[ Page 361 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral Questions

Shortage of natural gas. Mr. Wallace — 361

Department of Northern Affairs. Mr. Curtis — 363

Notification of bankruptcy. Mr. Gardom — 363

Oak Bay Avenue explosion. Mr. Wallace — 364

Forthcoming human rights legislation. Mr. McGeer — 364

Television broadcasting from the House. Mr. McClelland — 364

Companies Act. Mr. Gardom — 364

Seattle City Light. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 364

Veterinary Laboratories Act (Bill 31). Hon. Mr. Stupich.

Introduction and first reading — 365

An Act to Amend the Department of Health Services and Hospital Insurance Act (Bill 39). Hon. Mr. Cocke.

Introduction and first reading — 365

An Act to Limit Smoking in Public Places (Bill 42). Mr. McGeer.

Introduction and first reading — 365

Farm Income Assurance Act (Bill 9). Second reading.

Mr. G.H. Anderson — 365

Mrs. Jordan — 365

Mr. Lewis — 368

Mr. McClelland — 369

Mr. McGeer — 372

Mr. Schroeder — 374

Mr. Gardom — 375

Mr. Smith — 376

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 377

Mr. Richter — 379

Hon. Mr. Stupich — 380

Division on second reading — 385

An Act to Amend the Adoption Act (Bill 12). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Levi — 386

Mrs. Jordan — 388

Ms. Sanford — 389

Mrs. Webster — 390

Mr. Gardom — 391

Mr. Wallace — 391

Mr. McClelland — 391

Hon. Mr. Levi — 391

Beef Grading Act (Bill 6). Hon. Mr. Stupich.

Introduction and first reading I — 391

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a very important announcement to the House today. Seated on my left is the Premier of the Province and I'd like to announce that it is his birthday today.

I've forgotten how old he is. I don't know what he's aged in the last year, but maybe we can find out later. But I wanted to tell all the Members here — after you put it on the question paper, maybe he'll answer it — that you're all invited to the dining room today during your coffee break because there is a birthday cake for him. We'd be glad to have you join us.

MR. FX RICHTER (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, we here in the official opposition also want to extend our congratulations and good wishes to the Premier on this, his birthday. Now that he has reached maturity I'm sure that we're going to see an enlightened Premier, and we're going to enjoy the balance of this session, as long as it might be.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, we join in welcoming the Premier to whatever age he has. We understand that he is now just as old as he has inches around the waist — something in the mid 40's. (Laughter.)

AN HON. MEMBER: Nasty, nasty.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We're looking forward to his birthday party this afternoon with tremendous interest, because a strong rumour is coming from the backbench of the Liberal Party here, that this will be the inauguration of the licensed facilities in the dining room of the Legislature and champagne is to be served. But if this rumour is false, I trust that no one will tell us until we get there. We wish you well.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Conservative Party and I are very happy to extend birthday congratulations to the Premier. He doesn't look a day older than when he became Premier. I don't see any grey hairs yet, but I'm planning to try and cause a few to grow. (Laughter.)

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, we've had 30 seconds of sentimentality which I appreciate very much, As a gift to the people of British Columbia, I'd like to bring in a message from His Honour that outlaws the opposition. (Laughter.)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: You'd sure love that wouldn't you.

HON. MR. BARRETT: It's not a bad idea.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm afraid that the Speaker wouldn't read the message.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Ah!

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, I'm privileged to introduce another group of students from Reynolds Junior-Senior Secondary with us today, accompanied by Mrs. Plecas, Miss Brown and Mrs. Hadfield. This is the law class at Reynolds, and I would ask the House to join me in welcoming them.

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, in the Members' Gallery we have with us today Mr. Alistair McAskill, of that great railroad city of Revelstoke. Mr. McAskill is the local chairman for the United Transportation Union in that centre, and a member of their national negotiating committee. I would ask the House to extend a warm welcome to Mr. McAskill.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, we are also privileged to have as guests on the floor of the House today: Mr. Allen Engel, MLA; Mr. Donald MacDonald, MLA; Mr. Allen Oliver, MLA; and Mr. Hayden Owens, MLA, all from Saskatchewan on a parliamentary visit to our Legislature. And, in addition, representative Edward Rice from the State of Idaho is also a visitor on the floor of the House.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): On a point of order, are they all socialists? (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I think parliamentary visitations are not of one particular party label. And I assure you that they are of different labels.

Oral questions.

SHORTAGE OF NATURAL GAS

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, might I ask the Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), in light of a statement that was made in the press that he has met with the federal energy Minister, Mr. Donald Macdonald — and we've got two; these Donald Macdonalds are all over the place it seems these days. (Laughter.) Has he some useful information he could give the House as to the natural gas problems in the province?

[ Page 362 ]

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker I met today with the Hon. Donald Macdonald, and his assistant Ian Macdonald — I should have had a Campbell with me to balance things up. We discussed two subjects: (1) the immediate urgent problem of the shortage of natural gas that is threatened in the Province of B.C., with the crunch coming possibly as early as October 15, and becoming severe by November 1. In that connection may I say that I presented the Hon. Donald Macdonald with, in addition to an argument, the facts of the industrial problem that we face in the Province of British Columbia, such as, for example, that the mill at Cominco, from the figures that we have gathered, might sustain a loss at the worst of 150,000 man-days. And I'll just pick out examples from the research material we've gathered.

The B.C. Forest Products mills at Mackenzie in a very cold climate, water based, may freeze — apart from the loss of employment resulting from the notice they've already had from Inland as to the curtailment that might be up to 60 per cent for nine days, and that kind of thing. All of this industrial information is very serious for the Province of British Columbia.

I should like to add that I impressed upon the Hon. Donald Macdonald that the El Paso company is in a better position to make up for the temporary shortage, because it receives about 70 per cent of its gas from British Columbia, another 30 from Texas and southern points in the United States. And really, for anybody to suggest a pro rata reduction all around is ridiculous because, even if that was fair, they would be suffering a curtailment of 7 per cent while ours will be 10 or 11 per cent. They don't rely as we do exclusively upon the west coast gas; they have a more southerly climate.

But the loss is very serious and I asked in no uncertain terms that the Hon. Donald Macdonald place a firm hand on the valve at Huntington and I expect to hear further from the federal government in that respect. Otherwise I indicated to him, in the second phase of our conversation, what the Province of British Columbia was intending to do to protect its own people in the future based purely upon public statements and matter that has already been given to the Legislature, because we don't need the kind of hammer that has been employed in the Province of Alberta. We look for cooperation, and expect to get it, and perhaps supplemental action from the federal government to support our programme that will be unveiled, hopefully, in the near future.

MR. WALLACE: Would the Minister consider providing for the House the information and the facts and figures that he used to give the statement to the House today, for wider public understanding of the problem?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. I see no objection to tabling. I can't do it immediately. The figures we have as to severe damage if the gas falls below such-and-such level, and moderate damage if it falls to this level…and I'll have this chart reproduced and file four or five copies at the Clerks' table before the end of the afternoon.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the Minister when was this information compiled, has it already been made public, and if not, why is it made public less than two weeks from the date when he expects the possible crunch?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, we began through the Energy Commission to compile the information from industries as soon as the shortage became apparent — which is what, seven or eight days ago? It has been in my hands for possibly a couple of days. I've given the Hon. Donald Macdonald a full brief, including this chart, also copies of telegrams from particular industries spelling out their particular problems. As far as I know the man-days lost, which are estimates only, have not been made public up to this time. We began to compile the information as soon as we heard the announcement.

MR. SPEAKER: I will point out to the Hon. Members that there has been a tendency to ask questions of Ministers as if they had to report to this House on some matter that they are taking up either with the Crown or with other governments before they have concluded what they are doing in some other place. I want to make clear that if you look in Beauchesne, page 148, that is not the case.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, on the same problem. I wish to preface my question by suggesting to the Attorney General that one of the real problems in the production of natural gas in the Province of British Columbia is the fact that the exploration end of the business for the last year has been very static, at a standstill, or very close to it. But there is a problem and that problem is that we must continue to explore for gas if we are going to replace….

MR. SPEAKER: Are you making a speech or asking a question?

MR. SMITH: No, I'm not, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: What is your question?

MR. SMITH: If we are going to replace or add to our reserves, has the Minister in any way done anything to re-ensure and reinforce the confidence

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of the exploration business and the companies that explore for natural gas in this province so that they will continue to look for that product in the areas where it is likely to be?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, drilling rig activity in the Province of British Columbia has been at a higher level this year than last year. The recommendations of the Energy Commission for increasing, where necessary, the tempo of exploration activities are set out in their report.

DEPARTMENT OF NORTHERN AFFAIRS

MR. CURTIS: To the Premier: would he inform the House if he is close to establishing a department of northern affairs in response to requests from within the party itself?

AN HON. MEMBER: On his birthday? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. BARRETT: I will take that as notice of question. (Laughter).

NOTIFICATION OF BANKRUPTCY

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Attorney General. I see from press statements that the stock of Geo-Star Resources Limited was traded for 16 days after the company was legally declared bankrupt in Vancouver, the trades going through the Vancouver Stock Exchange, and the figures given in the press of 61,450 shares. I would ask the Hon. Attorney General as to whether or not he is going to direct either his own offices or the court registries in the province to notify the Stock Exchange when companies go bankrupt, because this is truly a preposterous and asinine situation that has developed.

The second question, as opposed to having a supplemental, Mr. Speaker, I would ask, is whether or not the Attorney General will request the Stock Exchange to guarantee the losses of any innocents. And I would ask him what steps, if any, he intends to take concerning any of those who are not innocent, or at least have the appearance of being un-innocent, shall we say? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I will take the first part of your question as notice because I haven't been informed of that particular bankruptcy or…. But in respect to your second question: the Legislature has provided that there should be two lay representatives on the Stock Exchange and there has been some delay because I've been trying to find the best two people to serve on behalf of the public on the Stock Exchange board of governors. I think that will be of some assistance, but the first part I have to take as notice. I am not familiar with the transaction.

MR. GARDOM: A supplementary question, I'm not talking about the way you are going to enrich the Stock Exchange. My question is just simply this: are you going to instruct the court registries to notify the Stock Exchange, or set up some kind of means of communication between them so that you don't have the shares of bankrupt companies traded in the Province of British Columbia?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, we will take that suggestion under advisement.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): I question to the Minister of Agriculture. In my talk yesterday afternoon on Bill 9, I asked him if he would table in the House the recommendations given to him by the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. I'd like to ask him for a statement at this time if he will table those documents, correspondence, from the B.C. Federation of Agriculture? You asked the British Columbia Federation of Agriculture to do a study and come up with recommendations. I understand that they have given you recommendations regarding farm income assurance. Would you table those with the House?

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, the Federation of Agriculture was given funds. They were given authorization to spend funds which would be reimbursed by the government to do commodity studies within the province. They have delivered some of the studies — three of them, I believe, to this date. There are still some to come in. I haven't had an opportunity to read any of them completely myself yet. I have no objection to tabling them. I think it is three I have received so far. I don't have them with me today, but I have no objection to making those available to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out to Hon. Members that if you look at page 148 of Beauchesne, information upon matters which of their nature are secret, such as decisions or advice given to the Crown or to officers of the Crown, are not documents to which you are entitled unless the Minister agrees to table them. I think that is important for both the Ministers and the questioners to know.

MR. PHILLIPS: A supplementary question. In an article in the September Country Life, it clearly refers to the first part of the British Columbia Federation of Agriculture brief on farm policy, as outlined in full in last month's issue, as having met with the ready acceptance of the Minister of Agriculture. It goes on to say….

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MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order. Information which is already available and set out in public documents is not susceptible to questions in question time.

MR. PHILLIPS: Well, it is the second part of the brief that I'm after, the one to do with farm income assurance, Mr. Speaker, and it hasn't been set out in public yet.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, that matter is up to the Minister if he wishes to table it.

OAK BAY AVENUE
EXPLOSION

MR. WALLACE: Could I quickly ask the Minister of Public Works if he has any further information regarding the cause of the explosion on Oak Bay Avenue last week?

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): The Member for Oak Bay knows the inspector was on the job the day of the accident and I was told that the report was on the way over to my desk now from Vancouver.

FORTHCOMING HUMAN RIGHTS
LEGISLATION

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): A general question, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to ask the Attorney General if he agrees with the chairman of the Human Rights Commission that the human rights legislation in British Columbia is lousy, and if there will be new legislation coming in this session as she suggested?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I counsel the Hon. Member in patience. (Laughter.)

TELEVISION BROADCASTING
FROM THE HOUSE

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask you a question, but I understand I can't do that so….

MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry.

MR. McCLELLAND:…. . so what I'll do is direct my question to the Hon. Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) who was chairman of the committee of the House which studied television broadcasting, among other things, and ask him: in the light of the Speaker's comments about the butchering and editing of television broadcasting, are we to understand that we will not be allowing private carriers to handle the broadcasting of television, or at least the distribution of television broadcasting from this House, because if that is true….

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. There is no committee in standing at the present time on the subject, and therefore the Minister of Highways is in no position in his office to answer the question.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well, Mr. Speaker, I must be able to ask that question of someone because it is very important because it goes contrary to any of the recommendations that were made to this House by that committee, and I would just like to ask the ex-chairman if he would care to comment on that.

MR. SPEAKER: It is not within his competence at this time.

COMPANIES ACT

MR. GARDOM: A question to the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker. The Companies Act came into force on October 1 and I understand that the Order-in-Council passing the regulations to the Companies Act, about 24 pages in length, was passed on September 25, and the regulations are not yet printed.

I ask the Attorney General if he's prepared to assure any defaulters under the regulations that they would not be taken to task for breaches until such time as the government has the regulations printed?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I'll take steps to make sure that company lawyers are not responsible for the acts or omissions that may occur as a result of this.

SEATTLE CITY LIGHT

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A question to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources. In the light of his statement, Mr. Speaker, which was reported in the press today, following my question 141 on the order paper to the effect that the Province of British Columbia has accepted and banked the moneys received from Seattle City Light for rental of land which is threatened with flooding, but apparently which this government does not wish to flood, may I ask what steps are being taken to return this money so we don't get into the position of accepting money on a contract that we have stated we intend to break?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): I think we've made it clear, Mr. Speaker, that we're prepared to return all rental funds with respect to the Skagit, ever since the date of the early agreement.

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Introduction of bills.

VETERINARY LABORATORIES ACT

Hon. Mr. Stupich presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Veterinary Laboratories Act.

Bill 31 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES
AND HOSPITAL INSURANCE ACT

Hon. Mr. Cocke presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Department of Health Services and Hospital Insurance Act.

Bill 39 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

AN ACT TO LIMIT
SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES

Mr. McGeer moves introduction and first reading of Bill 42 intituled An Act to Limit Smoking in Public Places.

Motion approved.

Bill 42 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.

Orders of the day.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): I move the House proceed to public bills and orders.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Adjourned debate on Bill 9.

FARM INCOME ASSURANCE ACT
(continued)

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): I have no intention of taking up very much of the House's time today. I think I got most of my feelings on this bill across in the discussion yesterday afternoon.

I feel that there is going to be a good feeling out there in the agricultural industry, the food-production section of our province, because of the way this Act is worded, the principle that's involved and the flexibility that is there for the Minister and the Department of Agriculture to consider each commodity separately, with the different conditions and terms that are necessary for the particular commodity that they're growing.

I believe that for years and years past, if the Ministers of Agriculture in this province had had a bill like this that they could have worked under, agriculture would not be in the position it's in today, struggling for its very survival.

I'd like to repeat that I am very pleased to see that there is no attempt to try to put a subsidy on food at the retail level, where the cost to the province would be at least twice what would end up in the grower's hands by the time it has passed through the retailer, the wholesaler, the transportation companies and the various people connected with the agricultural industry, who always seem to survive and always seem to make a profit. And yet the farmer never seems to be able to reach this level; he is essentially a taker of prices; he has always been a taker in this province, with no room to manoeuvre, no room to demand and no way to adjust his income to the realities of his cost of production. A system like this, I feel, is going to assist him far more than a subsidy that would be put on at the retail level.

I would say to the Minister that the way I read the bill now, the flexibility that I see in it, the moves that he will be allowed to make under this legislation when it is passed — and I repeat — would have been appreciated, I'm sure, by former agricultural Ministers for the past 50 years in this province of ours.

I would like to see it go through in its present form. I know it is going to work. I know the agricultural community needs it and wants it and I'm sure when the next year or two goes by and the agricultural department's reports are filed, that the whole House will realize that we moved in the right direction on this bill.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): If there was ever any concern on our part as to the stability of this government in relation to its agricultural policies, it was certainly confirmed by the Hon. Member for Kamloops' "fluffabuster" yesterday and this afternoon. I'm afraid he leaves the competency of our committee somewhat in question in light of his statements, and his statement just now that he hopes this bill goes through in its present form, because he said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that he saw nothing in the bill. That's exactly what the problem is. He is right on, because there is really nothing but a statement of philosophy in this bill.

The Hon. Member for Kamloops talked at great length about flexibility. As I listened to him I didn't know whether, in his talk of flexibility, he was describing the original Playtex that came to British

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Columbia. For the gallery that are mostly males, Playtex is the one that is "killing" you all the time.

The Member for Kamloops talked about MLAs' salaries yesterday in relation to agricultural income. I really couldn't quite follow him, and Hansard isn't ready today to prove this point, but I would just suggest for his information, Mr. Speaker, that if the average producer in British Columbia, who is indeed competent and professional in his management, could look forward to the guaranteed income that the MLAs of this province are now receiving, then they would indeed be cheering this Act.

Mr. Speaker, for this government and the Minister of Agriculture to suggest that Bill 9, as it is written, is one of the major reasons for calling this expensive fall session of the Legislature together is nothing, when you read it, short of a disgrace. And if this legislation as it's drafted in this bill is all that you have to offer to the agricultural people of British Columbia then, Mr. Minister, you ought to hide your head in shame.

But, in saying this, I would like to make this one point very clear, Mr. Speaker, that in this debate we are debating the principle of this bill, the principle of farm income assurance in British Columbia. That is the principle that the Social Credit Party and the Social Credit official opposition fully and irrevocably supports.

We believe the producer in British Columbia has a fundamental right to a stable income every year, equal to his counterparts in other sections of society and industry. He has a right to a return on his capital investment and he has a right to a management fee. He has a right to a retirement programme and — I would like to emphasize this very strongly, Mr. Speaker — he has a right to the same fundamental freedom as every other citizen and every other worker in the Province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis of concern in the Province of British Columbia and that crisis of concern is in the minds and in the words of the producers of this province and that crisis revolves around two major points: one, the need in British Columbia for a stable and equitable income for the producers and, two, their right to their basic freedoms.

Mr. Speaker, I don't have to remind you that producer returns in all of Canada, as well as British Columbia, have always been a problem to the agricultural industry for many reasons which I won't go into at this time.

The acute crisis of concern on the part of the producer in British Columbia was precipitated by this NDP government when they first made a lot of election promises to the farming community that they have not been able to keep, and also when they took away the fundamental freedoms of the farmers in British Columbia in Bill 42, a bill which, in fact, gave the government complete land control in our province at the obvious expense of the farmer. That bill, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest did, in fact, make a scapegoat for foreign philosophy in this province of the producers of this province.

That bill is passed and it is law in British Columbia today, and that is why there is a crisis of concern on the part of the farmer, and that is why the NDP government and the Minister of Agriculture must now stand up and be counted and produce their legislation.

The Minister stated at that time, and he gave the farmers at that time, assurance that this government would solve the age-long problems and the new problems of the producers in British Columbia, and that they would provide an equitable return, and that they would do this and introduce this programme at this special fall session of the Legislature. Mr. Minister, you spoke — through you, Mr. Speaker — for your government. You brought on the crisis for your government. You, Mr. Minister, made those promises in this House and outside this House, and now the farmers of British Columbia and we say to you — produce; produce the programme; produce the stable economic income and fair return for the farmers of this province.

We are supporting, Mr. Speaker, the government in the principle of this bill, the stated principle, which clearly outlines in its title farm income assurance for the farmers of British Columbia. We say again, as we support this principle, Mr. Speaker, through you to this government, to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett), who is busy talking, to the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) and to all those backbenchers — produce that programme and produce it now in 1973.

When one reviews the statements by the Minister on Bill 42 as it relates to the principle of Bill 9, and when we review the statements that the Minister has made outside this House and other Members of the government have made outside this House, we must come to the conclusion that what they have said, in effect, is that they will trade off the undesirable but legal position of the farmer being tied to his land in our province for an income-stabilization programme. In so saying this, Mr. Speaker, in that debate and in other statements outside this House, the Minister has admitted the government's responsibility for this situation. He has admitted the government responsibility for the undemocratic position in which the farmers find themselves, He has admitted complete responsibility for this plight.

Yet now he proposes, if we can read between the statements that he does make — his vague statements — after admitting this responsibility, that the farmer must not only assume some of the original responsibility for his returns but he must also, by using his own labour and his own commodities, assume a major share of the government's

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responsibility in any programme that comes in.

If the Minister admits that the government forced the farmer by law into an undesirable and undemocratic position with severe financial penalties and there is no way that the farmer can legally or factually recuperate his freedom or his financial loss, then I suggest it is the responsibility, and the full responsibility, of the government and the people of British Columbia to make up the full value of any stabilization-income programme for producers.

To ask the farmer, in light of the nationwide historical problem on incomes, to assume this responsibility that was inflicted on him by this government is just like asking the farmer to sing at his funeral, and especially when they ask him to rejoice about it.

The history of the producers' returns in British Columbia as they are influenced by weather, subsidized imports, distribution costs, labour problems — just as a few examples — are such that the farmer simply cannot afford to pay the premium that would be necessary in any type of programme that the Minister is suggesting and still be able to recover his losses — and still be able to maintain an equitable position in relation to his counterpart in industry in other parts of British Columbia society.

Mr. Speaker, the principle of a farm income assurance programme is good; it may well include federal responsibility. But we believe it is the responsibility, and the full responsibility, of the government and the people of British Columbia.

In speaking to the philosophy of this bill as it is encompassed through the body of the bill, I would again ask the questions of the Minister that have been asked before — questions we must ask again and again and again: where is your evidence, Mr. Minister, that you have a workable plan? Where is the evidence outlined as to how this programme will be run? When will the government proceed? What are the anticipated costs going to be? What further restrictions, if any, will be put on the farmers of British Columbia? What form will the administrative body take? Who will be represented on the administrative body? And what voice will the producers in British Columbia really have?

No details, Mr. Speaker, just a statement of philosophy; and really another example of the open barrel of power that this government seems to seek, or else an admission of their complete inability to draft effective legislation and meet their commitments.

The Minister made a lot of statements in this House yesterday which contained information supposedly new to the House that has not been available through Hansard, but I would like to just touch for a moment on one or two of those statements.

The first one was, in recalling the Minister's elation at the great new programmes the federal government was supposed to be looking into, I found nothing new at all and suggest, for his information, that this type of dialogue with the federal government has been going on for years, and they really revealed no new evidence to you. Just before the Minister leaves, I would like to ask him….

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): I'll be back in 30 seconds — just 30 seconds.

MRS. JORDAN: Right, I'll come back to it.

We want to know from the Minister's statements, Mr. Speaker, his position on the federal government's suggestion that there be compulsory participation of farmers in any programme. We want to know his opinion on whether or not he agrees — thank you, Mr. Minister — with production control.

But most of all, Mr. Minister, as I listened very carefully to you yesterday, you said that your heart soared toward the end of the meeting when finally the Hon. Minister in the federal government, Mr. Whelan, discussed a programme on the basis of cost production, or cost of production. Mr. Minister, I listened very carefully, through you Mr. Speaker, and all the time during your discussion there was this term "cost of production." Mr. Minister, what is important to the producers of British Columbia is not the cost of production but the cost of British Columbia production.

I would advise the Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that in the past the federal government has initiated programmes, often in the area of disaster and some in the areas of agriculture, and they were based on the cost of production, indeed, but it was the cost of production on a national average, and these programmes short-changed the producers of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, we insist that the Minister, in summing up, please makes clear whether he is thinking in terms of cost of production or cost of British Columbia production.

During that statement the Minister talked about what a fair return would be to the producer in terms of his labour. I am sure we will get into this in later debate, but I would like to make it very clear to the Minister that his suggestion, that $3 an hour was an adequate return to be considered for an experienced farmer and producer in the Province of British Columbia, is ludicrous.

Well, if you'd make Hansard available, Mr. Minister, perhaps we wouldn't have any misinterpretation. But he said, "Is $3 an hour enough for an experienced producer?" We say that if you examine the wage scales in British Columbia you will find that a plumber's helper gets more than $3 an hour. But you have to pay over $3 an hour to get somebody to pick up your bales of hay and load them on the truck in the field. We would like not to hear, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, any

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more talk of $3 farmers in the Province of British Columbia.

While we can appreciate the problems of an income assurance programme, we don't appreciate the Minister coming in here now after all his assurances to us and to the producers of British Columbia and asking for sympathy. If he wasn't aware of the complexities of this problem, as many of us who represent rural ridings are and have been — and most people in British Columbia have been aware of this problem through the years — then he either was incompetent in his statements previously, or else the government was in a position where it would have been misleading the farmers of British Columbia and leading them down the garden path. I wouldn't want to suggest that either of these statements would be true; therefore, I suggest that the Minister eradicate this thought and any danger of such a charge by bringing in the body to this legislation which will outline fully what in fact he intends to do at this session of the Legislature.

Incidentally, I must say that I am very surprised at the Members of this Legislature — who are now out of the House except for one remaining soul, stalwart soul — who won't support the principle of farm income assurance in the Province of British Columbia, or who suggest that this principle in this bill should be delayed for six months — not rewritten, as it may well deserve to be, but just that it should be delayed. The principle of the bill is very clear; the farmers in British Columbia have made it very clear; the people in British Columbia have made it very clear: that they want green belts, that they want an agricultural industry, and that this must be done through an income assurance programme for producers.

The farmers in this province have listened to the doctors talk and the lawyers talk, including us politicians; and to suggest that we should have more talk is only to defeat their needs and to be ignorant of their crisis of concern in this province.

The principle in this bill is clear and we support it. The mechanism, of course, will be another matter. I am sure that it's not a matter of doubt that the NDP government and the Social Credit opposition will have areas of strong conflict when the Minister reveals what that mechanism is going to be; but that's a matter that we can discuss in third reading. It is also a matter that we wish to discuss when the Minister brings in his really important agricultural legislation that he promised for this session.

So we support the principle of the bill in order to open the way for this Minister and this government to bring in the real meat of the agricultural legislation in British Columbia, and to live up to their election promises, and to meet the commitment that all of us in British Columbia have to the producers of British Columbia. Thank you.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): Mr. Speaker, it's an honour for me to have the opportunity to enter into this debate, especially after hearing the Hon. Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) speak, because I feel that anything that I would say now would seem nice after the way she acts.

Interjections.

MR. LEWIS: The way she criticized the Minister and the actions that he's taking in regard to this bill I think are totally unwarranted. In my view she has more gall than a cocky barnyard rooster.

MRS. JORDAN: You're right, and I've got more energy.

MR. LEWIS: She criticizes the Minister for bringing in vague, broad-powered legislation, but I will tell you that it's an improvement over what we saw for 20 years. The legislation that they did bring in during that 20 years might have been quite concise, but in my view it never did anything for the farmers in this province for the total time that they were in power. The Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) in this province during the last year…

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Come up to the Peace River and say that and we'll send you down the river on a raft.

MR. LEWIS:…has stood up…You're better off to stay in Victoria too, friends.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LEWIS: The Minister during the last year has stood up for farmers in this province far more than any Minister that we have seen in the past. He has had cooperation from the cabinet, and I feel that this bill will give farm groups that have been living on the poverty level a chance to come out and live with the rest of society.

MRS. JORDAN: How?

MR. SMITH: Where does it say so in that bill?

MR. LEWIS: Well, if you want some instances of where it said so in the past, we can go into the federal legislation.

Interjections.

MR. LEWIS: Well, just give us a chance. We gave you 20 years and you didn't do too well.

The Member that's criticizing there spent several years in the cabinet, and it seems rather queer to me

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all of a sudden she is so concerned about the farmers. I can't remember her standing up in the House and saying to the past Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Shelford) or to the past cabinet, "Get the lead out." In one year they expect us to turn the whole clock around and correct all the mistakes that they have made in 20 years.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Even we aren't that good.

MR. LEWIS: I would like to give you a little bit of an insight into the problems that farmers do face in this province and the complexities that the Minister will have to deal with in the future. We have increased costs: lumber, in the last 10 years, has gone up three times; taxes in some areas, six times. We also have irrigation costs that have increased dramatically throughout all of the province. Feed costs have gone up 100 per cent in the last year. I think that these are things that the Minister is going to have the powers to deal with, and the legislation has to be very broad to give him an opportunity to work with it.

There are going to be all kinds of instances that aren't laid down in a book, and possibly this is where some of the faults have been in the past with federal and provincial governments. They have tried to operate farming on school-book learning and I don't think it can be done.

I would like to give you some conditions that exist in the Interior of the province now and also in the lower mainland, to some degree, because of the drought that hit the province this summer. These are areas where the Minister can move with this legislation, and areas where he can help the farmers. Hay prices in the Interior and in the lower mainland have jumped from a $30-to-$35 price to anywhere from $80 to $100 this year, yet the consumer expects the farmer to continue to produce the product for the same price.

The federal government has had a federal income stabilization plan in the past where they said, "Well, if you have a bad year, we'll guarantee your cost of production, or at least we'll work back on a 10-year average." Now I would like to know how many people working in the labour force I how many people in business, how many in our total society, could go back and average over 10 years and come up with any realistic figure that they could live on? I don't think it could be done. I think these are areas where the Minister can work with the federal government to come up with some sort of cooperation.

I am not too enthused about us becoming involved with the federal government. I have not been too enthused with the actions they've taken in the past. I think it was mentioned yesterday in regard to the withholding of acreage of grain on the prairie provinces. All the experts gave the statistics in regard to production and the fact that they had better pull acreage out of production; and look what happened in the last two years. If we had had some realistic figures to work on in the last year, Canada would have been far better off financially.

Farm Credit Corporation, as established by the federal government, is a plan that is supposed to subsidize farmers, or assist farmers, in being able to produce more food. The rate that this corporation offers is far from being anything that the farmer can afford. There is no way that a young farmer can get involved in this programme, because generally you have to be financially fixed in the first place to even apply under the Act.

There are areas that I am concerned about in regard to this cooperation with the federal government and the federal marketing agency Act. The Minister has said that he has signed us into the national egg Act. Now this is one area that I am quite familiar with and it concerns me. At the present time the B.C. egg producers quite familiar with and it concerns me. The B.C. egg producers considerable cost. The present cost of levies for a 200-case producer in the Province of British Columbia would be $2,080.

Now with the federal plan at a one-cent levy, which they are proposing, it will cost another $3,120, for a total of $5,200 — which I think is a fairly high price for a farmer to pay to stabilize his industry. Now I have no objection to both these figures being put against the egg producer because I feel that he has been able to gain by it in the past; but I feel quite sure that the egg industry wouldn't be interested in being involved in this Farm Income Assurance Act, because I think that they have paid merely to get themselves in the position they are in at the present time.

One of the Members said yesterday, "Why should money be spent on research?" Another one said, "Put it off for six months." I say we've been putting off action in this province for too many years now. I'd like to support this bill; I'd like to ask all the Members in the House to do so. Some have indicated that they won't, but maybe they'll have a change of conscience before the time comes around, Thank you.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Just a reminder to the Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) that regardless of his interpretation of the Minister's comments, the Minister didn't say that this bill was deliberately flexible; he said this bill was deliberately vague. There's quite a difference.

It's a very difficult bill to support, Mr. Speaker, because of the way it's written. We had expected the Minister would have allayed some of our doubts about this bill and about the directions we were going to take in providing income sustenance for farmers in British Columbia. We thought at any rate that we

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might have got some of those answers in the Minister's opening remarks yesterday, but unfortunately the Minister raised more questions than he gave answers. We would only hope that perhaps he'll give us some of the answers when he closes debate on this bill.

Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, the official opposition must support the principle of income stabilization for farmers in British Columbia. For that reason we must also support the bill. We were unable to support a resolution in this House yesterday to have this bill hoisted for six months because there was much ballyhoo throughout the province before this session of the Legislature started that we were coming to Victoria to speak first of all about major agricultural measures and secondly about major labour measures. Because we came here to talk about agriculture, because we came here to try and develop some new programmes to solve the plight of the farmers of British Columbia in relation to their incomes, we intend to speak about agriculture. For that reason we will not wait six months and we don't want to wait six months.

So, Mr. Speaker, with mixed emotions, as was mentioned by my colleague from South Peace River (Mr. Phillips), we will support this bill. But we do have a number of questions and we would certainly like to have answers to those questions.

One of the questions that has been raised in my mind are the comments by the Minister that the only way we can achieve the kind of income stabilization that the Minister refers to is through various negotiations with all of the various commodity groups. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if we're developing some kind of a new bureaucracy for every segment of agriculture in this province. I wonder if we're going to have a programme for apple growers, a programme for grape growers, a programme for potato growers, a programme for hog marketers, a programme for beef producers. That's an impossible situation, Mr. Speaker. We're talking about thousands and thousands of new civil servants to administer all these little empires.

Surely we must have some kind of a structure at the top which will develop an overall programme for income stabilization and not have a series of tiny little programmes and jealousies going on between each commodity group in the Province of British Columbia. If we do that, we might as well forget about trying to stabilize the incomes of farmers because we'll have negated everything that we're attempting to do.

The Member for South Peace asked for the tabling in the House of the suggestions made by the B.C. Federation of Agriculture with regard to income stabilization. They did make some specific suggestions, not only about stabilization but also about pension plans for farmers.

Basically, Mr. Speaker, what the federation wants the government to establish is some kind of a joint provincial farmer body which would negotiate minimum price levels. When prices reach a level above those minimums, the producers will contribute a percentage of their income which would be matched by the government to maintain a fund that would be used to compensate producers when prices fall below these negotiated minimums.

There's no suggestion there that we will negotiate for each different commodity group and each different group within that specific commodity group. It would be utter chaos in the whole of the agriculture industry if we tried to do that. I don't think the federation wanted that kind of an animal to be created.

Certainly there would have to be some kind of a start-up pool established by the government because without the seeds the fund can't be established. But it is also pretty important, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that these negotiated minimums, however they're arrived at, are based on realistic values. That's going to be an important issue. Whether it's done by averaging or however it's done is going to be a major bone of contention when we get around to providing the income stabilization plan.

That's another reason we would like to know if the Minister of Agriculture has any basic plans. Does he know which way we want to go? We have to know what kind of a level we're going to start from if we're going to get to the programme.

Such a programme, in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, if it's handled correctly, has a great deal of merit. We also have to recognize, I think, that it places the farmer in a kind of a preferential position in relation to other businesses in other areas in the Province of British Columbia, because other private businesses don't get the same kind of an opportunity to have their incomes stabilized. We have already, I suppose, established a precedent all over Canada that the farmer does need a little extra help from the government if he's to continue to be able to produce the nation's foodstuff. We accept that principle.

All we'd like to know really, Mr. Speaker, is how it is going to be handled and how you are going to start to negotiate those minimum prices. How much money is the government going to have to put in? What kind of a bureaucracy is going to be set up?

An important question, I think, is what will happen if too many farmers decide to opt out of such a programme. Is the plan going to collapse or will the government keep pouring in funds to keep the plan afloat? Will the government, Mr. Speaker, force those farmers who don't want to fall under the complete control of the government to join the plan? In other words, Mr. Speaker, is the Minister of Agriculture going to force participation?

He asked some questions in the House yesterday

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that were apparently posed by representatives of the Canada Department of Agriculture, but we would like to know what your opinion is, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker. Is your mind made up about participation? We know that in your press release you stated that it would be a voluntary programme, that the farmers would be able to opt in or opt out. But what if the majority of farmers in a specific commodity group don't want to join that plan at all? The question is: are they going to be forced to join?

I don't know whether you were asking us a question, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, or whether you were announcing government policy, but the indication was very strong that the voluntary participation was rapidly going out of the window and we were going to establish a scheme in which participation would be compulsory, not voluntary.

Will referenda be held before any kind of a plan is set up? And what about the mixed farmer in our society? What about the farmer who raises hogs and raises grain and perhaps raises fruit as well? Is he going to be forced to participate in three different schemes? What about that farmer, Mr. Speaker?

There are too many questions in connection with this bill, and some of those questions must be answered so that the farmers of British Columbia know where they're going and so that the Members of this Legislature know the government direction in this matter.

There is some concern, as well, that because of the makeup of this kind of a programme — in that we might get into the position of the good farmer supporting the not-so-good farmer — that we are through government policy going to bring every farmer in B.C. down to a level of mediocrity, If that's the result of the kind of stabilization programme that the Minister has in mind, then that's a very serious result for agriculture in British Columbia.

Really, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, while I recognize the concept of stabilization and income support, the positive way to approach this kind of problem in British Columbia is to establish — as we've said so many times in the House before — the kind of programmes with government support that will allow the farmer to make the kind of living that he deserves without any need for government stabilization. The kind of programmes we've asked for in this House — and I asked for many times in my comments on Bill 42 last year and in my comments in my maiden speech last year — are things like low-interest loans for farmers (those are necessary), loans for the development of agriculture-related secondary industry as we proposed in the first instance of the B.C. Development Corporation, (processing plants for the small-fruit industry, for instance), and tax relief.

It goes without saying that it's absolutely necessary that we move on this as quickly as possible. At one time the NDP government seemed to be all in favour of at least removing education tax from family-owned farms. Now that concept seems to be in doubt, Mr. Speaker; we are not sure exactly where we're going to move on that.

Fair compensation, Mr. Speaker, for farmers who have been hurt by the regulations contained in the Land Commission Act. Do you agree with that?

Drainage programmes in the areas, particularly those which I represent in this House. I think of the Serpentine-Nicomekl area, and the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Radford) was out there in his gumboots a couple of weeks ago, wading around and opening up the farmland to ducks.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: There's a hundred acres over there that was flooded. The gates were let open and that land was flooded and it's now a duck reserve.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's called the duck bill.

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, that's the duck bill. (Laughter.)

Mr. Speaker, in all fairness I must say that that land was probably lost to agriculture because it had been flooded and hadn't been drained, and the salinity of that soil was so much that it was no longer of any use for agriculture. But there's a warning here to the Minister, that if we allow this to happen too often, and if we don't provide the kind of drainage programmes that we need and the kind of flood relief programmes that we need in those low areas — and they contain some of the finest growing land in North America, and probably the only good vegetable-growing area west of Winnipeg — if we don't provide those kinds of programmes, Mr. Speaker, then we have that problem of the water lying on the land and destroying that land forever for agricultural purposes. That is exactly what happened to the 100 acres, I think, which is now under water.

So those are the kinds of programmes that this government should be developing — the kind of programmes that would have some consultation with the federal government, and hard urging to the federal government to develop programmes pertaining to the importation of foreign products; certainly, more and more programmes for the promotion of British Columbia grown products. Those are the kinds of programmes we need in British Columbia, and perhaps a high level of income participation, income stabilization with participation by the government, wouldn't be as necessary.

The government, Mr. Speaker, should support the farmer, just as he should support all business in British Columbia — help him to make a decent living. It should pass the kind of legislation that helps the

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farmer farm and then, to a large degree, get out of his way. But we are very concerned, Mr. Speaker, that this bill in particular is deliberately vague, and I can't appreciate the Minister's (Hon. Mr. Stupich) comments on that because this House requires more than deliberate vagueness from a Minister on a bill which has been touted as one of the most important bills in relation to agriculture in British Columbia to date, in the reign of this new government.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): I had trouble getting my seat there for a minute. (Laughter.)

Mr. Speaker, I don't pretend to be an expert on agriculture. I don't pretend to be an expert on anything, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Hear, hear.

MR. McGEER: I thought that would get even bigger applause.

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): I read your book.

MR. McGEER: It's a good book too.

Mr. Speaker, no responsible legislature could approve a bill of this kind, no matter how much they might be in favour of the general principle. The debate on the bill has been inordinately long, I believe, because there is nothing substantive in this bill to grab hold of. We can all speculate on the wonderful things the Minister could do under this bill; we could speculate equally well about the dreadful things the Minister could do under the bill; or the fact that he might do nothing at all. Surely, the job of any responsible legislature is to see that the bills that the legislature passes instruct the Ministers of the Crown as to their duties under that legislation, to limit him in case his ideas run to excess or they are injudicious, and to give guidance — specific guidance — to those who will be affected by that legislation. And what we've really got here is the kind of bill which is brought down when neither the Minister nor the government has the slightest idea of what they are going to do — not the slightest idea.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Hear, hear.

MR. McGEER: So what they do is instruct the Legislative Counsels — there are two of them — to go ahead and draft an Act, which they might do on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, giving the government power to do anything at all that it might wish to do at some future time. I was often a critic, even frequently a critic, of the former administration for the kind of legislation that it brought down. Mr. Speaker, this government is using exactly the same mechanism, and it is doing an even worse job with it, because the government is attempting to get into many more things than the previous government got into, and still has the same two people writing the Acts.

Any idea that you or I might have, or the elected Members, or the public, that we are legislators that have anything to do with drafting bills, is absolutely insane. All the bills in British Columbia are drafted by two people. All we do is come down and debate the pros and cons after the fact and, of course, if these two people are busy, as they currently appear to be, then we get bad bills to debate. (Laughter.)

After all, the hundred and some odd bills that were introduced and passed in the last session, for better or for worse, those bills still have not been incorporated into the overall legislation that appears in those books. The Queen's Printer hasn't got them yet, and we are called into session again to debate a lot of new bills that these same people draft — the same two guys writing all the bills in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, it costs, to have one of these sessions, $1 million, and we haven't done 10 cents worth of business here. The Members of the assembly are the beneficiaries. You and I, and the other people that get all the fat salaries — those two guys that have to write all the bills, they don't get double salary for the extra session — and the taxpayer, it costs him another $1 million.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the Hon. Member to return to the principle of the bill, please.

MR. McGEER: But, Mr. Speaker, you see this is the principle of the bill. There can't be a principle because the two people who write all the bills in this province are too busy to write a good bill and I don't see, even if they had the time to write a bill, that they would be able to do so when the government hasn't the slightest idea of what it wants to do. So, what we get is this kind of a bill.

If you can imagine a Minister going to the two people who have to write the bill and saying, "We've got to do something about farm income," so they think of a title — Farm Income Assurance. They are going to assure the farmers that they'll get a farm income. And who would want to be against farm income assurance?

AN HON. MEMBER: Just the Liberals.

MR. McGEER: Oh, we're for farm income assurance, but where we differ from the official opposition is we're against bad legislation, no matter how attractive the title might be.

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Interjections.

MR. McGEER: We don't think the title is the bill itself. We think there ought to be some substance to the bill. I know that is a funny attitude, and maybe it's bad politics, and probably the public doesn't understand, but I don't think the Legislative Assembly should forever try to con the public. I think somebody in this assembly ought to stand up and tell it like it is. And the way it is, is that there are two people in British Columbia drafting bills, they are very busy, and we usually get bad legislation despite their heroic efforts because there are a lot of requests to draft legislation.

The people who are elected by the public as legislators aren't legislators at all. They're just people who come and debate the pros and cons of what the Legislative Counsel did last week. The Minister, if he were able to give any instructions at all to the Legislative Counsel, might have got back a bill that had some substance and direction in it.

Now, we've got as far as the title because I'm sure that the Minister thought of that, and the cabinet approved the title.

HON. MR. STUPICH: I would never use the word "assured". I would have use "insured".

MR. McGEER: Well, we'll accept amendments; might as well, because there is no principle. You can be as plastic as you like with this particular bill.

Then the counsel says, "What would you like in the bill?" So the Minister says, "I don't know. Put something in it." So what does the Legislative Counsel then do? He sits down and he thinks of everything that a Minister might want at some future time and he writes it down, you see. He said that the Lieutenant-Governor may — not "shall", mind you — he may have a fund.

In other words, the Lieutenant-Governor may put up some money for this plan. Since we don't know what we are going to do, we can't say that he will put up. He may establish a corporation, branch or agency….

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): Order. We're debating the principle.

MR. McGEER: No, I'm describing the kind of thing that you would put into a bill, Mr. Member, if you were one of the two real legislators in British Columbia and a Minister who didn't have the slightest idea of what he wanted in a bill came to you and you had to sit down and figure it out on a Saturday night because the next day someone would come with another request to draft a bill, You've got to get something out in a hurry that will suit all purposes; so what you do is to say that they may prescribe the powers, methods and procedures to be followed. You wouldn't say what those were. You just say that there might be methods and procedures. Then you would say that he might direct the Minister of Finance to guarantee any loans. You might designate areas where you would have a plan and other areas where you wouldn't have a plan. And then after you had done all that and you'd thought of all the things that the Lieutenant-Governor or an agency or a Minister of Finance might or might not do, then to make sure that you hadn't left out any vagueness, what you'd say in another section is that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations not inconsistent with all the principles that you have put down before.

Then after you have done that, you bring it down and introduce it into the House in the full knowledge that all of the backbenchers would stand up and say that it is terrific.

That is how you govern in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I believed the former opposition when they stood up with these passionate speeches on how they were going to change the style of government. Not only would the values be changed, the people's values, but the system would be completely different. It was one of dedication, self-sacrifice, telling it like it is, bringing forward exact, precise legislation, We were going to have two sessions of the Legislature, Mr. Speaker, not just so that the Members on the government side could collect double indemnity but so that we'd bring in better legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. McGEER: We were going to put the committees to work; we were going to make the legislators real legislators; we were going to start to open up everything. The light would shine in on the cabinet. All those things were to be done.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

And, Mr. Speaker, what do we have? Would you blame me, Mr. Speaker, having heard those speeches for so many years, for being just a little bit disillusioned? Because when the people who got up and made all those speeches…at least the official opposition, you know, never pretended to be saints. When they got up and supported the cabinet in a slavish way — and they did — they made no bones about the fact that they were doing it because the Premier said that that's what they should do.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: I said in a slavish fashion. And at

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least they were honest about it. But I thought things were going to be different, that the old ways were gone and that we were going to have the new politics. But instead, what we have got is the old, old politics. We had bad legislation before; we've got worse legislation now. We had one bad session a year before; we're having two bad sessions a year now. (Laughter.)

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the Hon. Member if he would please debate the principle of the bill rather than discussing….

MR. McGEER: I don't know what other principle there is to debate. Mr. Speaker, if you can find another way to describe this session, I'd accept your explanation. But certainly you cannot call this particular Act model legislation for British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, it is the worst example you could possibly find for bad legislation. The title, Mr. Speaker, is fantastic. The title is fantastic, and from there it gets worse and worse until we get to the point where you can prescribe any kind of regulation for anything at all.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Is that your 7-3-1 plan?

MR. McGEER: You see, Mr. Speaker, the Premier makes light of the 7-3-1 plan, whatever it is. (Laughter.) But, Mr. Speaker, at least it's a plan, which is more than the Minister of Agriculture has, and I think that the kind of thing….

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): It's a zero-zero-zero plan.

MR. McGEER: It has a name but, as the Liberal leader says, it is really a zero-zero-zero plan. What the Minister should do is to take this Act back, take it out in the garden as fertilizer, let it rest in peace, and bring forward a genuine programme for the farmers of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, we support the farmers of British Columbia. But I don't care what special interest group is intended to be benefited by a bad piece of legislation; we're not here to con the public and no one who takes a seat in this Legislature should do so. When a disgraceful Act is brought down in the House we will oppose it.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Mr. Speaker, I am glad to participate in this debate. We have already stated quite clearly what the position of the official opposition will be. I want you to know that we are for the farmers who are out there on the flood plains. Although the bill does not describe for us what kind of a plan the government has in mind for our farmers out on the flood plains, we've just heard that very eloquently described for us.

Nonetheless we believe that there is a ray of hope that just because there is a guarantee, just because there is some concern over the farmers' income, we are already encouraged and we would like to support the bill "in faith believing" — we use that expression in my arena…profession, do you say? — "in faith believing" we would already like to support something that gives us a ray of light, a ray of hope for the farmers that are out there.

The bill does enable the Minister of Agriculture to do something. We are not sure what it is, the Minister is not sure what it is and, Mr. Speaker, let's face it, you don't know what it is. But we believe at least that something is about to happen. (Laughter.)

I would like to ask a few questions, though, that come to my mind. One is, can the farmer be given any assurance of a guaranteed income on the basis of a contribution? Can it be like an insurance plan, Mr. Speaker, where we pay a certain premium for a certain protection, a certain coverage, and expect that in the case of a loss we will be protected? The farmer isn't looking for that kind of help. If you just want to take the peak off the farmer's income and throw it into the trenches of the farmer's income, all we are doing is redistributing what the farmer already has. He can do that by himself. We don't need Bill 9 to do that.

Therefore, I would like to suggest that the section of the bill that talks about the ability of the Lieutenant-Governor at any time to create funds to assist in this plan is not only necessary but, if it is to be of any help to the farmer at all in the future, it is mandatory. That is one question that I have, whether a plan which involves only contributions can be of any help to the farmer, and I doubt that it can.

I see in the bill the ray of hope that the plan can be subsidized and I don't like the word "subsidy"; nonetheless for the farmer it means at least a little bit of help of some kind.

The other word that I don't like which I have heard the Minister use quite a few times is this word "stabilization." When you talk about stabilizing anything it doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be any help involved. You could be stabilized where you are right now.

It could be a status quo type of thing, like the two little fellows who were talking about status quo, and one fellow says to the other guy, "Well, do you know what status quo is?" And he says, "No, but I think it is French." And he says, "You think it is French?" And he says, "Yes, I do." And he says "What's it French for?"

"Well," he said, "I'm not sure but I think it's French for the mess that we's in."

Now the status quo or stabilization is not necessarily an answer. We could be stabilizing the farmer into non-productivity. But what I'd like to

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suggest is that if stabilization….

That's the fifth notice that I've got. (Laughter.) Oh, I see. I'd like to say that I don't see anything in Bill 9 about the Premier's birthday, but we'd like to adjourn the debate for a few minutes. I'd like to move a recess. May I have leave of the House?

MR. SPEAKER: Would the Hon. Members accept a short recess?

The House took recess.

The House resumed at 3:55 p.m.

MR. SCHROEDER: If I may recap for just a moment, one of the disappointments that we see as a possibility — and by the way, all that we see is possibilities in the bill — is the fact that it could be a contribution plan only, not raising the farmer's hopes for an increase in income but just stabilizing his income where it is at the present moment.

Stabilization is the other word that the Minister is very fond of and stabilization is also the word that does not guarantee an income increase for the farmer.

Just before I conclude my statement in review of this bill, I would like to say that whatever this bill anticipates, or whatever we can anticipate for the farming community out of this bill, this it must include: it must include a return to the farmer which will guarantee the recovery of the cost of production; it must cover the cost of depreciation; it must give him a 10 per cent return on his cash investment; it must guarantee the farmer a wage comparable to any other form of labour that requires any amount of skill — I would suggest a $4.75 per hour minimum; it must guarantee some provision for a pension plan; it must guarantee the farmer the hope of a two-week vacation with pay, Mr. Member; and it must provide some kind of strike fund for the farmer.

Now I don't believe that we, as a party, will be happy until we see most or all of these demands cared for in a plan, such as is suggested by Bill 9. We will vote for the bill in principle. When it comes to the committee stage we have many, many questions that we want to ask. At that time, we trust that the Minister will be able to give us answers in this regard. Thank you very much.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, I hope to set a bit of a record for brevity in this debate.

I'm very, very sorry that we find it necessary to vote against Bill 9 in second reading for the reasons set out by my colleague from Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) yesterday afternoon.

I would like to draw to the attention of the House, Mr. Speaker, the remarks made in some detail yesterday afternoon by the Hon. Member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Williams). I watched during the several weeks of agriculture committee tours this summer. I noticed how the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound gained the respect and trust of the committee, regardless of party, and also gained, I think, the trust and respect of the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich). The Member was a strong, interested and constructive committee member, and I would suggest that if he is as sufficiently concerned as to suggest that the bill must be opposed for a variety of reasons, then I think that the Minister of Agriculture should be most concerned.

I also have to suggest the official opposition appears to be paying something approaching lip service to the well-being of the farmer, I wonder, really, where it was during 20 years in power and why we did not see some concrete proposal with respect to assistance to the farmer during that two-decade period.

In summary then, Mr. Speaker, it may not be the most popular position to take, but I believe that it is, among the Conservative and Liberal benches, felt to be the honest answer and the honest position to take on this particular bill.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Well I'm happy, Mr. Speaker, to be a part of the breakneck pace that this Legislature is taking this afternoon, and I'd like to make a few comments about this particular bill.

In my view, it's a derogation of legislative responsibility, it's legislation by regulation and it's government by designation. There are not any legislative checks, no legislative balance, no definitions of the ballpark, Mr. Speaker, or who'll play in it or when, no projection of costs, no indication of direction and no estimate of controls.

It erodes the job and the function of the elected representatives of this province, which is this assembly; this assembly which, in this bill, Mr. Speaker, is subjecting itself and lying prone and buckling under and walking under the yoke unto the unlimited and the unfettered powers of cabinet. And it's just not right. It's an abuse of the power of parliament.

Now whatever this bill may do, or whatever it may plan to do, will never be under the very revealing light of open debate within this chamber. This is the chamber where the laws are supposed to be made and enacted, and then it's the part of the government to see that they're effectively administered. But here we're giving the cabinet the power to make the laws as well as to administer them.

Now if these procedures, which are contemplated

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under the bill, were exercised absolutely fairly and absolutely equitably well, that would be well and good. But that's a test of absolutes. It would be quite possible if man were a perfect being and if this cabinet were a perfect cabinet; but neither are, so I say, all the more need for greater rather than lesser democratic safeguards. It's an excessive delegation of power, Mr. Speaker.

You know, the warning of Lord Acton rings pretty clear: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Those are the fears.

Here with this bill they'll be granting an unreserved mandate, absolutely carte blanche, on a platter to the boys behind the red door of cabinet, if, as, when and how they choose to act. And that, Mr. Speaker, is not parliamentary democracy, however well intentioned the concept may be.

I would much prefer that this party was not burdened, and the Conservative Party was not burdened with the very simplistic argument and statement that we are against farmers. Obviously that's not the case. Everybody in this House is for farmers or for loggers or for fishermen; they're for social workers, for professionals and for all of the people in British Columbia. But we are not, Mr. Speaker, for a bad, ill-considered, poorly-drawn kind of legislation such as this is, which is just blank-cheque legislation.

I remember the former administration brought in a bill a couple of sessions ago — it was a bill to amend the powers of B.C. Hydro, to increase their borrowing powers, Mr. Speaker, and if I recall correctly it was $50 million. The bill was 10 lines in length — five lines in length, the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Williams) corrects me — and it amounted to $10 million a line. There wasn't a single, solitary reason advanced by anyone on the government side as to the need for the legislation and we found the New Democratic Party, in opposition as it was then, voting for it.

We find today the Social Credit Party in the rather ignominious position of voting for a piece of legislation although they don't know where it came from and they don't know where it's going. But they said they happen to like one word in it and they're going to trust the NDP.

We do not propose to do that, Mr. Speaker; we intend to see what they're going to do. If they're going to bring in effective legislation, and if the legislation will spell out the direction this government is going to take, then this government can rest assured that we will be supporting it. But we have no intention of supporting this type of "Open Sesame" approach.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Mr. Speaker, in taking my place in this debate, it's rather important that I say a few words concerning this party's position on the matter of stabilization of farm income to the farming areas of the Province of British Columbia. The suggestion by the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) of where we were when we were government is completely irresponsible. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker: the Social Credit Party in British Columbia for many years stood alone on the matter of guaranteed income for all people in the Province of British Columbia.

The former Premier (Hon. Mr. Bennett) many times advocated that everyone, irrespective of what their position or what their vocation was, should have a basic guaranteed income supplied to them through the resources and the revenue that was available to us from the resource potential of this province. For the Member for Saanich and the Islands, the farmer from Saanich and the Islands, to get on his feet and suggest that there was anything that we have ever said that was detrimental to the farmers in this province is complete nonsense. The former government at least brought in the type of legislation that helped the farmers help themselves, and that is what we are in favour of.

We are in favour of a bill, if it has to come, with some form of assurance for the farmer. After all, Bill 42 created a greater problem for the farmer in this province than he ever had to face before in his life, because for the first time he had to look at an asset — that eventually was going to supply him with an income for his retirement years — devaluated because of stupid legislation on the part of the NDP. It's only because of that type of legislation that the party is now scrambling to try to recover itself and cover their steps by this Act.

It's true that this Act in its present form is anything but adequate, but there's nothing to prevent any Member in this House from getting on his feet in committee stage and suggesting the amendments that would put this Act into better shape than it presently is in. That's exactly what we'll be doing when we get to that stage of this bill.

We don't agree with a lot of the terms and the vagueness that are included in section 2, but I think that it's our responsibility to stand on the floor of this House and to say to the public at large, "We stand for fair treatment for the farmers in British Columbia." We don't want a situation where we'll be accused of being against the farmers, make no bones about that, because we stand for fair treatment for the farmers of British Columbia.

In my opinion, you're not going to settle the problems of the farmers with this bill, although it may help. The only time you settle the real problem of the farmer is when you put into his hands a fair return for the commodity that he produces and sells.

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Now whether the urban population of this province like it or not, they have been prepared to accept salary increases almost each and every year of anywhere from 5 to 15 per cent, and they have taken a position that we should subsidize the food they eat by suppressing the amount we pay to the farmer for the goods and the services that he produces for us. This is absolute nonsense.

People have got to wake up to the fact that in an economy as buoyant as it is in British Columbia the only person who has not been able so far to return any part of the costs and increases to the people who actually depend upon him for their food is the farmer. If it takes an income assurance Act to help stabilize that man so that he can receive an income that is equal to that of any other person in industry, then we're for it.

We know that for too long the farmer has been on the bottom end of the economic ladder.

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): The Socreds did not.

MR. SMITH: We know that because of Bill 42 you have taken away from him what would have provided an adequate income for his retirement years. We know that in this Act there are a lot of vague, uncertain terms. We don't like them. We are prepared to discuss amendments when we come to the proper stage of the bill. But make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, we support the principle that a farmer is entitled to employment — that a farmer is entitled to income that's equivalent to anyone else who works for a living in the Province of British Columbia.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, I rise to reinforce and repeat what other Members of my party have said about this bill. The Minister, when he introduced it, said it was vague. He said it was very vague. I think he repeated the term "vague" somewhere between 8 and 10 times in his speech. He apologized for it, and I give him credit for having done this, unlike other Members of his party who have taken pride in this.

He pointed out that he really didn't know how things were going to go. He then gave us a lengthy dissertation on what happened in Ottawa. He promised to produce documents which he quoted to us, or at least referred to — and he has not yet done so, I might add. The statement he then went into, which was about his Ottawa conference with his colleagues from the other province, basically dealt with the question of farm stabilization and other income. It dealt with possible plans in the future which had not even been discussed — as he admitted in his speech — by the federal Minister of Agriculture with his colleagues in the cabinet there.

This legislation we have today has been put forward under the title of Farm Income Assurance Act. It's been put forward with that title and that, perhaps, is the only good thing about it, and the only indication in that legislation or in the Minister's speech as to what the objective of this legislation is. Now we, like the Members of Social Credit and the Conservatives in the House and the Members of the NDP, appreciate the need for some sort of farm income stabilization which has become of critical importance since the Bill 42 of last session.

We appreciate the need for it. But simply because three words happen to occur in the title of an Act is no reason for us to vote for it and to accept the foolish argument put forward that if we don't vote for this Act, somehow you are against farm income. If this Legislature is to debate issues of the magnitude of this bill on those terms and in that way, really we are wasting our time.

The objections that we have to it are in the principle — not its objective. Its objective, fine, is to protect farm income. But the principles embodied in it, we feel, are authoritarian in the extreme. They are so stunningly simple, perhaps, that we just find them quite unacceptable.

There is only one clause in this Act, one section of the Act, that really means very much. It's a four-section Act, and it's section 2 which I would like to refer to because that's the enabling section. Mr. Speaker, that simply gives the Minister of the Crown who's designated by the cabinet any power he likes with respect to farm income. He can designate a fund. He can prescribe rules and procedures. He can establish and maintain an agency or corporation. He can prescribe its powers and duties. He can prescribe the powers and duties and methods of procedure to be followed by corporation, branch or agency. He has full powers. Finally, the Minister of Finance can guarantee, on such terms as the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may approve, the payment of any moneys advanced under this particular scheme.

He goes on to talk about "designating areas of the province in which, and persons or classes of persons to which the farm income plan shall apply." He, if we give him this power in this legislation, Mr. Speaker, can announce precisely what class of people can receive such money, and what other people are exempt. There is no way that any farmer, any member of the agricultural community, gets any right under this legislation to protect his farm income. Not at all. It's entirely dependent upon the Minister designated by the Crown, presumably the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich), who has full powers over every aspect of farm income.

We think that to give this sweeping power to a Minister in times of peace is just thoroughly unnecessary. The Minister himself in his speech has made it clear that it really isn't necessary because it's

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perfectly possible to bring in the plan commodity by commodity, which is essential and has to be done because you cannot bring in general rules anyway.

So what he is asking us for is this blank-cheque legislation, and he has no real idea, if we can judge by his speech in this House or the speeches of the other NDP Members, as to how he is going to use it. He's got no idea of how he is going to use it. He's got no idea of how he is going to proceed in protecting farm income, and that is why we cannot accept the principle of this legislation.

The principle of this legislation, which stands out like a sore thumb, is the principle of the Legislature handing over all power to a Member of the cabinet, to the government. We have had three or four centuries or more of the people of the province or any jurisdiction, in particular in the British Commonwealth, attempting to have legislatures and parliaments establish laws governing what groups of people or others, are going to receive or not receive in benefits. But the people's representatives decide these things, not the Crown in itself.

Mr. Speaker, if we pass a few Acts like this in other areas such as mining, and in the other areas of jurisdiction of Members of the government, there really would be no need for any legislature, no need for any representative of the people to come here and discuss what is right or wrong with legislation, because there would be no legislation. It would all go under regulations. And, as you know, regulations in this province are virtually uncontrollable. The recommendations of the B.C. Law Reform Commission, with respect to review of regulations, have not been followed by this government.

We're in a situation where we are being asked to pass legislation which is absolute in its curbs, which gives full powers, full rights to a cabinet Minister and does nothing specifically for the farmer himself.

We have heard arguments that oh, well, if you bring in legislation, if you put the words down somehow or another, they may not be appropriate. Well, for heaven's sake, it can be amended. Are we not amending other Acts, other bills? We've had amendments to bills that have not yet even been discussed, bills that haven't even been given second reading.

We feel that this type of legislation simply cannot be accepted by this Legislature and certainly not by this party, whatever the Minister says about the problems of farm income and whatever the Minister says about the problems which Bill 42 created for the farming community.

Sure they have problems. And certainly we, in this party, have asked the Minister for legislation in this area to help the farmer. But helping the farmer does not simply give the Minister, or should not be giving the Minister, full powers over the farmer.

He should be an independent producer, in our view, as far as possible. If we pass this type of legislation, he is no longer an independent producer. He simply becomes a ward of the Crown, a serf responsible to a Minister, who, in turn, determines his income fully and completely — and he can do it under this legislation.

It's a simple bit of legislation. Perhaps it has that one virtue. It is simple and authoritarian and, in my view, extremely damaging in terms of the type of democracy that we should be trying to create in British Columbia.

Have we not had argument after argument after argument in this House about the failing, or otherwise, of the former Member for Kamloops, Mr. Gaglardi, and his handling of his department through ministerial discretion? And yet that Act, in comparison with this one, was one which tied him in small knots as far as procedure went, as far as power went. The former Member for Kamloops was thoroughly restricted. He had very little discretion, if we compare the legislation he had with the legislation that we have before us.

Now I know the Hon. Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley) would have been one of the first to criticize the former Member for Kamloops had he brought in legislation like this. He would have been on his feet. He would have been critical. He would have been saying that it's absurd to give full powers to a Minister, whomever the Minister might be.

Now it so happens that we all have confidence in, not only the Minister of Public Works, but the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich). There is nothing personal in this at all. But the fact is this Legislature is not here to hand away powers such as this to Members of the cabinet. We are here to scrutinize. We are here to pass what legislation is necessary but not to pass legislation which the Minister himself cannot justify. He simply says: "We know it's vague. We know we don't know what we are going to do precisely. But give us this and we'll do something, we'll think up something in the future."

Well, that is absolutely the antithesis of what we should be doing here. It is the absolute opposite of the type of legislation which should be brought in.

By comparison, the Minister of Labour's (Hon. Mr. King) legislation gives details, spells out duties, it is an instructive type of legislation. We all have comments on it in the Legislature and we will propose amendments to it where we think amendments are necessary. But contrast that legislation to deal with a major problem in the province with this. It is a completely different approach. You'll forgive me for saying that the approach of the Minister of Labour is infinitely preferable. It is an approach which is in keeping with our democratic traditions, while this authoritarian bill on farm income is quite the reverse of what we should be doing.

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Mr. Speaker, there has been discussion at length about farm income, about the need to help the farmers. Yet there is nothing here which helps the farmer specifically. We all know that the Minister of Agriculture, or any other Minister, can bring in a bill to help the farmer at any future time if he can think up something that he wants to bring in. We're passing this legislation because they haven't thought up what they want to bring in. They don't know what they want to bring in and they want to give the cover of doing something at a time when they know full well that all Members of this House are concerned about the problem.

It makes, in my view, the farmer of British Columbia, the person in the agricultural industry, entirely dependent upon the Crown and upon regulations. It makes him, as I mentioned earlier, essentially a serf in terms of his independence, his ability to operate as an independent producer. A better term might be, I guess, that it might make him a civil servant, because he doesn't get bargaining legislation or anything of that nature. He is much less than a civil servant of the government. He certainly is not the independent producer that he has been in the past.

The farming community has looked at this legislation and they are baffled by it, too. They have said that they think it is a step in the right direction and they think it's a step that expresses government concern over farm income. I agree. They are probably right there. But in terms of what it does for them and in terms of what it does to the whole concept of the legislation that we have in this province, I don't think they fully recognize the dangers that they are facing. If this legislation is passed, and if we continue with this trend of legislation, we are going to arrive at a situation where this Legislature, as such, is going to have no control whatsoever, except when we question regulations during the estimates debate. And this, the Law Reform Commission has pointed out, is a thoroughly inadequate way of checking on regulations.

They'll have no control, no ability to use their elected representative, who may be Social Credit, NDP, Liberal, Conservative, what-have-you. They will have no ability to do that because, of course, there is no legislation that you can get at. It is entirely in regulations and the regulations are entirely drawn up by the cabinet, in particular the Minister and his civil servants.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation follows legislation which was bad — Bill 42. I imagine it was felt necessary to bring something forward at this time because of the promise to help the farming community out of the difficulties presented by Bill 42.

Bill 42 was bad, but at least in Bill 42 we, in this Legislature, of all parties, including the government, were able to recognize the problems in that bill, the areas which were perhaps questionable and the government put in amendments. We put in amendments and the government — and I give them credit for this — was good enough to accept some of the Liberal amendments. I think specifically of the one my Hon. friend from West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Williams).

But having learned that lesson, that somehow or another, if you try and put things down in black and white and it turns out that it's the wrong thing to do, the public and other Members of the Legislature will be critical, this government has adopted entirely the opposite tack. They said, "If we get our fingers burned when we try and put it down in black and white, we certainly won't put it down in black and white at all. We will do it by regulation and we will fiddle around with that in the future and no one will know." And that's the approach they have adopted.

Whether I approve of assisting farmers and stabilizing farm income, or whether I don't — I do and I would like to see good legislation here — is irrelevant to the central principle of this type of legislation, which is authoritarian handing of powers by the people's representatives to a Minister who will then act in a thoroughly unchecked and uncheckable way. There's no way we can do it. And for the third time I refer you to the Law Reform Commission.

We started off with this government where they gave us legislation which was bad — the Bill 42 legislation. We now have legislation which is substantially worse. We in this party cannot accept a bill which would make the independent producers, the farm community of British Columbia, entirely dependent for their income upon a Minister and upon his regulations.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. FX RICHTER (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, there has been a considerable amount of debate on Bill 9 and its principle, and I want to make the position of the official opposition very clear.

We recognize, in this party, the need for farm assistance. How this became so evident within a year is rather surprising, the action that happens out in the farming areas. The farmers are only learning of the full impact of Bill 42 and that was a criteria for the necessity of bringing in this form of legislation.

Now, the former government was criticized for not bringing in measures to help farmers. I have to disagree with that because, when the Social Credit became government in 1952, we had a terrible situation in relation to the milk industry. It had to have a royal commission and a completely new Act redrafted. So I suppose you could blame the former government before Social Credit for their shortcomings.

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We know the agricultural industry is a changing industry and one must keep pace with the situation as it goes along under normal conditions. But when a situation is developed by the government by way of legislation which is presently on the books, then you're naturally going to get spin-offs. The spin-off we have today is the need for some form of assurance to the farming industry.

This bill, as I see the bill — and I've had a slight degree of experience in farming — is not a means by way of the government assisting the farmer; it is a form of mechanics in which the farmer finds that he must help himself by way of his premiums, by way of the efficient farmer subsidizing the farmer who is non-efficient. You have a mediocre farmer; he may be in this year and he may be out next year as far as profit is concerned, so you've actually got about two-thirds of the farmers who are going to be dependent on one-third.

It's not unlike the automobile insurance that was brought in by the government in early spring, where we have no concept of what the premiums are going to be. I sympathize with the Minister in this respect: I don't think anybody can tell you what the premium is going to be on raspberries or what it's going to be on grain or what it's going to be on apples. It's going to take a long, long study to really come up with, let us say, an average. You can't take the low year, you can't take the high year, you've got to come up with a guideline. It's going to take a terrifically long time.

Farmers can't wait that long; they need this now; they need it in this crop year because they have found themselves in a depreciated position as far as their landholdings are concerned. I'm for conservation of farmland; there's no question about that.

Although the bill says nothing as far as detail is concerned, we're very much in support of the principle and we are quite prepared to make suggestions, as the Minister has invited, as to how the mechanics should be set up. Certainly we're not in favour of the mechanics as set out in this bill because they are too vague, as the Minister has said.

Furthermore, there's no detail, there's no revelation of what this is going to cost the farmer. It may be completely out of reach as far as farming is concerned. And today, when the farmers expected a bright light — almost a second coming of the Messiah — from the present government, they're feeling their way around in the dark, trying to find the candle so they can light it themselves. That's just what this legislation is; the farmer is going to have to light his own way.

It's going to be something on the statute books which gives extremely wide powers. It actually gives the power to the government to set up a Crown corporation to operate agriculture; that's what it does if you want to take it to the Nth degree. I say that this is not right. We live in a free enterprise and a democratic province and I hope it will stay that way.

I'm completely in sympathy with legislation that will be of assistance to the farming fraternity, and the sooner it can come into being, the better. But the content of this bill has little or nothing in it, and we are prepared to support the title or the principle…(laughter)…of having an assistance programme available to the farming legislation.

I know I got some guffaws from down here on my left. I don't know what the laughing matter is, but as far as agriculture is concerned, this official opposition doesn't find anything to laugh at as far as the farmer is concerned. We want to be helpful to the government in light of the fact that they can't be helpful to themselves in bringing forth proper legislation which will be of assistance to that industry.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Agriculture closes the debate.

HON. MR. STUPICH: It's a bit difficult to deal with the debate around this bill; the nature of the debate did nothing to discuss the principles of the bill. At least we welcome the support from the leader of the official opposition who says that he does support the title, so that's something to be said for the official opposition.

Earlier in his remarks he told us about the trouble the milk industry was in when Social Credit took office in 1952. I assume that was an example of what the government did for the farmers. He didn't recall anything that they did for the farmers since 1952.

I do recall something they did to the milk industry after 1952 and that was one of the reasons we brought in the amendment to the Milk Industry Act a few days ago. That was when they gave permission for another dairy to be established in the province which certainly created a lot of problems for a lot of dairy farmers. I just wish there was some way we could turn the clock back today. There may be, but we're not dealing with that today.

I'm going to try to pick out some of the comments made by some of the Members and deal briefly with them.

The Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) asked about a document that I received from the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. The Hon. leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. D.A. Anderson) was asking about the same document. I did send out for this and it reached my hands just as the Member was rising to his feet to speak, so it was a bit late.

It's a very brief statement as far as stabilization of agricultural income is concerned. It's not one that I'm prepared to leave in the House because it has a lot of my own notes in it, but I'm sure it will be quite easy to get a copy of this document for anyone in the

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House who wants one. Just simply identify yourself.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: He promised to make it available.

HON. MR. STUPICH: I did? I'll make it available then, Give me a few extra copies, Dick, I'll make it available. Would you like me to read it? I could very easily; it's short — a page and a half. No? That's fine. I would prefer not to; I don't want to keep the House here reading a document.

There is one point in it that was raised by some of the Members opposite. The most recent speaker in this debate raised the question of us involving producers in this — the producers are going to have to do it themselves — and others were critical of the fact that producers were going to have to contribute. In this short statement on stabilization of agricultural income, one of the paragraphs starts out, "Producers would contribute a percentage of their income when prices surpass the negotiated minimums and the government would match these contributions."

Mr. Speaker, a very general statement, the only sort of statement that can deal with a topic such as the one we're discussing today. The B.C. Federation of Agriculture recognized that; many Members in the House recognized that it would have to be a general statement, that the legislation, in the words of the Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson), would have to be flexible to allow for the many different situations that exist in the Province of British Columbia and the many different commodity groups that we have to consider.

The fact was mentioned by one of the Members opposite — I'm not sure which one — that in some cases, not only is a person producing one commodity, he may be producing several commodities. I may come across that in my notes.

As for the cost, this is something admittedly that we don't know at this time. We do know from the calculations I quoted yesterday that if we use the basis that was used as a cost of production for the Okanagan Valley — and I quoted a figure of 6 cents for apples — and if we maintain the price at that minimum figure, the cost would be something like 0.8 of one cent per pound for apples. This means that roughly $176,000 in premiums from the apple producers and a like amount from the provincial government would cover the cost of maintaining that minimum income.

I'm not saying that that minimum figure is enough, but I'm saying that if those are the figures you're going to use, then that would be area of the cost.

The fruit industry has a gross contribution to the economy in the Province of British Columbia of $50 million, as was listed in the Hudson report. The total agricultural industry has a volume of something like $1 billion, which is 20 times the fruit industry. I'm not suggesting for one moment that fruit is an average situation; I think it's much lower than average. But for the sake of having something in the way of a ballpark figure (What is the House discussing today?), let's say that fruit is an average industry and let's say that the cost in the fruit industry of the premium to the government would be $200,000. Multiply that by 20 and you get an annual cost of $4 million, little enough to support the agricultural industry in the province. But it would be meaningless to put such a figure in this legislation at this time.

I tried to indicate in the speech that I made on this bill and in answering questions outside of the House that we're going to be discussing this with representatives of the farmers' organizations commodity group by commodity group. Only after we have arrived at those plans in consultation with those groups will we have any idea at all as to what the volume protection will be or what the figures will be in the various commodity groups.

So for the meantime, again I say, in the words of the Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson)…. . and I guess I can't really give Ned credit for bringing the word up even before that; but he suggested also that perhaps the proper word would be "flexible", rather than the one that I used several times in my remarks yesterday, and I forget what that word was right now.

The question as to who would negotiate: I don't know why that question was asked by the Hon. Member for South Peace (Mr. Phillips). Who would negotiate? I thought I indicated quite clearly in my remarks that we would be going to the representatives of the commodity groups, not to individuals in that commodity group. But again, since we've been talking so much about fruit and you've listened to so much about fruit when you were on the standing committee, we would go to the organization representing the fruit growers. In the case of the fruit growers, it is the B.C. Fruit Growers Association — we would ask them to sit down and negotiate with us.

In the case of the grape growers, the cost of production was arrived at with the representative of the grape growers organization. They have a marketing board and that marketing board worked on cost of production figures with the staff of our department and with other people. They came up with a cost that they felt was reasonable, a cost that they were able to get from the wineries last year, and again this year at a higher level. So it is possible under certain circumstances to arrive at these costs of production.

We could put consultation in the bill; we could spell it out. Supposing we left it in a way — and this is one of the remarks that I think I put down as you were speaking — whereby it could be more specific than it has been; and supposing, in making it specific,

[ Page 382 ]

we found out that a situation arose that we couldn't deal with because the legislation was specific. Remember, we're pioneering. So then you would say, "Well, come in in the next session and amend it."

In the meantime we would be saying to the farmers, "Hang on; wait for two, three, four, six months."

We're not ready to wait. We promised the farmers in the province in the spring of this year that we would be dealing with legislation this fall that would help the farmers. We want the House to approve in this session — not next session, not the session after — plans that are going to be introduced and amended, and amended again to suit the various particular circumstances of any particular commodity group.

We want flexible legislation that can be accommodated to meet the needs of any group, and not only the needs of any group of farmers, but also to meet the very peculiar situation that we have in Ottawa.

The Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) was talking about this and used the words that "my heart warmed." Mr. Speaker, I have the same problem that some of them have in that I don't have Hansard for today or yesterday, but I can't imagine that I would use those words; that's not the kind of words that I use, certainly not in that context anyway. So I'm not sure what I did say, but I didn't say…"heart soared" were the words you used.

No, my heart didn't soar. Certainly I was encouraged by the remarks of the federal Minister of Agriculture. But when I think that he may not be Minister of Agriculture very long; when I think that that government may not be in office very long…and who can tell? I can't tell. I can listen, but I can't tell. I have no influence in that area any more than, I think, you have. You know, that government will last just as long as the Liberal Premier is prepared to do something for the people of Canada. There are times when it appears that he is not prepared to do much more for the people of Canada.

If at any time he shows that he's not prepared to do something for the people of Canada, then he's going to be out of office, and with that we lose the federal minister. All we have is the federal Minister's indications as to what he wants to do and what he is going to put to his cabinet colleagues.

Now my heart wouldn't soar at that type of encouragement. But certainly I was encouraged that at last we do have a federal Minister who does want to do something, and who was willing to sit down with the provincial Ministers of Agriculture and tell us what he wanted to do and to ask us to indicate our support at that meeting, when there were many civil servants around who would go back and tell their respective Ministers what the provincial Ministers wanted — so that it wouldn't be just his word. So I was encouraged.

MRS. JORDAN: Was it a B.C. production cost or a national production cost?

HON. MR. STUPICH: I have that question here too. Again, Mr. Speaker, I know it's difficult to listen and to make notes, because I ran into the same difficulty. But I thought I did make it quite plain, not once but several times over, that the federal Minister was considering two different pieces of legislation, a new one and an old one, including a provision for federal-provincial participation on the basis that he would deal with provinces individually.

I mention the hog plan where I said that he recognized the difficulty of trying to deal with something like that where it really should be at least a region, if not the whole country. But even in spite of that he was prepared to sit down province by province and negotiate agreements peculiar to the needs and the desires — and not just that, Mr. Speaker — according also to the willingness of that particular provincial government to act.

The Member opposite spoke about the willingness of the previous government and the problems it had in negotiating with Ottawa. I still hear from people in Ottawa that they just can't get over the idea that at long last there is a government in office in the Province of British Columbia that is prepared to sit down and talk with them about negotiating things where the provincial government will participate.

MR. CHABOT: Talk to the Minister of Industrial Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk).

HON. MR. STUPICH: The attitude previously has been that the provincial government was prepared to go along with anything if Ottawa would pay the whole shot and if the provincial government of B.C. would get all the credit. That was the only way they were prepared to talk to Ottawa about helping farmers in the Province of British Columbia.

We're prepared to negotiate with them. We're prepared to accept their money. We're prepared to accept federal money for farm income maintenance plans, farm income assurance plans, in the Province of British Columbia. We're prepared to give them all the credit they want.

MR. PHILLIPS: Did you bring in crop insurance?

HON. MR. STUPICH: No, we didn't bring in crop insurance, Mr. Speaker; the previous government brought in crop insurance, and brought it in in a way that was not acceptable to the farmers in British Columbia. He knows from his own riding how many farmers were in crop insurance up in the South Peace River area. And I'm sure he knows, Mr. Speaker, that participation in that plan has at least quadrupled since this administration took office because it is a

[ Page 383 ]

much better deal now and because we have gone out to persuade the farmers in that area that this is something they should be taking advantage of because it is a good plan for them.

Previously the attitude was, "Well, let's not encourage them too much because if they do come in we may have to pay out some claims and it'll cost the government money." But now we're going out and persuading them to join the crop insurance plan because it will help them.

One criticism did come from the Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) and has come from many of the Members in the opposition generally — and really this is the criticism of the bill in their minds. They're worried; they're concerned. They're concerned that the bill is going to do too much for the farmers in the Province of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, not enough has been done.

At long last, legislation is before the Members in this House that will enable the government to sit down and negotiate with farmers to help farmers. And the concern, the worry, the criticism is, "You might do too much; you might spend too much money to help the farmers." The farmers have been helping the consumers too long. It is time the consumers and the general community decided that the farmers too need some help in this Province of British Columbia. We have a government that's prepared to do it.

Interjections.

HON. MR. STUPICH: There's no question, Mr. Speaker, of premiums in the bill. There are situations where premiums might not be the right route to go. These are situations where instead of individual farmers paying a premium it might be that the association of producers would levy some kind of a charge that would not be considered a premium. By putting the word "premium" in the legislation, we might find it difficult to accommodate the needs of that particular commodity group.

There are all kinds of situations where we might find that the lawyers would try to word this. I recall the remarks of the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer)…no, I'm sorry, the Second Member (Mr. Gardom). The First Member is raising his eyebrows when I mention the word "lawyers." The First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey was concerned about all the work that these two civil servants are having to do all by themselves.

Now to try to develop legislation that would accommodate every possible situation with the various commodity groups that we have in this province, with the various combinations of commodity groups that we have in this province, would be asking too much, even if we had four instead of two lawyers drafting all the legislation that has been drafted in this province for the last 20 years.

Interjections.

HON. MR. STUPICH: Well, one wonders, listening to the Members of the official opposition, just exactly why they are voting for it. The Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) suggested that this bill questions the competence of the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture. I'm not surprised that that questioning came from the Member for North Okanagan. I'm pleased to say, though, Mr. Speaker, that to the best of my knowledge there is no such question raised in the mind of the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips). He participated very well in that committee, attended most, if not all, of the meetings and worked hard as a participating member of that committee to get as much information brought out in those committee meetings as he possibly could.

I feel from everything that he has said about us, that lie felt the work of the Select Standing Committee was very much worthwhile. The Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) felt the same way — again to the best of my knowledge. I am sure he felt the work was very worthwhile.

Legislation that has been promised, that was referred to in the throne speech, that was promised again when I spoke in the debate, and is still to come, will indicate that the government is paying attention to the recommendations produced by the select standing committee.

On any occasion when the Hon. Members for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis), Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster), Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson), and Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis), have spoken about the work of the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture they have said they have been more than pleased to have served as a member of that committee, to have felt that that committee was doing agriculture a service in the whole province by going around and meeting the farmers, by listening to them, by questioning them, by trying to get answers, by trying to learn what the problems were.

So I am pleased that the other Members felt that the work of the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture was anything but inconsequential.

MR. SPEAKER: Excuse me, Hon. Minister. Is there a point of order?

MRS. JORDAN: Yes. I did not say what the Minister has just accused me of saying. I said that the Member for Kamloops' (Mr. G.H. Anderson) speech in this House today and yesterday afternoon might well question….

[ Page 384 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

MRS. JORDAN: I would ask him to withdraw his comments that I criticized the Minister of Agriculture….

MR. SPEAKER: Will the Hon. Member be seated, please? I point out to the Hon. Member, who knows, I am sure, that at the end of this speech made by the Minister if there is something attributed to you that you disagree with, you can stand and inform the House so. But nobody is asked to withdraw anything on that type of a complaint.

Will the Hon. Minister proceed?

HON. MR. STUPICH: I suppose I am risking recalling the Hon. Member for Okanagan's remarks correctly, but not in the way she wants me to recall them, and being challenged on this. But she also said — the way I have it down — "If this bill is all you have to offer, it was not worthwhile calling this session."

Mr. Speaker, if this bill was all we had to offer, it would have been worthwhile calling it for the sake of the farmers.

But, Mr. Speaker, there are many indications before the House was ever called together as to what business would be before this House. In the opening speech we were told then that there would be several measures introduced to help the agricultural industry and that an income stabilization plan would be one of them, only one of them.

In my remarks during the throne speech debate I referred to the opening speech and indicated that in it there were at least three extremely important pieces of legislation to the agricultural industry in this province.

And yet the Member says, "If this is all we have to offer…" Where has she been in the last two, three, four months when she assumes that this is the only piece of legislation that is going to be discussed during this session of the Legislature?

She suggested also that we have not kept our election promises. Mr. Speaker, I will remind you and the Members opposite — and I did it during the spring session — that our first promise to the farmers in this province was that we would preserve agricultural land for farming and for producing food. And, by golly, we lived up to that election promise.

We went on to say in paragraph after paragraph that we would bring in specific measures to make farming more economically worthwhile. This is the first real indication that we are living up to that promise. There will be others this session, as have been promised.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

HON. MR. STUPICH: I don't know why I need to refer to other questions. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Richter) said there has been considerable debate on this. Not really, not really very much.

During the course of my remarks I did discuss some of the details of how I thought the plan might work and welcomed some suggestions from the opposite side. I have had no suggestions as to how the plan might work, just some concern that we might be doing too much — a concern from the Leader of the Opposition. I think his main concern was to make clear the position of the official opposition. Then we had the leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. D.A. Anderson) trying to make clear what the position of the Liberal Party was in this debate; the leader of the Conservative Party (Mr. Wallace), previously, trying to make clear just what his position was in this debate.

So, Mr. Speaker, rather than discussing the principles of a farm income stabilization plan, a farm income assurance plan, we find that most of the Members of the opposition are more concerned about trying to establish just what is their position, trying to make their position clear. Why are they supporting it when they don't really want to, and why are they opposing it when they really want to support it?

Mr. Speaker, they are going to have an opportunity soon; they will have an opportunity to vote on this. At that time I think they can tell the farmers of this province if they really believe in a farm income assurance plan or if they should not have it at this time, that more thought should be given, that there should be more consultation, that we should wait until the federal government is ready to move.

Which federal government? After which election? How do we know when and to what extent the federal government will or will not be willing to move? We have indicated in this plan that the provincial government is ready to move now to help the farmers in this province. We've been told by the Members opposite that there would have been no problem had we not introduced legislation to preserve farmland, that everything has been fine in the agricultural industry for the last 20 years.

Well now, Mr. Speaker, that's not the message I've been getting. That's not the message I got from the B.C. Federation of Agriculture when I sat in opposition for six years. Year after year they came in with problems. Year after year they came in with reports that they had gone to cabinet and gone to the government benches with requests for assistance for a depressed agricultural industry. Year after year they had been turned away; they didn't get anything to speak of in the whole 20 years. This is what they were telling us. They were not getting anything to help the agricultural industry.

Everybody else in the community was getting it, but when it came to agriculture the Premier of the

[ Page 385 ]

day was not extremely interested. He was more interested in seeing the rich farmlands of the Okanagan Valley, for example, subdivided because there was much more money in subdividing than there was in raising fruit and there was no call upon the government to put any money into subdivisions. Sometimes, in times of disaster, there might be a call upon the government crop insurance plan, if you like, to put money into the fruit industry. So it was better to subdivide and get rid of all the problems by getting rid of the farmland. That was the attitude to agriculture before we took office.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Cut down the trees so they could see the view.

HON. MR. STUPICH: We've indicated, I think, that we want to preserve the agricultural industry: first, by preserving the land; secondly, by helping the farmers. Our first step in this is the farm income assurance plan, a plan that we are prepared to go into with or without federal help, a plan that we are prepared to offer to the farmers with their assistance in arriving at a suitable plan, commodity group by commodity group, discussing it with them to make sure that it is satisfactory to the members of the particular commodity groups. We want to work it out in cooperation with them.

Ultimately, we hope that Ottawa will come along with it. But in the meantime, whether it's a premium plan, whether it's a plan that suits the needs of all of the farmers all at once in every situation or not, we are prepared to go into that kind of a plan.

I invite the Members opposite to vote as to whether they really want the farmers in this province to have access to farm income assurance.

Mr. Speaker, I now move second reading.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Speaker, on a matter of privilege in relation to statements made by the Minister, I wish to record that I did suggest that the Member for Kamloops' (Mr. G.H. Anderson), as I described it, "fluffabuster" speech in this debate this afternoon and yesterday might well have brought the competency of the agricultural committee into question. But at no time, Mr. Speaker, in this House or outside of this House, have I criticized the agricultural committee, and the Minister knows full well. It is quite the contrary, as the chairman of that committee will verify.

I have, Mr. Speaker, criticized the health and welfare committee in certain aspects, and with justification.

MR. SPEAKER: Order. It doesn't require any further extension of your remarks than that he is mistaken. The House accepts your statement unequivocally.

I would point out before the motion is called that I am informed by Hansard staff — and this did concern me — when the Hon. Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) stated Hansard for yesterday was not available, the Sergeant-at-Arms office reports that five copies of the blues for yesterday were delivered at 9 a.m. this morning. When the Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) mentioned that Hansard was not available, the same situation pertained except that two copies of the blues are available in the House at all times. I want you to understand that this is supposed to be an "instant Hansard. "

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, if I could speak on that point. I understand that the blues are not for attribution, and really and truly we can't even call it Hansard.

MR. SPEAKER: The blues are here for you to look at so that they are for attribution. You take the risk, of course, that there is some error in them.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: In other words, we can quote them in the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, no. They are there for your information.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Yes, that's better.

MR. SPEAKER: The question before the House is: shall Bill 9 be read a second time now?

Motion approved on the following division.

YEAS — 44

NAYS — 6

[ Page 386 ]

PAIRED

Bill 9 read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House at the next sitting after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE ADOPTION ACT

HON. MR. BARRETT: Second reading of Bill 12, Mr. Speaker.

HON. N. LEVI (Minister of Human Resources): I hope, my friends, you are ready to go, are you?

The reason for this bill is the result of a judgment that was handed down by his Honour Judge Tyrwhitt-Drake, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, in which he questioned that our Act in some way did not ensure the rights of Indian children when they were placed in adoption. In order to clarify this, the amendment has been brought in.

I would like to comment on what is a general problem for us regarding Indian adoptions. We have had some discussions with the British Columbia Association of Non Status Indians and the B.C. Association of Status Indians regarding the welfare of Indian children. They are concerned that in the province we have some 11,000 children in care, and 40 per cent of whom, some 4,400 are Indian children.

We have been concerned that, in terms of adoptions, we have not been able to come up with a sufficient number of Indian homes for Indian children. I might say that as of the end of August we had 566 approved adoption homes in the province, and only two of these homes were Indian homes. From April until August of this year, we placed some 80 Indian children in adoption, again only two were in Indian homes.

I realize that there has been some problem in respect to some of the children being placed in the homes of parents and relatives because of the welfare regulations and we are changing this. We are not going to say that, because a child is placed in the home of a relative, it cannot be supported. That's in the first instance. But there is a question, a very real question in terms of the problems of Indian adopting homes that we have to go into.

There has been some discussion, for some time, about the possibility of subsidized adoptions. This is where a child would be placed for adoption in the home and that the state, the government, would be prepared to provide some money for the continuing maintenance of this child.

One of the reasons that some people are not able to adopt is an income question, particularly with Indian families, who are among, generally speaking, the low-income bracket. So we will be discussing with the Indian groups the question of subsidized adoption homes.

The Indian groups have been critical of us and, in some respects, quite rightly so. To place their Indian children in white homes really exacerbates the situation of the breakdown of their culture.

Last November, when we were in Prince Rupert — myself, the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) and Mr. Calder — we asked very specifically that the Indian groups notify us of possible adoption homes and foster homes that were prepared to take children who were Indians themselves. We have not received many recommendations, but we are hoping to go on a fairly broad programme of information in order to encourage this.

I would also like to say something, Mr. Speaker, in respect to another problem in adoptions which we are looking at. Those of us who have worked in this field for a long time, and I refer to the Premier and the First Member for Vancouver-Centre (Mr. Barnes) and the Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) have often been confronted, as maybe some of the other MLAs have been, with young people in their teens, or maybe older, inquiring about how they might find out what happened to their natural parents. I, in my experience, have had this happen to me many, many times. We know that children, although they are adopted, as they get older they become extremely curious and want to know about their origin and who their parents were.

At the present time, the giving out of this information is prescribed by law. However, we do have some ideas about how we might go about it. One of the workers in the Children's Aid Society, Mrs. Honor Mulwinkle, has come up with a proposal, which is spelled out in a very worthwhile fashion, that we establish a registry where parents who gave up children for adoption can inquire about those children.

I want to make it clear that we're not talking about young children, we're talking about children; they can inquire about children who are perhaps in their early teens. We as yet don't feel that we can get involved with children in the very tender years.

But nevertheless, we would like to set up an exchange of information where parents who gave up children for adoption could apply to a registry, and we would probably set it up. Then we would endeavour, in as gentle a fashion as possible, to approach those parents who adopted the child to find out if they would be prepared to share the information.

Now the present techniques in adoption involve the parent who has given the child up for adoption meeting the prospective adopting parents. This is now a process which is going on in the field. But we have a great backlog of people who are very curious about

[ Page 387 ]

what has happened to their children.

I'd like to just read to you from a letter that Mrs. Mulwinkle sent me. She says:

"We've had three interesting examples of reunion in the past two years. The first was a situation where a daughter wished to meet her mother before she left this continent to reside elsewhere. Permission was granted for one of the workers to seek out her mother, who was happy and gratified to meet the daughter again.

"The second was a case of a young man, now aged 36, who persisted in writing to the Department of the Attorney General until permission was granted. I, (Mrs. Mulwinkle), inserted an advertisement in the Province on Monday morning, and by 11 a.m. I'd heard from an uncle. The mother was dead, but her sister, the man's aunt, told me, 'I would love to see the boy!' His mother subsequently married and bore two sons, his half-brothers. He's now playing floor hockey on the same team and still phones me from time to time to tell me how grateful he is that he's found his family.

"The third case was that of a lady living in California who was placed in a home, an institution in 1922, subsequently placed with a couple who took her over the border and never adopted her. In addition, her birth was never registered, she and her husband did their own advertising and this summer, they had a happy reunion with all of the relatives in Canada."

Now these cases come up all the time. We feel that we have now reached a stage in the '70's where we can be much more broadminded and less anxious about involving adopting parents and those parents that gave up on adoptions. So we're going to look into this and try it in a small way. We're aware of the delicacy of the situation, but we would like to consider the possibility of doing it.

You may be aware that recently one of the books on the best-seller list was about one of these very cases of a young girl of 28 who spent almost four years looking for her family.

The government has been involved as well in discussing, with the federal government, the need for Canada to adopt an international adoptions policy. As you know, since the onset of abortions, the pill and other birth control methods, the number of children available for adoption has gone down considerably.

There are various groups in Canada who are connected with other groups overseas who attempt to bring people in from various countries. Mr. Speaker, the House might be interested in knowing that between 1955 and 1973 some 80 children were brought in from Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Washington, Jamaica and the West Indies. But our concern is that, as the federal government has no direct policy on this, there are some serious problems always coming up, especially in our recent attempts to get children from Bangladesh, when with great difficulty the immigration regulations were interpreted to the Bangladesh government so that we could in fact get the children. I personally don't hold out a great deal of hope for the influx of a large number of children to answer some of the needs of some of the parents who want to adopt, because the overseas countries are more and more deciding that they want to look after their own children and are not prepared to let them go.

Mr. Speaker, the department and the government are concerned about Indian adoptions. We're concerned about the question of relationships between adopted children, their natural parents and their adoptive parents. We're concerned about providing an adequate amount of income, and this will have to be the subject of some debate with the Children's Aid Society as to whether we will go this route of doing subsidized adoptions.

But one of the most serious problems that we have is that we have in care a large number who are older age, more than eight, whom we would like to see adopted. In May, when I spoke to the annual meeting of the Children's Aid Society, I announced that, as of July 1, there would be a one-year moratorium on applications for newborn children, not for other children but for newborn children, because at that time we had over 1,000 homes which had been studied and were waiting for children.

Since the moratorium was announced on July 1, it has had the effect of changing the attitude of many applicants as they have moved from wanting a day-old child, a perfect child, one who is not handicapped, into that of seeing themselves as a resource for the more hard-to-place child, the child who is older and the child who is handicapped. We're quite gratified that we have had some reduction, then, in the number of studied homes where we've been able to complete adoptions proceedings with some older children. We want, over the next year, to make a real effort to ask people to accept these children into their homes.

We know we have had some criticism about the regulations connected with adoption. We are looking at these. We will make some changes. One of the changes that I'm going to see made available is that I think we will not become too involved in limiting the age of parents. I don't think that, because people are 45 and 50, they are not people who can adopt children. There are many people of that age, and even a little older, who want to adopt. I think that that's something that we should be encouraging.

But we will be reviewing a number of the adoption proceedings. We will be having discussions with my friend, the Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), about some of the court procedures which are

[ Page 388 ]

somewhat long and drawn-out.

Mr. Speaker, the adoption process is a very involved and very necessary process in our society. It takes up a great deal of time in terms of the work of the Child Welfare Department. Fortunately, because of the procedures we have used and the kind of staff that we have, we've been able to successfully place a large number of children. By successfully I mean that the amount of rejection as a result of adoption, in adoption homes, has been limited to something like less than 10 per cent. That in itself is very gratifying, because it is not easy to match parents and child and a great deal of effort is taken in doing this. As we said when we came to government, our thrusts in the department were in the area of children and families. In this bill, what is attempted to do is to assure everyone, especially the Indian people, that the rights with respect to those children will in no way be reduced because of adoptions. We've certainly moved to put our adoption Act in line with the Indian Act of the federal government. I move second reading on this, Mr. Speaker.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, Mr. Speaker, I certainly enjoyed listening to the Minister spin the wheels of time. There was indeed much of interest in what he said, but I think also it's pointed out why we must scrutinize this government's legislation very closely. There are eight lines in this bill, of which two lines are: "Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia enacts as follows." That leaves six lines that encompass, I assume, the type of legislation that the Minister's just spun out.

This party has long advocated that every effort be made to help the native Indian people of British Columbia maintain their rights, protect their property, and have the same opportunities and responsibilities in British Columbia as any other citizen in this province. It's for this reason that we intend to support the bill as it is written.

We are aware of the problem that was created by the judicial decision in relation to the rights and privileges of the native Indian children when they are adopted, and we are pleased that the Minister has acted and responded very quickly to this situation. He's corrected it.

The bill has brought one question to my mind, and I would pose it for consideration by the Minister as to whether or not it would be feasible, and that whether this amendment to the Adoption Act, in relation to another amendment to the Adoption Act that was made at a previous session, would in fact allow an Indian woman to adopt a white man with the view to retaining her native life, as well as providing a social opportunity in which they could live together. (Laughter.) It may strike you as very funny, Mr. Speaker, but it strikes me as a very interesting question and I'm sure the learned counsel will have much to say.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled against the right of native Indian women to maintain their status if they marry a white man. I wonder if in fact this Act in British Columbia might well provide an avenue through which they could circumvent that decision. If this is the case, then I think the matter probably bears considerable consideration.

In relation to the comments that the Minister made in his expanded legislative programme, we can appreciate the need for homes for adopting children. We would support any effort that this Minister will make towards opening the minds and removing some of the problems that there are in placing these children in white homes.

I think, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, one of the problems that does arise is that the Indian children of the age of 8, 9 or 10 that are taken into foster homes, for example, off the reserves, come in contact with other Indian children through the schools. They show a great tendency, when they become teenagers, to go back to the reserve, in part on an emotional basis and in part because the reserve offers a much less structured life and much more freedom. This may be very appealing at the age of 13 and 14, but may well prove a major detriment to the child gaining a proper education, and gaining a major sense of responsibility. I would ask him to consider this very carefully.

On the question of allowing true parents access to their adopted children and knowledge of their adopted children, the Minister suggested that this might be in the early teens. In our view, and in my view, this is a matter that would not only be very delicate but must be put out of an emotional realm and considered very seriously.

We are all aware that the problems of being a parent today are great; the problems of being a teenager today are great. In an average home, the interrelationships between parents and teenagers are strained at the best of times. There is no reason to suspect that this wouldn't be at least as much of a concern in an adoption home, if not more of a concern.

Blood ties are very strong, Mr. Minister. The emotional needs of a mother in her forties for example, to see her children, may be very satisfying to her if they are met. But I suggest to you that they could be extremely damaging to the adopted child, and also to the opportunities for that interpersonal-relationship home situation to be a success. And so we would want to examine this situation, hopefully through a legislative approach, before we could give you our support in that. We think that in that relationship a well-intentioned move could be extremely devastating.

Regarding adoption of children from other

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countries, Mr. Speaker, again, before the Province of British Columbia moves into any extensive programme in this area, we would suggest that there must be a good deal more consideration given to this matter. It's my opinion that there are countries who do not want their children to leave the country, they want them to maintain their rights and responsibilities in that country and they would much prefer to have assistance given to the child in that country.

Perhaps one of the foremost authorities in this subject is Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova. I know, through my own talks with her, that she has told adopting parents in Canada: "Please do not adopt these children in Canada. Please give them your financial and emotional support in their own country." I would suggest, with all due respect that, before the Minister gives too much more consideration to this, he have a discussion with Dr. Hitschmanova, whom I am sure he knows. I feel that her view is very worthwhile. She has worked in this field extensively, as you all know.

I think also there is the problem of how these countries are to be built. It has been proven, through university programmes, that many young people who come here from so-called underprivileged countries get the free taste of life here and they will not go back to their own countries. These countries are desperate for their own people, who are educated, who can assume the responsibility and who can communicate with their own people. We should do nothing to encourage them away from this position. We should encourage them back in their own countries.

As far as the Minister's statement of the year's moratorium on the adoption of newborn children in British Columbia, again I appreciate his purpose in this, but I would suggest that there are two problems that may well come to the Minister's attention. One is that this move may well prove a stimulation to a black market for adopting babies. This is something that we should watch for very closely. It certainly should not be allowed to develop.

The second thing is that it is proving to be a stimulation to private adoptions. While this is a fairly rapid process of adoption, I think if you compare the effort that is put in through the British Columbia adoption programme and the result of that programme with the rapidity and the inherent results of the private adoption programme, you will find that the government avenue has proved much more successful, not in terms of longevity, but in terms of a much better home environment, and a much greater chance of success. So we would caution the Minister again that, in trying to increase the interest in parents in adopting older children and handicapped children, we certainly support you in all efforts; but please, in trying to correct one problem, don't open two new avenues of problems.

The last point in the Minister's statements that I would like to comment on is extending the limited age for adopting parents. We haven't had a chance to caucus this, as the Minister is aware, but I personally would support this fully. People today at 60 — and Mr. Riggs probably is not quite that old; he is 55 — are very vital people. The concern was that the child would be 10 and the parent would be 60.

The emphasis on youth and the response of people to youth in our society is such that a parent could well be 60 and have a child of 10, and be quite a competent compatible parent to that child. So I personally would support this, recognizing that there has to be an examination of each individual case. I realize the Attorney General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) wants to adopt a lot of children when he retires from his present position and start a home for them. We support him in that.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I could adopt the Hon. Member under the legislation we have now.

MRS. JORDAN: How about that!

To sum up, again I would say that we certainly support the principle of this Act. We do regret that the Minister did not release his notes to us earlier so that we might have had a better dialogue on the subjects that he has brought up, although we do appreciate your leniency, Mr. Speaker, in allowing the Minister to range so widely on the principle of this bill. I would ask that he take note of the comments that I have made on behalf of the official opposition, and that before making a major move in any of these areas that there would be an opportunity for consultation.

MS. K. SANFORD (Comox): I rise to speak in support of this bill, which amends the Adoption Act and will ensure that the Indian children of the province, when adopted by white parents, will not lose their Indian status, and also that they will now be able to find homes.

It seems to me that Indian children in the province are faced with enough strikes against them without having this other strike of not being able to find an adoptive home. And the fact that they were running the risk of losing their status as Indians, I think, is reason enough that we should bring in this amendment.

You know, the future of an Indian child in British Columbia and in Canada is not a very bright one. When one looks at the statistics involved, the percentages of those who do not graduate from university or even from high school, the number of Indians who end up in prison, the recidivism rate among the Indians, the number who are unable to find employment and have to rely on welfare

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payments, the incidence of alcoholism among Indians, the inadequate housing that they are faced with, and, I think, also the attitude that some people in white society display towards them, these conditions make it difficult enough for an Indian child just to survive, let alone improve his conditions.

There are many statistics that have been prepared on the problems encountered by Indians. These have been compiled and they have often been quoted, but I think some of these statistics involved with the Indian community bear repeating. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that the Indian population faces a fairly bleak future based on these statistics.

For instance, on Vancouver Island — and this is a 1967 study — 15 per cent of the inmates were of native origin but native people constitute only 2 per cent of the population.

The native people in schools are failing: 78 per cent of the native people, both status and non-status, drop out of school by grade 10; 95 per cent of them fail to graduate from high school.

On B.C.'s reserves in the months of November and December, when employment is more difficult to find than at other times during the year, approximately 40 per cent of the population is receiving some form of public assistance.

The problem of alcoholism, I think, is a manifestation of the underlying personal despair which the Indian people feel. Of the Indians admitted involuntarily to mental institutions, 49 per cent followed assault and drinking. Eighty per cent of the acute brain syndromes are related to excessive use of alcohol and 56 per cent of the Indian patients in mental hospitals are suffering from a personality disorder which involves alcohol.

MR. SPEAKER: Will the Hon. Member…

MS. SANFORD: All right. Fine. What I'm trying to point out, Mr. Speaker, is that the future of these children is not a bright one in this province. I think anything that this provincial government can do in improving the situation and changing the statistics is something that we should consider.

Even in Comox riding, where we have 1,827 Indian people living on several reserves, those kinds of statistics are reflected. But in the riding the Minister has also demonstrated his concern for the Indian children by travelling last spring up to the Salquoddy reserve in Port Hardy where he met with members of the Indian band, members of the Human Resources department, and also with representatives from Indian Affairs, to discuss the possibility of establishing a receiving home for children who are not being cared for on that particular reserve.

The government has made various grants through the First Citizens Fund, for instance, for projects which are designed to assist Indian children. For instance, this year we had a project involving a summer camp for children within the riding. We've also provided swimming instructors and that kind of thing.

Just recently a new project has been established in Campbell River which will encourage the development of Indian culture in the riding. This was a kindergarten which will be operated in the Campbell River area. The funds to rent the building will be paid for out of the Human Resources department.

The Indian people themselves are becoming increasingly involved in trying to change these statistics that I referred to earlier, and they have a huge job before them in order to improve conditions. I think the provincial and federal governments also have an immense job in trying to change these statistics. But with the emphasis that this Minister is placing on children, I think that the future of the Indian children in the province is brighter than it has been in the past.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: May I say that I would ask Members to kindly confine their remarks to the particular principle in this bill. It doesn't cover the whole area of children, nor of Indian children either, but a very small matter in regard to the Adoption Act.

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver South): I will try to keep my remarks as close to the subject as possible.

I am delighted with the fact that the Minister is doing something to amend the Adoption Act so that Indian children can retain their own identity as Indians.

I have had several cases recently in which the Indians themselves are very concerned. Through both the Indian Friendship Centre in Vancouver and through the Indian Homemakers' Association in Vancouver, I have been asked by them if anything could be done to make improvements for Indians being fostered by white people. Their claim was that, particularly in the Vancouver area, they may be able to find enough homes among the Indian community for the children of their own culture.

However, I spoke to the Minister and he assured me that that wasn't quite possible, but at the same time he realized, as I did, that this does present a problem to the better educated among the Indian people when they realize that if Indian children are left in white homes too long it can become a case of cultural genocide.

One thing that they wanted to make clear to me was the fact that there were quite a number of people in the Indian community willing to foster a child. But very often, if they had two children, they were only

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paid half as much as if that child were placed in a white foster home. A great number of these Indians have intermarried, and, as a result, they happen to be relatives. If relatives foster a child they only get paid half the amount, so that means there are quite a number of Indian foster children in white homes.

The other case I would like to mention is that I received a distress call from a member of my own constituency, a family who had three Indian children. They had had them all from the time that they were infants, but they had had them as foster children for a certain number of years. The two older ones were adopted and, for the third one, the adoption was pending. That child was five years old.

One reason why the adoption was pending was because the Minister and the department were waiting for this amendment to the Adoption Act to come in. I hope now that they will be able to finalize that adoption because it certainly will be of benefit not only to the new adopting parents but also to the child itself.

On the other hand, I think it is unfortunate that children of another culture must remain that long in a home and then stand the possibility of probably being adopted back into their own culture so that they themselves are confused as to their own identity.

I hope this Act will clarify a lot of these problems.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, his Honour, Judge Tyrwhitt-Drake, who is a local judge of the supreme court, considered one point, and that was that the B.C. Adoption Act was a subservient statute to the federal Indian Act. In the case in question, he would not permit the adoption of an Indian child because he concluded that that Indian child would be deprived of his status as an Indian, and that such status is something that comes both through birthright and by statute. So what we have here is a remedial provision on that one point and on that one point only. We are in favour of it.

MR. WALLACE: Thanks to the Hon. Member for Vancouver–Point Grey's explanation, I have a much clearer understanding of what the debate is, and I also support the bill.

MR. McCLELLAND: I just want to ask one question of the Minister, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted him to clarify a point he made in introducing the legislation, and ask him if in fact, the Human Resources department is now asking for volunteers from Indian families who are willing to make their homes available for adoption?

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister closes the debate.

HON. MR. LEVI: When I introduced the bill I said that that is exactly what we would want, that Indian families would come forward and….

MR. McCLELLAND: Both Indian and white children?

HON. MR. LEVI: Yes. But, you know, we are answering the questions that Indian groups have asked us, that they want Indian children to be placed in Indian homes. We certainly are prepared to do this if we have enough available Indian homes.

In respect to the question that the Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) asked me, that's a rather interesting way of getting around the Supreme Court, but I'm afraid that's a question you'll have to deal with the Attorney General on. It's too complicated for me. If it involved you, it would be strictly a question of black market adoption. I don't know whether we want to get into that, either.

I appreciate her remarks about some of the areas we are exploring. They are sensitive areas. We have had discussions with a number of people in the field, as we have done with adoption parents. I, for one, don't think, as I said, we can hold that much hope for children from overseas, so I really don't think it is something we have to concern ourselves about.

In the area of parents who have adopted children — who have given children up for adoption and are interested in how they are — again, I accept that that is a delicate matter but the number of inquiries that we have had indicates to us that there is a great feeling on both sides — the children and the parents — that they want to know about one another.

There is the question of age….

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the adopting parents?

MR. LEVI: Well, all of this, of course, will be done in consultation with the adopting parents. Nothing will be done unless they are consulted. If they do not wish it, then it will not be done. It's as simple as that.

I move second reading of this bill.

Motion approved.

Bill 12 read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House at the next sitting after today.

Motion approved.

BEEF GRADING ACT

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to introduce a bill intituled Beef Grading Act.

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Leave granted.

Bill No. 6 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. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.