place people because they have a particular illness in that particular institution. None at all. People have the right to go into rest homes if they wish to.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you have the responsibility to make sure they are run correctly?

HON. MR. COCKE: Yes, and so therefore we don't have the responsibility of going into a rest home and saying you can't have this particular kind of patient or that particular kind of patient. That is all there is to it. Otherwise there is just no way. Old people sometimes are alcoholic and that's all there is to it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. First Member for Vancouver — Point Grey.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't want to be the subject of a dispute before I had a chance to say a word.

AN HON. MEMBER: It could be easy to do.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the Minister got off to a flying start. He got so excited that I was afraid he was going to knock over that "Be kind" heart symbol that was sitting on his desk. I was beginning to wonder for a moment who the Minister was with the red hair.

Mr. Chairman, I was impressed with that "Be kind" symbol, first of all because it represents such an exciting advance in health care for the province of British Columbia. Of course, heart disease is the number one killer in our country.

There are various ways of combating heart disease. One of them, Mr. Chairman, is exercise and the Minister did make the allegation that we were in lousy shape. That hurts me, Mr. Chairman. I think we all want to have an opportunity to prove the kind of shape we are in. I would like to issue a call to the Minister: Why don't we all go jogging one morning in Beacon Hill Park? It is a wonderful place to exercise.

I will participate, I know the Whip of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Barnes) and the members of the Press will join us and we'll have a "Get in shape week" here in the Legislature. Perhaps next Tuesday morning, Mr. Chairman, or at sometime suitable to the Minister — we'll jog for our health.

I jog every day. I'm not bragging in any way. I haven't seen the Second Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes); I know the Minister of Health does the track at the "Y". But to be alert you need to have this physical exercise. That is why I give this particular encouragement to the Press to join us next week on these jogging expeditions.

There was an amount of people applauding the daily Press in Vancouver. I can never remember the daily Press in Vancouver having been applauded before. Here I was prepared to quote from a very fine article that was written about our number one expert in Canada on stress and heart disease, Dr. Hans Selye which appeared in the morning edition of the Pacific Press. It states, "Man must have recognition for health." It says "He cannot tolerate constant censure for that is what makes work frustrating and stressful."

Very bad for the health and I know this has been a good day for the health of the Press and I want to make it so for the Minister too, by saying that I think he has done just an excellent job in the time he has been in office.

I may occasionally criticize a Minister but I would hope never to be reticent about giving credit where credit is due. I think this Minister is starting off in a very fine way. He has commissioned a study and hired a very competent man to undertake that. He is receiving ideas from all over and because of that, I think there is a very high level of co-operation and we are going to see some exciting new concepts emerging.

There is one aspect of this that is very urgent, Mr. Chairman. I know the special consultant to, the Minister can't do everything at once and he's going to take until October to finish his job. But we are in a countdown on one of the most important aspects of health in this province and this is with respect to the health resources fund.

Believe it or not, British Columbia has spent less and has been further behind any other province in the nation in making use of the health resources funds. The procrastination has been so extreme that unless a firm construction schedule is commenced by June of this year, it will be impossible for us to use our full share of the federal funds. This is why decisions have to be made in advance of that special consultant's report.

[ Page 1187 ]

Hon. Members probably know that British Columbia turns out the least number of doctors per capita of any province in the nation. In medical education we have been last, just as we have been last in spending the health resources funds.

Mr. Chairman, this has not been due to any lack of planning because British Columbia was first in all of North America in planning the concept of a health sciences centre. For that, we owe a credit to the former Dean of Medicine at UBC, Dr. J.F. McCreary, who was the one who introduced this idea not just to British Columbia but to all of North America. I think eventually this health sciences centre, when the hospital is finally completed out there, should be called the J.F. McCreary Health Sciences Centre.

There has been a development already of a UBC health sciences centre in western Ontario. Mr. Chairman, they built UBC's scheme 15. In other words, there had already been completed 15 sets of plans for a health sciences centre before that university took one and built it. It opened just this year — a jewel, really, in the Canadian medical education crown — UBC's plan 15. I've forgotten what scheme we're up to now, but it's 18 or 19 or so.

Why we're at the final countdown is this: the money has been made available. There's still over $50 million that belongs to British Columbia for improving medical care and medical education facilities. But that money will be forever lost unless firm decisions to build facilities can be made. My question to the Minister is will he do this?

What is required as the most urgent priority, Mr. Chairman, is to increase the size of the medical class. May I say once more that we are now graduating 60 doctors a year. We are licensing 300 doctors a year. We are turning away 300 or more capable students. There are no facilities for teaching them. The doctors are needed. The hospitals are there. But the basic science facilities that are so necessary for this cannot accommodate more than the 80 who are there….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member not carry on….

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, if I could explain to the Member. The medical profession is responsible for licensing doctors. Therefore, what they do is license a sufficient number of doctors to fill the health needs of the people of the province. That's about 300 a year. But it's a different problem to train a doctor. The College of Physicians and Surgeons cannot license a man unless he's had a medical education.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We're considering the Hon. Minister of Health's estimates, not the Hon. Member's …

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I'm just terribly pleased to take the time to make this point. I don't think we should hurry over it because it's so fundamental. We need to license 300 but the bottleneck is at the entrance to medical school. There's no lack of people wanting to take doctor's training; no lack of a need for them right here in British Columbia, to have a career in medicine. But there's a problem of not enough basic science facilities to enlarge the class.

Mr. Chairman, if the Minister would give the O.K. to spend health resources funds to enlarge these basic science facilities, then the class could be enlarged to 100, 120, 150 or more. I think that this should be the first priority for this health resources fund.

The second priority, Mr. Chairman — and again this is something that can be very, very quickly done — is to enlarge the clinical facilities for teaching at our existing major hospitals, like the Vancouver General and St. Paul's hospital. That can be done very quickly. When this enlarged medical class gets to its clinical years, those expanded teaching facilities will be waiting for them.

Thirdly — and this really must start almost simultaneously too — is to build the great centrepiece of medical facilities in this province. That, of course, must be a high — level hospital on the University of British Columbia campus. A health sciences centre is not a centre without a hospital. If there is an absolute must for us to take advantage of the millions of dollars that have already been spent, it is to create this high — level clinical facility. I know the Minister sees the necessity for all of this. For him it's just a question of time and priorities, but that's my suggestion.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister also has another very major hospital decision to make. In this province, as in other provinces of Canada, we've got veterans' hospitals that have passed their time as veterans' hospitals, simply because we've been fortunate enough not to have been involved in a major war for many, many years. What these hospitals are largely being used for today, Mr. Chairman, is chronic hospitals — the kind of thing that we've been so short of in British Columbia; the clinical gap, if you like.

What could be more appropriate than to use these veterans' hospitals as the centrepiece, not for an acute care programme — that's going to be the UBC health sciences centre — but for a chronic care programme?

It's been shown in studies that as many as 50 per cent of the people who are in chronic hospitals can be discharged if the one supporting thing that they need

[ Page 1188 ]

can be provided on an out-patient basis. Maybe it' s a little bit of supportive nursing care. There have been some exciting statistics produced showing that by team care in a chronic hospital you can substantially reduce the number of people who are committed to that institution.

For a person with chronic illness, the event that makes them leave their home, wherever it is, and enter the hospital will be the one thing that they couldn't cope with on their own. Therefore, if it is this insulin shot that could have been given on an out-patient basis, the person has to completely fold their own domestic arrangements and go into an institution. We've never realized before, Mr. Chairman, I don't think, what a tremendous proportion of our chronic hospital population is there for a relatively trivial reason, The point I'm coming to, Mr. Chairman, is that if you take hospitals like Shaughnessy — and people are hunting for a role for these places that are in danger of becoming white elephants — and make them into chronic hospitals and support them with strong out-patient and ancillary services, we're going to be able to move people in and out of those hospitals and tremendously reduce the overall cost of a chronic care programme.

I see this as a great opportunity for the Minister to initiate a completely new style of chronic health care in the province by taking over these military hospitals as the main base. I'd like to ask the Minister what he sees as a future in the chronic care field.

The next subject that I'd like to raise with the Minister is one that, I admit, Mr. Chairman, falls only partially within his jurisdiction. But I know of no other way to raise a protest for a person like myself than to say it on the floor of the House. I am dismayed, shattered, shocked, aghast….

AN HON. MEMBER: Get to the point.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the state of support for medical research in Canada is all of these things and more. The primary responsibility has been at the level of the federal government and I think the federal government has let down the Canadian people in a shameful way. Many Members have criticized federal policies, but I think none has been worse over the last five or six years than the attitudes of the federal government towards medical research.

In this period, when a terrific escalation has taken place in federal expenditures in the health field, medical research has been throttled. Just this year the estimates for the Medical Research Council have been tabled in the House of Commons with the barest increase imaginable — even a smaller increase in percentage, Mr. Chairman, than went to the universities here in British Columbia — a bare 5 per cent.

Mr. Chairman, a fairly desperate group of outstanding doctors from the Province of Ontario got together in 1965 with some businessmen in that province to explain the difficulties of doing excellent medical research in Canada. There was a report commissioned called the Woods Gordon report which set targets for medical research.

In that year, they said the budget for the Medical Research Council of Canada by the year 1970 should reach over $80 million per year. The budget for 1973-74 has been brought down as $40.1 million. In other words, we have gone three years past a target date and still only half the level that was recommended in that report.

I believe the report was a modest one because it still left medical research in Canada substantially behind that of the United States. While the United States, through its National Institutes of Health, spends approximately $5 per capita in medical research, our equivalent in Canada, the Medical Research Council, gets less than $2 per capita.

We are not pulling our weight as a nation in this field. It's our own health and well-being that suffer because of that.

In view of the fact that the federal government is riot doing its job in medical research, I would like to ask the Minister: Has he any plans to compensate for this somehow at the provincial level? I say this with the certain knowledge that quite a few provinces in Canada have compensated fairly generously. The Province of Ontario, again, is one; Alberta, the Maritimes. We, provincially, have spent very little money in this direction.

Next, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister about drugs. One of the important gaps in our medical care problem in this province is the high cost of drugs and medical appliances to those who are in the low income groups. If a person has chronic illness — arthritis, heart disease, diabetes — then drugs become the most important necessity in that person's life, more important even than food. Most of us can survive for a while with either no food or limited amounts of food but for the person who has a chronic illness, death itself may ensue without the continued administration of life-saving drugs.

Life-saving drugs often come very, very expensive. The steroids — well, the Minister knows them. I don't need to take the time to go through them. I think we should have a programme in British Columbia where all prescription drugs over a certain modest minimum — make it $25 a year, if you like, so you have a deterrent for people who would otherwise fill their medicine cabinets with all the junk that they could pick up at a drug store. But for the people who really need it and have a long-term requirement for a drug, then I think that should be picked up by our medical insurance scheme.

Mr. Chairman, the cost of this would be extraordinarily low. The fairness of it would, I think, be

[ Page 1189 ]

beyond dispute.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister if he couldn't get his teeth into another problem. This is the problem of fluoridation. British Columbia is tenth in Canada in fluoridation of water supplies. The supporters of fluoridation include the Canadian Dental Association, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Department of National Health and Welfare, the Dominion Council of Health, the Health League of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, the Voluntary Committee on Health of the Senate and House of Commons, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Nary and the U.S. Air Force.

Mr. Chairman, if one could find groups with a broader community of interests than that supporting a single measure, I would like to know what it is. Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Health would be on very sound medical and political ground if he were to become the champion of fluoridation in British Columbia. I have regretted that we've had such feeble endorsements in the past.

Oh, they've come. The Leader of the Opposition once mumbled something about being in favour of fluoridation. I've heard former Ministers of Health whisper on an occasion or two that they thought it was maybe not a bad idea. But never have we had a Minister of Health who would crusade for this, a number one health measure. It would be so easy if strong support were loaned to this cause.

Mr. Chairman, I know what the hesitation is. That is that there are always these groups who contend that the purity of the water is being offended by the addition of fluoride or any other agent. Really, I think we overdo this idea of having nothing in the water but H2O. I would cite as the evidence for this….

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: I'm not talking about the kinds of things that some of my Hon. colleagues like to have with their water, Mr. Chairman.

I'm talking about the kinds of things that will prevent heart disease. Here in the very papers that have been praised this morning — in this case the afternoon edition of the Pacific Press — is this report saying that heart disease is linked to soft water. In other words, the pure water supplies that are always championed by food faddists and the members of the Greater Vancouver Water and Sewage Drainage District about being the greatest asset of Vancouver, actually contributes to heart disease. We'd be better off if we had hard water here on the coast, Mr. Chairman.

We do get adequate copper in our water because that comes through all the pipes. As anybody who has tried to fill a swimming pool knows, we get lots of dirt in with the water. But we should have calcium with the water if we want to prevent deterioration of the arteries. We should have fluoride in the water if we want to prevent deterioration of the teeth.

Mr. Chairman, I'm an unashamed champion of fluoridation of our water supplies. I'm looking for a Minister in that portfolio who will be my hero and crusade for this cause. I would want to give him a model of a fluoride molecule to go with that heart model he has, for the day that we have fluoridation introduced in the major communities of this province.

The Minister can do it in a number of ways. One is just to see a simple change in the Municipal Act which would allow city councils to fluoridate at their discretion. That's been done. Make it a simple majority vote — that's been done. But there always seems to be about 40 per cent of the people who are reluctant to take this step and will not support a referendum when you have to go to that 60 per cent majority and I think this is the thing that has been the destroyer of children's teeth in this province.

What we really want to have is a courageous government that puts public health high on its list of priorities, and particularly one that has the financial genius to recognize that this is one of the cheapest public health measures that could be introduced.

Mr. Chairman, my case for fluoridation rests.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'll just take a couple of minutes and answer some of the questions put by the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

We are certainly pleased to have him support my suggestion sometime ago in this House that we all keep in shape, jog, and do all the other necessary things to keep the blood flowing through our arteries at a rate sufficiently great to keep it from stopping suddenly.

As far as your challenge is concerned, I don't know. I'm not the same age as you are. We'll discuss that between ourselves. I certainly go along, however, that we should all get out and do that kind of work.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the First Member from Point Grey dealt with the question of the Health Resources Fund. He indicated that by June of this year we'd better have the plans drawn and get the shovel into the dirt out at UBC — otherwise we're down the tube as far as the utilization of that $50 million is concerned.

I appreciate all the work that Dr. McCreary has done; I appreciate all the work that Dr. Gibson, Dr. McGeer, and many other doctors and many other people in this area have done with respect to their

[ Page 1190 ]

work toward the Health Science Centre Hospital. Now, Mr. Chairman, I disagree with the Member, however, that we, have to make a decision by June of this year. We have nothing, there is nothing in the agreement or nothing in the Act that I can recall that indicates that you lose some of it if you don't get it before 1981. 1981 is the cut-off time for the utilization of the Health Resources Fund. So let's not stampede ourselves into decisions around this question, and I'll just develop that a little bit.

Another thing, too. I don't want anybody to get the impression that this is $50 million of federal funds. What it is is $25 million of federal funds and $25 million that we would have to match. In other words, this is a matching situation. Remember, those of you who remember history, this was Judy LaMarsh's, when she was health Minister for Canada, this was the plan that she set up to help health education. It was a great idea, and I agree with the Member that somehow or another we must utilize these resources.

Now, both Dr. Bates and I are relatively new at our jobs. Dr. Bates is the new Dean of Medicine at UBC, and I have had early discussions with Dr. Bates, last fall, as to the direction to go. I had discussions with him and with others. I had a discussion or two with the Hon. Member across the way about this facility. I suggested to Dr. Bates that one thing we had to do is to provide some satisfaction to the health community. In other words, let's not move in a direction that is going to dissatisfy the majority, or a great number or whatever.

So they've been doing a job. They've been going out to hospital boards and so on, and they've got support from St. Paul's, they've got a little bit of support from the General, not really great support, not thunderous applause or anything. To date, the Medical Association has turned them down flat. We're dealing with an area which I feel is very important — people who are intimately involved making or at least taking part in the decision-making.

Now I recognize that the buck stops here at this Minister, but I'm just a little bit too new, and a little bit too short of information at this point to make a definitive, final decision as to where that Health Resources Fund money is going to be used. But I can tell you this — it's going to be used. It's going to be used in B.C.

Now, Mr. Chairman, to go on, I think that that probably rests that situation, but you know I'm very excited about the Member's suggestion about veterans' hospitals.

As most of you know, we are at the present time negotiating with the federal government around Shaughnessy and the veterans' hospital here. The officials — the Deputy Minister of Veterans' Affairs and his associates — have been out here and we've had some discussions, as they had with the previous government. But I think we are on a course which will lead us ultimately to a place where those hospitals will come under our purview.

When that occurs, I agree with the Member that a study has to be done to give us an understanding of the best utilization of Shaughnessy Hospital. Shaughnessy does have some very fine acute care facilities. They are doing acute and some intensive care. As you know, they are doing two open heart operations a week. But a real programme can be built around that hospital, particularly if we are able to get into intermediate care, because if we go into that level of care, the next level down from where we are now, extended care is very easy to identify. If a person cannot walk and they are chronically ill then they need extended care.

But if, on the other hand, we move down to that level, which is our objective if we can possibly get in there, then we're going to have to have some kind of major facility that is going to complement that kind of delivery, and under those circumstances I certainly want to have, Mr. Member, through you Ms. Chairman, to that Member, I certainly want to have Shaughnessy and for that matter Veterans' over here looked into very carefully as to how they can best help our whole health care delivery system.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is a scientist, and as a scientist he says we've got to have some real change in research in Canada. In Canada we are only putting $2 per capita on the line in research, In the United States they are putting $5 on the line. He also indicated that the United States has moved up sharply in the last two years. Well, so they should.

But we have to be more careful in British Columbia, and I've discussed this with the Member too, Mr. Chairman, so he's just letting you in on it now. We have to be most careful in British Columbia how we go with respect to research.

If we start moving into research arbitrarily without really letting the federal government take the responsibility that they should be taking, then we're in the area that they should be in, and we should be encouraging them to get out of the area where we should be in. Let me explain this now. I've got you all confused and so now I can bring you out of the morass.

One of the problems we have with the federal government is the fact that they've built a health bureaucracy. With that health bureaucracy they've become helpless in their own bureaucracy. When we go down to Ottawa and ask for a global budget, they can't give us a global budget because, if they did, they'd have to fire half their people, because their people are so intimately involved in health care. Their civil service would be greatly depleted and that would be counter-productive to the way governments normally act.

I'm not suggesting it's counter-productive. It

[ Page 1191 ]

should happen that way, but so far it hasn't happened. The bureaucracy is so great that if there is any threat of removing a person's job by virtue of giving more responsibility to the province, then that's of course resisted. And that's the kind of thing that I sense.

I don't hold this against anybody. This is the human animal that we're dealing with. This is human nature. We build our little empires and it's very difficult to bring them down.

I really feel that our input — and not to say that we are ignoring this place — should be particularly at this moment to get the federal government into the area of health care where they should be and get ourselves into the area of delivering that care, in co-operation with the community, the professionals, and so on.

So I just don't see us affording too much research at this point until such time as we can get some sort of an agreement with the federal government as to their direction, because if things keep going the way they are going now, our funds are going to be very tight, particularly in view of the fact that costs are rising at such a rapid rate.

We have to be most careful, and I encourage the federal government to do a great deal more with respect to research and get out of the delivery of health care themselves.

Now, Mr. Chairman, on prescription drugs I agree….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Did the Member have something special to say?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): …in a kindly way. That is that the Federal government, I don't say it in criticism of them, have always sought to get some kind of a formula to get away from sharing the rising costs on a 50 — 50 basis, both in hospital insurance and Medicare.

All I would suggest to the Hon. Minister is that he not agree to any of those kind of formulas because we're living in an inflationary world — keep the federal government in as a full partner in these two important fields. That's all I have to say.

HON. MR. COCKE: Madam Chairman, we have adopted a very definitive attitude in that respect. As a matter of fact, we've gone beyond that and indicated areas where they could take a great deal more responsibility than what they have to date. One of the problems of course is that those are the only areas where they do deal. They've cut the base short. They've narrowed the base in that they say, "O.K., on the insured benefits only," not recognizing that there's mental health….

AN HON. MEMBER: You must have a broad base.

HON. MR. COCKE: That's right. You must broaden the base, otherwise, we take….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: Right on, that's the way. We agree that that's the way it is and we're providing some leadership with the other provinces. The Province of Quebec is going in that direction. Hopefully, when we go down to our next meeting with the Hon. Marc Lalonde, by that time the federal government will recognize that they must broaden the base. Thank you for your contribution.

Mr. Chairman, the area of prescription drugs; yes, we're most interested in prescription drugs. I guess you probably noticed the announcement by the Hon. Ed Shreyer, Premier of Manitoba the other day, that they're moving in that direction.

One of the problems, however, around this whole question of prescription drugs — whether there's co-insurance or not, and I agree that certainly if we're going to move in very quickly, and that's part of our study — but if we're going to move in very quickly, there has to be some co-insurance. Prices aren't right.

That's one thing that the health Ministers across this country recognize and agree upon — that is that the price of drugs is absolutely intolerable. There's such a percentage of it in advertising, such a percentage of it in unearned profits right across the board. Not at the local level, but at the manufacturers' and large distributors' level. That's where the big profits are.

We have a study on with the western provinces right now as to whether or not we should get into bulk buying and providing drug stores with an opportunity to get drugs at a better price. If there's enough involved, then we can go abroad for drugs, providing they meet the quality and our needs. Anyway, those are some of the things that we're studying.

Mr. Chairman, again back to this fluoridation. We've discussed this around the House. It's been kept in the public eye, Mr. Member, through you, Ms. Chairman.

We recognize that in areas where they do fluoridate, such as Prince George and Kelowna, that there is a tremendous reduction in tooth caries. But there is so much misinformation abroad, until such times as this whole question can be rationalized and people stop going wild about it, it's a very difficult situation to deal with.

Now you say O.K., I can be a crusader on a white horse. Ralph Nader is a crusader right now on a black horse, if that can be the contrasting situation. We have to get the people educated in this whole

[ Page 1192 ]

question. No use in saying you're going to do this or you're going to do that without having a proper education.

I've asked for and I have a report on the whole question of dental care and preventive dental care in this province. I will be soon making that report available. It's a very interesting report. I want everybody in the House to take a real good look at it. It could be that in the next year or two that we're going to be able to start implementing some form of preventive dental work on a scale that is going to be of great value to us.

I want to remember just for one second. Remember when they chlorinated the water in Vancouver? At that time there, were two individual water supplies — one serving the western part of the city and one serving the eastern part of the city. The old Seymour watershed and the Capilano watershed.

Remember they announced the chlorination of that water and there was a hue and cry like you never heard in your life. Then they announced the date. The target date was such and such, and then of course the date came.

Subsequent to that date, there were all sorts of calls, letters to the editor — and oh, people were just very upset. Now most of the calls came from the east side of the city where they were bothered with diarrhea and everything else as a result of this chlorine. The only problem was, they'd had some technical difficulties, the chlorine hadn't been introduced into the Seymour watershed yet; but had been introduced into the Capilano watershed, and there wasn't too much complaint from that side of the city.

That's the problem with all of these things. We have to do a job of educating in order to get people to understand exactly what's going on.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: The Hon. Second Member for Vancouver Centre.

MR. G.V. LAUK (Vancouver Centre): Thank you, Ms. Chairperson. I can say this, that I thank you for recognizing me and the people of Vancouver Centre thank you, and all the backbenchers thank you. I think as far as Chairpersons are concerned I must….

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: Would the Member stand up, please. (Laughter).

MR. LAUK: Ms. Chairperson, I know that you and I are both of — have that distinction. I was going to say that I'm glad that you did recognize me, and as far as Chairpersons are concerned, I much prefer the Ms. to the "Mr."

I've been sitting here for the last few days stewing about a few things that were said by a couple of Members, and I'm sure said in all sincerity, about heroin addiction. What I found upsetting was not that they were wrong, which they were, but that they couched their remarks…at least one of the Members, a professional man in the medical field, from one of the Vancouver ridings and not of this party. (Laughter).

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, who?

MR. LAUK: A clue is that he's one of the last of the stand-up comics for the Liberal Party.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LAUK: He couched his remarks in a sort of scientific atmosphere and a research atmosphere — expertise. And I noticed that the Liberal Party organ once again caught up on this in their editorial of March 8, 1973.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: What is your point of order?

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Have the speaker refer to the Minister's estimates instead of wandering all over the…. (Laughter).

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: I think the point is well taken. Would the Hon. Member confine his….

MR. LAUK: Ms. Chairperson, I'd like to refer you to the estimates that I'm talking about, vote 94, vote 109 — you can refer to practically all of them.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order, order.

MR. LAUK: …which all come under the health estimates and also the Health Minister's salary because he is deciding policy in this regard.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: We are dealing with vote 86, Hon. Member.

MR. LAUK: That's exactly what I said, exactly what I said. Now could you tell me — are you serious about that ruling by the way? Are you serious about that ruling?

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: Proceed.

MR. PHILLIPS: I think when you were stewing you must have boiled over. (Laughter).

MR. LAUK: Well I do know what I would like to say and I was quite serious about the fact that a few days ago two Members did make these statements, albeit seriously and with sincerity. I know them both, and they are concerned over the problem of heroin

[ Page 1193 ]

addiction.

Now the Member for South Peace River (Mr., Phillips) suggested that we shoot traffickers, or pushers as he put it, in heroin. But you see there are problems involved with that approach. Number one — 95 per cent of the addicts, to my own personal knowledge, who are in the Vancouver area, are pushers most of the time, all of the time, or some of the time — 95 per cent.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LAUK: He said pushers. The second problem is that under the Narcotic Control Act, trafficking is defined as "transporting, giving, sharing, or even having in one's possession a quantity that might be found to be more than you could use within a short period of time."

Thirdly, Ms. Chairperson, three very prominent persons involved in the drug traffic in the last two years have been sentenced to long prison terms — the very top of the echelon of the drug trafficking business. The drug trafficking has increased. People have taken their places. Those personalities of whom I'm talking, they are what I would describe clearly, in my experience, as psychopaths, who do not fear death and who traffic in death. Believe me, Mr. Member, if I thought that firing squads would do the job I would pull the trigger myself, but they will not.

MR. PHILLIPS: What do you recommend?

MR. LAUK: In plenty of time, Mr. Member. You just listen carefully. The first Member for Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) was a little more researched in his remarks but because of the couching in science he was more responsible for the sensationalism that he caused.

He says that drug addiction is like a disease. I'll talk more about that in a moment. A contagious disease. In fact he is in part correct but he missed a very, very important factor; that the addict, the person addicted to heroin, does not spread the disease. It is the novice user, the person who has not yet been investigated, not yet been found out by the police, his parents or anybody else — the novice user who with his peer group, his friends, is excited about this new thrill — seeking and encourages them to use drugs.

The addicts that I know, Mr. Member, know that they are living part of a living death and do not talk about their drugs to novices or people who are not other addicts. That is the fact of the contagion that you are talking about. Therefore, his suggestion of isolation is false.

It is like prison. We isolate them in prison and we practically have a free drug society in Oakalla. I think many of the lawyers in the House could testify to that. Certainly the Hon. Member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) mentioned this in his remarks sometime ago.

These people are undetected until they are addicts. When do we start arresting them and isolating them. When do we pick them up and put them on an island? — when they just met someone who started using heroin or when they used it once or twice? — when they started mainlining, that is putting it in directly into their veins, until they are described as a confirmed addict? When do we arrest them? — when they are over 16, over 12, over 9, age 7 as in a case in New York recently? When? Lock them up?

In a little while a new addict community would develop and I think my friend from Point Grey knows that. He mentioned recently a letter he received from the Home Secretary from England. He says, "There were increases in drug-related crime from 200 to 500 approximately." I haven't got it exactly but that's the general figure.

Well, there are all kinds of reports from Britain — a population vastly in excess of Canada's. They have about 4,000 or 5,000 addicts in the United Kingdom. Believe me, an increase of 200 to 500 drug — related crimes in Vancouver — well, we should be so lucky. That kind of failure we need over here.

Ms. Chairperson, I rise to speak on this vote in order to emphasize one of the most unfortunate tragedies of our times and that is heroin addiction. Some people estimate that we now have, as I say, about 10,000 to 15,000 addicts in British Columbia. The addiction problem is epidemic. It is contagious.

In the past it was a small group of addicts who in most cases before addiction indicated anti-social and delinquent behaviour. Now the insidious disease is reaching its ugly fingers into every part of society. It is no longer just the poor families that are susceptible, but every family.

The disease is walking hand in hand with the general moral decline on our community. We can clearly see that all drug dependency is interrelated — like alcohol and other drugs such as barbiturates and so on. The addict is becoming younger and younger. We are told that in North America we are only on the threshold of massive drug dependency and drug use.

I'm talking about an emergency. But I must emphasize that the days when we can get away with sensationalizing the problem in the Press and in this House and ignoring our duty as legislators and members of the Press must be over. If we do not act with knowledge and understanding, we will be abdicating our greatest responsibility. We will be turning our backs, I say, on our own survival.

MR. PHILLIPS: That's what I said the other day.

MR. LAUK: Now, who is the addict? He is a multi-drug user these days. He uses barbiturates, amphetamines, pot, LSD, and alcohol. Prior to 1966,

[ Page 1194 ]

the user became seriously involved with drugs at about 18. By 1968, this age dropped to 16; by 1972, from between 12 and 14 years of age. Complete dependency used to take an average of two years. Now it takes just a few months. Before, the majority of users ranged between the ages of 25 and 30. Now, most heroin addicts are between 20 and 25 and I am told it is getting younger.

How does he become an addict? There is evidence that some start using through association with friends who have just started using. This is the contagion that the First Member for Point Grey has described and it has been described in many articles, one of which I loaned to him the other day. It is not as popular myth would have it, through association with those already drug dependent. It is only the naive novice, who is enthusiastic about the thrill. It is only the novice who spreads the disease by his ignorance of the living death it leads to. Some are previously delinquent and associate with addicts in the world of crime. Others take the drug because of a painful disease.

Their backgrounds are filled with profiles of poverty, brutality at home or just neglect, with no facilities or alternative life styles available. The cost of his heroin epidemic is a heavy one, both economic and social. We know that it costs the heavy user $60 to $100 a day to maintain his habit. If there are only, let's say, 10,000 addicts in B.C., at $60 a day, the low end of the scale, it is costing $600,000 a day, $4.2 million a week, $16.8 million a month or $201.6 million a year. The second biggest industry in the province.

I have here a letter I wish to read to you. It is an interesting letter. Where do they get the money? Mostly from criminal activity, theft, prostitution, robbery, embezzlement and so on. Of course, at one time or another they traffic in the drug themselves This letter was sent to me some time ago and it says, page 3:

"The once preconceived adage that addicts were misdemeanor thieves and social nuisances no longer applies in this day and age of high cost illicit drugs. Thousands more addicts, tighter retail store surveillance and other contributing factors require an addict to pursue his criminal activities in a faster and higher monetary return fashion. Consequently a more serious deviation in addict criminality has transpired during the past 10 years A large part of this deviation in addict criminal thought can be attributed to the criminal training and educational environment on our so-called correctional institutions. Jailing addicts for treatment of these addictions accomplishes one thing and one thing only: it makes them more bitter and sophisticated criminals. What other proven failure can they copy or incorporate?"

He goes on to talk about Lexington. This is a letter from a man serving 12 years for bank robbery — a drug addict, heroin addict for several years. Sounds like he could be rehabilitated.

Add to this, the $201.6 million a year, the additional cost of police. I estimate $20 million as the added share; $40 million is the general cost and I say 50 per cent of our criminal involvement in the courts and jails is drug-related in British Columbia. That's $20 million. Courts and lawyers: 50 per cent of the total, which would be a conservative $2 million. Prison and corrections: again at only 50 per cent of the total cost to the economy of British Columbia for heroin addiction is a conservative $248.6 million annually. Not bad for organized crime — business as usual.

What about the social costs — the loss of human resources? Who dares to put a dollar figure on that loss? Who would have the courage to turn their backs on this pitiful and tragic waste of human life? The history of attempts to solve or eliminate this problem is a bitter failure — one of the saddest chronicles of our time.

In the 1950's in the United States and Canada, there occurred a sensationalized drug scare as a result of which certain attempts at solutions were made. Laws became tougher and organizations sprung up such as the NAF — Narcotic Addiction Foundation. I will just read from the Narcotic Addiction Foundation's own history here.

"The Narcotic Addiction Foundation of British Columbia was formed under the Societies Act of the province on September 13, 1955. Its formation was a direct result of recommendations emanating from a study conducted by the health division of Vancouver Community Chest and Council, the principle of which was that a body be formed to conduct research and educational programmes in the field of narcotic addiction"

Research and education programmes, primarily research. That's what I'm afraid they've done ever since: experimentation in drug substitution. Morphine and methadone, 2606 or whatever they call it these days. Playing in blockage dosage or maintenance dosage.

Throughout its history the Narcotic Addiction Foundation seemed primarily concerned with this research. I believe that the public should know that only recently has that organization made attempts to change direction and place some emphasis on treatment — in other words, concerning themselves with the addict and not with addiction. Oh, they've always had social workers and doctors who have devoted a lot of time to the addict and his dependency. But primarily, the thrust of the energies of the foundation was in research and experimentation.

It is for this reason, I suggest, that they have developed the urinalysis process. "What is urin-

[ Page 1195 ]

alysis?" I heard the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) say from the coffee shop upstairs — oh no, there he is. It is a process by which an addict provides a sample of his urine under supervision in a laboratory with the requisite machinery. It makes an attempt to analyse the sample in order to find traces of a drug or drugs. This is done, we are told, for the purpose of diagnosis. In other words, is the person using heroin? It does not, nor can it determine addiction.

Urinalysis has been heavily criticized on two grounds: (1) that because it cannot determine addiction, its usefulness for diagnosis is virtually nonexistent, except for the simple purpose of saying that someone has used heroin, which is meaningless to treatment; (2) it is not accurate.

I quote from the Vancouver Sun, December 14, 1972, an article by Mr. Harry Nelson, page 10:

"Charges of grossly inaccurate results and cries of 'chemical McCarthyism' are following in the wake of worldwide enthusiasm for urine screen tests to detect drug abusers.

"Urinalysis has become so widespread that a new category of paraprofessional, the micturitionist observer, has evolved. His job is to monitor persons while they are giving specimens to make sure that they don't deposit a black-market clean specimen instead of their own.

"The sudden popularity and rapid growth of urine screening has alarmed some professions. 'The screening is a massive put-on by well intentioned people who don't know what they are doing as far as toxicology is concerned,' says Dr. George Lundberg, assistant director of laboratories at the University of Southern California Medical Centre and professor of pathology.

"He said, 'Urinalysis drug detection programmes, as they are commonly conducted, produce large numbers of false negatives, false positives and misidentifications. The rate of inaccuracies varies greatly, depending on which laboratory does the analysis.'

"He cited studies in which urine samples containing known drugs were sent unannounced to different laboratories. 'The error rates ranged as high as 70 per cent,' he said."

Seventy per cent.

"Imperfections in the technology of urine screening and human error in mixing up samples and misreading results are given as some of the reasons for inaccuracies. 'Yet a person's job or parole or whether he wins a race or stays in a methadone programme often hangs on the results of such tests,' Dr. Lundberg said. 'The question is raised,' he said, 'what are they trying to do — identify or treat?"

If an addict is seeking treatment, he receives methadone medication from the foundation. During treatment he may have used heroin once or twice. If he did so and it's detected in urinalysis, he's cut off methadone and he's back into that criminal cycle that I've described.

The Narcotic Addiction Foundation has in the past five or six years been using drug-substitution treatment. This is applied in two ways. One is blockage dosages. Massive dosages are given the addict for the sole purpose of alleviating the very painful withdrawal symptoms when one stops using heroin. In addition, it blocks the desire for heroin by creating a high similar to heroin highs. I think you know what I'm talking about. The method, I understand, is presently being discouraged because it's creating methadone addicts with similar problems.

Secondly, you can use methadone for maintenance dosages administered to just stem the withdrawal symptoms themselves that I've just mentioned. This approach, I understand, is being more emphasized.

I say that drug substitution by itself is not treatment. Treatment is a dramatic and massive input of personal psychotherapy, occupational therapy and follow-up care, which is not to any real or serious extent being provided by the Narcotic Addiction Foundation. Perhaps it is true that the addict will always be susceptible to some form of drug dependency. But there are other answers. Only Britain had the courage as a nation to face up to these realities. We can learn from their success in the clinical distribution of free or low-cost heroin in clinical situations, thereby cutting down dramatically the black market traffic in this drug, and thereby enabling addicts to lead in most cases an otherwise normal life.

We can learn from their mistakes as well, Ms. Chairperson. That is to say, heroin has a low tolerance level. If you take heroin in small doses, over a period of time the withdrawal symptoms will come unless you take it on an ever-increasing dosage. Methadone, on the other hand, has a high tolerance, which means you can take methadone at a maintenance level for an indefinite period of time. Britain is only now getting into methadone treatment, to avoid the problems that were raised by the learned First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer).

We can and must supplement this methadone programme with full staff and facilities for resocialization of the addict and make him a functional citizen in our community. If it is necessary, we must provide him with heroin for maintenance before putting him on to methadone. These are the things that the Hon. Minister of Rehabitation and Social Improvement (Hon. Mr. Levi) is talking about, not as described in the editorial that I've named earlier in the Vancouver Sun which sensationalizes the scare tactics that are being used.

[ Page 1196 ]

There are several agencies in the province which have been fighting impossible financial and political barriers to deliver this kind of follow-up care. They have been receiving next to nothing from the governments until just recently. On the other hand, the Narcotic Addiction Foundation has been doing well.

I thought I'd run through it for you. Under drug dependency for public health services last year, they received a vote of $100,000. From the B.C. Hospital Insurance Service they received approximately $90,000. From the Provincial Secretary they received $325,000 — I'm approximating 50 per cent of the total grant to both alcohol and narcotics. From the Council on Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco, a total of $25,540 for various projects. From the Medical Services Commission, $84,400. The total from the province is $624,940 and they received much more from the federal government — much more.

What's the answer? My friend from North Peace there who's chatting, maybe if you have a moment, I'll give you the answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: South Peace.

MR. LAUK : South Peace, I'm sorry. Here is the answer. Are you ready for the answer? All right.

The Government must take a strong position expressing the undesirability of the excessive use of all drugs, with the objectives of this position being the prevention and treatment of dependency on such drugs and the alleviation of the social and health problems which result from such dependency.

Secondly, suggestions with which the governments can deal are as follows:

(a) the rehabilitation of those people who are dependent on drugs, with the aim of returning the patient to his normal function in the community within the limits of his potential so that he may work productively and refrain from criminal and/or antisocial activity;

(b) to provide supervision or custodial care for those persons who are drug dependent and for those persons whose potential for rehabilitation is considered limited or so limited that such care is indicated;

(c) a positive public information programme should be planned and implemented with the aim of promoting constructive life styles.

I do not agree with negative programming emphasizing drugs which, in my opinion, may encourage rather than discourage the use of drugs. Such a programme should be continuing, subject to constant evaluation and revision. Some examples are 30-second television ads promoting such positive activities as skiing, chess, political participation.

We could have the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) get up and say, "Hi, I'm a politician." It's a very positive lifestyle. Volunteer social agencies, involvement in political groups, and so on. These ads should attach glamour to the responsibility and co-operative social participation of life rather than, failure or anti-social activity.

(d) I recommend to the provincial government that the prevention and treatment of drug dependency be recognized mainly as a health-social problem, not as a legal one: and to pressure the federal government into taking that stand.

I recommend to the provincial government that there is pressing need for the modification of existing federal and provincial legislation with respect to it.

I recommend the use and improvement of present organizations as set out in the commission that just reported last week.

I recommend — and this is the most immediate and pressing problem, Mr. Chairman — that the provincial government take steps to immediately establish a detoxification centre or centres to care for drug-dependent persons which would be available in all major centres and available to all such persons from all areas of the province. These detoxification centres would be staffed by social health teams. They should emphasize the non-medical approach during the detoxification process, and therefore social-health teams should include social workers, non-professional workers, volunteers, as well as, medical personnel.

It is only when we approach the problem from a rational basis such as that, without using sensationalism or scare tactics, will we be able to solve the tremendous epidemic with which we are faced today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I must compliment that Member for having done a great deal of research and work on his subject. I further compliment him to indicate that he is quite serious. I recognize his being serious because we had a conference over here. The Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement (Hon. Mr. Levi) and my ministry got together and we had a two-day meeting at the Empress on this whole question of dependency. That Member came over and sat in and listened with great interest to the whole discussion. So he is really interested in this whole question.

We have some real problems here and I hope, personally, that we can take the kind of steps that are necessary to prevent or to reduce this tragedy in our society.

We are moving in the direction of detoxification centres — no question about that. We are already negotiating in one or two — areas. We are getting together with as many informed people as we can to put together the kind of programme that will help solve the problem. There is no final solution; that's the one thing we know. But we are going to do our very best.

As far as the need for legislation is concerned, Mr.

[ Page 1197 ]

Chairman, that's a matter with the Attorney General. I have a particular feeling about the arrest of drug addicts and I'll deal with that someday under the Attorney General's estimates, or certainly in discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I'll yield to the Premier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I move we proceed to public bills and orders.

MRS. JORDAN: I'd like to bring up a matter of urgent public business and I recognize the procedure that is needed, but I have been trying to do this under the Minister of Health's vote.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if I could ask for an unanimous consent of the House to bring this matter to the Minister of Health's attention. I have already tried to contact the Attorney General but he's not here.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, Hon. Member. You can't interrupt the proceedings unless you have the floor for a particular matter on the order paper. If it is a matter of urgent public importance it should have been raised at the time prior to entering the orders of the day.

MRS. JORDAN: I have only just received a phone call. I have been waiting all morning to speak to the Minister of Health.

MR. SPEAKER: I suggest that you might discuss it in the hall with the Member you wish to discuss it with. In the meantime we have a motion for the House to proceed to public bills and orders.

Motion approved.

LAND COMMISSION ACT
(continued)

HON. MR. BARRETT: Second reading of Bill No. 42, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Agriculture.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture):, Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought for a moment that the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) was going to have the opportunity to speak first in this debate.

First, earlier in this session — perhaps on two occasions at least — my own personal position in whether or not I should be bringing in such a bill has been raised.

I'd like to start by saying that I have an interest in farmland. I want it to be perfectly clear to everyone. I have a total of 14 acres, acreage that I own along with my sister — the original family farm. We hold it in trust for the six members of the family. That is my only personal interest in any farmland. Certainly Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you now that I have absolutely no intention of subdividing or allowing that land to be subdivided.

I say this in part to put my position clearly before the Members so that they know something about it before they speak. Partly also, Mr. Speaker, if anyone else feels that they wish to make similar statements about their own holdings or what they wish to do with land that they have, then they too should have the opportunity in this debate to tell us something about what they are doing now — not what they did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or any other time — but their position right at this point in time.

I don't think there is any question, Mr. Speaker, that there is recognition of the need for legislation such as this. Other Members have spoken on this and have agreed that there is a need. The community generally, even when the community expresses concern about the legislation in the form that is before us, recognizes a need. It is not the first time that such need has been recognized however, Mr. Speaker.

Recently a publication was made available to me it's available to everyone. It was drawn to my attention by the editor of that publication. Looking through this briefly yesterday evening, I noted that people were concerned, some 4,000 years ago not about land zoning, but about the abuse of land particularly suited for agricultural production.

So this is absolutely, in no way at all a new concern of people. The world population was much smaller then; the world itself was thought to be much smaller. But as much as 4,000 years ago we know that people were concerned about the very problem that we are starting to discuss at length in this Legislature today.

If I an read briefly from the sixth British Columbia Natural Resources Conference:

"From the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations comes the disturbing statement that between 1945 and 1950, despite the best efforts of farmers with advanced technology at their disposal, food production could not keep pace with population increase in the world."

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And that, Mr. Speaker, was 25 years ago.

"A 9 per cent increase in production did not keep pace with the 15 per cent increase in population.

"To bring this situation into focus for this continent, it can be noted that in the U.S. today there are 6,000 more mouths to feed each morning."

May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that these figures are 25 years old. For Canada the corresponding increase is about 700, in British Columbia our daily population jump has averaged nearly 100 over the past 10 years, and certainly it has increased much since that date.

So we recognize, I think, that world population is increasing rapidly and is still increasing rapidly. We recognize and we agree, I'm sure, that the land suitable for agricultural production is limited. We are not making any more of it. We may be finding more of it, and through advances in technology we may be increasing the acreage that can be used for food production, but there is a very definite limit to the amount that can be so utilized.

Reading in the same report, Dr. Warren, one of the panelists from UBC said, "Public interest, human welfare and good management require that all land owners or lessees of land and water, public or private, care for soil and water under their control in a manner that will ensure that future generations may derive from them full enjoyment and benefit."

Mr. Speaker, we are concerned today not only with the people who are here today, but with future generations. When we do something to farmland that cannot be undone, then we are paying absolutely no attention at all to generations that are coming after us.

Reading still further from this report, I am now quoting from a representative from the UBCM who at the time was the reeve of Surrey municipality. He is speaking about some land that was earmarked for industrial use in Surrey: "On this land, so earmarked, the owner is told that he cannot build a house" — we're told that the legislation before us stops people from building houses — "or otherwise construct except for heavy industry."

Very limited use existed long ago, Mr. Speaker. The idea that people should control land use is not a new one — 4,000 years old if you like. But even in the present day it is talked about at length in this report of the sixth British Columbia Natural Resources Conference.

This one is from the fourth British Columbia Natural Resources Conference report a couple of years earlier. On page 15, just reading briefly, it says:

"In spite of the fact that only 2¼ million acres of agricultural land have actually been mapped," — this is in British Columbia in 1951 — "it is obvious that the areas of arable land are distinctly limited, "

No need to repeat that; it is definitely limited. I think there can be no argument that the areas are definitely limited.

"This fact, combined with the rapidly increasing world population and the fact that readily accessible agricultural lands throughout the world are well-nigh dissipated, leads to the conclusion that the retention for agricultural use of all lands suitable for crop production and grazing must be accepted as a basic principle."

Twenty-two years ago it was argued that this must be accepted as a basic principle, and today I am asking you to accept that as a basic principle.

Further on in this same report:

"We refer to the control of subdivision planning with a view to assuring that the parcels of land are of such sizes and shapes" — not just to save them for agriculture — "that their greatest agricultural value is preserved and their desirability, in some cases, as residential sites is enhanced.

"The manner in which some subdivisions have been made in the Fraser Valley demonstrates that little thought was given to the general progress of the community or the function that agricultural production must continue to perform."

So much for the conferences. They make very good reading; I wish I had more time to read them. I will be reading further in them — they're very interesting.

Clippings. This is not new in the Department of Agriculture. Certainly the Members of the official Opposition will know that the staff in the Department of Agriculture have been concerned about this for years. Very concerned.

One of them has accumulated a supply of clippings of fairly recent vintage. One on top, I see, refers to a speech made in this Legislature in 1969 by the Minister of Agriculture of that date in response to a speech from the other side of the House that was made by the Member for Nanaimo:

"Shelford noted that in King County in Washington State more than 100,000 acres of arable land were lost between 1954 and 1964, and that by 1985 it has been predicted that there will be no arable land left in the state's Puget Sound area."

It is not a problem that is common only to B.C. or that exists only in B.C. It is a problem that is world-wide. Today we can't really do anything about what is happening in the rest of the world but we can try to do something about what has been happening in B.C. and try to chart a course for the future.

A clipping dated October 19, 1971 from the New Westminster Columbian, — "Delta Farmers Plead for Change to Permit Selling Smaller Lots" had a comment from Alderman George Turnbull:

"'Besides what the government'" — the government of that day — "'and the B.C.

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Harbours Board had expropriated from Delta's farmland,' he said, '60 to 70 per cent of the remainder was held by investors.' Turnbull said these investors were speculating on the possibility of covering the land with homes or industries."

And one of the questions, one of the comments, one of the concerns has been that the farmers are being stopped from selling their land at a profit.

Another clipping dated much more recently, March 7, 1973, quoting Alderman Ed McKitka, talks of an example where two acres were bought by a real estate firm from a farmer for $12,000 and then resold for a parking lot at a price, Mr. Speaker, of $150,000. The profit did not go to the farmer, Mr. Speaker. I wonder where the concern is coming from.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

HON. MR. STUPICH: But the farmer got only six. There is clipping after clipping expressing the concern over what is happening. This is an editorial from the Vancouver Sun, October 21, 197 1:

"In recent years the arable wonderland that is the estuary of the Fraser has experienced rough treatment at the hands of Wenman's government. If it had any protection from the land speculators pursuing Conservation Minister Ken Kiernan's vision of 'one massive urban block filling in from Point Grey to Hope,' it was the Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board."

We've discussed the demise of that board on previous occasions. It's the sort of thing that has been happening and the sort of thing that we're concerned about.

One of the suggestions advanced by the immediately preceding Minister of Agriculture (Mr. C.M. Shelford) was the purchase of development rights. The suggestion was picked up by some representatives of the agricultural industry and dropped by other representatives of the agricultural industry:

"The executive board of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture has said that B.C. agriculture Minister Cyril Shelford's proposal for preserving farmland would be too costly and would benefit only farmers in certain areas.

"By implication, what they are saying they want is a programme that will benefit farmers all over the province, not only those who are sitting in certain areas. The policy of purchasing development rights, according to them, would benefit only a few farmers. What the government must be concerned about is a policy that will benefit all farmers."

Mr. Speaker, I've talked about the loss. The loss in the last 20 years has averaged some 10,000 acres a year. Depending on where you are, the losses have been: Prince George, 26,000 acres in 20 years; Vancouver Island, 65,000 acres in 20 years; of greater concern even, the Fraser Valley, 57,000 acres in 20 years. In one area that is extremely important, the Okanagan, 15,000 acres and continuing to go.

The land doesn't disappear — the land was lost to farm production. I thought I made that clear.

Mr. Speaker, it's not just that the land is lost by planting a bunch of houses on it, by urban development, by industrial development. Apart from that — and this is not included in these figures — agricultural land is being carved up into small parcels, very desirable for country living — 3 acres, 5 acres, 10 acres. A lot of municipalities have put in restrictions like that and felt that they've been actually saving farmland.

Well, in a sense they have been saving farmland, but, Mr. Speaker, they haven't been saving farmers. It just isn't possible to farm successfully with most farm products on areas of 3, 5, 10 acres. For most products you need much more acreage than that.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not blaming any of this on the farmers. If there is any doubt in the Member for North Peace River's mind, I'm blaming a government that sat in office for 20 years and did nothing about it. I'm glad he gave me that opportunity to make it clear because that certainly, Mr. Speaker, is where the blame does lie.

Many attempts in different jurisdictions have been made to try to preserve farmland. A conference was held in Victoria, I believe it was. One-half of the states — 25 state commissioners of agriculture — met in Victoria in 1971 to talk about this same problem, to talk about how they had been trying to meet it. Their method essentially, Mr. Speaker, has been to try to give the farmers lower taxes.

The effect of that, Mr. Speaker, has been to make that land even more attractive to people who have the money to buy it. They don't really care whether they farm it or not, but they buy it, they sit on it, they might hobby farm it, and they hold it until urbanization moves out and the opportunity comes to sell it at the sort of figures that I was talking about — where a farmer sold for $12,000 and the developer made a profit of $150,000.

It's not enough to stop people from putting city lots on it; we must also make sure that they are economically sound farming operations of economically sound size. This is the concern.

More than that, Mr. Speaker, farmers can't live in isolation. Some of you have some experience with poultry farming; I have myself. Certainly the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) has and others know something about it. You can't have a poultry farmer sitting by himself. The surrounding community just won't accept it. It doesn't really bother the poultry farmer that much — perhaps it provides him with a buffer zone against disease. But the people around it won't accept it.

Even if they would, Mr. Speaker, we have to have

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a poultry industry of sufficient size in various areas of the province to maintain the rest of the enterprise that goes along with actually feeding the chickens and picking up the eggs. There have to be grading stations, there have to be storage facilities, there have to be marketing facilities. Unless there is volume of sufficient proportion, it is just not possible to maintain the sort of super-structure that is needed for that.

This is true not just in poultry farming but also in the fruit industry in the Okanagan. We could say, "Well, currently we can't sell the whole crop so why don't we cut back on production?" But when we cut back on production, we're also cutting back on the volume that's going through all those packing plants. We're also cutting back on the volume that's available for processing. We're not only losing the land that we may need in the future when we do have markets for that food — even markets here within B.C. — we're also making it extremely difficult for the people who remain in the industry to farm profitably. And our concern is with the people who want to carry on farming. We've always stated that.

It has been said that what we're doing is hurting the people, hurting the farmers. We're not hurting the ones, Mr. Speaker, who want to carry on farming.

Twenty-five states in the United States have all said they've tried this preferential tax treatment. They've all said that they met with little success. The most recent one to try is New York State; they're trying to do something like we have been doing the last 20 years. It really has little application in the Province of British Columbia. This is one of the problems.

We came in with a policy to save farmland. There was nowhere we could go and say, "This system is working," because nothing has been working anywhere. The people who have been trying to put in these programmes in different states are the first to admit it. In the case of the New York programme, they get a tax concession. Everybody knows that farmers get a tax concession here. The New York programme is also lacking in permanence — every five years you can take a new look at it and rezone it. We've had too much of that, Mr. Speaker, happen in the Province of British Columbia.

The first response to what we were going to do I've gone through in the House previously. I don't really want to do it again today because I'm sure people want to get away promptly at 1 o'clock. I told you that before the bill came in I was getting correspondence at the rate of five and six to one in favour of it, and I was. The final count before the bill came in was 211 in favour and 38 against. The figures have changed since then, Mr. Speaker.

I'm told by my secretary that in the last four weeks we have used up what was expected to be a year's supply of note paper. Every letter is being acknowledged just as quickly as we can possibly acknowledge them. I read every one of them personally. I sign every letter of acknowledgment that's going out.

The latest total I have from my office was given to me this morning — 412 against, 318 in favour. That includes the ones that came in before the bill was tabled. The ones that have come in since the bill was tabled: 201 in favour, 280 against.

Many of these letters — and we're including everything — have an ad out of a paper and that's all. That's fine. They've taken the effort to cut that ad out of the paper, or tear it out in some cases — sometimes the whole ad, sometimes the little coupon — to put it in an envelope and to address it personally. We count it as a letter. We've counted all of these. So the correspondence right now is running against it.

Above all, we've said right from the very beginning before the bill was ever tabled, before the House ever met, that we were going to listen. Most of the correspondence that required some effort to answer is in favour of the legislation, but suggesting some changes, some improvements, some ways of allaying the concern in the minds of the people about what this bill is trying to do, I have an advertisement here. I'd like to discuss it at length; it's rather interesting. At one point it says, "Our opposition is based on the following facts." Then it lists some 10 points. Not one, Mr. Speaker is a fact — a 100 per cent batting average.

"This land is not our land," it says. I don't know whether it's an ad put in by the leader of the party or by the Progressive Conservative Party. It doesn't really matter. It's his way, I think, of getting his message to the public. It's his way of eliciting a response to the bill and a lot of that response is coming to me. From the beginning I've said that we want to hear so I don't object to this going out. I do object to him quoting statements that are called facts when not one of them is a fact.

First, "Bill 42 is an expropriation statute." Mr. Speaker, Bill 42 is not an expropriation statute. One of the leaders of the Opposition parties agrees with that. I think the others are shaking their heads. If I can just refer briefly to the Law Reform Commission…

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, don't start that.

HON. MR. STUPICH: …the Law Reform Commission, 1971, quoting section 20, I believe it is — one of the ones that are supposed to be so offending: "The mere granting of a power to purchase or otherwise acquire lands cannot be regarded as conferring a power to expropriate." No power to expropriate.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

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HON. MR. STUPICH: O.K. I've said that this fact, number one, is not a fact. I don't know what else I can call it right now.

"Bill 42 is not a preservation of agricultural lands bill." Mr. Speaker, the complaints that we've been getting are that it really is going to preserve agricultural land and they don't want that.

That's the complaint we got from one of the officials of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture when they spoke in the Premier's office with the Premier and myself about this bill. The Premier invited them to submit ideas as to what can be done to help farmers in this province. He asked for concrete suggestions. He offered them research assistance facilities and money if they wanted it, to come up with constructive programmes. This particular official of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture kept saying, "But I want to continue subdividing my 39 acres of farmland. You're not letting me do that in this bill." He doesn't believe that's a fact because he knows that this legislation, indeed, will stop the subdivision of farmland.

"It is a bill which gives the government control over all lands." Mr. Speaker, this bill gives the government absolutely no power at all that the government doesn't already have. This bill does give a commission some powers….

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order. Order!

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, this bill gives the commission some powers that the government has and has used unwisely in the past 20 years.

"Bill 42 is a patronage bill. To be a member of the commission you'd have to be a doctrinaire socialist dedicated to the control of private property." There's nothing in the bill that says this is a patronage bill.

More than that, Mr. Speaker, I've had letters from NDP members saying, "If you go ahead with this bill, I'm going to tear up my card." I've had more letters from Liberals and Conservatives and Social Crediters, from Kelowna and Vernon in particular, saying, "I never voted for your Government, likely I never will, but don't back down on Bill 42 whatever you do."

"Bill 42 emasculates municipalities." Mr. Speaker, the only time that Bill 42 mentions municipalities is when it talks about cooperation with municipalities, when it says that the commission is going to work with municipalities. That's the only mention of municipalities in the legislation. Another untruth, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order.

HON. MR. STUPICH: "Bill 42 — 20 provisions grant the commission or the cabinet complete and total authority." Twenty? I've gone through them, Mr. Speaker. One of them is definitions. One of them establishes a commission. One of them says how it's going to name the chairman. Another says how it's going to provide bylaws. There are only 20 of these sections in total. About six of them say something about the powers and the authority of the commission. Another untruth.

"Bill 42 denies the basic tenets of natural justice." There is a section in here that need not have been in the bill legally because everybody has that right. Everybody has the right to go to court. This Government is a government that is going to spell that out in the legislation — that people have the right to sue the Crown. The previous government would never do that.

People already have certain rights that the government can't take away from them. There is a Canadian Bill of Rights. People have rights, but we felt it should be spelled out in this legislation that there really is the access to courts if people want to go that route. Another untruth.

"Bill 42 could bring about a mortgage crisis." We've been told that this is happening too. We've corresponded with all of the banks; they were extremely upset that they were accused of something like this. They contacted their local banks. Nothing has been happening — no change in mortgage lending, no change in lending as far as the banks are concerned.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I knew there wasn't. I know that banks don't lend on the basis of what your farm is worth. They don't want your farm. They lend on the basis of what income it's producing. What we're going to do is improve the income-producing possibilities of that land.

The last one: "Bill 42 coupled with the quota system, " which incidentally was initiated by the previous government and accepted by all parties, "may prevent many farmers from operating a viable economic unit."

Mr. Speaker, all I can say, is that it says right in the legislation that it is the intention and the objective of this commission to maintain and establish economically-sound small farms, to save agricultural land and to make it possible for farmers to farm economically. That's the objective of the legislation. To say that it's going to do anything else, Mr. Speaker, I think is trying to defeat the purpose of the legislation, is working against the farmers in the community and is a disservice to our whole community.

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning we've said we would listen. There's precious little of any value in this ad to listen to. Last week some farmers from the Okanagan came down. They asked about second

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reading. I said I think it should come soon so that the Members would have the opportunity to express their opinions and there would be the maximum time available afterwards for amendments. They said, "No, we want you to wait until after we've had our meeting on Thursday."

We waited, Mr. Speaker, until after they had their meeting on Thursday. And what came out of that meeting? Constructive suggestions with respect to Bill 42? Mr. Speaker, that's not the report I've heard. The report I've heard is that they are going to have a demonstration down here to try to get us to withdraw the bill. Now that's not the kind of constructive suggestions we asked for, Mr. Speaker….

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance): They don't want to preserve farmland.

HON. MR. STUPICH: We listened and we said we'd wait. We waited and we were told to chuck it out. Mr. Speaker, we have been listening and we're still listening.

There will be an opportunity as we proceed with second reading for some of those Members who really believe that there is a crisis, who really believe that in spite of the inaction of the last 20 years, in spite of what has been lost irretrievably in the last 20 years, there is still hope — real hope — that we can save significant acreages of farmland in this province for the farmers and consumers of today and for the farmers and consumers of tomorrow.

I'm not asking you to support this bill; I'm not pleading with you to vote for it. But I am doing this: I'm inviting the Members of this House to support this legislation. I'm inviting them, Mr. Speaker, to bring forward amendments that will clear up the questions they have in their minds, that will clear up their concerns. Because, Mr. Speaker, surely they must believe in the objective. We must save the land.

Surely they believe that we want farmers to be better off. They are a necessary part of our community. We want to save the farmers and we want to make them better off economically. All these things are desirable goals. We don't know of any better way of doing it and we've heard precious little in the way of constructive suggestions as to how we can achieve either.

If you have amendments to this bill that will clear up the questions, that will make it more acceptable to the people in the community, I invite you to bring in those amendments. If you have suggestions — and we've had very few of these — that need not be part of this legislation but may be part of an overall government programme to make farming more economically sound, we're listening. We invite those suggestions.

We have said from the beginning that we would listen. We're listening and, with concern, Mr. Speaker, we're hearing precious little.

Mr. Speaker, with my eye on the clock, I'm not going to go any further at this time. There may be some questions raised during second reading that I will be able to deal with when second reading is finished. But I do want to quote further from the fourth British Columbia Natural Resources Conference report. I've said that I'm going to listen to you; now I want you to listen to me — and not just hear the words, but listen to the words, listen to the meaning of the words.

It is what is called the Eleventh Commandment. Dr. Walter Loudermilk of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service was the author of this Eleventh Commandment. He gave his permission that it be used on the front of the 1951 fourth British Columbia Natural Resources Conference report:

"Thou shalt inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation.

"Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation and protect thy hills from over-grazing by thy herds, that thy descendants may have abundance for ever.

"If any shall fail in the stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile, stony ground and wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the earth."

Mr. Speaker, I do invite the Members opposite to participate constructively in the debate, to bring forth reasonable suggestions that will accomplish the goals of this legislation. I think if they do that, if they're prepared to work with the Government, not only in the Legislature but after the Legislature rises, if they'll work in the community and talk to the farmers, they can help the farmers, help them save their land and help them farm economically.

MR. SPEAKER: I believe the Hon. Member moved the bill be read a second time.

HON. MR. STUPICH: I move that the bill be read a second time now.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for South Peace River.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I was greatly interested in what the Minister of Agriculture had to say about this bill in the Legislature this morning. I want to say that certainly I'm not going to stand in this Legislature and speak against the principle of preserving farmland.

His last commandment, the Eleventh Command-

[ Page 1203 ]

ment, which he read very sincerely and I'm sure which he believes in and which the author of that commandment believes in, was read sincerely and in conscience. I don't think, as I said before, that anybody in this House, or any farmer, or any man in the city, anywhere, disagrees with the principle of preserving farmland.

What we do disagree with, Mr. Speaker, is the principle involved in Bill 42 — The Land Commission A ct.

Now, is it the desire of the Premier to carry on or will the House accept a motion to adjourn the debate? I will carry on the next time the Legislature meets.

Mr. Phillips moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:03 p.m.