[ Page 1665 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the Payment of Wages Act (Bill No. 152) Hon. Mr. King. Introduction and first reading — 1665

Public Works Fair Employment Act (Bill No. 153) Hon. Mr. King.

Introduction and first reading — 1665

Oral Questions

Northern extension of Island Highway. Mr. Chabot — 1665

Negotiations with Columbia Cellulose re purchase of Celgar. Mr. McClelland — 1665

Responsibility of Bureau of Transit Services. Mr. Brousson — 1665

Student summer employment. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1666

New responsibilities of Minister of Public Works. Mr. Fraser — 1666

Pyramid selling programmes on a political level. Mr. D.A.

Anderson — 1666

Financial help for Peace River farmers. Mr. Smith — 1667

Possible purchase of Vancouver Sun. Mr. Brousson — 1667

Rental programme in Victoria. Mr. Chabot — 1668

Land Commission Act (Bill No. 42). Second reading.

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1668

Mr. Schroeder — 1675

Hon. Mr. Hartley — 1680

Mr. Morrison — 1681

Mr. Richter — 1686

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 1695

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1973

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Introduction of bills.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Labour.

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE
PAYMENT OF WAGES ACT

MR. SPEAKER: His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Payment of Wages Act and recommends the same to the Legislative Assembly, Government House, March 23, 1973.

Bill No. 152 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.

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

PUBLIC WORKS FAIR EMPLOYMENT ACT

MR. SPEAKER: His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith a bill intituled Public Works Fair Employment Act and recommends the same to the Legislative Assembly, Government House, March 23, 1973.

Bill No. 153 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.

Oral questions.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Columbia River.

NORTHERN EXTENSION OF
ISLAND HIGHWAY

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): A question to the Minister of Highways: has the Government decided to take the Island Highway north, running it between Gold River and Woss Camp, instead of swinging south through Sayward from Woss Camp?

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Highways): No decision has been made yet. As you know, there are several choices open up there but no decision has been made yet.

MR. CHABOT: Supplementary question: have there been discussions on the proposed route with the Mount Waddington Regional District?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: There have been discussions with a number of groups and individuals. I would have to check to see whether or not there have been discussions with that particular group. Our engineers travel extensively and talk with a variety of people about every topic relating to highways, so I am not going to say there have been no discussions on this at any time but I will check into it.

MR. CHABOT: Just a short supplementary question: has the Minister suggested to his top ranking civil servants that they might discuss the matter with the Mount Waddington Regional District?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I have discussed the whole north end of Vancouver Island and every other section of the province with my officials. We are looking at the whole province of British Columbia, with regard to its road requirements and laying out plans.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Langley.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLUMBIA CELLULOSE
RE PURCHASE OF CELGAR

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): My question is addressed to the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources. Now that the Member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) has confirmed that negotiations are going on with Columbia Cellulose, for the purchase of Celgar, can the Minister now confirm that the negotiations have been underway for some time, contrary to previous statements to the House by the Minister?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources and Minister of Recreation and Conservation): I'll take the question as notice, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for North Vancouver–Capilano.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF
BUREAU OF TRANSIT SERVICES

MR. D.M. BROUSSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Speaker, this question is for the Hon.

[ Page 1666 ]

Minister of Municipal Affairs. The Minister announced on January 20, approximately, the appointment of Victor J. Parker as head of the new Bureau of Transit Services. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister would inform the House what are the terms of reference of Mr. Parker and what this Bureau of Transit Services will be doing.

HON. J.G. LORIMER (Minister of Municipal Affairs): The bureau is directly responsible to the Minister in its advisory capacity. Their responsibilities are initially to deal with the Greater Vancouver Regional District and the Capital Regional District in an effort to beef up and add to the present public transit systems in those two particular areas. In addition to that, they are also charged with the responsibility of looking through the whole province to determine the transit needs in all the towns and cities in the interior as well as on Vancouver Island. They will be reporting directly to myself.

MR. BROUSSON: Mr. Speaker, supplemental to that. I take it then that the responsibility of this bureau is going to be entirely with that of buses and rapid transit.

HON. MR. LORIMER: Not necessarily, but basically that is correct.

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

STUDENT SUMMER EMPLOYMENT

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, in light of Press reports dealing with the high level of unemployment among students in the province for this summer, may I ask the Premier, in the absence of the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall), what special programmes the Government has underway or might be planning for student employment this summer?

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): That is a matter that has already been discussed with the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) and the Provincial Secretary and I am awaiting a report from the Minister of Highways. As I said during the budget debate, if there were surpluses — and it appears we are heading for some surpluses — they would be directed to employment projects throughout the year.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Specifically, Mr. Speaker, on the question of student employment, would there be a programme specifically designed which will be announced in the near future on student employment?

HON. MR. BARRETT: The forest service will be hiring and the funds are already available to the forest service.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Cariboo.

NEW RESPONSIBILITIES OF
MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Public Works: what new functions have been assigned to the Minister of Public Works now that the Speaker's office carries all the responsibilities for telephone facilities in the building?

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Is that an announcement or a question? (Laughter).

MR. FRASER: A question.

HON. MR. HARTLEY: Is that an answer or a waffle? (Laughter).

MR. FRASER: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: to what extent has the Speaker's office taken over any other functions previously handled by the Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley), and has the Minister entered any protest on this matter?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: The same answer. (Laughter).

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

PYRAMID SELLING PROGRAMMES
ON A POLITICAL LEVEL

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Attorney General. In view of the lawsuit in the United States on a pyramid selling programme called "Dare to Be Great," on behalf of the Social Credit leadership hopefuls may I ask whether or not he has taken steps to have this decision extended to Canada so there can be refunds also in Canada as well as in the United States? (Laughter).

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney General): We can't keep games like this "Dare to Be Great" really alive until after the time of the November convention. Because so many people are being incidentally hurt by that kind of a game. But as much as we'd like to make it available to the Opposition party, I'm afraid not.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Who wrote the question,

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Pat McGeer?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A more serious question to the Minister of Social Rehabilitation.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it a different question?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Not a supplementary. No, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: Could you hold it? I'll ask the Member for North Peace River.

FINANCIAL HELP FOR
PEACE RIVER FARMERS

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question to the Hon. Minister of Agriculture.

Because of the completely inadequate compensation provided to the farmers of the Peace River country, what further financial help is the Minister of Agriculture prepared to recommend for the farmers?

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, we are considering a further programme. At the present time we are negotiating with Ottawa to try and get them to co-operate on it. I'd rather not talk about the details at this time until we have some…I would say this though, that we are also talking to Alberta with a view to making a joint presentation to the federal government.

MR. SMITH: A supplementary question to the Minister.

Will further help from the Province of British Columbia be contingent upon some participation by Ottawa in whatever plan that you may come up with?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Not necessarily so, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A question to the Hon. Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement.

Mr. Speaker, as we were promised last fall, in the fall session, that Mincome would be a scheme based on income and not on means test, may I ask whether there has been a policy change of the Government in the light of the form that is being sent to senior citizens at this time — a form asking them to list all their stocks, cash on hand, bonds, bank accounts, properties, trust accounts, debentures, insurance, and other assets?

HON. N. LEVI (Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement): Mr. Speaker, attached to that blue form which I gave to the Members last week was an explanation as to why that form has been sent out. It is at the specific request and insistence of the federal government. As you know we are going by way of the Social Assistance Act and in order for us to get some sharing we have to be able to establish need. And this is in fact a needs test. The important thing about the form is that at the top it says it will make no difference at all to people's Mincome payments. It's purely for accounting and statistical purposes only. But it is at the insistence of the federal government.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, as the federal Act has not been changed since last fall in this regard, I wonder whether there has been any realization of error on the part of the Government, to what it said last fall or whether there has been a policy change relating to last fall. Because the facts with respect to the Canada Assistance Plan are identical — last fall as well as now.

HON. MR. LEVI: I think that, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that when we introduced the bill last time that we said that we would be going via the Social Assistance Act and not by the CAP. We have had some success in our negotiations with Ottawa in respect to upward revision of the asset levels. When the estimates are up I will be making a statement about that. This is not inconsistent with what we said last fall.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for North Vancouver–Capilano.

POSSIBLE PURCHASE OR TAKEOVER
OF Vancouver SUN.

MR. BROUSSON: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources. Referring to the recent purchase by the Government of the Ocean Falls and the paper-making plant there: should the market for the output of that plant, paper and newsprint and so on, become very tight, very competitive and difficult in the next year or two, particularly following 1975 when Crown Zellerbach will no longer have responsibility for marketing — would the Government, or is the Government considering the possible purchase or takeover of the Vancouver Sun to ensure itself of a future captive market for the output of that mill?

MR. SPEAKER: That's known as a rhetorical question. But nobody seems to want to stop the question. (Laughter).

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No, this Government has

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some standards, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say regarding Ocean Falls, however, that we will be in production April 3. I think that shows what public enterprise can do in British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Columbia River.

RENTAL PROGRAMME IN VICTORIA

MR. CHABOT: A question to the Minister of Public Works. Is the Government undertaking a major rental programme throughout the Victoria area?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: The answer is no.

MR. CHABOT: The Department of Public Works is not in the process of renting office space in Victoria? That's what you're saying. Do they have a programme of any description then?

Would the Minister care to elaborate on the type of programme which the Government has relative to renting office space in the City of Victoria? Or is he unwilling to do so?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: That is correct. Yes and no. (Laughter).

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

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): I wish to direct a question to the Premier. Would the Premier advise me what department is in charge of security here at the Parliament Buildings?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Public Works.

MR. PHILLIPS: Then has the Premier given the Speaker any instructions with regard to his going out during the recent demonstration and with regard to his recent announcement in the paper that he was in charge of security during that demonstration.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, through you to the Member, Public Works is responsible for the security of the building. The Speaker, as I understand it — because I don't give the Speaker any instructions — as I understand it, the Speaker is responsible to consult with those security staff. On one occasion we did have an unruly group come into the House in support of a cabinet Minister who was deposed, and the Speaker had to clear the galleries. In clearing the galleries, he had to consult later with the attendants and security people. There's been no change since the previous administration, when they had to clear the galleries, on one occasion.

MR. PHILLIPS: Then the Premier hasn't given the Speaker any instructions in that regard?

HON. MR. BARRETT: No. The Speaker was a Member, as I understand, before he became Speaker and had experience under the previous Speaker and is following his lead.

Orders of the day.

LAND COMMISSION ACT

(continued)

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

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, adjourned debate on Bill 42.

MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 42 — the second Member for Victoria adjourned the debate.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the bill under discussion is entitled the Land Commission Act — a fact forgotten, I believe, by many Members in this debate, and also by the two cabinet Ministers who have spoken so far.

It has as objectives protection of farmland in British Columbia and yet the bill itself is not entitled as that. It's simply entitled "Land Commission Act". I think it's important to remember the distinction.

The object of the bill is not necessarily the principle of the bill. And we've had far too much careless talk and waffling by Government Ministers, as well as others, on the distinction between an objective and the principles involved in getting towards that objective.

We in this party have stated previously, and will state again — we're quite willing to state again — that we would welcome legislation designed to protect agricultural land from blacktopping or carless subdivision. We stated this when the previous government was in power; we state it again now.

But just because this objective may be desirable — an objective I believe that all Members share. And I would just like, with his permission, to refer to the first two paragraphs of the Hon. Member for South Peace River's (Mr. Phillips) comments. He stated, Mr. Speaker, in his first two paragraphs that — if he'd stopped there, he would have been well ahead, I think — that he did not object to the objectives of the Act, it was the principles involved in the Act as well.

So I think that the Hon. Member, as well as Members in this party and the Conservative Party have made it very clear to this Government that there is a distinction between objective and principle. And

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while we do not take exception to the objectives of this Act, we certainly take strong exception to many of the principles involved in attempting to achieve this objective.

The Minister himself, in his speech of March 9, p. 1201 of Hansard said this:

"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 is the objective of the legislation."

With that objective we don't quarrel. But we do quarrel — and I think rightly so, as our colleagues on our left, the Progressive Conservative Members of this House have indicated — we do quarrel with the principles being used to achieve that objective.

What are the principles, then, that we find so regrettable in this legislation? First of all, there's the denial of natural justice.

There's the absence of due process of law. There's a lack of appeal. There's the question of compensation. Now, Ministers say "rubbish." But I wonder where they've been for the last month, if they really feel that these points are not real points of principle that we should be discussing in this Legislature.

The Government itself, with its amendments — or its proposed amendments — made outside this House or hinted at outside this House, has indicated that it also realizes that this is a badly drafted bill with areas that are in need of revision. The Attorney General has, I think, made it pretty clear on a hot-line that he really didn't know what was in the bill when he happily talked about appeal provisions which were non-existent in the bill and expressed surprise that they weren't there.

It's easy now in retrospect to say, "Ah well, appeals, of course, are always possible," but in this bill they are not possible. This is question of principle and we should have any amendments that the Government intends to bring forward brought forward now, so that at this stage we can discuss these questions at the second reading of a bill on this land commission.

The various special interest groups, which have been rather scathingly attacked by the Minister and also by other speakers of the NDP side — the B.C. Federation of Agriculture in particular — have brought forward proposals and suggestions for improving this bill which they think should be brought in. We agree with much of what they say. We agree also with much of what the British Columbia Cattlemen say in their brief.

I'll just list them as quickly as I can. The cattlemen believe that the majority of the members of the commission should be appointed by nominees provided by agricultural interests. Well, I think that some should be. I don't know whether a majority should be. They talk about public hearings before designation of land use. They talk about appeals from commission decisions to the courts. They talk about compensation for lost land values at time of sale. They talk of notice to landowners about designation of land use. They go on to two other points of less significance. All those, which are by far the majority of their points, deal with questions of principle in this Act which we feel it behooves the Government to pay close attention to.

The B.C. Federation of Agriculture presented a brief also. The federation has been criticized by Government Members for not putting forward reasonable proposals and not putting forward their views. It was most badly treated by the Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) in his speech in this House on March 9, where he simply assured us that the real concern of the executive of that organization was their personal interest in subdivision of their individual holdings. I feel this was really a most unfair attack upon this body by the Minister of the Crown responsible for that industry.

They are interested in agriculture in this province. They are interested in the welfare of their members. They don't have among their members the big landowners or the speculative real estate companies which were referred to by the Member for Richmond (Mr. Steves). They are a farmers' organization and they are, I think, acting very responsibly in putting forward their objections to this bill.

Their objections: First, "Bill 42 gives the commission the power to confiscate our property at whatever price it sees fit." We can quibble about whether "or otherwise acquire" means expropriation or whether it doesn't. But there is there enough concern to indicate, in my mind, that they have had again a question of principle and not of mere detail of the bill.

Their second objection states that "Bill 42 devalues our assets and denies all right of compensation." Well, it denies all right of compensation. Compensation may come at the pleasure of the commission. But they are perfectly correct in saying that they have no right to compensation under this bill. It's another question of principle which we feel is critical.

Should compensation for loss of this nature be in the hands of a five-man politically-appointed commission, or should it be a question of right that citizens of this province, by right of their ownership in their land, can take advantage of? We think, once again, that it's a question of right and it's a question of principle which simply cannot be ignored by the Government.

They go on. They state that "Bill 42 denies our right to a public hearing with notification." That again is true. It may happen that there is such a

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public hearing. It may happen that there is notification. But there is no right, no legal requirement, for this to happen. There is no requirement for these people to be treated fairly and in accordance with natural justice.

They go on to appeal. Well, we've argued that point back and forward about what appeal is true appeal. Basically, if a Government inspector can come and say, "You know, Mr. Farmer, that hillside on which you can't support a thing, is agricultural land. You can't sell it off for any other purpose;" if that is the case, then there's no opportunity for him to have an appeal on whether or not that is the true state of affairs. Then, I think, they don't have a proper appeal. Of course, they have appeal on excessive jurisdiction, if it were possible to exceed jurisdiction on such a widely written bill. Of course they have that. That is there, everywhere.

For example, if this commission passes orders on energy questions or something of that nature, it would be outside its jurisdiction. But within it there is no appeal. That is a real point which we feel the Government is going to have to face up to.

Other objections: They talk about the political nature of the land commission. I refer you again to the speech of my colleague from West Vancouver (Mr. Williams), where he indicated in the House how we would handle this question and how we would deal with the problem of a political land commission. I only refer you again to the parallel with the purchasing commission, which is a non-political commission. May I refer you to the need for such non-political commissions when we see the purchase by B.C. Hydro of buses from a Manitoba corporation — for political reasons, we think — which took place outside the commission's jurisdiction.

Another objection is that "Bill 42 extends the powers of the commission to all lands." We've had the arguments back and forward as to whether the two-acre limitation constitutes all land or whether anything below that would be exempt from the commission. May I point out that that two-acre reference in the bill is only on one section, a section we can't deal with at this stage of reading of this bill. But it does indicate that there is a possibility of even more than land parcels over two acres being involved There are other provisions put in here by the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. I won't read every one of them. A couple more are important, I think, because they also go to these questions of principle that I'm talking of.

Objection 13: "Bill 42 allows the commission to make decisions without publication" — secret decisions, in other words. This is, I think, a real question of principle which the Government has yet to face up to.

There is the question of expropriation without compensation. We don't know exactly what the Government has in mind on amendment. Certainly the way it reads now, it could be that expropriation could take place without compensation.

The final point of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture's brief which I'd like to refer to is that in its definition section, the bill has many areas which are unclear. That, perhaps, is something we could take up at third reading.

What I'm suggesting is that we're not alone in pointing out that there have been real questions of principle on this bill which the Government has yet to really deal with. We think that the comments of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, the B.C. Cattlemen and other groups that we could have quoted, indicate that this bill goes a lot further than simply the objective of preserving farmland. These principles that are involved affect very much the livelihood of many citizens in British Columbia.

We feel that without some sort of clarification, without some sort of amendments at this stage — in other words, amending the bill at second reading, which can be done by withdrawal and reintroduction — we feel that there is no way that this party, or indeed any Member of this House, can vote for this bill.

Well, the speeches have been made by the two cabinet Ministers who have spoken, the Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) and the Hon. Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan). What basically was their view? Well, the Minister of Highways talked about the previous government doing worse. That essentially was the criticism of his colleague as well.

Sure, we're quite willing to admit that the previous government wasn't doing a great job. We wouldn't have been in politics in this province over the last 20 years had we thought the Social Credit party was doing so brilliantly.

We don't dispute the fact that there was much to be done. We don't dispute the fact that the Hon. Minister of Agriculture has many problems on his plate which are larger than they should be because of the inadequacies of the previous administration. We're sympathetic to this problem that he has, not only in this field but in many fields. We're attempting to be as constructive as we can on this. We're in no way saying that things were good before.

But what about the Green Belt Protection Fund Act and the Accelerated Reforestation Act, which were referred to so disparagingly by the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan)? First of all, both of these Acts were voted for by NDP Members. It's curious that these are now singled out as examples of how terrible the previous administration was. The only party that voted against these two bills was, of course, the Liberal Party, as was mentioned before. On the strength of that consistent opposition to bad principle in bad bills, we think that we have a right to

[ Page 1671 ]

comment upon this one in the same vein.

It raises a larger question. What sort of society does this Government really feel we're in, when the only test of their legislation that they're really willing to use is not whether it's good or bad or whether it can be improved or otherwise, but simply whether or not it's worse than the legislation of the previous government? It strikes me that we're accepting a very, very low standard if we are simply to have the previous government as the only indication of the standard for present legislation.

I really don't think that on August 30 of last year — not from the time I spent campaigning in this province, speaking everywhere in this province, I really don't think that the people who voted in the new Government voted them in simply to do no worse than their predecessor. They were voting in, they hoped, something better; this came up time and time again.

I think that throughout the last six months the Government must be aware that people are expecting a higher standard. Speeches such as those of the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) simply aren't good enough in this province at this stage to justify what is so bad about this present piece of legislation.

The statement has been made that, "Well, there are going to be lots of changes." These statements have come up from many Government Members. The Hon. Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) stated, and is quoted in the Victoria Times of March 14: "What we're going to have to do is rewrite sections of the Act. The purpose of the Act is simply to zone farmland," and so on.

Well, she admits, and she's not alone in so doing, that the Act is going to have to be rewritten. She talks of certain sections. But others have also indicated that there is a need for a change as well.

In the Victoria Daily Colonist of March 17 there is a story, "Hearings Hinted on Land Ruling." There's talk about the Minister and his statements. It goes on to suggest that there will be some sort of appeal by way of the regional board ultimately to the cabinet "only for formal approval." So we are in a situation where there are hints about appeal and changes.

But we really don't know. We can't examine the principle of these appeal proposals here because we don't have them formally in front of us.

The Minister goes on to say, "This has always been the Government's intention, but it hasn't been clearly spelled out in the legislation." What are we discussing here, Mr. Speaker — his intentions or legislation?

Time after time we've had the same sort of talking around the subject and a failure to really consider the subject itself. We were hoping that the bill would be clarified when the Minister got up to speak. We were hoping, indeed, that the bill would be withdrawn, amended and re-submitted, which would have saved us all a great deal of time on both sides of the House. Government pride, perhaps, was the reason for this not taking place.

The Minister stated on March 8 that he hopes to "clear up the misunderstanding about the bill," during the debate on principle. Well, we haven't had that. We haven't had these questions cleared up by him in his debate. We just don't precisely know what he has in mind in the way of amendments on these questions of principle.

So we are really trying to deal with what the Government admits to be a grubby piece of legislation which is inadequate already, which has failures in it on questions of principle as well as on detail; an Act which they admit they are going to have to deal with later on by way of amendment. Yet they really haven't faced up to the fact that so many of these amendments they are proposing deal essentially with principle. When the Speaker rules on these amendments, he will be forced to indicate to this House that they are of major importance, they deal with questions of principle and they cannot then be accepted at third reading.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The Premier groans at this but it is a true principle. If he'll check the authorities he'll find this out.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We're talking about amendments which might possibly come up in the future, Mr. Premier.

The Premier, despite what he has said previously about listening to comments of others and Opposition parties in particular…

HON. MR. BARRETT: You've offered no amendments.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, if you had listened to the speech of another Liberal, Mr. Premier, you would have heard proposals there.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We often have that trouble with you and your Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams) too, Mr. Premier.

In any event, to quote the Premier's own words on February 24, as reported in the Vancouver Sun:

"At a Press conference, Barrett criticized the critics for attacking the bill before knowing what it entails. 'I expect more responsibility from the Opposition,' he said, accusing them of 'screaming

[ Page 1672 ]

about an Act they haven't had a chance to read'."

What I'm telling you right now, Mr. Premier, is that we haven't seen the amendments.

You first come out and criticize Members of the Opposition for remarks they have made about this bill but you keep things back. We are in exactly the same position now. We don't know what you have in mind. You criticize us on the one hand for not reading the Act closely and later you say the bill is going to change anyway. Then you come back and say, "Well, it doesn't really matter what happens in second reading because it's in third reading we're putting in amendments."

We took you at your word when you said that you wanted a close look. Since then we've been pretty surprised to find that despite your own words that the only way to criticize intelligently is to read the words of the bill itself, you're willing to bring in amendments. We're in this shell game where we don't know what you have in mind and it makes it extraordinarily difficult to discuss this bill intelligently in principle.

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): We've noticed that.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Perhaps you've been noticing it for some time. This party does not embark upon filibusters to try to deal with this bill. We think though that if anything could encourage a filibuster it would be the attitude of the Government which has been thoroughly and consistently irresponsible in trying to suggest that second reading means nothing in such a bill, that it's the amendments which come up in third reading which count.

It's a question of fact that you can't amend matters of principle on third reading. If we vote for some of these rotten principles which are embedded in this bill, we will be unable to change them later on.

We're in a situation, Mr. Speaker, on all points dealing with this bill of really not knowing what the Government has in store.

I'd like to indicate some of the confusion which I have on one item which I am glad the Minister of Agriculture is here to discuss. We have here a March 17 quotation from the Vancouver Province newspaper dealing with the Premier's "hot-line link-up around the province." It goes on to say, "But he," that presumably is the Premier, "said that the Government has no intention of paying compensation for losses of potential land sale above market price of farmland that might have been made by owners had they been allowed to sell to developers." That's the statement of principle in my mind on compensation by the Premier. I took it as Government policy. I guess you have to. There's a repeat of it. The Vancouver Sun refers to Mr. Stupich, the Minister of Agriculture: "Stupich rejected the association's appeal for compensation for devalued land."

And yet we are in a quandary because, despite the Minister's statement and despite the Premier's statement, I have in my hand a copy of another letter, signed by David D. Stupich, Minister of Agriculture, dated December 20, 1972, and I'd just like to read it.

"This is written in further reference to your letter of November 21, 1972, in which you asked pertinent questions about our proposal to implement a policy for the preservation of farmland in British Columbia.

"In reply I can advise that we are presently working on this policy and the required legislation but do not have all of the details finalized.

"The objectives of course are to preserve farmland for agricultural use now and in the future and that society as a whole should share with you the responsibilities of doing so."

It goes on — a specific paragraph on this gentleman's own land. There's no need to read that.

The next paragraph says:

"It is presently envisaged that there will be two alternatives for a landowner in your position: either the outright sale of it at a reasonable market price to a government agency, or the sale only of the 'development value' in return for a covenant registered against the title restricting the land's use to agriculture. In this situation the 'development value' is ascribed as the difference between the value of the land for all uses and its value as farmland.

"In some areas of the province the market value of the property and its farm value will be the same, but in other areas, where the pressure on farmland for other uses is great, the development value will be higher.

"I trust the foregoing insight into the intent of our farmland reform policy will provide you with the information requested and assure you that no discrimination is intended."

Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Minister's letter I felt was a good one and a fair one. It dealt with the subject; and yet we've had a substantial departure from that policy — an unannounced departure. And now we have both the Premier and the Minister stating that compensation on the basis of development value simply won't take place.

These are the types of things that really do make it extraordinarily difficult for us to discuss this bill. We are dealing with questions of principle. We have contradictory, proposals coming forward from the same Minister. We really don't know what the Government has in mind.

The speech of the Minister in Kamloops, which I heard, dealt with four areas in which there would be changes. One was appeal…

[ Page 1673 ]

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I'm sorry. Evidently I didn't get the fine meaning of the words. Apparently these are not changes to be made but simply where changes are being considered. So once more the statement in Kamloops can be abandoned as soon as we've given this bill second reading and he can go back and say, "Well, we considered and rejected those proposals that I made in Kamloops."

That's the type of confusion, Mr. Minister, that surrounds this bill. In all innocence, I thought you had promised amendments at third reading on these four points. You now state in this House that you didn't. You merely promised to consider amendments.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, this is the difficulty we're faced with. The Act, in questions of principle, simply isn't clear. The Act, in questions of principle, isn't fair. The Act has troubles enough, I feel, in its present form. It made me think that perhaps you got a good bill, Mr. Minister, from the department, but by the time the Hon. Minister of Lands and Forests (Hon. Mr. Williams) got hold of it and your backbench got hold of it, they ripped it to shreds. Then you simply put the pieces together and threw it into the House in that form, in the hope that perhaps later on you'd be able to make some coherent sense out of it.

Well, that just isn't good enough — this approach to legislation of this Government. The statement that I made regarding amendments, Mr. Speaker, which I made on a point of order was instantly criticized by the Premier who said, "Well, there was no way of knowing at that stage whether amendments would be coming forward to the House."

I take that statement that he made in the House as being a factual one; we still don't have any idea of what amendments are coming in. But in my view, if the amendments on this subject, which have been the basic guts of the bill…the basic discussion on this bill has not been about the preservation of farmland. It's been about the denial of natural justice. It's been about compensation; it's been about due process. Those are the real things that people have been concerned about and those are the real things that we have discussed in this House.

Now, it's those things, Mr. Speaker, that are of such concern that the farmers are willing to leave their farms in the interior and come down and demonstrate on the steps of the Parliament Buildings. If these things are of such concern, why is it the Government does not pay attention to the voices of the people, as well as the Opposition, as well as of the media in the Province, and come in with amendments so that we can actually know what we're dealing with? We just don't know at this stage.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the speakers from the Liberal Party who spoke prior to me…the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Williams) listed a number of areas where he feels the government should make changes. He suggested that the commission itself not be a political commission; that it be appointed just as the Purchasing Commission is and that furthermore, there should be appointments from a list of people proposed by the special interest groups such as the Federation of Agriculture and the Cattlemen.

He proposed that we give this whole thing a hoist for enough time so that the Agriculture Committee of the House can travel around the province and can find out what people really think would be the best way of handling this. He's proposed as well that this be done on a regional basis; that you don't try for a commission to handle the whole province at once; you try and deal with it on an area-by-area basis.

There have been sensible and useful proposals put forward by the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound, who is our party's critic in this area, and yet we still hear the comments from the Government that of course they've heard nothing from the Opposition.

You have heard something from the Opposition and you've heard quite a bit. I think the time has come for the Government to try and analyze what has been put forward and come up with some criticism, if they have any, of why it's not being done.

Mr. Speaker, we're in the funny position where a bill has been brought in — a poor bill — amendments have been proposed or have been brought up for consideration by the government, changes have been proposed by the special interest groups — the Federation of Agriculture and the Cattlemen — changes have been proposed from this side of the House, and yet we still have the Premier crying that he's not heard of any changes proposed by others.

Well obviously, at this stage, formal amendments to second reading of a bill can't be done. That's why the Government says it can't bring in its amendments even though…I believe the words that the Premier used was that he's "bursting to do so."

What the government can do and we can't do on this side of the House is to withdraw that bill, put in the amendments that deal with these matters of principle, reintroduce it, and then perhaps we can have a rational debate on what actually is in the bill itself. We cannot have a really good rational debate on a bill such as this when the Government Members and the opposition Members and the public at large are not aware of what is going to finally wind up in the bill, or they're not aware of what the Government finally intends to put in the bill.

There's one other aspect of the bill which is very frightening. That is the power to write regulations.

[ Page 1674 ]

The Minister has made statements previously in the Press as well as in the House dealing with regulations, and he's stated that he's sure there are lots of things to change. But he said, "It's very easy to change. We can put an order-in-council in and have the thing changed overnight, or less time than that."

So, we're in a situation where we still don't know the Government's intentions. We still don't know whether the amendments they put in will be realistically done. We have no real idea of how he intends to use that enormous amount of residual power dealing with orders-in-council thereafter. We think that in a subject of this importance it would be possible for the Government to bring in a proper bill, a bill which we could discuss at second reading in terms of principle.

We think that it would be quite possible for the Government Ministers, instead of spending their time denouncing the previous government — which they are quite entitled to do, but it's not relevant to this bill in question — we think that it would be quite possible for them to really analyze, or attempt to analyze as best they can, what are the principles involved; what denials there will be of natural justice, of appeal, of compensation, of due process of law.

Mr. Speaker, any commission that has an entirely political character where the members of it can be taken off at a moment's notice by a stroke of the pen; where there is no tenure of office as a commissioner; any commission which is empowered to make all its own rules; any commission which is empowered to make decisions without appeal; any commission which has this enormous amount of power should be discussed in the Legislature on the basis of what the Government intends and not on the basis of some ideas the Government may have had at one time but have since abandoned.

We simply cannot deal intelligently with Bill 42 in this way. I once more, Mr. Speaker, urge the Government to pay some attention to this point. It is simple for the Government party to withdraw a bill. It is simple for the Government party to make changes in that bill and reintroduce it. At that stage, perhaps we can have a realistic discussion of what is involved. But if we continue in this way, where we're going to go sailing into third reading with the Speaker bearing the entire onus of deciding whether or not amendments are in order or not — because he'll have to decide whether they're on questions of principle or otherwise — I suggest we're simply abusing the rights of this Legislature.

After all, a Legislature has really only two fundamental jobs. One is to grant money sparingly so that the people are not excessively taxed. The other is to grant powers to the Crown sparingly so that the people are not excessively ill-treated without recourse to the courts, This is the type of legislation which allows enormous changes to take place in human rights in this province. It is a bill which is not subject, despite the statements made by the Minister in this House on second reading, to the Canadian Bill of Rights; which probably will not be subject, according to the actual words of this Act itself, to any provisions of a B.C. Bill of Rights which may be later brought in.

It's a bill which is wide ranging, a bill which for certain individuals could be extraordinarily destructive. It's the type of bill which, if the Legislature has any real function and if the Government party has any real respect for this Legislature, they will amend and bring in again. That is the only way, Mr. Speaker, that we can deal with true points of principle.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on at length dealing with suggestions that this party has made regarding alteration of this bill, regarding changes that we think should be brought in. These have been listed by the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Williams). I could go on and deal at some length with the way that this bill violates the natural justice or due process. I refer you on that, Mr. Speaker, to the six-point test put forward by my Hon. friend, the Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Brousson).

But what I would like to do at this stage is simply repeat to the Minister: we're here dealing with a bill which has up to now been extremely badly handled. We are dealing with a bill that affects large numbers of people. We are dealing with a bill which I think, only reason and fair play suggests should be treated very differently than it has up to now.

The argument has been put forward that the only reason the Government doesn't do this is the pride of the Premier — that he doesn't want to withdraw a bill which he feels he is committed to in this way. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is a new Government; in my view, the people of the province are fairly generous and would be quite reasonable if the Government did withdraw the bill.

If the Government frankly admitted a mistake; if they withdrew the bill, amended its provisions which affect these matters of principle that I have referred to and resubmitted it to the Legislature, in my mind it would not be a loss of credibility of the Government. It would be enhanced.

The suggestion is that we on this side would give consent for any such withdrawal. Of course that's true. If the bill came in which achieved the objectives we've all talked about, yet nevertheless managed to handle the questions of principle which are so serious, we think that there may well be a greater chance of this bill being more widely accepted not only in this House, but throughout the province.

The Liberal Party will support any bill which has the objectives of protecting farmland, provided it at the same time handles these questions of principle that we have talked about in an adequate and fair and reasonable way. We are not going to support a bill,

[ Page 1675 ]

Mr. Speaker, which, although its objectives may be great, nevertheless is so full of rotten points of principle that it itself just cannot be tolerated.

Mr. Speaker, every bit of legislation that has ever been put in, whether it be put in by the National Socialist Party in Germany in the 30s or whether it be put in elsewhere, always talks in glowing terms about what the principle will be or what the objective might be. It is the job of a legislature to ignore these statements of an executive and start probing for what the real principles affected are.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that this Government is deliberately denying this Legislature the opportunity of doing this. It's deliberately denying the people of British Columbia an opportunity to really find out what its intentions are. It is using a large and up to now servile majority, which apparently sees nothing wrong in the question of principles I have talked about, simply to force in legislation which I am quite sure two or three years from now very few of these backbenchers would support. Very few would support it because by then they would have understood what the true function of this Legislature is and the type of analysis we should be giving bills.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the Minister: consider this bill again, withdraw it, amend it and bring it back in the House and re-submit it in the House. I am sure if that is the case that filibusters from Social Crediters will quickly disappear. I am sure if that is the case that the concern of the Liberals and Tories in this House will be a great deal lessened, and I am quite sure that concern among your own backbenchers will be lessened.

For us to be left in the position of having to buy a pig-in-a-poke, not knowing what they intend to do with the bill, and asked to approve questions of principle when we don't know whether the principles are going to be later amended, is simply an unfair process for us individually and an undemocratic process as far as this Legislature is concerned. In the view of our party, it is something we can simply not tolerate.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Chilliwack.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have had indications again in the House today as to the reason why we in the Opposition, and the Liberal Members and Conservatives as well, have had to look very, very carefully at the text of this bill.

Although this has nothing to do with the bill, I would like to pass along this observation — I think the question period today was a farce, as it has been on many other occasions in this House, when those who are to be the informers, those who are on the Treasury benches of this Government, when asked specific questions, will not give specific answers. This is another reason, Mr. Speaker, why we have had to look very scrutinizingly at the wording of Bill 42.

I agree with the Member who has just spoken that we in the Opposition have no other instrument by which we can judge the intent of the Government in this bill or any other. We have only the written bill as we have had it placed in our hands and the only conclusion we can come to, as regards the intent of the Government, is the actual wording of that bill. Mr. Speaker, as we have reviewed the bill now for these many days — yea, weeks by now — lo and behold, the intent of the bill as it is written does not occur with the intent of the bill as we hear it verbalized by the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) and those who seek to support him, yea, defend him.

There are several areas that I would like to draw to the attention of the House today. Let me preface the rest of my remarks with this — I would like to commend the Minister of Agriculture for at least trying to do something to preserve agricultural land. It was likely overdue, there had likely been steps taken toward it — none as daring as this — but, Hon. Minister, I would like to commend you for having the courage to do what you intend to do. However, in my private discussion with you the intention of this bill does not concur at all with what you would like us to believe. Nonetheless, agricultural land must be preserved.

It is not nearly as serious as we have heard some speakers say. The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) has suggested, Mr. Speaker, that unless we do something now that by the day after tomorrow, at 4 p.m., we will already have blacktop over the entire Fraser Valley. I think this is an exaggeration that we cannot condone in this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: He should know, he's a blacktopper.

MR. SCHROEDER: I think that…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. SCHROEDER: Are you the Minister of Highways, sir? You switched portfolios.

I think that we must face the issues that are at hand. One of the issues is this. The population of the Fraser Valley will continue to increase, perhaps, at least at the rate of its previous increase. We can anticipate that by 1995, just a little more than 20 years from now, we are going to have 5 million people in the province. The greatest proportion of them will be in the Fraser Valley. We are going to have to house them somewhere unless we are intending to embark on communal living. We are going to have to provide a family home for every family.

There is no way we can control this, unless we are

[ Page 1676 ]

going to do some other things which have a distinct socialistic flavour and which I would not like to suggest as being the kind of thing we want to do in the Province of British Columbia. We are either going to have to sterilize the people, or we are going to have to close our borders, because unless we do one of those three things we are going to have the increase I have just suggested.

I would frown on any of the three previous suggestions because, again, it is an infringement upon the rights of an individual to choose where it is that he wishes to live and when he wishes to live there. Housing must be provided, population will grow and when the population grows we will have to have streets and shopping centres. They are not an ugly word, Mr. Minister of Highways — I am sure you are aware of it.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

MR. SCHROEDER: Not ugly, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: He admits that.

MR. SCHROEDER: If we were to believe some of the speeches I have listened to in the House in the past few days, we would think the land has been completely ravaged, that we have been building just for the sake of building, that there has been building beyond the scope of need, Mr. Speaker, and that as you look across the Valley you would see hundreds and hundreds of homes that have just been built and have been the dream of some developer or some real estate agent for the sake of a profit.

As I go back and forth through the Valley, I find that this is not the truth at all. There are very few empty houses; they have all been built because of need, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, there is a shortage of housing, particularly in the rental division. Therefore, to say that we have just allowed the ravaging of the Valley is to speak an untruth. a22, some steerage in this regard. It is going to have to be made desirable to live on other

In my first notation to the Government, I would like to say this: housing must be provided for, and just to freeze the land and to say no agricultural land will be used for development at all is to say that you have not looked at the future at all. There are areas in the Valley that could be used for building sites and are not agricultural land. Up at the other end of the Fraser Valley, which I represent, we have hillsides and hill sites enough to provide for perhaps 500,000 to 600,000 population. However, that is only a portion of the growth that we anticipate in these next few years.

I would like to say also that to have the hillside building site made to be an economic building site, the government would have to take a portion, or perhaps all, of the $25 million that has been provided in Bill 42 and go into the land development business on the hillsides, put in the streets and the curbs and the gutters and the underground services, and make those building lots available on the hillsides at no greater expense than would be building sites on the flat land. If this were possible and the Government would embark on this programme, which I think is a good programme, people would more readily live on the hillsides than they would on the floodplains. At least out where I live, this is true.

The way the taxation structure exists at the present moment, if you build a house on a hillside site in order to help to preserve farmlands, such as I have just completed, the taxation on that hillside lot is anywhere from 60 to 120 per cent above the taxation on a flatland lot. The Government is going to have to take a new look at the taxation structure and make some recommendation to the municipal councils to give them some steerage in this regard. It is going to have to be made desirable to live on other than the flatland if we are going to indeed preserve that flatland.

There is a second area for discussion, an area for concern which comes out of Bill 42. It has nothing to do with housing and nothing to do with population. It's p. 2.

Mr. Speaker, patronage is going to have to be guarded against in the carrying out of the various sections of Bill 42. There are too many loop-holes provided in the words and in the paragraphs as we now have them. This is what is possible — and I want to draw these to your attention, Mr. Speaker, without referring to individual clauses.

Patronage is possible in this business of freezing at the discretion of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council or the commission. It means that they can designate land at will, and they may exempt from designation any land. By the way, this is always. When I'm talking in terms of land I wish to speak in terms of land in the same terms as the bill talks about it, and it's in terms other than, and also including, agricultural land. They can designate at will or refrain from designation.

This means that if I'm a good supporter of the government, and I happen to have a desirable piece of property for development, all I need to do is smile very sweetly at the commission or the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council, promise a few dollars at the next election, and I could be exempted. I'm not saying I would be — I'm saying I could be.

Mr. Speaker, this is what we'll have to guard against. I don't see anything in the bill that guarantees the population that there will be these guards established. All we can do again is trust the Government. They say, "Trust us." I want to talk a little later on about this business of trusting the Government.

[ Page 1677 ]

The thing that bothers me is not so much the fact that the freeze exists, because indeed it is the prerogative of the government to control land. What scares me is the exclusions that can exist under Bill 42.

Worse than that, I understand from the bill that the government is going to go into the competitive farming business, whereby they're going to "purchase or otherwise acquire" farm property. Then they will have the strength and ability — at least they will have the authority by Bill 42 — to go into the farming business. They can establish a farm right next to a farmer whom they would like squeeze out of business, and provide public funds for the operation of a farm that would be competing with a public interest — a private interest farm — and run him out of business. This is a possibility under Bill 42. Now, I'm not saying that this is the intent, Mr. Speaker; what I am saying is that this is a distinct possibility.

Worse than that, the farmland which they acquire by any means will also not only have the possibility of being farmed by the commission itself, but they can lease it to someone else to farm it for them — again, a fantastic opportunity for patronage, because the bill distinctly says that the eligibility of applicants to lease this property is going to be determined by the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council.

This means that if we have a gentleman who has perhaps been outspoken against the policies of the existing government, if he would apply for a lease of farm property he would have no more a chance of leasing that property than did the gentleman who has just been released, for political reasons, by the Department of Highways from his appointment in the information bureau on the flood plains of Chilliwack — given no other reason for his release, Mr. Speaker, than the fact that it was a political decision.

I'm sorry that I have to say that in this House. But if that's possible in the area of part-time employment then it's possible in this area of eligibility for application for the leasing of farmland. I see no indication anywhere in Bill 42 that there will be any safeguards set up against this.

I've talked about the freeze, I've talked about the exclusions, I've talked about the eligibility and I've talked about the competitiveness of commission farming. Every one of the areas provides an area for patronage.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that you would stand with me in advising the Government against any form of patronage.

I've been interested in this campaign against Bill 42 that has basically been sponsored by the grassroots people.

AN HON. MEMBER: By Social Credit.

MR. SCHROEDER: Somebody said "by Social Credit." I wouldn't believe that. Mr. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace), I wouldn't sit there and take that if I were you. They say that you haven't been in on the fight at all. Now, you know that's not true.

I was particularly interested, being a bit of a humourist, in some of the slogans that came out of one of the early breakfast meetings protesting against Bill 42. There was a rather innovative-minded fellow at one of these breakfasts, and he had reconstructed some of the phrases. You know the phrase, Mr. Speaker, "There's a rotten apple in every barrel." I'm sure that you've heard it. Here he had inscribed beautifully on a placard, "There's a rotten Barrett in every apple."

MR. SPEAKER: Order.

MR. SCHROEDER: I'm just reporting, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: I want to point out to the Hon. Member that you can't call other Members names in that fashion by quoting from anyone. If you want the source on that it will be readily at hand. But it is strictly an attack on a Member, whether you quote a poem, or what somebody has said outside, or anything else. It's just as reprehensible as if you said it from your own mouth with your own thoughts. I would ask you to withdraw it.

MR. SCHROEDER: Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, that you don't see the humour in it. It certainly wasn't intended to be an accusation. It was an observation, and I thought you would be interested in it.

MR. SPEAKER: I would defend you the same way.

MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you, I appreciate it.

Now then, another slogan: this one says, "Capital punishment, or punishment from the capital — which is worse?" I thought that one was rather humourous.

There's another one here that talks about Stupich and I am afraid that I will not be able to use this now, since the ruling you've just made, Sir. But it says, "He is not bad — he is just stupid, that's what he is."

Another one said, "Don't you dare think only the commissar can do that."

Another said, "Orchardists, don't argue. Obey your commissar — he knows best."

There were others, but you've spoiled even my enjoyment of them, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to ask the Government if they are aware that there is a great deal of fear out there on the flood plains. If they're aware that the fear is there, I'm wondering if they know what it is that has engendered it.

There are a great number of people who live out

[ Page 1678 ]

on the flood plains who have had previous experience with takeover legislation that has been sponsored by a socialist government. I've had the opportunity to sit down with them and to let them bare their conscience and their hearts about what happened the last time that it took place, and what were the first indicating signs, and what was the response and what were the eventualities?

I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that they have reason to be afraid, because they say that the very same smiles that we see on the faces of the socialist government in British Columbia today are the smiles that remind them of the smiles that they have seen before in takeover legislation. Not only the smiles but the jeers. And the attitude that says, "You can trust us." They say they have heard it all before. They rehearsed for me step 2, step 3 and step 4. I won't take time to bore you with it — I just want you to know that those people are afraid out there.

They have reason to be afraid. They have experienced it before. And any of the facade that the Government may wish to wear behind which they would like to hide the eventual intent of legislation such as we see in Bill 42 — they cannot hide it behind a nice suit or clothes, or behind a smile, Mr. Speaker.

The intent is evident in the language of Bill 42. The people detest it; I detest it. Mr. Speaker, I know you detest it. And it engenders fear.

Is it any wonder that not individuals alone but groups of people have let us know about their protests? The B.C. Chamber of Commerce speaks as a group. The Association of B.C. Grape Growers speaks as a group. The Union of B.C. Municipalities speaks as a group. The Real Estate Institute of British Columbia speaks as a group.

By the way, I've noticed too that the words "real estate" seem to be bad words in this House. I don't understand that for a moment. The word "developer" seems to be a bad word in this House. I can't understand that for one moment. Where would we be if it hadn't been for the developers? We'd still be living in tents.

Now there's another thing that seems to be a bad word — "profit." That has got to be the worst word in the dictionary in the glossary of a socialist. "Profit" has got to be an ugly word.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. SCHROEDER: What kind of a word did you say? A swear word?

I was amazed to think that the Conservative Party would speak as a group — a group of two — in protest of the bill. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the Cariboo Regional District, the Abbotsford Growers' Co-Op Union speak as a group The B.C. Egg Producers, the B.C. Fruitgrowers' Association, the B.C. Federation of Agriculture — why are all these people afraid? Because the only thing that they have is the bill and the vocabulary, the wordage and the structure of the bill. They have no way to interpret the intent of this Government.

The intent is clearly written in Bill 42. The smiles and the jeers and the "trust me's" are never going to cover up that intent which is clearly written.

The Minister of Agriculture may say, "I have no intention of doing what the bill says I am able to do." But what about the next Minister of Agriculture who might not be so minded?

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the commission?

MR. SCHROEDER: And what about the commission? Yes. Very good.

I've heard a lot of letters read today and I don't plan to read. I had never heard the word "filibuster" until I got in here and I still don't know how to spell it. Therefore, I don't want to have too much a part of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: It starts with "ph."

MR. SCHROEDER: It starts with "ph," does it? I have just the one letter that I want to read, and it's interesting. I talked to the man first of all by telephone. He asked me what he should do. I said, "Why don't you write me a letter and tell me what you told me by phone and I'll tell the House about it?" Here's a man who spoke to me on the phone in broken language but very good vocabulary and I couldn't understand. I shan't read the first part of the letter which has to do with clippings that he sent me and some illustrations out of a magazine that he brought with him from the Slavic countries where he spent his boyhood days.

Here's what the letter says:

"Concluding, a few words to introduce myself. I am 'farming' 40 acres — " and he's got it in quotation marks. "Yes, I do. We keep this scrubby land on Mt. Lehman up to 40 head of cattle — heifers — raising them. Our net profit is so small that I had to take a job as an interpreter in the Mountain Prison when the Doukhobors were here, to pay for the place. We cleared it and we built a barn and a house on it. Now when I am old, "

and he puts in parentheses "58 years old," lest we think he's entirely decrepit.

"I wanted to sell it. But now Commissar Barrett has confiscated everything. We are" — listen to this, don't miss it — "exactly in the same situation we were 30 years ago when Stalin annexed Carpathian Russia. We fled. I was a lawyer then. Lost everything."

Then I could understand the vocabulary. Then I

[ Page 1679 ]

could understand the deep thinking. But then I could also understand the deep-seated fear that this gentleman communicated to me, both by phone and in this letter. "We fled…I was a lawyer then." Now what does he do? He tries to farm 40 acres with a few heifers, trying to gain enough net profit to pay for a house and a little barn.

He's got some interesting clippings here. He writes some unkind things on the bottom because of his distasteful experience with socialism in the past. But I wanted to say these things because I wanted you people to understand, and for you, Mr. Speaker, to understand why fear exists out there on the flood plains.

I could go on to say a number of things, But I want to talk about the phrase "trust me." It's a bad phrase for a new Government to use. Because you see, Mr. Speaker, the new Government has no track record. They have no confidence established. They have no reason to say "trust me" because they have no trust established in the past.

I'm going to draw a parallel here and certainly I want you to accept this in the good mood in which it's intended, Mr. Speaker. You can give a shotgun to a hunter and you can trust that hunter to likely bring game so that you have food for your table. But, Mr. Speaker, if you put a shotgun in the hands of a raving maniac, you can't depend on anything that the man may do.

Therefore, I would like to say that unless you have a record of trust, don't say "trust me." Whatever you do, don't violate whatever little bit of trust you may already have established. Those are just a few words which I might entitle "wisdom" to the Government as they're seated today.

It seems to me as I try to draw some conclusions out of the entire intent of Bill 42, that the Government has looked at the disappearing land — the disappearance of which they have exaggerated — and they have said, "We're going to do something to conserve it." So rather than look after the areas where a problem really exists, they have placed over the entire province a freeze of land subject to future designation by a commission, and everyone has been placed under a restriction that would have been far better had it been designated to the area where the problem exists.

It seems to me that we have slapped everybody just to try to get at a few.

I want you to know that in my constituency I checked with the mayors to find out how much land we've lost. In the Municipality of Sumas, over the past four years, not one acre has been lost.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): Aw, come off it!

MR. SCHROEDER: Not one! I checked with the mayor of the Municipality of Chilliwack. He went back the same length of time — four years. In four years 90 acres out of 40,000 acres.

In Sumas there are 33,000 acres, so in my entire constituency we have 73,000 acres of farmland and 90 acres is all that we've lost in four years. Now I'm not too smart, but that looks like 22 1/2 acres a year. If you can take 22 1/2 acres per year and divide it into 73,000, you'll see, we've got a long time to go, Mr. Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan), until we've got hardtop on every square inch of the valley, until we've got nothing but shopping centres and schools and parking lots, as he said just a few days ago in this House.

I'd like to commend the Government for doing something to preserve farmland. There isn't a soul within the sound of my voice that wouldn't want to preserve farmland. But I think that there is a better way of preserving farmland than Bill 42.

I would say: let's make farming a desirable vocation. Let's make it a viable vocation. Let's guarantee that the farmer can gain a fair return for his labours. I want you to know I've talked to enough farmers to know that there's no way you can drag them off their land.

Let's do this: let the Government, instead of freezing every square inch of land, take the first option to purchase on every acre of agricultural land. Let the farmer decide if he ever wishes to sell it or if he wants to keep it or if he wants to develop it. Let him decide, know this, that when he makes his eventual decision to rid himself of that land, the Government would have the first option to purchase it.

Let the Government at that moment pay a fair price for that acreage; the fair price not to be determined in 1973 but the fair price to be determined at the time of acquiring. Let the Government pay that farmer fair return for his land. Then they will have acquired that property with a clear conscience. They would be able to lease it to the lowest bidder. They would even be able to farm it themselves if they wanted to carry out the stubborn intentions of a socialistic government.

At least the individual farmer wouldn't have had to pay out of his pocket the cost of preserving agricultural land for the entire province. I think if we're going to preserve it for the entire province, let the entire province pay for that preservation, not the farmer who has already taken out of his savings account — if he ever had one — the few shekels that he did have to lay it into the capital investment of his property, only to lose it to some ludicrous piece of legislation that for lack of a better word has been called Bill 42. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Public Works.

[ Page 1680 ]

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Mr. Speaker, I would like to just say a brief word or two in reply to what was said in "trust me."

There is no group in Canada — and certainly in this province — that can ask to be trusted more than the CCF, the New Democrats, the social democrats. We ask you to trust us to our record. We have a record to be proud of, a record that is filled with trust.

The first election, Mr. Speaker, that I was personally involved in was an election when we were at war — 1945; the war nearing an end. The groups that are represented across there — the Liberals and the Conservatives that joined together to make the Social Credit — pulled one of the most contemptible political acts that was ever pulled. They said, "If the social democrats are elected, they will give everyone the vote. They will give the Japanese the vote." We were at war with Japan. The people that you belong to, the party that you are representing was part of that. The old coalition broke up and helped form you.

Brother, the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) wants to study the political history of this province before he starts to lecture us.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member relate his remarks to Bill 42, please.

HON. MR. HARTLEY: The three parties stood out in front of the Legislature. I stood out there and heard the Member for South Okanagan (Hon. Mr. Bennett) as Leader of the Official Opposition; I heard the leader of the Liberal Party and the leader of the Conservatives, who doesn't sit in this House, stand before that group of farmers and say, "A complete withdrawal of the bill." They didn't say, "Look, let us be reasonable. Let us attempt to amend this legislation." No, they said they wanted a complete withdrawal of the bill.

This Mr. Speaker, shows that (1) they do not understand the bill; and (2) they are not sincere in attempting to improve that legislation. Mr. Speaker, all that they were trying to do was rouse the rabble. Cheap rabble rousing — this is what is going on with this bill.

When the friend who has just spoken (Mr. Schroeder) spoke about trust, he little knows — as do many of the Members — that this party, the New Democratic Party, that has inherited a great tradition and a great trust through the social democratic movement of the world, has never gone out on campaigns of cheap political chicanery.

We have stood by the policies formulated in our provincial and national conventions. We haven't stood by them simply because they were policies that would go out to catch votes. We didn't say, "Well, look. If the people would like this, we will do it." What were some of the first things that we did? As I mentioned, in 1945 when they said, "You will give the Japanese the vote…"

MR. SPEAKER: Would the Hon. Member reserve his remarks for this bill.

HON. MR. HARTLEY: These remarks do refer to the debate of this bill. I'm speaking on trust. You did not call the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) up when he challenged our trust. I'm merely replying to the trust as demonstrated in the previous Member's comments.

MR. PHILLIPS: If you can be trusted, why do you have to defend it?

MR. SPEAKER: Well, there's been latitude on both sides in this question. I think that you've now answered the Hon. Member's remarks. He didn't spend his whole time talking about that subject. I hope the Hon. Member will press on with the bill.

HON. MR. HARTLEY: With respect to the limit of 22 acres that was lost, Mr. Speaker, in the previous five years, and no acres lost in another area in five years, I would like to mention that in the time of the group that were in government sitting across from us, now in the Opposition, some 10,000 acres have gone down the tube in the Fraser Valley.

Such rights-of-way as the CNR and CPR, hydro rights-of-way, telephone rights-of-way, gas pipeline rights-of-way, oil rights-of-way have just mishmashed that whole Fraser Valley up — rather than having a proper corridor to carry these rights-of-way in one lane from the mountains to the coast.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bill of principle and it is a bill of trust. If you people were really serious, you'd come forth with some basic, simple amendments. We've asked for this — the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich), the Premier, anyone who has spoken on this. The fact that you people have not come forward with basic amendments…

MR. PHILLIPS: What have you come forward with?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: …indicates, as my friend from Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) said, that the farmers that you represent, the farmer from Mt. Lehman — that was a completely bogus story. There's nothing in the bill that says that farmer cannot sell his farm to another farmer. He can sell it tomorrow. He can sell that 40-acre farm that he hewed out of the wilderness to any other farmer or any other person who would like to farm it.

What it does say is that the real estate promoters

[ Page 1681 ]

and the profiteers are not going to continue to gobble up good, arable land in a province where less than 2 per cent of our land is arable. We're not going to allow them to gobble this up and see future generations starve. Just as back in 1945 we stood up and took a courageous stand, a forthright stand, a trustworthy stand, a stand of principle, we're standing up now on behalf of all the people of this province and for future generations of this province.

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

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, last week around this House it seemed to be true confession week. I'd like to confess that I'm a city boy. I've never lived on a farm. I've been deprived of that privilege.

I also want to say that as far as I know, there are no farms in the riding which I represent. There are a lot of people who are still farming. There are a lot of people who have lived on the farms. I've been getting many letters and many, many phone calls from these people who have farm experience. They're not any happier about the bill than I am.

I also want to say that in my riding there are a number of commercial and industrial land areas, some of which have not been developed — are vacant land — and do exceed two acres in size. As far as I'm concerned, this bill has been very poorly drawn. It's very poor legislation. I'm convinced that when the speakers in opposition to this bill have spoken and the question is called — and the decision will probably come down as 17 to 37 — we will be faced with bad law.

Even the title tells you that this is a land commission Act. The smokescreen that has been growing around it on the premise that it is primarily designed to protect farmland is simply to confuse the issue. They want you to believe that it is designed to preserve farmland. I believe that it is designed to control all land.

The NDP talk about developers, land speculators and the word "profit" as though they were all dirty words. However, in my opinion, they see nothing wrong with a five-man commission appointed to do all these things. It's a rather strange way to present a bill. Yet they continue to deride people who write to complain about the principle of Bill 42. They simply try to confuse the issue that this is a land control bill. Never forget it. This is the prime purpose of this bill — to control land.

[Mr. Dent in the chair]

I believe that never before in the history of the British parliamentary system has a bill like Bill 42 been so badly mishandled by a government party. The Premier, as quoted in a column by Mr. Fotheringham, states that the real problem is one of bad public relations. The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) and the former distinguished, credible Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, calls the problem one of hysteria and blames most of the problems on what he likes to call "big-mouth radio hotlines" and, he likes to say, "defeated politicians."

Well, I'm not a defeated politician and I agree that the land bill is wrong. The Attorney General's problem is that he has been quoted as saying that the appeal procedures are faulty. One can only presume that his problem is that he hadn't read the bill.

The Minister of Agriculture deliberately hides behind the idea of farm preservation, which is something which we all support, in order to hide the real deficiencies of the bill and, in fact, to hide the true socialist intent, which is rampant throughout every clause of the bill except section 22 (3), which still leaves the bill subject to Royal Assent.

Private Members on the other side of the House have expressed views on this bill which range all the way from the Member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) who says that we must re-examine our whole approach to the private ownership of land…

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MORRISON: They say, "Hear, hear," to the remarks by the Member for Richmond (Mr. Steves), who suggests that the bill is a device to stop foreign interests, ranging all the way from Hong Kong to Florida, from taking over the farmlands of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder, in the face of these way-out statements, that the people of this province are upset and are alarmed by the contents of this bill?

I'd like to quote from the Victorian of March 21, by Maury Gwynne, who I really don't think is a Social Crediter. He says:

"The present Land Commission Act, rather ironically numbered Bill 42, is shaping up to be too much, too soon. Its all-encompassing regulations, which will give an appointed five-man board almost dictatorial powers over the disposition of land designated for agriculture and recreational purposes, is ill-conceived, to say the least.

"It is difficult not to be sympathetic to the Government's avowed intent of preventing destruction of agricultural and recreational lands. Indeed, many farmers agree with the intent of the bill. What they object to, and rightly so, is the extent to which it would go, and the degree of control it puts into the hands of a few people who are in no way responsible to the people.

"Mr. Stupich has made it quite clear that the Government is not backing down. No matter what

[ Page 1682 ]

form the legislation takes by the time it is passed, it is still going to remove from landowners the control of their own affairs."

He further goes on to say:

"Attempts to save the land from the ruthless exploitation by irresponsible developers is commendable, but total control over the lives and lifestyles of landowners is a dangerous first step. It is outright dictatorship or communism, or whatever other totalitarian label you want to attach to it. Those who express fear that this is the thin edge of the totalitarian wedge are justified.

"In the western world, we pride ourselves on being free people with no fear of losing any of our freedoms. The Land Commission Act does nothing to reinforce that belief. It should be withdrawn and re-written with the help of all concerned, in a much cooler and less hysterical atmosphere."

And that is Maury Gwynne.

Furthermore, probably never before in the history of British Columbia has a Government put a bill before the Legislature to be debated in principle while attempting, through the lips of Ministers in charge of the bill, to show that the bill has major deficiencies which will require amendments, which will remain sight unseen until the steam-roller opposite puts the bill through second reading.

Not only that, Mr. Speaker, but the Minister, in speaking to a Victoria University NDP-sponsored rally, states that not only could the bill be amended in this session, but there will be further amendments in the fall session.

The Victoria Times of March 21 has the heading, "Stupich Pledges More Changes to Controversial Land Act."

" 'The amendments,' he said, 'are being prepared and will be announced in the Legislature only after Bill 42's second reading, even if it isn't until next June.' "

Today, he's changed his mind.

It's little wonder, Mr. Speaker, in the light of this parliamentary performance, that the people of British Columbia are alarmed and they are upset. Mr. Speaker, it is not difficult to understand why our democratic political processes in the minds of young people are so suspect, in the light of the performance carried on by the Minister in charge of this bill.

More devastating to the parliamentary processes however, Mr. Speaker, is the studied attempt on the part of the Government opposite to cover up its socialist tracks — the unprecedented mythology which they have created around this bill.

The Vancouver Province of March 20, 1973, in the Victoria Comment by Peter McNelly:

"By designed inadvertence or incompetence, the provincial government has hopelessly muddied the forthcoming debate on the principle of its Land Commission Act. At one level the uproar turns on the question of what, in fact, is the principle behind the legislation. Extreme critics say that the bill is the first step toward an NDP takeover of private land ownership in British Columbia."

He goes on further to say:

"The NDP knows that the Socreds and Conservatives have already taken the position that Bill 42 cannot be amended. It is doubtful that they seriously expect the Opposition to clarify the Government's thinking. The promise of amendments, in the words of a Government backbencher, designated to make Bill 42 more politically palatable, is a face-saving move, even if the amendments create a better bill.

"You'd think if the bill had to be amended, they'd have thought about it before they brought it in."

HON. L.T. NIMSICK (Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources): That's what the debating was all about.

MR. MORRISON: If it's that bad, it should be taken out.

Myth Number One: The previous administration did nothing to preserve farmland. The answer to that one: The land clearing procedures which saw 900,000 acres of farmland in production in 1955 and saw 1,800,000 acres in production in 1972. Also, the Green Belt Protection Fund, which saw approximately $7 million spent in the first few months of its operation, and not one five-cent piece committed to the six months that that Government opposite has been in business. Not a nickel.

Myth Number Two: Municipalities and regional districts were not only incapable but lacked the will to preserve farmland. One only has to look at the area covered by the Minister of Highways' (Hon. Mr. Strachan) riding to see that amendments taking farmland out of the picture in that area have been remarkably few. In North Cowichan, as close as I can find out, there are something over 50,000 acres of farmland. In the past five years, according to the municipal records, less than 50 acres of farmland have gone into development. I also checked on the Saanich peninsula and, as close as I can find out, every farm which was being farmed on the Saanich peninsula area prior to World War II is being farmed today, with the exception of two.

Myth Number Three: The farm community in general is in the hands of greedy speculators, who seek to cover all farmland with real estate subdivisions. I doubt, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Agriculture has any letters from any recognized farm organizations which do not come down heavily on the need to protect farmland in a fair and equitable way, but I doubt, Mr. Speaker, that the Government opposite has even considered that the vast majority of the people in this province want to preserve farmland in a fair and equitable way. I doubt that they want to see that they are not paid on a fair market basis for the land which they have to give up. They're prepared to share in the cost of doing such preservation in a

[ Page 1683 ]

very fair and very equitable way. But the insidious way which this bill has been presented, simply as an Act to preserve farmland, in the first place is a myth that is even more reprehensible.

I'd like also to quote from the Vancouver Province of Saturday, March 17: "A Threat to B.C. Farmland Only a Straw Man."

It says:

"The Barrett Government's two-fisted move to preserve farms and control the use of all kinds of land has been predicated on an overwhelming need to stop the division of farmland to other development.

"A survey of public officials and planning experts during the past week, however, indicates that the real danger from this sort of exploitation ended in most parts of the province several years ago. Regional and municipal planners were quick to point out that where an accepted plan has been in force, the land speculators have already been curbed and some claim they have even been ended."

The Government opposite seems not to recognize the meaning of the English language when translated into a statute. For example, the bill in presentation talks about the principle of preserving farmland, but in context talks about preserving and acquiring land having desirable qualities for urban or industrial development or redevelopment. The principle involved here, of course, Mr. Speaker, is that land which has seen no cows for over 100 years, in downtown Victoria, could be covered by such a section. Rather hard to believe, isn't it.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture would argue that that is not the intent of the bill. But, Mr. Speaker, if it is not the intent of the bill, why do we have to have that section before us for argument in the first place? If, Mr. Speaker, it is truly a farm preservation bill, then why do we not have a bill before us which simply addresses itself to the preservation of farmland, so that we can discuss that bill intelligently within the framework of the debate and the desire of all British Columbians to preserve farmland in a fair and equitable way?

For example, the Government opposite seems not to recognize that having designated land for any of the four purposes outlined in the bill, it has also conferred on the faceless five-man commission the right to dispose of by sale or lease or otherwise the very land which it has taken in the name of motherhood, brotherhood, environmenthood in the very first place.

How sinister are the implications of section 7(j), Mr. Speaker, when the politically-appointed commission designed opposite can, in fact, in the language of the bill, take the land for park purposes and then at some later date place a neighbourhood pub on it. This power, Mr. Speaker, inherent in the Act is just a plain stupid power to confer on a politically-appointed commission. Can't you imagine the hue and cry that would develop in any community in British Columbia if a community park reserve were to be suddenly envied as a site for a McDonald's hamburger stand? But, Mr. Speaker, the right to do exactly that is possible under the words of this statute.

Mr. Speaker, it is totally unconscionable that land which is so important to be taken into agricultural reserve, greenbelt reserve or parkland reserve in the very first place, can subsequently be removed from that reserve for any purpose at any price, subject only to the terms and conditions established by this five-man commission — politically-oriented land commission.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if the Members opposite do not understand the language of this bill before they vote, they should read it again because there's more to come. For example, the Government opposite seems unable to recognize the principle inherent in section 20 of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I'm only talking about the principle of the bill and not the section.

It is that in the matters of land use, the faceless commission in effect overrides all provincial statutes having to do with land use regulation. Further, Mr. Speaker, the Government seems to be unable to understand that the language used in this statute destroys the whole concept of local government.

On the editorial page of March 17 the Vancouver Sun suggests that "although the provincial government's retreat is almost obscured by a bedlam of its own making, it is clearly backing down from the more outrageous provisions of the proposed Land Commission Act. Farther down it goes on to say: "Why does the Government persist in proceeding with a bill that even Mr. Stupich, who might charitably be called 'biased,' agrees is certainly confusing in part?"

Then they say: "The clean way to handle what is now a thoroughly messy affair would be to withdraw the bill, not to embark upon a time-killing showcase of review, as some opponents have suggested, but to fix it so what the Legislatures sees is what it actually gets. Surely this would be no more an admission of hasty amateurism than is already on the record."

In the light of these examples, Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder that the people of British Columbia are upset and alarmed? They resent the implications from the Members opposite that they are simply hysterical. Mr. Speaker, as Members of the official Opposition, we consider it our duty to tell the people of British Columbia what Members opposite are really up to.

It has nothing to do with farm preservation, greenbelt preservation, parkland preservation, landbank preservation. The Members opposite have already shown the people of this province, in using section 6 of the Environment and Land Use Act, that once they see a power conferred in the statutes they will use that power, regardless of its stated or original intent before this Legislature.

Section 6 of the Environment and Land Use Act was designed to permit the government to move in on catastrophic environmental problems which faced the

[ Page 1684 ]

community. Yet in two successive orders-in-council the Members opposite have chosen to use it for a freeze order, which even the Premier admits is undesirable and which has, in fact, as the Minister of Agriculture knows very well, created more problems than it has solved.

The Government, Mr. Speaker, cannot be trusted with executive powers conferred in this statute. They whine that the people of British Columbia should trust them. With an Act such as Bill 42, it would be like putting a cat in a cage with a canary. Their intent is far too evident throughout all of the bills before this Legislature to trust them with any widespread power. That is why, Mr. Speaker, the Members of this Opposition will stand proudly, not against the preservation of farmland or the preservation of greenbelts; not against the preservation of parkland; but against the most reprehensible, admittedly ill-conceived, badly structured, subject to amendment, smoke-screened, camouflaged, badly-handled legislative proposal ever presented to a free Canadian parliament.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, when we stand in opposition to this bill, we will express amazement on the part of tens of thousands of people in this province who have watched the passage of this bill through this House with growing concern at the absolute lack of sensitivity on the part of the Members opposite. They have abused people who have voiced their opinions on the shortcomings of this bill in an unprecedented manner. They have said that they were listening, but they have done nothing to merit any confidence that they were.

Never before in the history of our British Columbia Legislature has a government been so insensitive to public opinion. Hung up as they are in the rigidity of the socialist doctrine, they simply are incapable of understanding that the only place in British Columbia that they now have a majority is in this Legislature.

Before I sit down I want to state very clearly that I believe in free enterprise. I do not believe in socialism. I believe in free enterprise, with all its faults; that it is far superior to the system which is being proposed now.

If Bill 42 were the only bill, perhaps we could forgive the Government for its lack of experience. But this legislation on the floor of this House today is further proof of the real intent of this Government. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I recognize the next speaker, I'd just draw to the attention of the Hon. Member — I didn't want to interrupt your speech — but it has been drawn to the attention of the Hon. Members already that they have been requested not to read speeches nor to read major extracts necessarily.

I'll just quote you the words from May: "A Member is not permitted to read his speech, but may afresh his memory by reference to notes. The reading of speeches, which has been allowed in other deliberative assemblies, has never been recognized in either House of Parliament." This is concerning the British House of Parliament.

So it is requested that, insofar as is possible, Members speak extemporaneously, using notes rather than reading speeches.

I recognize the Hon. Member for North Vancouver–Capilano.

MR. D.M. BROUSSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Speaker, I must say that I find this kind of debate somewhat objectionable and not to my taste. In my personal experience as a businessman and an engineer, I don't think that the kind of filibustering debate that this House has gone through these many, many hours and days really is accomplishing very Much.

Mr. Speaker, I find that the principles concerned here are so important that I must participate personally, however briefly that may be. I can assure you that it will be very brief.

I've tried to summarize for myself what I consider are the major objections to Bill 42 from the comments that have been given to me in correspondence and the comments that I've heard in this House. I want to boil these down very quickly. They've all been mentioned before, but I think they have to be specified concisely again; at least for my own personal satisfaction in this case.

I find six of these, Mr. Speaker. First is the matter of the commission itself. It has no term of office except at pleasure, or no specified number of terms. Where is it to be appointed? Clearly it's going to be a very political organization and very, very close to the political cabinet of this province.

Second, Mr. Speaker, the commission is empowered to issue orders without public notice or public hearing.

Third, there is no appeal from those orders, except on a "question of law" or "excess of jurisdiction only," to quote the bill.

Fourth, there is no compensation for loss of value, regardless of any act of this commission. The leader of the Liberal Party this afternoon read the letter of the Minister in which he made it clear that originally he had intended to provide some compensation for loss of value but had been overruled by someone — whom, we don't know. The caucus? The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams)? The Premier? I don't know. But clearly, from an original intent that was good where he said that the Government envisaged the sale of the development value or a reasonable market price, the

[ Page 1685 ]

Government has changed its mind and there is no compensation whatsoever for loss of value.

Fifth, Mr. Speaker, I find that there is absolutely no contact, no co-operation, no coordination with local levels of government. Certainly I think there are many people in this House who have been on various local boards — trustees, aldermen, councils, that sort of thing. There is no level of government that is closer to the people. No commission in Victoria can ever be as close to the people as the local level of government. Yet there is no provision for any local association.

Sixth, Mr. Speaker, this bill, despite the protestations of various Members of the cabinet, does give complete power over any land anywhere in this Province of British Columbia. That is clearly true. If you don't believe it, read the bill carefully.

Those are the six points, Mr. Speaker, that I consider important. But those six reasons are not my only — in fact they're not my major concern. I think my major concern can best be exemplified by paragraphs from a couple of letters. There's one paragraph here from a letter that I think every MLA has received, but I think that paragraph is worthwhile reading because it comes from a gentleman who has written a good deal criticizing various governments:

"Some Members will recall I opposed some of the actions of the former administration for a similar reason. I will not condone the police-state tactics of socialism. There is absolutely nothing you can do to me that has not been tried before, from September, 1939 through to early 1945. I am not a person that willfully breaks laws; in fact quite to the contrary. But I will not tolerate the injustice of a minority dictating to a majority. What this Government is proposing by way of legislation is not the considered acts of people concerned with the future of this province but in my opinion the paltry acts of power-hungry politicians."

Now that was a public letter, Mr. Speaker.

I've got a letter here from which I'd like to read a paragraph. This was a private letter from a constituent in North Vancouver. A copy was sent to the Premier:

"I have worked steadily for the last 25 years as a manufacturer's agent, paid my taxes and, along with my wife, done what we feel is a respectable job of raising three children. Yesterday was quite a momentous day in the life of my family. (I won't use the gentlemen's name). I went to the Land Registry Office in Vancouver and registered a discharge of mortgage on our home. This was something that I, and I'm sure every working citizen, considers a big moment in their lives. No one gave us what we have. We worked for the position we're in today, being able to say that we own that particular house on that particular piece of property. I always thought that this was one of our basic rights in a free society, to be able to reach the position of owning your own home and property. Am I incorrect in this? Under the Canadian Bill of Rights I think I am correct in assuming I have that right.

"As I understand the proposed Bill 42, there will now be a board set up which would have the right to designate my property as a greenbelt, part of a land bank or whatever. And should they do this I would not have any recourse should I disagree with their ruling.

"I heard Mr. Macdonald, the Attorney General of British Columbia, on the radio the other day and this was a real shocker. First of all it was obvious that he himself was not properly enough acquainted with the proposed bill to discuss it fully with Mr. Jack Webster who was interviewing."

And I was in the studio that morning, Mr. Speaker. I heard what the Attorney General had to say.

"This is not only disturbing, it's frightening to think that any Member of the Government in power, let alone the Attorney General, is not fully aware of the proposed legislation.

"A hypothetical case was presented to him on this basis during the radio interview: 'It is not true, Mr. Macdonald, that in theory the as yet to be appointed board could, according to the proposed bill, designate a piece of private property in the City of Vancouver with a home on it in any way that they saw fit; and having done that the owner of that property and home would have no recourse?'

"His answer was, 'Well, yes, that could happen. But it's absurd to think it would. Trust us, please.'

"Why should I trust the present Government or any future Government on the matter of my own hard-earned ownership of my property? This is a completely unfair and dictatorial attitude on the part of the Government."

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. BROUSSON: These are the exact words in this letter, Mr. Speaker.

I think this is my real concern. I sat for four years in this Legislature on the same side with all of the present Members of the cabinet. I stood and fought with them against the arrogance and the dictatorship. I heard them talk about one-man government; I stood with them on that. I stood with them when they criticized and attacked "government-by-order-incouncil." Now, Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by the spectacle of those same people in Government grabbing for all and complete power; a Government that says "trust us," "trust us."

[ Page 1686 ]

It's very clear, Mr. Speaker, that the old phrase is true: "Power corrupts." And I think one must be concerned about the rest of that same saying, Mr. Speaker, that: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I find this a very sad spectacle: The idealistic champions of the people from 1972 grabbing cynically for power in 1973.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I recognize the Hon. Member for Boundary-Similkameen.

MR. F.X. RICHTER (Boundary-Similkameen): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the last few days we have had the baring of souls and confessions as to who owns what and how much they owned of it. And a little historical background of how their acquisitions were made by their parents. As one Member in this House and a person who has been involved in agriculture from the time I was born and still very much involved in it in a personal way, yes, I own agricultural land. In fact I own two pieces of agricultural land. I am not going to tell you how many acres there are. I am assuming that I will have to do that under another piece of legislation in due course because I don't intend to run from such types of socialistic legislation as we have in the Land Commission Act.

I am going to say this: we have been talking about a farmland Act, we have been talking in various terms, but let's recognize the Act for what it is. It is a Land Commission Act.

When my parents came to this province back in 1864 and acquired property, there was little or no white population in the area in which they settled. My father pushed his way across the mountains, through the rivers and over the deserts to arrive here. He brought his worldly wealth with him on a pack horse and drove what few head of cattle he was able to acquire ahead of him by himself with no help.

This was the plight of the pioneer. He started out until he found land which he felt was suitable on which to settle. At that point he struck roots, developed land to feed his animals on, worked in whatever capacity he could to earn the dollars that he may have required either by trade or kind to exist on.

In due course, with development of the country, markets were developed, miners came in and so on — and this is the history of the beginning of agriculture in the Province of British Columbia. I know Vancouver Island was some years earlier. Certainly from the area which I represent, which is an agricultural area — no mistaking about that — many, many people suffered the hardships to acquire the land in their names, under indefeasible title, in fee simple.

This is what the people of this province, and when I say under the Land Commission Act, I mean all people whether they have two acres or below two acres or above two acres — it makes no difference, it's land. That is what the Land Commission Act is all about.

It has, I believe, four categories: the greenbelt, the land bank reserve, the agricultural reserve, the parkland reserve. There is no question about what the intent and principle of the bill is. It is there plain and clear; no one has to have any mystical explanation of the spirit and intent of the Act. It is written out in plain English and we can all understand it. I regret sincerely that so much emphasis is being indicated that it is a farmland Act. It is not a farmland Act; it covers all these other categories. The farmer is taking the brunt of it today and I think it is most regrettable that this is happening.

In speaking to the principle of this bill, I don't think anyone wants to see farmland broken up. I think that is understandable because over the course of years that I have been in government and connected with agricultural operation, I don't think at any time anyone has shown an indication that they want to subdivide land on a wholesale basis for other purposes than agriculture.

The present legislation that we have, if properly applied — and I think in most cases it has been properly applied — can do the very thing for agriculture which is being set up in the Land Commission Act as we see it and as it is written, amendments or no- amendments. I think that this could be done.

However, there is a controversy that develops here between various planners, various authorities, regional districts, municipalities, cities and so on, as to the best use. Now I don't think there is any one principle that can be applied in every case. A lot depends on the area, the conditions, the climatic effects, and certainly these have a bearing on a decision that any authority would make.

I think in most cases the local authorities have used good judgment. I know there are cases where we sometimes question this and probably we question it because we don't know the particular merits. I pointed out when I spoke in the throne and budget debates, the responsibility that must be shown in relation to the administration of powers that are written into legislation and possibly beyond the intent and spirit of that legislation when it was written.

I refer to one particular section of an Act in which the orders-in-council…

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Could we have a little more quiet, please.

MR. RICHTER: …were predicated. This authority was never intended to be used on an everyday administrative basis. It was to be used in

[ Page 1687 ]

particular cases. I feel that we are seeing now the evidence of the use of this particular authority, whether it is by order-in-council or otherwise. Orders-in-council are only predicated on existing statute authority. They are not predicated on matters of fictitious nature. They must have an authority, or they can be challenged. I don't think there is any thought that orders-in-council are all that bad when they are written in their proper form and with the proper legislative authority.

This new Act, this Land Commission Act, which has hurt so many people, has concerned people gravely because they feel they are losing that which they hold most dear — the right to own land, the right to deal with that land as they see fit.

Now who in this House is opposing the preservation of good farmland. If this were the question, the vote would be unanimously in favour. The question is obvious — the method being employed is the real problem. This is completely foreign to anyone's previous knowledge. It is a true revelation of the socialist philosophy by legislation rather than by setting out their philosophy in a policy form — which didn't occur in the throne debate nor did it occur in the budget debate where it said, "Wait for the legislation."

I think the people of this province were more shocked by the revelation of the socialist philosophy by legislation than anything that has happened in their time excepting those people who have lived under that philosophy in other countries and have chosen British Columbia as their new and adopted land.

They have spoken out vehemently in this respect — particularly people who have come in recent years who have seen the devastation that occurred in the countries from which they emigrated. I would fervently hope that they will not and I would certainly encourage them not to take any violent actions. This is not required. There is a democratic process.

I hope the Government recognizes the fact that the democratic process is the method in which we can bring about an acceptable policy, acceptable legislation for the preservation of farmland.

The other matters that are dealt with in this Act — the greenbelt, the land bank, the parks requirements — I don't think they should be in an agricultural farmland bill. I think they should be dealt with in their own particular way, because you're talking about land that is not farmland in these other categories. I feel that the agricultural land of this province is important enough to be dealt with by a separate provision.

We are given to understand by the Hon. Minister Agriculture that this is only the beginning and that it's not tough enough. We know that there are provisions within the bill which will certainly deflate the value of farmland. We know that there are provisions within the bill that will not compensate for that devaluation. That is obvious. There is no question about that. I don't think that is denied.

The Land Commission Act in no way confines its powers to farmland. Only this morning, while I was on my way into the buildings, a gentleman said to me, "What can we do? My wife has never been politically inclined. She has never interested herself to any depth in the legislative process." They own 2 1/2 acres. But he said, "My wife is so upset over this legislation that she can't sleep at nights."

AN HON. MEMBER: Well who upset her?

MR. RICHTER: Who upset her? The terms of the Act, my friend. If you haven't read the Act I would suggest that the Hon. Minister do it right away.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member please address the Chair?

MR. RICHTER: I'd be very happy to, Mr. Chairman. I would hope that the Members from the other side of the House would equally do so. I intend to observe the rules of this House, but if the Members wish to harp across the floor at me, then that's their prerogative. I judge them on the basis of their utterances.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Where's your leader?

MR. RICHTER: Well now, I'll tell you, we're really not dealing with the leadership today. We're dealing with Bill 42 — just the same place as a little while ago when there was only five Members on that side of the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.

MR. RICHTER: There are only five Members on that side of the House. You're very fortunate you've been able to retrench and bring your people in.

HON. MR. BARRETT: They're all listening to you are they, Frank?

MR. RICHTER: I would hope you would be. If you aren't I am just talking to hear myself chatter.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's right, because there's nobody on your side.

MR. RICHTER: I don't have to convince this side of the House, Mr. Premier. I have to convince that side of the House. And a lot of you have been convinced by your constituents, excepting you don't want to admit the facts.

[ Page 1688 ]

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. RICHTER: Such remarks from the Premier are unbecoming, I would say, for a person holding a position of that stature. But if he wants to play his little games I am quite prepared to let him have his say.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Thank you.

MR. RICHTER: You're entirely welcome. Any time. Just call on me.

Under the provisions of this Land Commission Act, Mr. Speaker, farmland or any of the various categories that it will establish can undergo a great devaluation in the value of the property because the commission will have to make a property completely unviable as far as producing revenue is concerned or even to pay its taxes. I know this can happen, and this has happened.

But the converse can also happen by the fact that by eliminating through these categories the possibility for properties for continued accommodation — agricultural land or not, it makes no difference — it can create an inflationary spiral. It has in the Okanagan, in the Fraser Valley and here on the island. We know this. There's no question about it. This is a fact.

What we are doing is making it extremely difficult to maintain agricultural land. This is the whole question. If you are intent — and I am sure you are as I am intent — on preserving farmland, then it must be made viable. There must be methods in which the farmer can receive a return from his production from that land to pay his taxes, to be able to seek out markets and to be able to continue on in farming and bring his sons and daughters along into this particular and very, very respected field — the agricultural industry.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair]

  But unless some provision is made for this to happen, nobody will want farmland. You will be able to drive the farmer off the land, but you won't be able to drive him back — except in one particular way which I'll mention a little later.

This bill would be absolutely nonsensical to bring in, and there would have been nothing to promote it if we had a viable farm industry producing a return commensurate with the other walks of life — the professions or even legislators, if you can call that a profession — the construction industry, any of the industries. You will find each and every one of them has a greater remuneration back to those who are applying themselves to their trades, their labours, whatever it happens to be, than what the farmer is. The farmer could not continue to go on.

If he could, and if he got something even nearly commensurate with the other walks of life, you would have no need for this bill whatsoever. Nobody would have farmland to sell. Because another farmer would be right there the next day to pick it up if there were circumstance in which the farmer became incapacitated in some way, either by age or so on, through physical disability, unable to carry on and decided — or even if he moved from his area to a warmer climate — somebody would be there ready to buy that farmland for farming purposes.

Now there's nothing wrong with that. That is what we're hoping to do. I'll have a recommendation along this line, because the Minister of Agriculture has said that there is no input, no particular recommendations coming forward. I'll make a recommendation in due course.

The criteria for the viability of a farm are determined by various means — the capabilities of the land; and when we're talking about the capabilities of the land we're talking about the fertility, the availability of water, the markets in which the produce can be sold, the particular type of crop being grown.

The location of the land is extremely important. There are some areas in British Columbia that are even questionable as far as grain growing is concerned. There are other areas that can grow fruit that is not grown in any other part of Canada, namely apricots. But at the same time, because they're not grown in any other part of Canada, that doesn't create a criterion of price. Most of the apricot orchards have been taken out because of lack of price.

This shouldn't be. We shouldn't have to import this type of fruit into the province when we can grow it as well as we can.

If we have an environment within the province for a particular crop — let us use for example grapes. The improved hybrid varieties of grapes are doing exceeding well in the Okanagan Valley.

There are other parts of the province that have not too dissimilar a climate as far as the warmth is concerned. Certainly grapes can be grown and propagated here on Vancouver Island. But as far as end product is concerned, you can't consistently get the sugar content. This is where the environment in which the production has to exist plays an extremely important part.

We can have the best farmland in the country, but they don't produce, probably, a particular crop. Maybe we have an overproduction of potatoes because of environmental conditions — so we see the farmers feeding potatoes by the ton to their dairy cattle. They can't afford to feed potatoes to livestock at the cost of producing potatoes today. This is just not possible.

Markets are an extremely important area in that

[ Page 1689 ]

markets must be sought out. They must be maintained and they must be jealously guarded. I notice the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Nimsick) looking in my direction. There's no one who should know this better than the Minister of Mines. His particular field of interest today is the market for minerals and mineral wealth.

What is the main criterion here? The main criterion is the individual. He is the most important part of making a farm viable. No matter what the land might be; no matter what the environment might be; no matter what the capabilities of the land might be; the individual is the main drive in creating a viable farm.

I think it's been mentioned here before that one farmer can take a piece of land and make it produce to no end. The horn of plenty would be filled. Another farmer with less ability — maybe with as much technical knowledge but not as much practical knowledge — may not make that farm produce enough to pay its taxes.

This has happened in many, many cases. These are the areas in which you find land available for subdivision. It is the unsuccessful farmer who has lacked the ability to do what is necessary to make his land carry himself and produce the revenue for the needs of his family. I don't say that all farmers are unsuccessful and I don't say that all farmers have been unsuccessful because of their ability. But, generally speaking, if any good farmland is available for subdivision, it is because of the fact that the farmer has not been able to make his way commensurate with other forms of endeavour.

I know of one particular farmer who started out. He had an academic degree. He started out on a particular venture in agriculture. Surprisingly enough — and I don't say because he didn't have the necessary academic knowledge — his farm failed. When his farm failed, he had to look to some other endeavour. Chartered accounting or even just a general accounting position paid a whole lot more than farming in his particular case. I commend him for seeking out his niche in life. I'm sure that he has been successful in his second choice. There's nothing wrong in that.

Certainly while I have been less successful in my second choice than I was in my first, my first choice was farming. I enjoyed it and I succeeded. I didn't become wealthy but I made a good living and I raised a family. My second choice, when I got into politics, I can't say was quite so enjoyable. I can't say I was quite so successful. But when I make my third choice, then I hope to be able to at least say I've run the gauntlet.

I thought that I would go into collective farming because that's virtually where we're being forced. I thought that I would probably seek out a managerial position with the Minister of Agriculture. When he has driven all these farmers off the land, he's going to have to regiment some back onto the land. With my past success as a farmer, probably I could be successful in encouraging these people to work better than those other countries who have not been able to achieve this same success.

AN HON. MEMBER: One of those five commissioners?

MR. RICHTER: Well, I wasn't looking so much for a commission of any nature. I was thinking of probably being appointed to a commissar's position or something of that nature. I want some authority.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: Well, no. I tell you my friend, there's one farmer who went into chartered accountancy and he didn't have to look back. Maybe farmers having such a very difficult role to make both ends meet might make awfully good chartered accountants. I think that this is an area in which some of them could look. Unfortunately, many of them are worn out to the degree that they're going to have to look for other governmental benefits.

I have searched through the Act for a very considerable length of time now, and I have not yet discovered any indication of government policies or any sections in the Act that will enhance the farmers' income. I know that this was a matter in which the Minister of Agriculture made a point recently at a place where I happened to be at the same time.

The Minister stated quite emphatically that the purpose of the Act was to preserve farmland and to make agriculture more viable for the farmer. I think I commended the Minister for this in an earlier speech. I'm still waiting patiently for the Minister to reveal to me how he intends to accomplish this point.

In this day and age, in this competitive world — and let's recognize the fact that we have to compete on world markets — it is obvious to me that a great deal more research and input must be given towards making agriculture viable. I don't lay this entirely at the feet of our own Minister of Agriculture. I have gone through the ropes on that same issue as a Minister of Agriculture in this province. I found it extremely difficult to get the co-operation of those who have the authority in higher places, namely the federal government, to co-operate in some form of preserving some of our markets for our own people, in light of the high costs that we encounter in the production of agricultural products in British Columbia.

[ Page 1690 ]

It's not an easy matter. There are world authorities and world agreements under GATT and other programmes which make it virtually impossible for a provincial Minister to bring about such measures. Certainly, as I intimated earlier, I don't think there's a Minister of Agriculture from across Canada who disagreed with the approach made to the federal government in the last two years, all on the basis of hoping to preserve agricultural production in Canada.

British Columbia is an area in which, for a number of reasons, agriculture has developed over the years in specialty areas such as fruits, vegetables and seasonal products, which find themselves in a position of difficult competition when products are coming in from all over the world and can be produced for many months on end, over and above what we can do here in British Columbia. A prime example is the production of field tomatoes, which have a very short period of growth. It's something like from July to the first week in September. We're expected to produce all we require, which is virtually impossible, to attempt to be able to have fresh tomatoes over a longer period of time.

There are some ways and means of production which are giving us interim supplies, but certainly not continuous supplies.

I know without question that this House is extremely interested in proposed amendments. We have had submission after submission from various throughout the province, all making certain recommendations which we have not been able to see on the order paper yet. I hope that some of them will be acceptable to the Minister. Certainly, a great deal of this debate may have been cut down if those recommendations, those amendments, that he and his Government have proposed to accept or promote, could have been put forward.

Certainly, we can only debate at this time the spirit and intent of the provisions of the land commission bill as they are presently written. The public has voiced voiced their opposition to it. They have voiced it most vehemently. They are not prepared to accept it. The protest is coming from far and wide.

The Press has indicated quite clearly, and the Minister — I was on a programme with him — in defining the legislation as we saw it and interpreted it, as it was written… Even at that time, the Minister had some hesitation in his mind as to the appeal sections; certainly he has had statements in relation to the compensation. But there seems to be so much feedback from so many of the Government cabinet Ministers which has a variance and is not consistent with the interpretations that have been placed on the legislation by the Hon. Minister who introduced it.

I don't think that we are helping the public when not getting to understand the intent and purpose of this bill, or the spirit as it should be enunciated — if we could get a clear, defined interpretation, certainly in that way, at least everybody would be getting the same story. I don't think anybody has the same story today. I don't think anybody really has had clearly defined, by the Minister, just how far the Government is prepared to go in this form of socialistic legislation.

We're getting it progressively, but we must grab other bills in which we start to see a pattern developing; a pattern of socialistic state control. I know the intent, while not explained, is for the Government to control all the land. Anyway there's only five or six per cent that they don't control now. But of that five or six per cent, the right to ownership is jealously guarded and I know that people are attempting to convey to the Government their concern for that right.

Many, many articles have been written. Many, many of them have been brought to the attention of this House. I don't think there has ever been in the history of this province, a piece of legislation that has caused so much concern — genuine concern — in the minds of the people. Not only from the point of view of the man on the street, but also as far as the various administrations are concerned, whether it be regional district, municipality or whether it happens to be a city.

No one today, under the terms of the two orders in council — order-in-council 4483, written in 1972 on December 21, and effective as of that date, and retroactive until December 10; also Bill 157 as of January 18 — these two orders-in-council have created extreme concern in the minds of the various local authorities. They have been completely crushed as far as their power of administration is concerned. It has held back a great deal of decision-making in relation to matters that — because of the indefinite way in which they feel the Land Commission Act is going to undertake their authority, that they have hesitated in making decisions.

They have hesitated in moving forward in the particular field that is affected by this Act. This is a delay which is going to create an extreme backlog for the commission to deal with when the commission is set up. The sooner the shackles can be taken from the arms of the local authorities to deal with matters that can be dealt with in view of this legislation, the better it will be for them. Then they can get on with the business that they have at hand, and they can clear away some of the backlog that will be undoubtedly piling up as time goes on.

On March 9, in Victoria, our Premier told his Government backbenchers that they must get out and sell the idea — explain the controversial legislation. This must have been giving our Premier some concern. The concern, mainly the fact that he had hoped that his backbenchers could explain to the

[ Page 1691 ]

people the content of the Land Commission Act or Bill 42, better than what the Ministers who wrote the bill have been able to do up to this time.

Certainly, the Minister of Agriculture has attempted to. The Attorney General has attempted to explain the intent and purpose and the definitions that are spelled out in the Act. This has not been successful, so it has given some concern to the Premier in asking his backbenchers to get out and spread the good word. Let me tell you, no good word has been spread to date from the backbenchers. In fact, they have received rather regrettable attention from some areas and have received certain, let us say, "unbecoming" tactics that were used.

Now then, as I mentioned earlier, Bill 42 has no provisions for preservation of farmland from erosion, such as has been suggested by the Hon. Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Strachan) in a crossfire that occurred here a few days ago because the Minister said that they were spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a particular river to create dykes to preserve the land from being hard topped. That's not true whatsoever.

AN HON. MEMBER: Eroding the democratic process.

MR. RICHTER: That's for sure. The main reason for the dykes is the same as in the Fraser Valley, to preserve the agricultural land. I commend the Minister for spending the money. It has been spent in the past.

As I recall, it was through my intercession on behalf of agriculture, villages, et cetera, that a fund was set up under the Department of Lands, Forests and Water Resources, in which a participation by way of formula by the government department and the individual, dykes could be created. But certainly the inference that was left that this dyking was done to keep the land from being hardtopped. It was to keep the land from being eroded away by the high water and the flood conditions. I thank the Minister for undertaking this programme. It was sorely needed and he recognized the fact. He is preparing, as noted in the Votes and Proceedings, a question I asked him previously as to when this was going to happen. His answer was, "As soon as the weather permits" — and it is occurring. This is right.

If we are going to preserve farmland, certainly we must preserve it from being eroded. But there's no mention in the bill in relation to that; nor did it have any substance as to creating subdivision.

Now I know that a great number of submissions have come in from the British Columbia Egg Producers, the British Columbia Grapegrowers' Association, the British Columbia Cattlemen's Association, the Fruitgrowers' Association — you name it, we've had it, as far as their reaction to Bill 42… or the Land Commission Act, as it should more properly be called. And the Union of B.C. Municipalities.

Just recently, on February 28, the B.C. Cattlemen's Association put forward certain recommendations. The B.C. Federation of Agriculture explain, in hopes that these Members will think beyond their noses and recognize in the City of Penticton have made submissions to the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer), because the price of their irrigation water is going to have some bearing on whether the land can be preserved for agriculture and whether they're going to be able to carry the load, as far as costs are concerned. These are all highly concerned organizations. Their membership

and election commitments."

This Government is well known for meeting some of its election commitments.

I hope that the Government is concerned, because without Government concern we are not going to get the type of legislation that we require and that will do the best job for the industry. I think it is abundantly clear that not only organizations of growers but people who are not growers have stated their cases loud and clear. They have met with caucus Members of the Government. They have met with the cabinet. They have taken every means that they know of to try to convince the Government of the folly of its ways.

Now I know that the Government Members have received opposition to the bill from their constituencies. I have a few letters here — not many, but a few. Surprisingly enough, the number of letters in favour of the bill is practically nil. They're all in opposition to Bill 42. I'd just like to read one here, in which they enclosed a copy of a letter they wrote to their MLAs. this is March 13:

"Dear Mr. Richter:

"For your information I am enclosing a copy of a letter that I wrote on March 12, 1973 to the Hon. Norman Levi and Ms. Rosemary Brown, who are the MLAs representing Vancouver- Burrard constituency."

The letter enclosed was addressed to "The Hon. Norman Levi, MLA, and Mrs. Rosemary Brown, MLA":

"Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Dear Mr. Levi: Re Bill 42: This letter comes to you from one of your constituents in the provincial riding of Vancouver-Burrard. It is my understanding that as one of the MLAs of the riding where I live, you are supposed to represent me in the provincial Legislature. Therefore I am writing to you regarding the above-captioned bill introduced by your government.

"I would like to make clear to you that I am

[ Page 1692 ]

opposed to this bill and I hereby request your government to withdraw this bill. I want to say also that I think the government should make a thorough study of the entire question of zoning and use of land in co-operation with civic and municipal authorities throughout the province before introducing legislation regarding this important matter.

"I also feel that in order to provide for the continuation of farming as a way of life in British Columbia, the government should provide appropriate incentives for farmers rather than restrict their freedom to deal with their property.

"As my representative I request you to do everything possible to have Bill 42 withdrawn, to have a thorough study made of this entire subject and to have a new, more appropriate bill introduced at a later time — a bill which will give the required protection to the personal rights in our province. I would like you to know that if you vote for this bill I will not only not vote for you at the next provincial election in B.C. but I will campaign actively for your defeat as an MLA.

"Yours sincerely, "

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that Bert Price?

MR. RICHTER: No. Unfortunately it's not Bert Price. I haven't the authority to name the person, Undoubtedly the Minister can very well acquaint you with the content of the letter, which was directed personally to himself and to his constituency colleague.

AN HON. MEMBER: Will you table it?

MR. RICHTER: I have no objection to tabling it if the individual is quite prepared to allow me to do that. There is nothing secretive about it. It's merely a copy sent to myself. I think other Members have read letters and not been requested to give the author. I have letters here from my own constituency of Penticton in which the individual states very clearly that under the ARDA provisions they are sewed in for 20 years, under the provisions of that particular Act, and the fact that they exist under an ARDA agreement and the fact that they are not, by the provisions of Bill 42, the Land Commission Act, able to subdivide their homes out. So they must be relegated to apartment life when they have been used to living in a rural atmosphere. Their latter years must be spent in an apartment building, completely unorthodox as far as their former life is concerned. There they remain to vegetate in their latter years.

We have had letters from regional districts because of the fear that they have as to what the local authority will be faced with in the course of their administration. I mentioned that earlier. We have had the Canadian League of Rights, who sent an open letter, and undoubtedly I have seen some of the production that was within that letter exhibited around in the hands of Government Members, condemning it. This is their own opinion. But I do believe in the rights of the individual, freedom of choice and the right to own property.

Our Minister of Agriculture has received letters from various places, copies of which have been forwarded to us. We have editorials written, surprisingly enough, not by farmers but by school teachers, in which they condemn and spell out by sections — because of the fact that we're speaking to the principle of the bill I'm not going to read this. It goes into specific sections and it would not be within the purview of myself at this point to deal with particular sections.

Our Premier has received letters from organizations and institutes, even to the degree that certain churches have intervened.

AN HON. MEMBER: Read that into the record.

MR. RICHTER: It was read the other day. I don't think we need to read it again.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: Would you like me to read the whole thing or just that part in which…

HON. MR. BARRETT: Read it all.

MR. RICHTER: Seeing the Premier is so enthralled with my ability to read, I'll read it out to you.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: Oh, yes. I did learn to read. I went to school one day when my brother was sick. (Laughter).

March 19, 1973.

Hon. David Barrett,
            Premier of British Columbia,
            Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Dear Mr. Barrett:

"The following resolution was passed at the spring executive meeting of the B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada, Thursday, March 15, with 49 persons present from all over the province.

"Resolution — Bill 42, Land Commission Act:

The British Columbia Conference of the United Church of Canada supports the principle of integrated land use by the provincial government as set

[ Page 1693 ]

out in the objectives of Bill 42, section…. ."

but I regret, Mr. Speaker, I have to mention a section. It says, "section 7 (a) to (h) inclusive." I know that that's not permitted but you have been tolerant and let me get away with it on this occasion.

"As Christians, we believe that all land is held in trust as God's gift and the individual rights to the use of land must be balanced more equitably by the present and future needs of all than has been the case in the past. Out of our concern for individuals, particularly those on family farms affected by implementation of the object of Bill 42, we encourage the Legislative Assembly to review the succeeding parts of this bill in order to ensure (a) it clearly it excludes the right of expropriation under this bill;…"

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: Fine. I told you I was going to have something to offer.

"…(b) it is altered to include adequate appeal procedures, which are not in the bill; (c) it includes the possibility of compensation in cases of hardship.

"We commend to your attention the fact sheet and observations and recommendations as compiled by the B.C. Environmental Council, the Vancouver Natural History Society and the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists, B.C. chapter, and we encourage such efforts toward an atmosphere of constructive discussion."

I have letters here from Surrey.

MR. CHABOT: Who's the MLA?

MR. RICHTER: I don't think the MLA is in the House at the moment. However, we realize that he is probably out for a minute.

I have letters here from Kamloops.

Interjection from an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: No, this doesn't happen to be a Member who has previously sat in this House. This happens to be a Mr. and a Mrs. who are highly concerned and wish to register their protest.

We have letters from Courtenay — letters to the Premier. We have numerous letters from Vancouver. We have letters from the Okanagan Valley — from the Oliver area. More letters from Chestnut Street in Vancouver; from Aldergrove; from West Vancouver; Penticton; even from the little village of Cawston where I was brought up; from Powell River; more from Cawston; more from Penticton.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Any from Quesnel?

MR. RICHTER: Yes, I have one or two from Quesnel. Also from the area of Sicamous — I don't know just exactly who represents that area.

MR. CHABOT: It's one of the tired roosters. (Laughter).

MR. RICHTER: Either that or the duck. I don't know which it is. We have letters here from Richmond.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: No, unfortunately, he's quite a prominent farmer within the area. He's written to the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams). He's also written to the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) and actually to the Premier. He is that concerned.

From Penticton — I don't know who represents that area but I have a number of letters here from Princeton. I have some here from Prince George. I also have one from Big Lake. I do know who represents that area. From Richmond again. I have wires here from Nelson, B.C. I don't know who represents Nelson, just out of the corner of my eye. If there wasn't a smile there I wouldn't have known. South Burnaby — I don't know who represents South Burnaby, but I have two letters here from South Burnaby. From Delta; another one here from Delta; and from White Rock. I have some here from Maple Ridge. Oh, the Member for Maple Ridge is not here. That's too bad. From Whonock; Maple Ridge again; Richmond.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. RICHTER: More from Richmond; North Burnaby; Mt. Lehman; Mt. Lehman again. Even from Mayne Island. Vancouver; Richmond. More letters here again from Delta. Even Southeast Marine Drive in Vancouver. From Rutland; Fulford Harbour — you name it, I've got it here. Whonock again.

So there is a distinct and widespread concern, not because of the preservation of farmland but because of the method which the Government is intending to bring in the bill and the way in which the bill is written is entirely unacceptable to the people of the province, farmers or otherwise, and should be reconsidered and should be withdrawn. I'm sure you could come up with a bill which would certainly suffice to a much better degree, as far as your objectives are concerned, without going into this type of legislation.

Now the Minister of Agriculture has stated emphatically and clearly that there is nothing in this bill that doesn't exist in existing legislation. So I ask: if you have this legislative power, why do we need Bill 42 in any form? Why do we need Bill 42? You have

[ Page 1694 ]

accused the previous government of not using their legislative powers as they are drafted and now exist in the statutes. If they were not, you use them as you think they should have been, without having Bill 42. Withdraw Bill 42. In this way, you would at least be able to get on with your legislative process.

You'll get on with it anyway, even if you have to employ the steamroller tactics of big government. You have always accused people in the past of having big government, that is, the government of the day. Let me tell you, you're just as big as far as numbers are concerned as that government ever was. I only regret that you aren't as big in your policies.

You have asked for the recommendation of amendments. We know that the Government has no intention of not using its powers of numbers to put this legislation through. We have not seen any amendments exposed to us by the Government as they would recommend or as were recommended to the Government by any organization.

I know perfectly well the recommendations that have been made by various organizations. I don't think the amendment of the bill is going to make it any more palatable or any more workable. But at least give the Members of the House the opportunity to at least study the amendments if you do in fact intend to introduce amendments. Or can we expect to go through second reading, have a vote, record a decision and then find no amendments are going to come forward.

We have heard this phrase, it is becoming a bit threadbare and shop-worn at this time, but "trust us"…

MR. CHABOT: He'll never use that again.

MR. RICHTER: "Trust us." Prove the point.

AN HON. MEMBER: Down the drain, one time only.

MR. RICHTER: Let us see what the amendments are so that we know we can trust you.

You know, there was a day in which I operated a little butcher shop and I had a little verse up on the wall.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. RICHTER: No, I ground it. It was all bologna; that's all they could buy at that time and the hamburger was too high priced.

This little verse said: "Since man to man is so unjust, we do not know which one to trust. We trusted many to our sorrow; you pay today, we'll trust tomorrow."

Now, we would like to be able to have the Government very plainly just tell us what your proposed amendments are. It wouldn't be hard. I know the Minister… Oh, he's having a little sleep right now. I'm sorry, I knocked the paper out of his hand. But I know he wants to, if his Premier and his other cabinet Ministers will let him. He is just over-anxious to tell us what these amendments are going to be. He can hardly wait. And we can hardly wait to hear them. It may be a great revelation. We may all be hilarious. Just give us a chance, Mr. Minister, Mr. Premier, just give us a chance to see the amendments. That's all we want so that we can properly adjudicate what this is.

Now, we have been accused on this side of the House, in particular the Official Opposition, that we are not prepared to advance amendments. I'm not thinking in terms of attempting to amend the present Act, but I do know that I am going to recommend to the Minister and to the Premier how farmland can be preserved if this is the main thrust.

AN HON. MEMBER: It isn't.

MR. RICHTER: If this is the main thrust, this is how it can be preserved — by way of a formula it can be projected in this form: that the government would have first refusal of any farmland that might be coming available for disposition in light of the category in which it would fit as arable farmland whether it is one, two, three or four in land status; and the government be given the first refusal at the price of land prior to the order in council No. 4483 of December 21, 1972. The first refusal.

If the government feels that it is too high…we know that there are no arbitrary powers within this Act. There is no way in which you can go to arbitration. You can't appeal this Land Commission Act. If they really and truly are intent on preserving that land they can acquire it in the same way as it was done under the Green Belt Protection Fund Act. It could only be used for those types of endeavours which were dictated once the land came in the possession of the Government.

Now, how do you set this valuation? We know through the capital gains tax we were required to do certain things. We were required — not to the degree that the federal government would accept them — but we had to have an evaluation day and it cost us a considerable amount of money. I think in my own particular case it cost me $100 to get an evaluation.

I knew that the federal government wouldn't necessarily have to accept it, but it had to be done by a certain qualified person, the same as our assessors are today. They would have to be qualified in the field of assessment. This would establish your price as of evaluation day. We know that certain escalation has taken place but it is modest compared to what it could have been.

I would suggest the Government give very serious

[ Page 1695 ]

consideration to this type of a formula in which they could achieve the objective they have in mind and not hurt the farmer or his family. Certainly as far as the former government is concerned and the present Official Opposition, we are entirely in favour of the preservation of farmland. Certainly it would have to be in a method that would not be injurious to the farmer or his family.

This is where the whole situation as far as farming is concerned today, the farming industry, the agricultural industry — the whole concern is the fact that the power that will be vested in this commission, the whole general makeup of the commission, gives them no assurance that they are going to get fair value for their property.

They have to think in terms of what they have done over the years in building up a farm, the real purpose for their retirement, for the continuation of farming. In the event that they have no one to pass it on to then they must dispose of it. All they want to be assured of is that they will get a fair price for that land rather than having its status as one of the other categories so that it would have no viability as far as production is concerned. It would mean then that this land must be sold in any one of the other three categories other than farmland which could deflate the value very, very substantially.

I have not covered a great deal of area. I haven't gone into a long and lengthy debate. Certainly my greatest concern is for the agricultural industry for the people on the land. Certainly I want to stay on the land. I want it to be possible for me to stay on the land.

I'm not going to deal with my own personal operations here on the island but I can assure you that they are a long ways from viable as far as viability is concerned of the land maintaining itself. Other people have found themselves in exactly the same category.

We can't have these people moved off their land for the sake of not being able to make it economically productive; so that they can stay there so the land can be sought after for further agricultural use and in this way achieve the objective of the land use commission and Bill 42. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity of participating in this debate. I look forward to the continuation of the debate after I have spoken.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No, I have not spoken on this bill.

Interjections by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's right, I spoke on the radio, I didn't get the opportunity in the House as a great deal of time was being taken up by other Members. Something to do with a filibuster. I thought he was on the radio station up in Kamloops.

I do want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I noticed that the Opposition is beginning to waver a bit on this bill. I notice now, as the public catches up with the fact that they have used nothing but hysteria in the debate and the public is gathering the substance of the bill, that now they are becoming conciliatory.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, yes. I even notice they have shortened their speeches because the content now is part of their responsibility, and since there is an absence of content their speeches are much shorter. The Member for Boundary-Similkameen (Mr. Richter) even got a letter from his own constituents, he says. I'll bet that's the first one he's read in a long time.

I remember when they were in government over here and they used to get letters from their constituencies, they never paid any attention to them. The former Premier never answered a letter. He never got into any trouble.

The one thing that I enjoyed was the Hon. Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom), an always enjoyable Member. He used to be sort of a backstop for us in the old days. Now he's substituting as a backstop for the Socreds. But he hasn't got much material to work with, so his backstopping hasn't been too adequate.

I wanted to review the Liberals' position on this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: A foul ball.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Foul ball, that's right.

I find the Liberals are a very interesting group. The Liberal Party, you know, is really not a political party as such. It does not have any philosophy. The Liberal Party was once described as an "alliance for power." When it doesn't get power then it gets romantic.

We've seen the romance of the Liberal Party develop over these last few weeks and months.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'll come to that nonmember in a few moments, Mr. Speaker.

I want to go back to the Vancouver Sun, and the leader of the Liberal Party at that time — and I have to identify them by month, because they change so frequently…(laughter)…but it was in August and

[ Page 1696 ]

the leader at that time was the Hon. Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson), the man who got elected because a woman got punched. (Laughter). It's quite a political story.

Nonetheless he did make this statement when he was running for the high office of being a Member of this assembly. He said, on August 8, 1972, to the Vancouver Province — a paper that we have not threatened to take over; nor has it even been suggested in the question period that we were interested. But I want to say that…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: My pocket's empty.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: There's the Member for "Shoebanger" over there. He's back in the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Harvey Shoebanger.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Harvey Shoebanger.

AN HON. MEMBER: Harvey Wallbanger.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, I keep on getting them… Well, when you've sat here this long, Mr. Member, you're bound to get the labels mixed up a bit.

"Anderson said, 'All political parties have talked about preserving farms but little action has been taken. Excluding the Peace River, the amount of agricultural land in this province is very small,' he said. 'It's a limited resource. Steps must be taken to preserve our farmland or we will be facing a critical situation in the next 10 or 20 years.' He said, 'The Social Credit government's greenbelt plan only benefits the cities by providing breathing space and does little to preserve farms outside cities.' Anderson said, 'Only 30 per cent of the land in the Okanagan is devoted to farm activities but 33 per cent has been alienated by paving and road allowance.' "

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Do you agree with that?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Certainly.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Now there is a very interesting comment from a Member whose voice is higher and whose rhetoric becomes more fancy as his reason leaves his own history and his own statements.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, Oh!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, may I refer to that Member's pleading speech a few nights ago demanding that this Government interfere in the rights of private property when it affected his constituents. They were going to be ousted out of a rental accommodation and he wanted the state to interfere with the right of the landlord to do with his property as he wanted. Shame on him! A free enterpriser demanding that the state interfere with the rights of private property, especially when it's in his constituency. You'd think he was being political. (Laughter).

After all, Mr. Speaker, that's what the whole debate around this bill has been. It's been political and very cheap politics at that.

There's no one in this whole province who is against preserving farmland. They're only against a Government that's going to do something to solve the problem. After all, if you solve the problem of political "motherhood," what is the next issue?

Mr. Speaker, I find also the Member who gave us a very solemn, a very quiet, a very thoughtful short speech this afternoon on protecting rights and obeying the law — Mr. Speaker, it was impressive. He's the same Member who's gone the length and breadth of this province saying, "Break the law," in terms of a treaty with the United States on the Skagit Valley. Oh, yeah! Signed a bona fide agreement with the provincially elected government. And he's the one that went around demanding that we break the treaty — "We don't want to flood the Skagit Valley." Isn't that an interference with private rights, when an arrangement was made between two governments and you find it convenient politically to jump on one side of the fence and have the government interfere? As this government had the guts to interfere and to cancel that treaty? No, Mr. Member, you find it very convenient when you want a government to interfere on the basis of land when it serves your political interpretation of this bill and the hysteria with that — not so much by you, because you've been goaded more by guilt. You have a memory of what you've written in your own platform. But the Conservative Party and that once-great Social Credit Party are in disgrace today over the way they've behaved over this bill.

We'll watch the Liberals — the great helping gang. Where are your amendments? Where are your positive suggestions? If you want to help farmland then put your case as the United Church has suggested by specific amendments on the order paper. Let them stand or fall on basis of reason rather than running around with your rhetoric. At least the Member for…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

[ Page 1697 ]

HON. MR. BARRETT: The amendments will be in. If you will read May you will notice that the debate on second reading of bills is in principle and that framing of a bill is a political matter, according to May, through you, Mr. Speaker. According to the rules of this House we will bring in our bills and we will let Opposition debate the bills and the amendments and they can vote for them or against them as they see fit.

I notice that that Member was looking for a way out today. He started skating. It's a good thing Karen Magnussen's coming home, because she's got a new threat — the new Toller Cranston of British Columbia. (Laughter). The Member for Boundary-Similkameen (Mr. Richter) pirouettes and salzmans and glissades — what's the other one? And he didn't even have a partner. And he was doing the double hump camel as well. (Laughter).

He said "maybe, maybe, maybe, if you brought in some amendments, maybe, maybe, maybe we'll vote for it." Boy, that's a change. The principle of the bill is to save farmland in this province and that's exactly what this Government intends to do. I predict this: regardless of how you vote, as I said on a radio station, when the next election comes, after four years of this administration, not one political party in this province, regardless of its label — SOS or Union Businessmen, or a conglomeration of those against socialists, or the Old McDonald's Farm singing crew or anything else — not one of them will get up on a public platform and say, "Vote for us and we'll eliminate this bill so that the speculators can get back on with the job."

Then there's the Conservative leader. Now he's an interesting fellow. He's not a Member here so he doesn't have to attend. Some of the ones who do have attend don't bother — but I'll come to him later. (Laughter). In a former era, he used to be the Member with the back to his seat; now he's the Member with the empty seat. And some of the very, very serious rabble-rousing statements made by the Conservative leader and by the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition have to be examined very, very carefully by those who have a commitment to the democratic process and the parliamentary system.

You know, Mr. Speaker, the Conservative leader went around. He even appeared on a platform with a well-known right-winger — some call him a Fascist — associated with the Canadian Intelligence Service. That particular meeting was whipped up by a hotline speaker. The group that hangs around with the Canadian Intelligence Service and their right wing cohorts are well known throughout Canada. I'm sure the Conservative leader would not want consciously to identify himself with that particular group. Nonetheless they were there.

The Conservative leader, after all of his rhetoric and attack on the bill did give a press conference in Prince George. He was quoted in the Vancouver Sun March 7, 1973, as follows: "Derril Warren to a Prince George Press conference: He admitted that he cannot offer a better alternative to the controversial land Act."

Warren said all parties agree that several critical land use areas, such as the south tip of Vancouver Island and the Okanagan Valley exist and that the land freeze should continue to apply to those areas. Warren suggested delaying the bill for six months to give him time to think about something. (Laughter). He's not even elected to this House. He needs six months to hang onto the Conservative leadership. That's the time that he's asking for, because we know that the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) has got his eye on that job. (Laughter). If the Member for Saanich and the Islands wants some competition in that ambition then he'll get it from the president of the B.C. Conservative Party, who almost won that seat in West Vancouver. But he didn't.

I want to read to you what another Tory said, and a very prominent Tory; a great British Columbian, a great jurist — not Gordon Gibson; he was never a Tory, he was a Liberal.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, let's not talk about our personal friendships. Mr. Gibson and I have shared very fond memories of this Legislature and some of the actions of the former dictatorial government.

I want to read the telegram I received in my office on March 16, 1973:

"DEAR MR. PREMIER:

"I THOROUGHLY SUPPORT ENACTMENT OF THE LAND COMMISSION ACT, AND CAN SEE NO REAL VALIDITY IN OBJECTIONS WHICH DEAL WITH DETAILED PROVISIONS NECESSARY FOR EFFICIENT OPERATIONS. ACT REASONABLY ADMINISTERED MOST IMPORTANT TO ALL OUR PEOPLE. AS COUNSEL FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA FRUITGROWERS' ASSOCIATION AND MARKETING ORGANIZATION IN THE OKANAGAN FOR OVER 15 YEARS I REMEMBER THAT YEAR AFTER YEAR GROWERS URGED LEGISLATION TO STOP LOSS OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TO DEVELOPERS.

"AS TO LOWER FRASER VALLEY, IN 1955 THE CLYNE COMMISSION REPORT ON MILK MARKETING PAGES 15 AND FOLLOWING WARNED OF SERIOUS DANGERS OF SUBDIVISION OF LAND IN MUNICIPALITIES OF RICHMOND, DELTA, SURREY AND LOWER FRASER VALLEY GENERALLY.

"YOU MAY USE THIS TELEGRAM AS YOU SEE FIT IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION COVERED BY BILL 42.

[ Page 1698 ]

"HON. T.G. NORRIS."

I think Mr. Norris reputation as a jurist is fairly good.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Don't put him up to that, Mr. Member. He says right in that telegram, "You may use this telegram as you see fit in support of the legislation…" Here is a leading Canadian jurist laying it right on the line, saying, "Go ahead and use the telegram." And you walk around this province, some of you lawyers, saying, "Oh — this is going to happen, and that is going to happen. This is going to happen, that is going to happen," ripping up the bill, putting on a real ham act, destroying government property by ripping up the bill. We know how irresponsible they've been; we saw them do it on television — the Queen's Printer's own material being destroyed by your hands. Shame, Mr. Member! (Laughter). No offence, Mr. Queen's Printer. We won't tell the Queen about his behaviour. (Laughter).

Oh, yes, and I wanted to say too that they say it's a foreign bill. Oh, the foreign bill from a government that's making up this east European country legislation. I just want to inform the House that the Queen doesn't seem to think so. I've been invited to Buckingham Palace on May 31 of this year, and I'll go!

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: She can hardly wait to see the legislation! (Laughter). Because in England they have had these kind of laws for years and that is why they have protected their rural areas. I really can't spend too much time…

AN HON. MEMBER: They have the right of appeal!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, peace, brother. You might as well enjoy it — you won't be around very long. I've had letters from Point Grey flowing into my office — all start off saying, "I am a Liberal voter, but don't back down on the bill, baby." Underneath they say, "Copies to our two ex-members, Dr. Pat McGeer and Garde Gardom." (Laughter).

But those are cruel letters, cruel letters, because the Liberal Party has fallen on hard times, and they were looking for an issue. But they know, as their noses twitch as they try to smell the political winds, that they've gone the wrong way on this bill. Oh, they went down from 19 per cent to 16 per cent They're dropping fast.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): 40 to 22.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, it's the old numbers game. We may have problems. But they can have theirs.

Well then we'll go on to the Social Credit Party, because they are the group that is trying for revival. Oh, I've waited for the leader to come back, the deputy leader, the deputy Premier. I've waited for him to come back, but he's not back yet, Mr. Speaker. The official Leader of the Opposition ain't around! He is the great respecter of this House. He is the one who says "Throw them out — O-U-T, N-O-W! The greatest two word speech he has made all session and all of it outside of this House. (Laughter).

Where is the official Leader of the Opposition? Once we got a telegram from Buenos Aires. Do you remember that one? We had more out of a telegram than we've had out of him in this House since. (Laughter). He came in once and asked a question. He fouled out and left — he was mad at the referee. And we haven't seen him since. Look at the kind of things that he was trying to deny. Why, Mr. Speaker, it's so exciting that I just don't want to share it all with you.

I want the Socreds to worry all supper hour about what I'm going to say. The Liberals are off the hook now. They can enjoy themselves. The Tories can go to the "Golden Arches" and have a hamburger. (Laughter). They are O.K. too.

But for those of you who come back, and there will only be a few, Mr. Speaker, because this bill has bothered them so much. It upset them so much at the height of when the Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) was speaking at a quarter to ten that night, she and one other of her partners was sitting over there and attacking me for not being in the debate while I was sitting in front of her. And they were all out of the House.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): What Oscar are you after?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Speaking of Oscars! (Laughter). Those awards tomorrow night are going to miss the greatest performance from South Peace River, because we saw it all.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Are you against the export of natural gas? Oh, that is another subject, I'm sorry. (Laughter).

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the debate.

MR. BROUSSON: Point of order. The Premier stated in his remarks just now, Mr. Speaker, what I had been going around the province urging the breaking of a treaty. I deny that statement, and I ask

[ Page 1699 ]

the Premier to withdraw the charge.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I would point out that your statement was accepted by the House without any question, and there is no need for anyone in that circumstance to withdraw.

I have a motion before me that the debate be adjourned until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Filing reports.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald files the annual report of the Consumer Affairs Officer up to December 31, 1972.

Hon. Mr. Levi files answers to questions.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:00 p.m.