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CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the Succession Duty Act (Bill 69).

Hon. Mr. Barrett. Introduction and first reading — 615

Public Service Labour Relations Act (Bill 75).

Hon. Mr. Hall. Introduction and first reading — 615

Oral Questions

B.C. Railway strike. Mr. Chabot — 615

Fatality on Hope-Princeton Highway. Mr. Wallace — 615

Newsprint sales contract for Ocean Falls. Mr. Wallace — 616

Closure of Lakelse resort by Health Department. Mr. Smith — 616

Land Commission backlog difficulties. Mr. Curtis — 616

Follow-up on Canadian heavy-water plant. Mr. Phillips — 617

Negotiations for acquisition of Laurel Point. Mr. Williams — 617

Gas explosion reports. Mr. Wallace — 617

Hiring of females by Liquor Control Board. Mr. McClelland — 618

Feasibility studies for Gabriola Island ferry sites. Mr. Morrison — 618

Air ambulance service by government air fleet. Mr. Smith — 618

Department of Housing Act (Bill 49). Second reading.

Mr. Cummings — 618

Mr. Liden — 620

Mr. Fraser — 622

Mr. Curtis — 623

Mr. Steves — 624

Mr. McGeer — 629

Ms. Sanford — 631

Mr. Lockstead — 632

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 633

Hon. Mr. Stupich — 636

Mr. Kelly — 636

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 637

Mr. Barnes — 639

Mr. Smith — 641

Mr. Phillips — 643

Mr. McClelland — 646

Hon. Mr. King — 648

Speaker's ruling

Withdrawal of notice of introduction of Bill 9 — 648

Motion

Motion to ratify withdrawal of item 9. Hon. Mr. Stupich — 649

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1973

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to advise the House with regret of the death of former Chief Justice Herbert William Davey, who's been on the Supreme Court of British Columbia since 1953, then on the Court of Appeal for a long period of time, and was our Chief Justice of the province from 1967 until he became a supernumerary judge in 1972 and continued his service to the province. He was an outstanding legal scholar whose trenchant opinions were in the best traditions of the common law.

I want to advise the House that, in speaking with his widow today, she expressed a wish for complete privacy. I would hope that the public would not send flowers and notes and letters, in accordance with the wishes she expressed to me.

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, visiting Victoria today attending an important meeting of western Ministers and seated on the floor of the House are two Ministers from our sister province whom I'd like the House to welcome. They are the Hon. Horst A. Schmid, Minister of Culture, Youth and Recreation for the Province of Alberta, and the Hon. Laurent L. Desjardins, Minister of Tourism, Recreation & Cultural Affairs for the Province of Manitoba.

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Mr. Speaker, today is certainly a red letter day. It's not often we have Ministers from other provinces coming here, and it's even less often that those of us who have the privilege of representing rural ridings have visitors. This afternoon we have a group of 22 students from the Princeton Secondary School, accompanied by their two teachers, Mr. Nittering, and Mrs. Kernaghan. I would ask you to welcome them.

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver South): Mr. Speaker, I would also like to have the assembly here welcome a group of students from Thompson Secondary School in the Vancouver South district, with their teacher Mr. Bob Ellis.

Introduction of bills.

AN ACT TO AMEND
THE SUCCESSION DUTY ACT

Hon. Mr. Barrett presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled An Act to Amend the Succession Duty Act.

Bill 69 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.

PUBLIC SERVICE LABOUR RELATIONS ACT

Hon. Mr. Hall presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Public Service Labour Relations Act.

Bill 75 read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral questions.

B.C. RAILWAY STRIKE

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Mr. Speaker, a question to the Premier and President of the B.C. Railway. Contract negotiations have broken down again between the B.C. Rail and management. I understand that there are no further plans for discussion or talks between labour and management. Picket lines are in place, disrupting service to the customers of the B.C. Rail. I wonder what plans the government has to get the two parties together for resumption of negotiations and the resumption of service to the customers of B.C. Rail?

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, there is a strike on the B.C. Rail by the shop crafts, involving 380 people. The Maintance of Way union involving 450 people have accepted the contract offer, and the UTU, involving 500 people, have accepted a contract offer to be ratified by the membership. We have asked the associate deputy Minister of Labour, Mr. Kinnaird, to travel to Vancouver and attempt to bring the two parties together. This strike was just declared this morning, and we have made the initial move through the associate deputy Minister.

FATALITY ON HOPE-PRINCETON
HIGHWAY

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, it's nice to see the Minister of Highways back in his seat this week. I was meaning to ask this question last week regarding the Hope-Princeton Highway at a point where a Victoria resident fell to his death last week, and I believe there have been 17 deaths at that point in the past 10 years. I wonder if the Minister could tell us to what degree the department will make that corner safe?

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HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): Mr. Speaker, I wasn't aware until this moment that there had been a fatality on the Hope-Princeton Highway.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Oh, oh.

HON. MR. LEA: I'll tell you, Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Williams), they didn't have it in the Halifax paper, where I was. I don't think it's something to make light of. I wasn't informed by my department. I didn't read it in the paper. I'm glad the Member has brought it to my attention and I will look into it.

NEWSPRINT SALES CONTRACT
FOR OCEAN FALLS

MR. WALLACE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I accept that answer and hope that the Minister will give us more details later.

There is another question which I think is most important Mr. Speaker, but the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams) is not in the House. Could I address the question perhaps to the Premier?

I noticed that the newsprint sales contract between Ocean Falls and Crown Zellerbach has been terminated and that the company which is taking over the contract as of January 1, Gottesman-Central National Organization, has a president by the name of Mr. Wallach, who is a director of Can-Cel. I wonder if the Premier would make any comment as to whether this director will be resigning in the light of the business contract now set?

HON. MR. BARRETT: It is correct that it is the same man, but there is no conflict of interest. The sale of newsprint of course is something separate from Can-Cel's products.

The reason for the change in the Wallach contract is that the price is much higher right now. I'm sure that with this move we will be returning even greater funds to the corporation on behalf of the people of British Columbia.

MR. WALLACE: Just a supplemental question, Mr. Speaker. The Minister concerned declined to outline the terms of the new agreement. Since this is now public business with the taxpayers' money being involved in Can-Cel, would the Premier care to table the terms of the new agreement with the House?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'll certainly take the question as notice. I would like to speak to the Minister.

CLOSURE OF LAKELSE RESORT
BY HEALTH DEPARTMENT

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): My question is to the Hon. Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance. Is it true that the operators of the Lakelse Hot Springs resort near Terrace were required by the Department of Health to close down the premises this summer at a time when the tourist season was in full flight in that part of the country, and, as a result, forced them out of the business of serving the public at the height of the tourist season?

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance): Well, Mr. Speaker, after that speech from the Member across the way, I'll take it as notice. I don't know if a tourist facility was closed down by the Health department, but if it was, obviously there is good reason for closing any place down.

MR. SMITH: A supplemental question to the Minister….

MR. SPEAKER: I think the matter will be raised again when he obtains the facts that you want.

MR. SMITH: May I ask the Minister to file with the House the details of why the Department of Health required the operators of that resort….

MR. SPEAKER: I think the proper time to ask that would be once the main question has been answered.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if that Member wants that kind of information, why doesn't he put it on the order paper?

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Don't be so snarly.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. When an Hon. Member asks for information and it's taken as notice by the Minister, when the notice is returned by the answer to the question on a further day, the supplementals would flow from that, I would think.

LAND COMMISSION BACKLOG
DIFFICULTIES

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Agriculture. Is the Land Commission and its staff experiencing any difficulty with respect to a backlog in applications, inquiries, correspondence? The information reaching our office

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is that the commission is having great difficulty in getting caught up with its work. I'm not referring to the preparation of the agricultural land reserve, but day-to-day correspondence.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, I know they're busy, but I've not had a report that they're having difficulty in keeping up with their day-to-day correspondence. I'll check.

MR. CURTIS: Supplemental. It would be appreciated if the Minister could inform the House later, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I think that this matter has been taken as notice.

FOLLOW-UP ON
CANADIAN HEAVY-WATER PLANT

MR. PHILLIPS: I'd like to direct a question to the Hon. Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce. Last week I informed the Minister about a heavy-water plant that was going to be built in Canada. I informed the Minister that the decision would be made prior to the end of October, and I'd like to know if the Minister has done any follow-up on this leading information that I've given to the Minister.

HON. G.V. LAUK (Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce): Mr. Speaker, no. The answer is no.

MR. PHILLIPS: Does the Minister feel that a heavy-water plant would be a good industry for British Columbia?

MR. SPEAKER: I don't think that's a proper question in parliament.

MR. PHILLIPS: Then I'll ask another supplementary question. I'd like to inform the Minister first of all before I ask my supplementary question.

MR. SPEAKER: No time for speeches now, Hon. Member.

MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, the Atomic Energy Company of Canada Ltd. has recommended to the federal cabinet that the Hat Creek coal deposits be a site of a heavy-water plant in British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: How about that.

MR. PHILLIPS: This is in the hands of the cabinet at the present time. There is environment involved, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to ask the Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce if he would energize himself, atomic energize himself, with some of this heavy water and get to Ottawa and find out what is going on with regard to this hot water — this heavy plant for British Columbia. (Laughter.)

NEGOTIATIONS FOR ACQUISITION
OF LAUREL POINT

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, to the Hon. Minister of Public Works. With regard to the extension and preservation of the precincts of these buildings, would the Minister indicate at what stage the negotiations are with regard to the acquisition of the land at Laurel Point?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: The plan for the precinct area is not complete. We are attempting to acquire numerous pieces of property in the overall precinct area. As yet we haven't finalized anything with regard to Laurel Point.

GAS EXPLOSION REPORTS

MR. WALLACE: While the Minister of Public Works is in a communicative mood….

AN HON. MEMBER: As always.

MR. WALLACE: As always. Do you think he could tell us whether or not he has yet received a report which would explain the explosion on Oak Bay Avenue in which someone was seriously injured two weeks ago?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: Yes, we have received our report put out by Mr. Freestone, a member of the Department of Public Works. It didn't explain why the explosion occurred.

We have since received a copy of one other report from B.C. Hydro. They distribute the gas in this part of Victoria. We are attempting to get two other reports, and when we have these we hope to be able to give you further information.

MR. CHABOT: A question to the Premier. I noticed on the weekend phase III of the reconstruction of the Premier's suite was taking place around the clock. I was wondering what kind of renovations were taking place again — the third time in the last year — in the Premier's office, and what the expected costs are of this major renovation to the Premier's office?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Member for continuously being consistent.

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He's wrong again. There is no renovation going on in the Premier's office. Apparently there is some need for further, as I understand it, sewage disposal from up above my office. (Laughter.) They're putting some more pipes in. I don't know if it comes from the east wing of the House or the west wing. (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. So far has question period descended. (Laughter.)

HIRING OF FEMALES
BY LIQUOR CONTROL BOARD

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): I hope I won't contribute to that descending, Mr. Speaker, but I'd like to ask the Attorney General a question. It's in regard to his views about hiring females in the retail liquor stores in B.C. He has told the House on a previous occasion that the reason we don't hire females in the retail outlets is that they have to lift cases of liquor.

I'd like to ask if it's not true, Mr. Speaker, that there are three positions listed on the application form for the retail stores. They are designated "office," "store" and "storeroom." If that's correct, is there then not room under the position of "store" to hire women in the retail outlets?

Has the Minister instructed the LCB to change its practices in this regard?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the position that women should be employable in the retail liquor outlets of the province. I'm discussing that with the Liquor Control Board and asking them to review policy to try to get around, if they can, a section of the Factories Act — I forget which one it is — about the 35 lbs. Those discussions are going on.

I'd like to see it more open, not only in the office where as I say, we've made great progress in terms of equality of employment, but out in the outlets, insofar as we can, without firing people with long seniority. New vacancies where it's possible.

FEASIBILITY STUDIES FOR
GABRIOLA ISLAND FERRY SITES

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to address my question to the Minister of Transport. I'd like to know if the Minister has received any feasibility studies on the Gabriola Island ferry site and on a ferry location site on the mainland.

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Commercial Transport and Communications): Yes, it was in the press, I think, a couple of months ago, where the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) and I met with the regional district of Nanaimo and the Gabriola Island Planning Commission, discussed it with them and told them the proposed sites. We're now making wind and wave studies of the various proposed sites on each side.

MR. MORRISON: The study I was referring to was the one for the wind and the waves.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, I haven't got the wind and wave studies yet.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE
BY GOVERNMENT AIRFLEET

MR. SMITH: My question is to the same Minister. It is my understanding that at the present time the air fleet of the government has been increased, first of all with the purchase of two jets, and now a report that you are presently negotiating to purchase two Beechcraft turboprops. The indication is also that the two latest aircraft will be used for photographing by departments of government and also for air ambulance services.

Have either the jets or any other aircraft been used or been called upon to provide air ambulance services to any part of the province?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, as a matter of fact, I have a little sheet here somewhere. In a two-week period there were four specific flights made from different parts of the province carrying emergency cases to hospitals in Vancouver and Victoria. Even though the planes are not…. Somebody said there were three last night. But they are being used, even though we are not yet geared up for full ambulance service. They are now in use.

MR. SMITH: A supplemental question: will the Minister file details with the House?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Certainly, certainly!

Orders of the day.

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

Motion approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 49, Mr. Speaker.

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING ACT
(continued)

MR. R.T. CUMMINGS (Vancouver–Little Mountain): I am very pleased, Mr. Speaker, to rise in

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support of this bill.

There is a crisis in housing in Vancouver. The average price of a house in Vancouver in 1960 was $13,000. In 1972 it was $31,000. Since January, 1973, it has been raised by 40 per cent, so that the average price of a house is $41,000. In Vancouver a 35-year-old, two-bedroom home would cost approximately $40,000. In Saskatoon the same house would cost $26,000.

Vacancy rates in Vancouver are 0.4 per cent or four units for every 1,000. These are all symptoms of the housing crisis. United Community Services finds that there are 10 per cent less starts this year than there have been in the previous year. This shows that the private market is not fulfilling its role. To satisfy the present mortgage income requirements it takes approximately $16,000, well above the means of the average British Columbia citizen.

The City of Vancouver considers its situation a disaster. There are also 1,900 people waiting on lists for public housing; and this list is renewed every year, so there are hundreds of people out there who think they are on that list, but aren't. These are all symptoms of a great problem. Last month Opperheimer's Lodge was opened in the downtown east side of the city. It housed 147 single men and women. Applications numbered almost 500.

The flop-house area of Vancouver is getting $55 a month rent, and this is just for a cot.

There are some solutions I would like to suggest. I feel that there should be higher taxes on speculative land holdings. A person or a firm should not be allowed to withhold land which the public needs now. I think there should also be changes in the municipal zoning bylaws, especially the single-family zoning bylaw, because there are homes in this area that are not being utilized properly. There are old-age pensioners in an eight-room house. I feel that these should and will be converted.

One other time, when I was a little child, in 1940, there was a great shortage of housing and the federal government, in its wisdom of that day, realized that something seriously had…. It was a very serious shortage. The war came and thousands and thousands of people came to Vancouver. There was a great shortage and a lot of illegal suites were born. There are a large number still to this day in Point Grey, Oak Ridge and Shaughnessy, which is my constituency. They were very suitable housing.

For example, another way that it should be challenged is … in Coquitlam they've challenged the concept of side spaces and large backyards. They've gone to a cluster development, which gives a greater density per acre of people and provides cheaper land.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Zero lot line.

MR. CUMMINGS: That's correct. I think we should also directly subsidize cooperatives. I was going to say "poor" but anyone under $13,000 is considered poor as far as the mortgage companies are concerned now. In this way, I feel that we would give the people a chance to own their own homes and have a sense of accomplishment in this way.

I wish to congratulate the Hon. Minister (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) for going into the first mortgage business because it is a first step at least. But I think the main thing we've got to do is to create competition to the private market. I feel that we have to go into a massive construction programme. There is only one way to drive down prices and that is with competition.

I think also in this challenge to single-family zoning there should be a conversion programme, because these homes will need money to convert. For example, a big, 16-room mansion can be converted to probably three very, very fine suites. We have to help people to convert.

It is very, very important for public housing to be done. Vacancy rates in Vancouver have fallen to almost zero; this indicates the demand. Such a scarcity forces a rise in prices. The things you hear about pricing and rents today are because of these price increases. Landlords and corporations operating by that law charge what the market will bear.

Some people don't think that housing is a disaster. In one land development company, Dawson Developments, profits increased over 400 per cent in three months in 1972. Another real estate firm, Block Brothers, has a less dramatic but still more substantial profit increase of 62 per cent over the same period. It seems that housing is not a problem for everyone.

I wish to come back and plead again for public housing because public housing is the only way we can supply housing for the poor people, the working poor — literally, the average citizen of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, the Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) made the suggestion of subsidizing the mortgager so that he could provide money at a lower rate. There are a number of points I would like to point out about this proposition. The federal Liberal government have just come out with a whole set of new programmes under the National Housing Act.

If the Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey thinks that wiping out taxes on the enormous, lucrative mortgage business is a magic solution to reducing lending rates, why did he not incorporate this in a new programme of his party's federal government? He should go and tell Trudeau about his idea.

The fact that mortgage rates stand at the shocking figure of 10 per cent this year can be traced directly back to the Liberals removing the 6 per cent ceiling

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on mortgages. If this Member's proposal was of any value, and his own government doesn't seem to think so, it would not reduce the mortgage rate. If this party wants to help the people they should maybe create a tax shelter for the mortgagee rather than the mortgager.

I just want to plead once again, Mr. Speaker, for the need for public housing. It is the only possible answer for the poor people and the working poor people.

Thank you.

MR. C. LIDEN (Delta): Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the principle of this bill. Certainly it's going to lay the base for setting up one of the most important departments that we are going to have in this government for the next period of time.

There is a tremendous pressing problem today. People out there in that population certainly have high hopes from this department and they have great expectations — most particularly those people in the area who are looking for shelter or trying to find enough money to be able to buy a home or to get into an apartment and try and get started.

The task of this department is going to be a tremendous one. It is going to be a difficult one. The demands are so high: thousands of units are required every year just to keep even and certainly that pressure area is greatest in the lower mainland. It seems that we have to spread this growth out somewhat. The one thing that I think we must do is start planning for the spreading of the population in British Columbia to other places than the lower mainland.

Certainly the port of Prince Rupert and the possibilities of some real future up there is dependent on the kind of housing, the kind of community that's built, and a higher standard than what we have had in the past. It seems to me that this whole business of just allowing cities to go as things happen isn't good enough. We are going to have to get into far more serious planning as to what happens in the hinterlands.

I think there are a few things we can look at that have happened so far. For instance: even in the lower mainland, in trying to spread out the growth, we see in the five year period, 1966-1971, that 21 per cent of the growth of the lower mainland took place in the Delta area. That's a fantastic, heavy load for one area to carry. The growth in that same period, 1966-1971, in Delta was greater than it was in the City of Vancouver and the municipality of Burnaby combined.

That situation is continuing. While it has eased somewhat because the council in Delta has brought in some stricter regulations, but it is nevertheless more than a community can bear to carry — that sort of growth all at one time.

I think of some of the other things we're doing. For instance, when I think of the ICBC locating in downtown Vancouver, I am concerned that in the long term some other plans are developed for the ICBC. It seems that when we look at the number of people that would be employed in the main office, the size of the families today, the service trade that goes along with that many people, the ICBC in itself can be the basis of a satellite town.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Satellite town?

MR. LIDEN: And certainly the location of that operation alone is very, very important in what happens in the providing of proper homes and shelter in the Province of British Columbia.

We have to look at places other than Vancouver. We have to look at places other than the Fraser Valley to take some of the pressure off.

MR. GARDOM: Security bill.

MR. LIDEN: One of the real problems, of course, in the lower mainland is the price of lots, the price of land and the cost of getting started in housing. The problem really is that in the lower mainland, and I guess as everywhere else where the profit system is the measuring stick, that the price will be whatever the market can bear. It is never related to what it cost to buy the land or what it cost to develop the land. It's always just whatever the market will bear.

I want to tell you a little bit about a situation that I just ran across here not so long ago, because many people are of the opinion that a lot of the residents who have lived in the Fraser Valley for a long time are cleaning up on the sale of their land. It's usually not the case.

I know a little old lady who has been a widow for six years. She has 2 3/4 acres of land on the Scott Road, which is a pretty high-priced location in the Surrey-Delta area. That lady was out shopping one day. She has never had a "for sale" sign on her place and when she arrived home, there was someone in her yard. That person who was in the yard wanted to buy the 2 3/4 acres. She said it wasn't for sale. Nevertheless, he continued discussion there with her and by the time he left, he had her so confused that she really didn't know what she was doing. The person who was there represented Gazelle Holdings and he entered into a contract with that little old lady that had her signed up to sell that 2 3/4 acres of land for $35,000. Land in that area can get twice that amount of money.

The situation calls for a $5,000 payment, I think it is today, October 15. It calls for the remaining $30,000 to be paid October 15, 1975, at no interest on the agreement. That is the kind of thing that is

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happening; no interest on the agreement. She was paid $100 for signing the document, that was last March. She was so confused, she didn't know what she was doing.

We've done some work on the situation since. She got in touch with the legal people; they wrote to the firm. The firm concerned also have their legal people — their firm is the very prominent firm in New Westminster, Hogarth, Oliver and Hughes — and they say that the sale stands and they are going to defend it. The lady gets involved with various legal discussions and she ends up with a letter from the Vancouver Legal Assistance Society saying: "with regard to your case, we feel that there is only a 50 per cent chance of setting aside the transaction, and that if you lose, you will be liable for the legal fees of the other side and that this could come to $2,500."

Now, what can an old person, living by themselves, never having had to deal with this sort of thing before, what kind of a situation are they in? They are in a terrible situation and they are getting taken every day by these kind of operators moving around the lower mainland.

Something might be said about the price if, in fact, it were passed on to the new buyer. That is not what happens. The new buyer, the young people, the young couples who are trying to get established are having to pay sky-rocket prices for land, and it's not because the old people who have owned the land for many years are cleaning up. It's because of the old system of charging whatever the market will bear; the old story of supply and demand being the rule. That to me just isn't good enough, It's something that I hope this department can get into in assembling, purchasing, leasing of land in a way that it will have some meaning not only to the people who are buying land but to those who are selling as well.

Certainly we have other problems as well — the question of the quality of homes, and so on. There are people being made millionaires all over this province by picking up cheap land and selling it for whatever the market can bear; and it hasn't only happened in the lower mainland. I know I've read stories of it happening in the Interior and in the Okanagan as well. The people who have been doing that are still doing it. They are a little afraid that the new department might get involved in the thing and scare away some of the profits that they have been making, and I hope we can do that.

In this new department I hope that we can look at the standards, the qualities and what is happening in housing. Certainly we have some pretty bad examples of what has happened in the rapidly growing areas where the municipalities, I'm sure, try desperately to hire enough inspectors and staff people to keep things on an even plane. But it seems that if they are going to prevent some of the kinds of builders, kinds of developers that we have today…to keep some of them on the straight and narrow, you have to have an inspector parked there continuously. That is not possible — not for any municipality.

What happens is that these builders get people involved. And once again young couples trying to find a place for themselves, they get involved in such a way that they just can't get out of it. I have been called to visit places to look at the kind of things that are happening. Checking it out with the municipality I find that oftentimes we are called to look at places that are built by the same guy, the same firm. No matter where you go, it's the same few people.

I must say that there are some real good builders in the Fraser Valley; there are some real good builders in Delta. But we have some people who create a problem for all of them. Certainly the one, Richard Company, Richard A. Lopez, who has been building homes and has been chased by the inspectors in that area for some time, is someone who has to be looked at. I think the department, when they really get going on this thing, they might even consider working with the municipalities to lift the licence of those kinds of people who are creating problems for the people of British Columbia.

The list of problems is so long on one house, a house which people have moved into, paid for — improper inspection due to the complications of the way it is done — that if I were to read the list out it would take too long. There are pages and pages of problems created by this builder.

When we get involved in trying to solve the problem of housing the whole question of shelter — and that means to me single family units, it means condominiums, it means apartments and cluster developments, all kinds of developments — the one thing that concerns me is that we maintain a really high standard, so that those people who do buy in the area of single-family units are not found to be, in a short time, living among a number of high-rise apartments.

We have problems of that sort also developing throughout the lower mainland and I know that in the city proper, in Vancouver, they have those kinds of problems as well.

We've a lot of little people in the retirement years living in White Rock who find all of a sudden they have an apartment on either side of their little home. That's the kind of problem those senior citizens just don't need. They also find, of course, that they are being badgered by those who want to buy their land, even if their land is not for sale.

But to get right into the question of the quality of homes, the standard of homes, we have also to look at what's been happening.

I've worked for a while on house construction. I worked with painters who have shown me and told me some of the tricks that they are required to pull. For instance, the inspection requires that the tops as

[ Page 622 ]

well as the bottoms of the doors be painted, not just the panels that you can see. When you pack all those doors into the basement for the painters to paint them, they're advised to run their brush along the edge of the bottom and the edge of the top, and not to worry about putting paint or varnish on them, because the inspector can't see that anyway when it's hung back on the hinges. All he has to do is feel the edge, and if that feels good enough that's all that counts.

The tradesmen are being told to prostitute the trades. They are not even being able to carry out the trade in the way that they learned it, because there's somebody always interested in the speed-up development of building houses and the standards begin to take second place.

It's all because it's more necessary to make a profit on the building of those houses than it is to create the kinds of homes that will stand up for a long period of time and be of service to the people who buy them.

One of the things that was just recently brought to my attention in some of the housing developments was basement concrete that's cracked all over, cracked in the walls, cracked in the floors and I was even told of one place where the concrete is turning to sand.

Now it doesn't matter what kind of inspection you have, the inspector can't drill a hole through the concrete to see whether it's half-an-inch thick, two inches thick, three inches thick, or just how thick it really is. The result is that when you have all this speed-up operation, and because we have some very poor developers in the community, we end up with concrete that in some places is just skin-thick and in some places has got its depths and its hollows. The result is that it cracks within a year, or two and there's nobody to get back at. A great many of the young people who end up in these homes are mortgaged to the hilt and are unable to face the costs of repairing them. There becomes a slipping-away of standards, a slipping-away of living conditions. It always seems that the people who are most seriously hurt are those who don't have the money to get out of the problems.

I'm convinced that there are some builders who shouldn't be allowed to continue to build. But the inspection system can't keep up in the rapidly growing areas, so we find that they keep getting after them and they fix up some of the things that they are required to fix up, and they go on from there.

Somehow it seems to me that the Minister is going to have to work with the municipalities and that we are going to have to be awfully brutal with those people who are unfair to the citizens of this province. We must put them out of business if that's the way they want to carry one.

Certainly there will be a lot of problems. There's a lot of problems to face in trying to solve the problem of shelter in this province. I want to encourage the Minister. I know some of the things that I've said make it look like an insurmountable job, but certainly he has my full support. I believe that this is a department that's certainly due, and due immediately. We've got to get on the job and I wish you the best of luck when we get it going.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on housing here. I'd like first of all to congratulate the new Minister of the new department. As you know, we are certainly supporting this bill on second reading, but I would like to discuss for a minute the problem regarding land for housing.

Now I think first of all the new Minister has got a problem on his hands that was created by the government that he is a part of. I refer to the land freeze that has certainly increased the cost of land in the lower mainland and a lot of other parts of British Columbia. Some Members have said that this problem is really just for the lower mainland areas, but I can assure you that land prices for housing are acute wherever there is a municipality in the interior or the north part of the province. Land costs are certainly one of the big factors.

I would like to know, when the Minister replies, what the policy of the government is going to be with land that they acquire for landbank or, in the case of Crown lands, what is the policy going to be on disposal to the eventual purchaser? In other words, is the policy going to be one of straight leasing of this type of land or are they going to let it be purchased by the individual?

There has in the past been quite a bit of Crown land turned over to municipalities. I think probably the most successful point in British Columbia has been the City of Prince George, where Crown lands have been acquired for some time and arrangements made through the city with the Department of Lands of the provincial government to develop them for housing. In effect what has happened, the Crown has set their price on the land per acre, the city supplies the services, the Crown has services is added to the price of the land and it is then sold to the individual purchaser. In that particular city I think they have done an excellent job — I know they have — and they have kept the price of land down.

I think the secret has been that they've always had a fair amount of lots available for the purchasers to acquire. I think this is the answer in keeping up the quantity of land available.

I really wonder, if the policy is going to be straight leasing, whether it's going to be as attractive as it should be to the individuals who are really looking for housing.

The other thing I'd like to know is whether the policy is for straight leasing of this land, either in a

[ Page 623 ]

landbank or Crown land that is developed, where an individual person leases a lot. I'd also like to know what the terms are going to be regarding housing. Are they going to be 6 years, 20 years, 60 years? What is it? I understand that nobody has said what this will be. I think if this is the case that the government should announce policy. I'd like to hear the Minister say something about it when he is winding up on this. What I'm concerned with, if an individual leases a lot, if this is government policy, and they go along for five years and they decide to sell their lease, is there any capital gain involved here? This lease will have to be subject to the agreement of the provincial government. Are they going to acquire the capital gain that goes on this or are they going to let the individual reap the benefit of this capital gain?

AN HON. MEMBER: It's not in the bill?

MR. FRASER: No, it's not in the bill. I think a lot of cases in the province now are waiting on the new government to announce the policy and I'd certainly like to know what it is. That's all I have to say at the present time on this housing bill.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): The Minister, I think, faces some awesome challenges as he sets up his new department. I hope that he will measure up to those challenges.

His assurances to the contrary notwithstanding in an interview in the Vancouver Sun of September 22, I believe there is the very real possibility that we may be headed towards still another giant Crown corporation in this whole area of activity for housing.

It's easy to speculate that the Minister may well become known, in the jargon of the day, as the "czar" of housing for British Columbia. If that is to be his role, then I think it will be most unfortunate and a very good opportunity will have been missed. In some respects the bill is a very good one. It brings about seven orphan pieces of legislation under a single administrative roof and, from a coordinating point of view, this obviously is likely to be beneficial.

The Minister has been very low-key in his comments concerning the new department, both in the House and in talking through the media. But the fact remains that at least two sections of the bill, numbers 6 and 9, assign him potentially sweeping powers. He does have the right to set up a Crown corporation, a housing agency, and again in section 9 we have the spectre of regulations which are completely beyond the control or reach of this or succeeding Legislatures.

One of the immediate goals of the new Minister, Mr. Speaker, should be to establish, and I hope he will, the closest possible working relationship with municipalities and regional districts to ensure that their local knowledge, their expertise, their background information, is made available not only to him, but to his senior departmental people in order that it can be something of a team approach to solving many of the problems he faces.

Some municipalities need to be encouraged, persuaded or, in fact, prodded to become more active in the full spectrum of housing accommodation. I think it's correct to say that the past record of some municipalities and regional districts — particularly municipalities in this respect — is fairly poor.

There are some exceptions to the rule and I can say that the District of Saanich, I feel, is one of those exceptions, due in large measure to the efforts of Alderman Mrs. Edith Gunning, who pushed and prodded her council associates into the housing field several years ago. The Minister, in fairness, took considerable time one day this summer to learn first hand what has been achieved within these past few years in Saanich and elsewhere in Greater Victoria in housing.

As I attempted to point out in debating the Speech from the Throne and as the Minister stated in his remarks on Friday last, Mr. Speaker, it's a most regrettable fact that so many middle-income families are finding it impossible to move into a home of their own.

The Minister speaks about land assembly under government sponsorship, and that is a commendable objective. My fear remains, however, that those land-assembly schemes are relatively long term and involve the setting aside of large tracts of building sites for development in something over 5 to 10 — possible 12 years. As others have observed, this long-term planning and assembly, while commendable, does nothing to meet the immediate crisis — the shortage of reasonably priced land, the shortage which is with us today.

So let's get moving, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker. You've been assigned the housing function for a number of months now. It's time for some early and very positive action.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Minister will have to be at his persuasive best to overcome the average citizen's built-in resistance to major innovations in single-family lot use, lot size and housing development. Previous speakers have referred to this. The concept such as zero lot line has much to recommend it. But there's certainly going to be resistance from individuals who see this as row-housing or as an introduction of some type of less desirable housing from the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

I've read with interest the activities of the Greater Vancouver Regional District in introducing zero lot line housing under that pilot project referred to in Coquitlam, and I can only trust and hope that that development, since it is something of a pilot scheme, will be handled with the greatest possible care and

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imagination.

It's also an interesting fact of life, I think, in our present living style that the so-called "front yard" of a single-family dwelling lot has become something approaching sacred ground. This is still another challenge to the Minister if he's looking at the greatest possible and best use of land available to him for his departmental activities.

You know, Mr. Speaker, in so many respects that front yard, that precious, say, 25 feet of land between the municipal property line and the front of the house, represents a tremendous waste of land. You rarely see the family entertain on it; you rarely see the children playing on it — they're told to play in the back or go to the park — the family makes very little use of it other than to cut it and water it and keep it fairly attractive.

Now there is, I suggest, considerable merit in experimenting with developments in some of these new projects where that rarely-used piece of ground, 60 feet by 25 feet, whatever the dimensions may be, could be put to a more advantageous use. It could be put at the rear of the property on a joint-living-space basis — some common recreational land, as an example. There's an interesting possibility there, Mr. Speaker.

Finally, a detail — but, I feel, Mr. Minister, one which could be of considerable help to people who are attempting to establish their first home, and I quote a specific example in order to demonstrate what the situation is. In areas other than municipalities or perhaps even, with your assistance and encouragement, within municipalities, I would suggest the preparation of some little booklet which would fully outline for the prospective new home-owner, the builder — that is, the eventual owner — what information is necessary and where one can get that information.

The need for this kind of booklet was brought to my attention this summer by some people who are moving permanently to one of the Gulf Islands — Galiano, in fact. They pointed out that they had to do the following: they had to apply in Ganges on Salt Spring Island for their building permit; to an office in Victoria for the necessary health clearances; to the City of Duncan for their hydro authority and, finally, in Ladner for their electrical permit.

In addition, they had to consult with the Minister's new department or parts of the Minister's new department with respect to home acquisition and home-owners grants, and that was done here in Victoria. They had to chase all over the south-western part of British Columbia in order to get the necessary clearances to build an ordinary single-family home on Galiano Island.

It's difficult enough, then, for those of us more directly associated with government at one level or another to remember all the locations, all the requirements, all the assistance programmes available. So it's easy to understand how confusing this must be for someone who's moving into perhaps their first new home.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has a major job ahead of him. Again I hope that he achieves at least some of the goals he has set for his department and himself. The problem: a critical shortage of all types of housing today — not just 10 years from now but today, Mr. Minister — a shortage which is, I think, demoralizing to many young British Columbians.

MR. H. STEVES (Richmond): Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that there is a housing crisis before us. Some of the Members have given us evidence indicating how broadly based this housing crisis is, so I don't propose to go into that area.

I would, however, like to start off by reading a letter that I have received from a person regarding rental accommodation. I think this is typical of many calls by phone and by letter I've had — probably 300 or 400 over the past couple of months. This letter reads:

"Dear Sir;

"As a senior citizen and a widow, I find the increases in rent in Vancouver out of all reason. The owners are showing no mercy, even though they realize many of us will have to move. In my case, it means I will have to move again, which will be the third time in six years.

"I moved in at $145 a month and in three years the rent is up to $195 a month. What am I going to do? I do not want to move away to Burnaby or some other district as I have lived here about half of my life. My friends and my relatives are here. Besides, I have heart trouble and should not have to go through this strain every year or two.

"Is there no way of restricting rent increases to six or seven per cent? Or building some new apartments for the middle-class citizen who does not want to be on welfare?"

I think this typifies the problem that people are facing, particularly our senior citizens and our young people who are trying to find accommodation — senior citizens, of course, who are on fixed incomes and don't have the $195 per month to blow all in one shot on rental accommodation.

The rental increase this person is talking about is small by comparison to some of the others I have heard of. Other increases have ranged…in one apartment an increase, in one jump, from $160 a month to $245 a month, and the citizens living there received a written notice saying that they were going to receive this increase and that in three months they expected them to vacate the premises — unless, of course, they were willing to pay the rent. But right in the letter that they got it more or less indicated that they expected they would probably leave. Their rental

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increase is about 35 per cent in one jump.

Mr. Speaker, what I suggest is happening is that the landlords are clearing the deck in anticipation of legislation not just in housing, but in rental accommodation in the future. They are clearing the deck both by increasing the rents and, of course, by evicting people or turning down people that they consider in one way or another undesirable.

The answer to this, of course, is the massive housing programme that someone mentioned earlier, and I will go into this in a little more detail later. Until that time, until we are able to bring in a massive housing programme, I think we have to address ourselves to, as a stop-gap measure, trying to restrict the evictions and having rent posted and so on as to just cause. We may even have to start looking at just cause for rental increases until we do have a chance to increase the housing that's available. Things are getting very much out of hand and I think that by spring it will probably be twice as bad as it is now.

Mr. Speaker, the bill we are discussing here mentions setting up housing corporations. As the answer to the housing crisis I would like to look at this particular aspect of the legislation in some detail. I would like to suggest that rather than setting up housing corporations we should set up one major housing corporation — one which would be set up on a regional basis, one which would focus funds and energy on the housing shortage in a well-organized, proper way, one which would assist both as a solution of the housing crisis and in the broader range of problems concerning regional and provincial development. I can see such a corporation developing a long-term housing plan say for 10 or 15 years by making a study to find out what the housing needs will be over the next 10 or 15 years.

I've heard various comments with regard to the amount of housing we need. I've heard that we have a population increase from out of the province of about 3 per cent, which would amount to about 30,000 to 35,000 people moving in per year needing accommodation. This indicates probably that with our natural growth of population plus immigration we need, just to catch up and break even, about 30,000 units per year of public and private housing that we already have, of course.

I think that the housing corporation should develop a long-term plan to predict how much housing will be needed over 10 or 15 years and then set up an immediate 4 or 5-year plan to solve the immediate housing crisis. The housing authority would then prepare and release annual estimates of the housing supply and the shortages in both the public and in the private sector. I think only by attacking it in this manner will we really be able to solve the housing crisis.

With regard to the types of housing that we should look into and the methods of doing it, unfortunately in many areas the housing authorities, as with other governmental bureaucracies, can become over-centralized. I think that we have to work very carefully with the local community. A provincial housing authority should have branches in all the municipalities and regional districts, should work with the local municipalities and with the local citizens involved in living in any public accommodation or public housing and should work with the local advisory planning boards and the regional districts in developing proposals for housing that are sensitive to local needs.

I think that we have to try to create a housing mix. Somebody mentioned earlier smaller lot size — zero lot lines. I think we have to try to create a housing mix and we've tried this in Richmond over the last number of years. We've embarked on a programme there of developing mixed housing with both single-family dwellings and apartments. We could look into smaller lot sizes mixed in with the large lot sizes so that we get low-income people and middle-income people and higher-income people living together in the community and do not start creating ghettos.

Look at what Richmond is trying to do by putting in medium-rise apartments — seven-storey apartments — in areas of single family dwellings. Take a look at cluster housing whereby you can develop a cluster of houses and leave lots of open space for the community. While talking on apartments, this also does the same thing. I don't think we should go into the urban areas outside of Vancouver and start putting in seven-storey apartment blocks or 14-storey high-rise apartments unless we leave some open space. By developing the land properly you can take buildings that would take up a large amount of acreage and instead have it take up some of the air space and leave some of the green spaces below for the little kids to play in and for people to enjoy as parks.

Using the Richmond example again, in the bylaws out there the Richmond council has allowed about 10 per cent of the land in any new subdivision to be developed as apartment living. When they develop that land they have to donate so much green land for park development as well for the community at large. I think that we should look to this example as a way of developing housing in other area as well.

One other thing we must consider in our housing programmes is that the housing programme and services be well integrated with other services such as schools, social services, day care centres in the new housing developments, and so on. Most apartments, in my opinion, could have a day care service at the lower floor or the upper floor or some place so that young parents living there could take their kids in during the day, or during the night for that matter — whenever they need the facilities of a day care centre. They wouldn't have to go halfway across town

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looking for such a service.

Our housing will also have to take into consideration employment needs so that we don't have people going from one area all the way through the city to get to their employment on the other side. We have to develop a housing programme which will allow people to work and live in the same neighbourhood as much as possible.

We also have to consider when we're developing a housing programme our transportation needs, particularly public transit. We should be looking to find transit corridors in the greater Vancouver area where we can increase the density of housing so that we will then be able to afford to put in the more heavy types of rapid transit such as rail lines and so on to go into the areas where people will work. So we should look to these areas for a heavy increase in housing density. This will not only help pay for the system of public transit but also will encourage the people to use the public transit rather than their vehicles. So at that point we get more people using public transit and less filling the roads with automobiles.

The other thing I would like to see the housing corporation do or this department do, as has been mentioned earlier by the Hon. Member for Delta (Mr. Liden), is get into a major land assembly programme. In my riding we have between 2,000 and 3,000 acres — I'm not sure of the exact figures now because things are being developed so rapidly in some parts of the community and in others very little development has taken place. But we have between 2,000 and 3,000 acres of residentially-zoned land which has not been built upon.

Much of this land is owned by land speculators in fairly large chunks who are holding the land and letting it go out very slowly for development so that they can keep the prices up.

Other acreage of this land is owned by small property owners who are not interested in speculating at all and probably would be interested in selling their land and having it developed but are not able to do so. This group is largely a group of people who came back from the war and under VLA purchased land in Richmond — and I'm sure this has happened in other ridings as well — thinking they were going to have a small farm. The soldiers when they were overseas looked to coming home and having a bit of property where they could grow some vegetables, have a cow and so on. So under VLA a programme was set up whereby they were able to claim around 1.6 to 1.8 acres in VLA subdivisions. This was a great ideal. However, the people found when they did get this small parcel of land, of course, that they could not make a living on under 2 acres. They have one house on the land and much of the land is vacant land behind them.

We have many, many hundreds of acres, in fact several quarter sections of land in Richmond, that are VLA holdings and small holdings that aren't under VLA that maybe range from 2 to 3 acres. We'll have a whole quarter section. Our roads are laid out every quarter of a mile. You might have 50 or 100 houses around that quarter of a mile and all the land behind it is vacant land — much of it growing weeds, the odd cow, the odd horse, some of it in vegetables. But there are so many single owners that they aren't able to assemble the land.

I would like to see the provincial government get involved in a land assembly programme in areas such as this to develop that land and put it into housing. We would have thousands of homes on the market very, very quickly if we were able to develop such a programme.

This can be done. As an example, I'd like to mention a programme which the municipality of Richmond considered about four years ago and which was voted down by a local council because it infringed upon free enterprise. We looked into developing a quarter section of land — actually it was smaller than that, a 50-acre piece of property — four-and-a-half years ago. We had an opportunity to buy the land at that time for $3,000 per acre for 50 years or a total of $150,000. We investigated the cost of putting in services and found that the municipality could put in all roads, covered sewers, lighting and all the services required for subdivision. We required 15 acres for an addition to one of our parks — the Hugh Boyd Park on Francis Road in Richmond. We found that by developing our own assembly programme we could have got the parkland free, put in all the services, either sold or leased the lots for about $1,000 per lot less than the market value, put in a covered swimming pool and still made about $100,000 on the development.

Because people on the council at that time did not want to infringe upon free enterprise it was voted down in a five to four vote of our local council. We are presently in Richmond negotiating to buy the 15 acres of land we need to add to the park for $10,000 per acre, or a total of $150,000 — which was the cost we could have had the whole development for only five years ago.

Now I use this as an example because it can be done. If the provincial government is able to get into land assembly I think you will find that some of the municipalities like ours are now much more amenable to it, that we can get in, we can decrease the cost of the property by putting it out on a lease basis. We can put in needed parks and recreational developments and all services and still bring the cost of providing land for people down.

The other thing with regard to the land assembly programme, in areas where we would not be assembling land I, too, would like to join with one of the other Members who mentioned that we should be

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increasing taxes on speculative holdings. This is not only in the residential areas but would also apply to the agricultural land as well, and of course in the Bill 42 debate, I mentioned that there are many land speculators in my riding holding vast tracts of land for speculation in the agricultural zone.

My feeling is that we should increase residential and agricultural taxes on people, on speculators who are holding tracts of land both in the agricultural zone and in the residential zone. We can increase these taxes by determining who the people are who live on the land in the agricultural zone, if they live there, and are farmers themselves. In the residential zone we can determine who actually lives on the land and exempt them from a tax increase. But I think absentee owners should have to pay higher taxes because they are largely the ones who are really involved in the land speculation.

The ones on the VLA lots, we have to look at some other way of actually helping them by a housing-land assembly programme. But those who are sitting on the land and holding it should pay higher taxes so that they will be forced to put the land on the market and not withhold the land in order to create an artificial increase in price for their land.

Mr. Speaker, when the provincial government does get involved in a land assembly programme, and does start putting land on the market, I would like to see us do it on a lease basis only and on a long-term lease basis. I would like to see us get rid of the middleman in the resale of such land that we develop.

This morning I was on an open-line programme and I had a phone call. In fact, it was rather interesting that on this open-line programme I was involved in this morning most of the people that phoned in were interested in housing. I had mentioned things on the high cost of food, and environmental problems and so on, but the people were most concerned about housing and this is what they zeroed in upon.

I mentioned some of the things that I have mentioned here about land developers owning large tracts of land in the agricultural zone, and somebody phoned me. A vice-president from Block Brothers phoned up and said: "Well, we don't own land in the agricultural zone." They were, more or less, he inferred "good boys" so I agreed with him that they did not own land in the agricultural zone in Richmond and I, of course, had never said that they did.

But what Block Brothers had done, and this is one reason that they were not, in my opinion, opposed to Bill 42, was that they had gone into the more urban areas and had bought lands in a small way, but more valuable lands, and were involved in a speculative way in the residential areas. One of the ways that they did this in my own area, in Steveston, they had prior knowledge, for example, when the municipality was going to put in the sewer programme. It was knowledge that was available to a lot of people, but the general public didn't know about it yet.

Block Brothers salesmen went door to door through the community, asking people if they would like to list their house, or the vacant lot that they might own, and some people owned as much as a half acre or an acre, and they offered them a lot more money than what they had thought their land was worth.

As soon as the sewer programme was announced and the municipal government started putting it in at the taxpayers' expense of course there was an inflation in the value of the land.

Perfectly legal! The Block Brothers representatives and some other land real estate companies as well, were able to make a pretty good profit by speculating on what municipal government was going to do.

I use this as an example because I think that when the provincial government gets involved in a programme like that we have to guard against this thing from happening.

Now, when I was talking to this Block Brothers representative this morning and he was saying: "We didn't get involved in large land holdings," and I pointed out that they had been involved in small holdings for speculative increase in the value of the land, a land contractor phoned up and gave an instance of how — I believe it was North Vancouver — had put land out on a lease basis. They developed the lots and had put them up for bids. Apparently Block Brothers came in and bid on the leased lots and the contractor that I was talking to, he said that he bid up second to Block Brothers. They got the lots for about $26,000 per lot. He bid against them and lost out.

Block Brothers apparently got most of the lots, if not all of the lots, in this particular subdivision and now this contractor is still trying to buy these lots because he's the one that has to build the houses on it. Block Brothers does not go into the construction of houses.

He is now faced with paying $29,000 for the same lots that Block Brothers was able to buy by bidding with the local government for $26,000.

Now I think this is something that we have to take cognizance of, that if we are putting lots out for sale on a bid basis, or anything else, that it should go to individual buyers or individual contractors who are building for buyers and that we should eliminate the middleman.

Even if we are able to do it on a fairly massive scale — and I don't think we will initially — we are liable to have some of these real estate companies — and I use Block Brothers as an example, but there are dozens of others — coming in, bidding up and buying the land and then still being able to control the price that the land is leased out for to the citizens who are

[ Page 628 ]

trying to have their houses built.

I think, Mr. Speaker, what we need as well as the housing authority, a province-wide housing authority, is a real estate authority as well to deal with the land — a provincial real estate authority to deal with the land that we are putting on the market.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on housing qualities. This was raised by the Hon. Member for Delta (Mr. Liden) earlier. The quality of housing is generally the responsibility of the local municipalities who have to interpret the National Housing Act and also have local municipal bylaws.

Presently, the municipalities have been working with the provincial government in developing standards of housing quality for use across the entire province. However, these standards are only standards for construction in the line of safety. They do not take into consideration the quality of the construction that is being built. Well, they do take in quality in a minor way, but not in a major way.

One of the things that I think the provincial government should consider in working with the building inspectors throughout the province, is also getting involved in setting guidelines for licensing of builders in an area, as well as setting the guidelines for construction in a cooperative way with the municipal governments.

I would like to cite two examples. One: two years ago, and I can give these from a very informed point of view as I was chairman of the building and licensing committees of the local council for a couple of years. Two years ago we had a company come in and build houses in Richmond. They found some loopholes in both our municipal bylaws — because we were looking only into, at the time, safety features — but also loopholes in the National Housing Act.

This one particular builder came in and built houses that had no outside sheathing on the houses. In other words, they put up the studs, they put up insulation and gyproc on the inside, they put on tarpaper on the outside of the studs, and then put on the outside finish which, in the case of most of the houses, was cedar siding which eventually dried out and left great cracks so the air could get into the cedar and then go through the tarpaper. There was no sheathing, no plywood underneath, no shiplap, no nothing. Of course they saved a lot of money in the construction of those particular houses.

They also cut corners in a lot of other ways because our local bylaws did not take into consideration the quality of the house, so the houses were very inferior.

When they came back to us last year to renew their licence to continue to build houses we turned their licence down. We said we didn't like the quality even though in the bylaws they probably met the quality characteristics that were set up. But also we had had so many complaints we were able to say "Okay, the people you sold to are complaining." Some of them listed hundreds of complaints against this particular company. And we said: "We don't think that you are a good business and we don't think you are a good corporate interest in our community and therefore we are not going to renew your licence."

I might add, and this had no bearing in our decision, we found that one of the principals in this company was a Mr. Link, who I understand has had some connection with the Mafia. But at any rate, this did not play a role in our decision in turning the licence down.

However, the question I raise is where is Mr. Link and his company operating now? What other municipality have they moved into? Are they in Delta, or Surrey, or where? Mr. Link where are you? Because we have said that you can't have a licence in Richmond. I think the province should be looking into the licensing procedures of other areas.

Another example: Sharon Gardens in Richmond, of which many of you may have heard, also had many problems. The residents who bought the houses there…. In fact, with a proper consumer affairs department, when something like that happened, I think the Hon. Minister of consumer affairs (Hon. Ms. Young) would have got a lot of complaints from this particular development a couple of years ago.

In Richmond we turned down the licence of that company as well. The last time I heard, they had formed a new company under a different name operating in Delta.

So, I think we should look into housing builders such as this and make sure that they do meet the requirements of those areas because what they do is produce inferior quality housing. When they get kicked out of one area, they move into another one and keep on going.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to plead for province-wide licensing guidelines for builders to be enforced co-operatively with the municipal authorities and the regional authorities throughout the province.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased with the legislation. I think in the future we will see a major input of government investing in housing in the province. I think it is rather urgent, of course, that we get into it in a big way, but I am sure that if we do, and when we do, we will be able to maintain or keep or bring the costs of land and housing down and will be able to keep the rents from spiralling.

I understand that Manitoba, by entering into a housing programme such as this, was able, in effect, to bring rents down because they were able to create enough housing that they created a surplus. B.C. is a lot bigger than Manitoba, but I think that with this kind of legislation we'll at least be able to make an effort in that direction.

[ Page 629 ]

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, we have got before us another one of these bills that takes a good idea, translates it into bad legislation, and puts it into the hands of a worse Minister. I'm trying to be charitable, but we've had a pattern in this session of one big bill after another. And unless the Legislature comes to its senses and begins to lay out in fairly precise terms what legislation should achieve and what the restraints are on the government, we might as well all go home and not show up in the Legislature at all — have one omnibus bill saying the government can do anything it wishes and use any amount of money for that purpose and that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may pass regulations if it doesn't specifically say he can do that in the one Act we pass.

Because there is really nothing here to act as a major indication of what the government intends to do in the way of housing. That's why we have had in this debate Member after Member standing on his feet and saying, "I wonder if the government will do this?" or "I wonder if the government will do that?"

What a bill should do is to lay out, precisely, a plan of action so that the Members are debating the pros and cons of a definite plan. Not the kind of legislation that we have had where the legislative council and his assistant sit down and think of everything possible under the sun and include it in five or six sections.

We are in the unfortunate circumstance, as I said before, of having two bad sessions of the Legislature instead of one. We still have the same number of people drafting bills — the elected Members don't have anything to do with drafting bills — and they are overworked. There are too many suggestions being placed before them where there is the title of a bill and an idea thought of, but without there really being any concept of what is to be achieved. What you have to do, under those circumstances, is to take a look at the record and try and judge what has happened. What has happened since the NDP government has taken over, is that we have had the highest rate of inflation in housing and land costs in our history. In no other period in British Columbia's past has there been such a relative shortage of housing, such a relative shortage of rental accommodation, such sharply increasing prices of new and used homes. The reason is: the demand is continuing on, despite the fact that we have had a change in government, but the supply is shrinking. The supply is shrinking because every single move the government has made — and it isn't just the Minister of housing-to-be, when we pass the legislation for his department — it's the negative moves that have been made by all the other Ministers of the Crown that has been responsible for setting housing back in this province.

I'll just give one example, Mr. Speaker. This is from a civil servant in the Highways department and I don't want to blame him because I know he is acting under the instructions of the Minister. This is what he said to Mr. John Martens, who is General Manager of the 108 Recreational Ranch Development:

RE: 108 Development Land Use Contract

Thank you for your letter dated September 18, 1973. I have read the circular you enclosed. I confirm that I will not issue you a certificate of substantial commencement.

Yours very truly,

M.G. Elston

Senior Approving Officer

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things wrong with that kind of a letter. First of all, it is arrogant because it gives no reasons for the refusal. Secondly: it gives no indication as to when the government policy might change. Thirdly: it fails to honour a contract.

When governments change they have one sacred obligation, and that sacred obligation is to honour contracts of previous governments that have been entered into in good faith. Our whole system of democracy breaks down if every time there is a new government they feel completely free to dispense with every previous obligation undertaken by their predecessors in office. This is precisely what has been done in this particular case. It's right in line with the thinking and actions of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams) because that's what he did with the PNE contracts when he brought that amendment in last year.

It is just about the poorest way for a government to perform, Mr. Speaker. For a government that has stood up in this House and in the election campaigns before that, to say they were an open government: it was going to be a new deal; they would listen to the people; there would be real democracy; there would be consultation…. I have heard the Members, all of them on this side of the House, applauding all those statements, and what a fine, clean, honest, upstanding government it was to be. You still applaud the remarks; you'll applaud the words, as you are applauding now, but look what happens. You turn around and the action is to repudiate contracts, to send out arrogant letters of dismissal, to go against the Cariboo Regional District.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Well, this is what this letter…. Mr. Minister, I'll come to something you have done. This isn't one of them.

AN HON. MEMBER: That won't take long.

[ Page 630 ]

MR. McGEER: The Cariboo Regional District wrote to Premier Barrett and the Highways Minister protesting this action, because the Cariboo Regional District believes in honouring commitments. They were quoting from one of the up-country newspapers:

"The Regional Planning Board is doing everything possible to persuade the government to honour this land-use contract. For the government not to allow the developers to continue is not only a flagrant breach of contract, but it's also a great disservice to a growing community."

Those aren't my words, Mr. Speaker, but I sympathize with them.

If the government is prepared to repudiate contracts, if it's prepared to do a disservice to a growing community, if it's prepared to go against the decisions of a regional planning board, whether it's in the Cariboo or anywhere else, and to take these arbitrary actions without consultation, then what we're going to do is to break down the confidence of cities and municipalities, regional districts, homebuilders and individual citizens in their ability to plan and develop British Columbia. We'll be left with only what the government can achieve.

So far, Mr. Speaker, the government has not placed one lot for sale or lease to the public of British Columbia. All that's happened in the 13 months the government has been in office is to have a series of statements, plus a series of arbitrary actions, that have throttled the normal kind of development that's desperately needed in a province like British Columbia where the population is rapidly growing.

It's been suggested that a whole year has been lost. But Mr. Speaker, this example of the 108 is not just a question of losing a year; it's setting things back. I'm certainly no apologist for Henry Block. I think if he gets his knuckles rapped by the government he deserves it, because Henry Block has done very well out of the land freeze in other aspects of his operations. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, for giving the House some incorrect information when I spoke about his profits here once before, in saying that he had 2,000 lots for sale at the time he sent the congratulatory wire to the Premier. He had considerably fewer than that, but the fact nevertheless remains that the profits of that company went soaring ahead as soon as the land freeze was announced by the government.

The people who are being injured by this are not Block Brothers; they're the people who, in investing in this community, had every reason to believe that the development would go ahead as planned because a land-use contract had been granted by the government. They're really the ones who have been left holding the bag and I see no reason why they should be victimized by the arbitrary actions of the government.

When others in some other development in British Columbia see what can happen to this particular group, then they become very, very cautious in the way that they move. I submit it's actions of this kind that have led to the dreadful shortage of land and new housing developments in British Columbia.

This in turn has pushed up the price of used housing and has created a desperate shortage in rental accommodation. The shortage in rental accommodation in turn has pushed up the prices of rentals, as the Member for Richmond (Mr. Steves) recently told us about in the letter that he read to the House.

Mr. Speaker, there's only one appropriate way to cure this situation, and that's for the government to undertake moves that will restore confidence in the general public; to begin to work in cooperation with the regional districts and not in opposition to them; to use the resources of government to work in partnership with those in the private sector, because there's no possible way that a government housing corporation can be large enough to do it all themselves. No possible way.

Therefore, if the government is to be successful and the people are to have housing, then somehow the government is going to have to ride to victory on the coattails of what the private sector does.

Mr. Speaker, when I plead for more precise legislation in this House so that Members on this side don't have to speculate about what's going to happen, it's because others, who are actually in the business of providing housing, need to know these answers, too, before they're able to take the kind of action that all of us want to see taken on behalf of all those who lack accommodation at the present time.

Mr. Speaker, I promised a few kind words for the Minister before I sat down. He's a new Member and he's recently been appointed to the cabinet.

I suspect he first came under the spell of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams), who whispered some suggestions to him as to what his initial statements should be. They were carelessly made, Mr. Speaker, and again they set back the course of progress in this province.

The purchase of a home and property is the most important single purchase that any of us or any of the people in British Columbia will make. It's the physical basis for our family structure. It's the location of the neighbourhood where we live, how we educate our family and the style of living that we undertake.

If our housing programmes are successful, then our communities can become model communities and people, by owning their homes, can enter into the best form of savings.

It's the ownership of property that gives a man a real stake in his community. While it may seem expensive to pay the high interest rates of mortgages,

[ Page 631 ]

nevertheless the home is the one thing that increases in value as time passes by. Those mortgage payments turn out in the end to be an extremely valuable form of savings.

A man's home is his castle. If you turn around and have the government, the Crown, own that property and lease it out to that man on a short-term basis, then it's an asset which depletes in value and always that man with his most important possession is at the mercy of a government that can change the terms of that lease at will.

Remember that the pattern of this government is one of saying: "It's all right to break a contract. You don't have to honour the terms of the previous government." Now you're going to impose those conditions on every individual lessee of the tracts of land that you develop.

Mr. Speaker, under those conditions a person would be very unwise to make his commitment to that kind of housing if he had the alternative of outright purchase of his land, where his home could then be his castle. I am an absolute opponent of this concept of leasing land to any individuals except the very wealthy, who would have the option themselves at any future time of buying a piece of land outright, But for the vast majority, whose only real opportunity to save in life would be through the home they'd purchase, nothing could be a more mistaken concept.

I hope that the Minister will begin to turn a deaf ear towards the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams) and begin to think in terms of the real and important needs of the average income earner in the province. While that man a year ago might have felt that he was close to being able to purchase a home, inflation and the rising costs of property have made that dream become more and more remote. He's much further away today, even though he may have had a modest increase in his salary, to achieving that dream than he would have been the day the NDP took over.

Mr. Speaker, the correct thing for that Minister to do is to begin to look at the position of people who are wanting to buy a home today. Here we have in British Columbia an immense amount of land. We've got a vast reservoir of natural resources, skilled tradesmen — all the elements to provide every average citizen of British Columbia with his own home and his own piece of property.

So what the government should use its resources to do is to purchase land outright, not by any mean haggling, not by taking land that belongs to the universities, but by going out and purchasing it in the areas where housing is required. The Minister can do that. There's land in Burnaby, Delta, the City of Vancouver, North Vancouver — everywhere there's land available.

Then prepare that land with the necessary services and sell it at cost, or below the cost. Sell it outright to those people; that way you put property on the market. That way you automatically deflate any excess profits that others developing property may have been tempted to extract. Because then you're in open competition for the basic unit that is required for housing. Then help that man; buy his home after it's built, by increasing the amount of mortgage money available.

When you do all these things you're not only doing the right social thing, you're doing the right economic thing. Because this is going to spur employment and productivity and do it in the most useful direction possible — namely, to buy shelter for the people. This is the challenge and it's the only challenge, really. This is where the power and the resources of government can be used to help individual citizens.

But to do what the NDP government has done so far — take a holier-than-thou attitude to every privately-held piece of land — forgetting all about the vast tracts that belong to the Crown … but if it belongs to some individual there must be something wrong with it, and therefore moving this way, that way, the other way, to block him going ahead with any projects; then instead of going out on the open market and buying undeveloped land if it's available, to attempt to take, as the government is doing, land from Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia and then, having taken the land and having stopped the private developer — not stopped it but inhibited it — then to go ahead with the programme of leasing this property, to me is doing things wrong on every single count.

If the government makes mistakes like this, and there is every indication that they're going to continue making mistakes, then it's just going to be tougher for everybody in British Columbia to get a home in which they can live. I hope the Minister will at least have listened carefully to the things that some of the Members have said on this side, because there's nothing more needed than a Ministry of Housing. But just establishing that Ministry won't necessarily do good; it's quite possible that such a Ministry can do harm.

If the Minister is going to be successful then he's going to have to change his direction. I hope, as a consequence of this debate, that he'll begin to take a second look at his policies.

MS. K. SANFORD (Comox): I would also like to offer my congratulations to the new Minister of Housing and at the same time congratulate the government for having established this portfolio which deals with one of the most basic needs of the people of the province. It's a need which has now reached crisis proportions here.

I've heard, during the debate today and also last

[ Page 632 ]

week on this bill, MLAs from the lower mainland indicating that the greatest crisis is in the lower mainland, that the shortage there is indeed very critical. I would like to point out to the new Minister of Housing and to the people of this assembly that the situation is at least as critical in rural ridings such as Comox.

I have here a clipping from last week's paper of one of the editions from Campbell River which headlines on the front page that Campbell River is the fastest growing in the province. Now because of the rate at which places like Campbell River are growing, the councils are finding it almost impossible to keep up with the problems that are created by that rapid growth. Of course, one of the serious problems that is created is the matter of housing for its citizens.

The council at Campbell River did a survey a short time ago and did some projecting for their housing needs for the future. One of the things they found was that by 1977 they would need an additional 284 suites of apartments in Campbell River. Well, those permits have already been issued for the year 1973 in Campbell River; so they are about four years behind in estimating the growth that is taking place at Campbell River. The apartments that have been finished under the permits issued this year are already full.

The same situation applies to places like Port Hardy where also they are facing extremely rapid growth, particularly because of the introduction of the huge Utah Mines project up there. In Port Hardy they have had to accept mobile homes all over town, in various places, with little or no planning. They are suffering health problems because of the situation there, and they are turning desperately to the provincial government for help.

In Port McNeill the situation is not much different. But contrary to the comments of the previous speaker who indicated that not much was being done — and I've heard that from several Members of the House — I would like to compliment the Minister who in a few short months has responded very positively to the requests of the municipalities in the riding of Comox. For instance, he is in the process of servicing lots in various parts, he is in the process of negotiating for land, and he has purchased land in several parts of the riding.

He has now responded to the requests in Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Sayward, Campbell River, Courtenay and Comox, and there are still requests coming in for assistance, Mr. Minister; I understand there are more that are on their way. But the councils up there are grateful for the response that they have received, and they now have permission to go ahead with land clearing and providing services that are needed.

At the same time, I would also like to compliment the various organizations and service groups which have gone ahead and provided housing, particularly for senior citizens in various parts of the riding.

I feel that the work that has been done by these service organizations deserves credit because of the many hours that they have devoted to working with planners and architects and provincial governments and federal governments. They have constructed these homes, moved the old-age pensioners into them and are now doing the work of caring for the lawns and doing the landscaping.

The First Member for Point Grey (Mr. McGeer), who just finished speaking, made a comment which I feel I have to comment on at this time. He said that when people own their own property they gain a stake in their communities. Now I think that that particular statement is an insult to the large numbers of people who have never owned property and who will never be able to own property because they can't afford it. These people, many of them, have at least as large a stake in their communities and are working at least as hard as the property owners to see that their community develops in an orderly fashion.

I would have to agree with many of the other speakers that because we have treated land as a commodity and not as a resource, it has been priced out of the market for so many of the people of British Columbia. I would like to see our land used — the emphasis on the use of land and not on the ownership of land.

Mr. Speaker, again I congratulate the Minister. We in Comox riding expect great things out of this department. Thank you.

MR. D.F. LOCKSTEAD (Mackenzie): Not a great deal has been said in this debate, Mr. Speaker, about some of the problems facing people in rural areas in regard to housing. It's true, as the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) pointed out, that there is a large area of the province not presently being used for any purpose except growing trees — which is a pretty good purpose, in my opinion.

There is a lot of land available in a constituency such as mine. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of this type of property — even though it is, in theory, owned by the Crown — is not suitable for housing.

I would suggest to the Minister, Mr. Speaker, that in areas surrounding communities where Crown land is available…I personally favour the long-term lease concept so that property may be made available to the people on a long-term basis at very low prices so that these people can afford to build a home.

One of the main problems facing people in an unorganized area is obtaining funds from the bank or other sources — in other words, mortgage money. I know of a young fellow, just recently, who was making very nearly $10,000 a year, is 22 years old, married; he went to the bank, applied for a mortgage

[ Page 633 ]

and was refused.

He then went to one of these finance companies in order to obtain money, and is paying a tremendous rate of interest on his money. As a matter of fact, in 18 months, under his present contract, he'll have only paid $300 of the principal on a $9,000 loan. In other words, 18 months of his payments have gone to the interest charges and he's only paid $300 on a $9,000 loan to the principal.

Mr. Speaker, there is another problem in regard to housing in some of our rural areas. Much of the land surrounding our rural communities is owned by private companies — usually foreign-owned companies. These companies are paying a very low rate of taxation on this land, yet they will not, in some cases under any circumstances, release this property for use for building purposes. I have an example.

In my constituency we have people attempting to build a mile to two miles outside the community where there are no water services. Yet between where they are building now and the community there is approximately a mile to a mile and a half of excellent property which should be used for housing so that people may have these services. Yet these companies refuse to sell this land.

They know that these companies don't need this land for their development programmes or for their operations. They are, in fact, holding on to this property for sheer speculative value. It's better than money in the bank the way things are going these days.

So I would urge the Minister, Mr. Speaker, to look at this concept, to look at ways of perhaps getting some of this land back into the hands of the Crown. I could suggest here a number of methods, but I'll leave it to the Minister. I'm sure that the Minister will come up with some very satisfactory ideas.

I think that's about all I have to say. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would once again say that I personally favour the concept of long-term leases of Crown lots to individuals. Thank you.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): The legislation we have here has been discussed — or I should say skirted — in the Minister's explanations and, of course, in much of the statements by Members supporting the government. Questions have been raised by Members of all three parties on this side and yet none of these questions appear to have been answered by the government spokesmen. We certainly trust that the Minister himself will rectify the omission in his initial introductory statement when he comes to the debate because, as this bill has presently been explained, I rather doubt if it can get the support of me or other Members of my party.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that in the last year the problem of housing in British Columbia has become infinitely more acute. Prices have gone up; shortages have occurred. Now it's not just me saying this; the Hon. Second Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster) talked about there being one empty apartment out of the 175 — 174 in her riding which are occupied. There's one vacant out of 175, a vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent. She talks about this — which is, of course, a direct result of the policies of this government so far — and suggests that this will have to be rectified.

I agree with her; it's a terrible thing, and why has it occurred? And why has this situation been allowed to develop? … which, of course, has resulted in tremendous difficulty in people getting apartments, in the first instance and, secondly, in getting adequate rent. It's existed because this government apparently deliberately has created an air of uncertainty in the investment field, when it comes to housing, which has never been paralleled in this province or any other province, to my knowledge.

The person who is considering investing in an apartment at the present time has to make up his mind what is going to happen in the future. That is the only way he can determine what return he might or might not get. He has to realize that Members of this government have talked about rent freezes, perhaps rent freezes which would prevent him in future from taking any rectifying measures in case of inflation — and inflation's been a fact of life for some time. He knows that's the case; he knows he's faced with that threat.

He knows, in addition, that he's threatened with a government that doesn't honour contracts. He knows that his is a long-term proposition and, if he's faced with a government that doesn't honour contracts, he's in a very difficult situation. So what happens, of course, is that the responsible developer pulls back; he puts his money into something else, be it government bonds or heaven knows what else.

The less-responsible developer, the guy who's out for the rip-off fast buck, the guy who's converting apartments to condominiums — like the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williams), gets in there and takes the poor fellow in an apartment or a poor couple in an apartment for a proper ride.

That's what's happening now. Irresponsibility has been encouraged; responsibility in the housing field has certainly been discouraged. That is the unfortunate result of the government's failure to make clear its intentions in this field.

The Minister has talked at some length about the role that private enterprise is going to play. He says, "Oh, don't worry; there's not going to be a Crown corporation for plumbing or for wiring." But what about the other areas where there may well be a

[ Page 634 ]

Crown corporation. Indeed, he said he wasn't sure that a Crown corporation would be necessary. He doesn't know, apparently, and unless this very fundamental question is resolved, how can we vote for Crown corporations in the abstract — which is what he's asking us to do? I would say that unless he answers that question very properly and very well, there's no way, as I mentioned earlier, for us to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I've mentioned the apartments and I followed the suggestion of the Hon. lady Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster). Well, how about land itself and construction on land of single dwellings for families?

We have a government which has substantially reduced the amount of land available for housing and has done nothing constructive to put more land in the hands of people.

They have reduced it in two ways: first by Bill 42, and they've already given their reasons for that, fair enough; secondly by buying up lots and not reselling them to the public. The result is that the provincial government has come, as a major buyer of housing land, into an already difficult and tight market, and has boosted the price up substantially. If anyone wants an example of it, my hon. friend from Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) can tell them about the proposal in Oak Bay for a $900,000 purchase of nine acres there.

The fact is that the government, by its two-fold, hamfisted approach, has reduced the amount of land available for housing and as yet, in the last 13 months, has done nothing to make land available to the people who wish to have it for housing purposes. Land is not being sold; land is not being serviced by the government; yet all of this could well have been done at some time or other during the past few months.

After all, in the last session of the legislature we voted $10 million for the housing incentive fund, and we've yet to have a report on how it's operating or how this money is being used to assist the people in the province who need housing. Instead of that, we've simply seen in the marketplace constantly rising prices for both rents and houses.

We've had this government, having created the problem, simply blaming the private enterprise sector, saying that they have failed to produce the housing necessary. Well how can they, given the climate created over the past 12 or 13 months by this very government? It's absurd to create situations where private enterprise cannot act effectively, and then blame private enterprise for not acting. That I believe is a circular and foolish argument that I've heard far too much of from government Members.

What we have had from government Members are suggestions that we wipe out the university endowment lands and use it for housing when it provides, second to Stanley Park, I would say, the prime potential recreational chunk of land that exists within the city.

Sure, you can wipe it out. You can put houses there. You can use it for housing. And certainly it will solve the problem in the short run.

But what do you do next time? What do you do five years from now or four years from now when that land has been used up? Do you move down to Stanley Park and attempt to get the federal government to give up that land? Instead of the $1-a-year lease that it's on now for park purposes do you try to get them to put into the housing corporation for housing because the university lands have been used up?

The university lands at present have potential for recreation. And, let's face it, the City of Vancouver, according to all of the planners reports, or the people who look into the future, the futurists, they tell us that about twice the population will be there 25 years from now.

We have the possibility of a second Stanley Park in terms of recreation….

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): What's the meaning of the word "endowment"?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Minister, you just stick to your ferries and your jet aircraft and you don't worry about land.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, what's the meaning of the word "endowment"?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Could I ask that the gentleman who has trouble using the dictionary….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Hon. Members please not interrupt the Hon. Member for Victoria?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm not interrupting him; I'm helping him.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The next possible use of this land is, of course, the science city concept of my hon. friend from Point Grey (Mr. McGeer). We have the potential for using that land for science-related and technology-heavy industries close to the university where there can be the interchange between the industry and the university community which has been found so beneficial in other areas — once again, another possibility which this government apparently wishes to abandon. If it is abandoned, there's no other land in that area for such a purpose.

So we have the potential suggestions of the Hon. Minister. There's this one; he wishes to take over a rifle range, perhaps that's acceptable; he wishes to take over cemetery property, put out in reserve for

[ Page 635 ]

another university, the Simon Fraser University. These are the things that he's doing which are all temporary, short-run, shortsighted proposals, and yet nothing else has come from him in terms of more farseeing proposals which we can accept.

We've had a whole year lost and nothing has been done except to put up proposals which in my mind do nothing to solve the problem in the long run; indeed, in the future it can only make the City of Vancouver — and that's the particular area I was talking about — a less attractive place to live in.

Mr. Speaker, the costs have been mentioned. The cost of building for the Department of Education, which was assumed some years ago to be $18 a square foot, is now up to $30; and yet we have not heard a word from this government about steps they intend to take in any area to reduce that cost.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: If you'd been listening, Mr. Minister, you'd have heard what I said about voting on the bill.

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

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: And you'll find out when I vote how I vote. Understand? And I will find out how you vote when you vote.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't worry about him.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The Minister's comments have sunk into their usual dull murmur I'm afraid I can't hear them.

We get into the area of the bill itself and what it does as a bill. The first thing that it does, and it's very clear, is that it grants virtually unfettered powers to the Minister himself, or the Minister through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council.

Section 5: "…special powers for any purpose relating to an acquisition…the Minister may enter into any agreement." Subsection 3: "The Minister may advance from the fund any moneys he considers necessary for any purpose."

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister Without Portfolio): You've got to read it in context.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I have been reading it in context, Mr. Minister. This is unfortunately something that you haven't done yet.

We go on in this. The Minister says that he's to be….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the Hon. Members please be a little quieter so that we can hear the second Member for Victoria?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The Minister goes on. He talks in the Act of creating corporations which apparently he's not too sure what he's going to do with. He's talked about a couple of corporations — plumbing and electrical wiring — which he doesn't intend to form. How about the others that you do intend to put forward?

He suggested in his speech that it may need further enabling legislation. If it needs further enabling legislation, for heaven's sake, why was that clause incorporated? It grants powers quite unnecessary for the purpose of setting up a department and it's the type of thing which makes this Act — and I trust the Hon. Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce (Hon. Mr. Lauk) is listening — which makes it impossible for me to support.

The Act goes on into the housing fund, about the "Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may, from time to time, authorize payments…" which goes right down to specific individuals; and yet we in this Legislature don't know who those individuals will be, don't know what classes of individuals are affected, have no idea what the plans will be and certainly no idea from the Minister's speech how he intends to use this legislation. Therefore we are essentially writing the traditional NDP "blank cheque" which I cannot accept at all.

Then finally in the Act, before you get to the amending section, you have further powers to make orders under regulation. The Minister can apparently define what words in the Act mean. Instead of using the courts, he as the Minister or the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council will define. He can prescribe the terms and conditions of use or enjoyment of any person of any land under this Act. Respecting any manner necessary to carry out the intents and purpose — not the words, but the intents and purpose which of course he defines — he can make regulations. Well that's the type of legislation which is eroding the rights of citizens of British Columbia and the type of legislation which we cannot support.

The Minister wishes a department of housing. He wishes to set up a department, and we think there is reason for such legislation. Let him come forward to this House with proper legislation, properly drafted, which we can debate on the basis of what's there, not on some view that he holds which he may or may not express in this House or which he may or may not express publicly on some public occasion. We want to know what we're dealing with, what we're voting on, and we're not getting it from this government.

[ Page 636 ]

You know, Mr. Speaker, if we pass bill after bill of this nature — and I speak to the backbench of the NDP — there really won't be much purpose of having a Legislature in British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We are reversing three or four hundred years of attempts by Legislatures, attempts by the people's representatives to take power from the Crown and grant to the Crown limited power for limited purposes. This type of legislation does the reverse. It puts us back in the days of Henry VIII, where the Crown was all-powerful, the Legislature met for one purpose alone and that was to pass money and supply. Since then we've developed, in the traditions of British parliamentary democracy, to a point where the Legislature, the people's representatives more or less have some control over what is done by Ministers.

If this type of legislation continues, we're back to the old days. And you know full well what will happen. We'll be called here for even more sessions, we'll be paid more, we'll no doubt have more research assistants, we'll get better offices. All the paraphernalia will be there to try to persuade us that we're doing something useful; when in actual fact we'll be doing less and less, because by legislation such as this we're taking the very guts out of the whole legislative process.

Mr. Speaker, I will answer the Hon. Member who posed a question earlier. I cannot support legislation of this nature which is so sweeping, legislation which in no way limits the Minister or the cabinet in putting through, simply by a signature, regulations which should be through this House.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, I don't intend to speak at any great length in this debate, but there have been comments made from time to time, not just today but comments made inside and outside of the House, about the effect of Bill 42 from the 1973 spring session on land prices in the Province of British Columbia. The fact that land prices have increased, the fact that land for housing seems to be in short supply, has been blamed, in the minds and the mouths of some people, entirely on that Bill 42, when actually the converse, if anything, is the truth.

B.C. is not the only place that has experienced some change in land prices in recent years. The Hon. Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) did draw my attention to a recent issue of Time magazine dated October 1, 1973, which told about land prices in the States. In one instance, the price doubled in a period of two years from $30,000 up to $60,000 for 300 feet of water frontage in Maine. In another case in Utah, raw land near the Sundance Ski Resort fetched $3,750 an acre in 1966; today it goes for $13,000, even though zoning restrictions prevent some buyers from building anything.

This is the sort of thing that has been happening in the States. Other examples: 30 acres that sold 15 years ago for $285,000; two weeks later for $375,000; one week later for $525,000. Several months later the developer turned down $750,000. No Bill 42 there, Mr. Speaker, and yet runaway land prices.

Later on, references to the fact that around metropolitan centres real estate developers are pushing suburbia farther and farther into the countryside. Citizens are talking seriously the advice of humorist Will Rogers: "Buy land. They ain't making any more of it."

This is the experience of many countries, not just in the States. Saturday's Vancouver Province talked about Japan's problem with inflation, with their economy generally, and yet, "The rise in land prices has been the most spectacular of all." No Bill 42 that I know of. Land prices are "estimated to have vaulted 33 per cent in 1972" — in one year alone — "and to be headed for a 40 per cent leap this year." Mr. Speaker, this is what is happening where there is no control at all.

The provincial government in the spring of this year stepped in to make sure that land prices would not experience that kind of runaway inflation. There has been an increase in prices in British Columbia but we did take steps to make sure that there would be some agricultural land available in suburbia and, to go beyond that, to purchase land.

We have been accused from the other side that by purchasing this land and taking it off the market we have actually driven up prices. By purchasing this land and having a very small land bank — so far — there is the knowledge that this land bank could be made available at any time at all and this is one of the things that is holding a little bit of downward pressure on prices so far.

When we get embarked, when we get fully into the programme that this legislation before us now will give the Minister the authority to proceed with, when we get going with that programme, the provincial government will then be able to reverse something that is happening all over the world and make land available for housing at prices that people can afford to pay.

The start of that programme in this province was the election of this government and the passing of Bill 42 in the spring of this year.

MR. D.T. KELLY (Omineca): I rise to speak in support of this bill and to take this occasion to congratulate the Minister and, of course, to congratulate the government for presenting the bill so that we will now be able to have a department of

[ Page 637 ]

housing. Certainly it has been many, many years overdue.

I would like to relate to the new Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, some of the problems that I have in my area.

In reference to the last speaker and the manner in which he defended our government concerning Bill 42 and what it had done to land prices in British Columbia, we don't have that problem in Omineca and other portions in that part of the province. For example, this afternoon I was in communication with the village clerk of Fraser Lake. We have serviced lots available in Fraser Lake for $650. In many cases, even good-sized lots that would be considered view lots are going for less than $1,000. For some reason or another, there aren't any houses built on them. And you know what? There is a shortage of housing in that area. I wonder why?

Well, to start with, if you want to get a contractor in to build a house in that part of the province, no contractor will come from Prince George or even from Vanderhoof to build one or two houses in Fraser Lake, for example. If you have a dozen houses to build, they might consider moving. The reason why they would want a minimum of a dozen houses is that they have to move bunkhouses in to accommodate the workers and put in the materials needed to build the foundations and frame the houses. They would have to haul the supplies from a long distance away.

It seems incredible that we are having this tremendous shortage of land and, yet, in the central interior and in my area, specifically there are about 75 serviced lots for a town of 1,200 people. That is a considerable number of lots. They would do anything to get these lots built on so that their tax base would, in fact, be a lot better than it is at the present time.

I would urge the Minister to have the municipalities allow trailers to settle on these lots, for a proper foundation to be put in and have some of the more modern and better-looking trailers, now that they do a pretty good job of building them. I think this would be reasonable to ask for. People would be glad to spot trailers on one of these lots, and with proper landscaping they could be made to look quite attractive.

There is a tremendous programme going on for the development of the north, and within a year or two we will see a tremendous influx of people going into that area. I think the mobile home has got to be the answer. We have factories throughout British Columbia; we are building them to good standards for the northern areas; and I can only see that for nine out of ten homes, the mobile or some form of home of that sort is the answer to our problems. The lots I referred to are serviced lots; the only thing is that the services would be paid for over a long period of time.

I spoke in the House before about the fact that there is a shortage of labour in the north. In fact, in many facets of industry we are short of experienced people up there. I blame that specifically on the lack of housing; there are not sufficient homes. It is hard to build a home in the north because your building season is restricted to three, four or five months of the year. Not only that, but there is the lack of contractors that I referred to earlier on.

I would like to see the government go into building or, at least, assisting the private sector somehow to create reasonably large trailer parks in or near the main centre so that people living on the lower mainland maybe would be urged to move up to that part of the country. It's a very attractive area and it has a lot to offer. Maybe we could relieve some of the pressure on the lower mainland and let some of these people move up north. Certainly there is lots of work available. I can see that with the expansion programmes we are looking at right now there will be an ever-increasing demand for workers in that part of the country.

Another thing that has been prevalent lately is the development of some of the five-acre subdivisions that the Lands department has going. If an individual were to apply for one of these five-acre lots, from the day he makes his application until he has his clearance no less than 12 or 15 months have gone by. I think it is absolutely terrible that people have to wait that length of time to apply for a planned subdivision and wait 12 or 15 months before they are given the okay as to whether they qualify or not. Many of these lots have already had soil tests taken; they know the water table. Many of these subdivisions have had to have a certain number of people available to occupy them before Hydro would consider going in.

It just seems to me, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that it has been nothing but a lot of red tape in getting some of these subdivisions going so that these young people could move in there. I know that the people moving into the north usually are younger people, but even older people have asked me as to what the possibilities would be in the form of a retirement home, or at least where they could spend nine or 10 months of the year and then maybe go to the warmer climates for a little holiday in mid-winter.

I really believe that there is a tremendous demand for housing at this time. So with those remarks and with my congratulations to the new Minister, I thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief but I must make a few comments, especially now that we know the Liberal Party is not going to support this legislation. It shouldn't be news, because I want to bring the attention of the House to what the Liberal Party's position is on housing and what it has been all along.

You remember Mr. Hellyer; he was a cabinet

[ Page 638 ]

Minister assigned, as our cabinet Minister has been, to the housing field. I want to quote to you from a little book called Shrug: Trudeau in Power. They have the nerve, Mr. Speaker, to suggest that this legislation is vague, and, because of that, they're not going to support it. I will quote from page 32.

The author is saying, "What is needed is a radical new approach to housing in Canada, and it has already been made painfully clear that we are not going to get in, not in Trudeau's time. The government began bravely enough…."

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh yes, you can't have it both ways. At least the other Member sitting with you had the public sense to admit that the federal Liberals have been a failure in the housing field. He admitted that Friday, but the Liberal leader wasn't in the House at the time. Now, which way are you going to vote? You two better get a caucus going.

Why have we got this housing problem? Did it appear overnight? Was it because of the Social Credit Party, or the NDP or any provincial organization? It was the lack of federal leadership for housing across this country, Mr. Speaker.

"The government began bravely enough, with the appointment, on July 17, 1968, of a Task Force…" You know what they are. They are given sweeping powers — sweeping powers to do nothing. That's what the Liberal Party believes in, Mr. Speaker. "…a Task Force on Housing and Urban Development under Transport Minister Paul Hellyer." Remember him?

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT:

"Hellyer's seven-man contingent criss-crossed the country and found, as expected, deplorable conditions in Canadian housing. The Task Force Report, tabled on January 29, 1969, set forth its goal in simple terms. 'Every Canadian should be entitled to clean, warm shelter as a matter of basic human right.' What is more, the report had a pretty good idea of how to bring that about: remove the 11 per cent sales tax on building materials used in residential construction, lend money to municipalities or regional governments to purchase blocks of land for future housing needs (a proposal that would have ended, at a stroke, much of the expensive land speculation behind the sky-rocketing costs), establish a national department of housing and urban affairs," — which they finally did — "lower and eventually remove the down-payments on housing from lower and middle income groups, and raise the ceiling for loans on the National Housing Act.

"The afternoon Hellyer tabled his report, Prime Minister Trudeau came to the Transport Minister's office for the celebration party. He accepted a drink, sat down and said, 'I hope you won't be too unhappy if not much happens to this.' In the stunned silence, he added, 'What kind of priority do you people think this ought to get? Nineteenth?' "

That's what the Prime Minister is quoted as saying to Mr. Hellyer before Mr. Hellyer quit. And they have the nerve to come in this House and say that it's too vague. What a phony. The Liberal Party is the greatest disaster in this country, and the Liberal leader goes out of his way to perpetuate it.

"Three months later Hellyer resigned, because, as he told a news conference, 'I have been unable to get approval for the submission I put forward…at the moment I have no indication when it would be approved…' In private he indicated that he did, in fact, have some idea when the report might be acted — approximately when hell freezes over."

That's what he said, and he joined the Conservative Party.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT:

"In this letter of resignation, Hellyer noted, 'I feel there is a lack of initiative in using federal powers to deal with issues such as housing, pollution, inflation and urban development, which are so vital to the needs of ordinary people in our modern, industrialized society.' "

AN HON. MEMBER: Bring yourself up-to-date.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'm glad, Mr. Speaker, that the Liberal Party is voting against it, because it means consistency, absolute consistency.

As far as the sweeping powers of Bill 42 and the land bill causing the high price, and the fear of public ownership of land…I hate to do this to the official opposition.

MR. F.X. RICHTER (Leader of the Opposition): Don't then. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. BARRETT: But life is a very painful business and, on occasion, Mr. Speaker, you have to remind the former government that now sits so comfortably and so happily in the opposition benches, all fighting over the leadership, Mr. Speaker. I want to quote to you from the Municipal Act and how they threatened personal property. And they talk about the little cottage and the white fence….

[ Page 639 ]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: The watch.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Yes, oh yes. Right out of the Municipal Act that they passed in 1965, section 791. The creeping hand of state Social Creditism. (Laughter.) It says here under 791: "In addition to any other powers to acquire property which the regional board may exercise, the regional board, by its servants, may enter upon, break up, take or enter into possession of, and use any real or personal property…"

AN HON. MEMBER: Personal!

HON. MR. BARRETT: "…within the regional district not publicly owned where necessary or convenient for any of the purposes of the regional district…"

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.

HON. MR. BARRETT: "…without the consent of the owners of the real or personal property…"

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Social Credit graft. That's what it's all about. Well, Mr. Speaker, we've seen…

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Where were they, then?

HON. MR. BARRETT: …the hand-wringing of the Liberal leader (Mr. D.A. Anderson), again with his most famous words: I find it curious that this legislation is vague; it's giving sweeping power; and we don't want anything done so we're going to vote against the bill. I'm glad they've taken that position. It will be interesting to see if they stick together as a party.

HON. MR. KING: They want a White Paper.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You can't have it both ways.

We are embarking on a full cabinet Minister of housing in this province. It's long overdue. We're going to get on with the job; we don't care what you try to put up as a snow job; we're going to have houses for the people of this province as soon as possible.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on. (Laughter.)

MR. E.O. BARNES (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, I'm running a pretty consistent pattern.

Every time I get ready to speak, the Hon. Premier stands up and really makes it difficult. (Laughter.) This has happened to me three times now and each time I've had to revise what I intended to say. But nonetheless, I think I should comment briefly.

As you know, in Vancouver Centre we have an awful lot of people in a very small area; and the concern that those residents have about their future as far as housing is concerned is very critical.

I want first of all to remind the Members that years ago I used to work in Vancouver Centre, downtown in the West End, at a time before the present boom of high-rises, of large-scale buildings over a small area was really at its peak. In fact, the B.C. Hydro building was the tallest building in the area.

It was the time when many families were seen in the parks, walking up and down the streets enjoying themselves. I was a special counsellor at the time at the Gordon Neighbourhood House. I was quite proud to have a good programme where families and kids came. It was a residential community. It was a place that wasn't too commercialized, not too much business going on, a place that was low profile. Robsonstrasse was sort of the big highlight in that area.

But what has happened in the last decade has really displaced these people. They no longer can find the comforts of a domestic, residential community. It's high-rise, it's high pressure, it's high tension that's narrowing that environment to the point where it is no place for people who would like to raise a family and live in that area. It's too expensive; and even if you did have the money, you couldn't find the atmosphere that you would like to have for a family. It's one family on top of another.

I was listening to the Liberal leader (Mr. D.A. Anderson) and the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) speak about endowment lands and other considerations. But let's remember that we have people who are living in conditions that are indescribable. They really are indescribable.

The Member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Cummings) spoke earlier about flop-houses, which is a word that…I'm not sure what it means, but it suggests that it's not very much more than a place to lay down. He said something about a cot. But I can take any Member who has the time into my riding and show him places where people really…the conditions are so deplorable that I think a garbage dump would look good beside it.

There are places in my riding where people are sleeping on beds that have springs coming up through the mattress, and there is defecation on the floors; windows and walls are filthy with all kinds of human waste — where the halls are crawling with insects. Mind you, these places are becoming the target of the City of Vancouver. They're starting to put pressure

[ Page 640 ]

on some of the proprietors. But these place, nonetheless, exist.

The reason they exist is because of the attitudes that we have about making a buck at all costs, because we in this society haven't yet arrived at a point of sophistication — civil sophistication — where we respect the rights of all individuals, those who have breaks and those who do not, to a decent living. I think that we are going to have to instil this concept in the minds of the people who are in elected positions in the public domain. They are the ones who establish the fundamental principles. They are the ones who provide the means, the finances, the resources.

Right now people are subjected to a kind of competitive battlefield, and they will pay whatever the traffic will bear or whatever is required. There is just no way, under the present system, for us to cope with the problem. We'll have to be radical in our thinking. We'll have to take the initiative to attack the motivating force that has existed in the past — that is, the profit angle. I don't know if we can do this by compromise.

I think that housing is proving to be as essential a part of life as medical service, food and clothing have been — the very basic kinds of things that we have turned into a highly competitive field for those who have the means; and those who do not, have to do without.

But let's remember, while we compete and people continue struggling and trying to get what they require through competitive means, that we're not doing too much in instilling a sense of community spirit or community-mindedness among citizens. In fact, the system that we say is so important — this democratic system, this way of life that we have — at best only gets half support from the population, because those people who have to struggle for the very basic essentials in life aren't going to be too much in favour of love and brotherhood. I think people are pretty angry and pretty disillusioned, and they don't have the faith and the confidence that they should have.

I sincerely feel that this government has to take the initiative to come out front on behalf of those people who simply cannot compete. It's a story that should be told over and over again. It's an analogy that should be drawn that will help the Members in this assembly and the people at large in the community to understand their responsibility.

I think it was the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King), for instance, who was talking about good faith in the very complex area of labour management. The thing is that we can no longer rely on all of the technical aspects of management in order to get things done; we're going to have to go back to a human ingredient, something to do with concern for each other. I can't justify, in my mind, subjecting people to the kinds of things that are happening to them today in the way of housing.

I know young people who are pretty diligent, who are working hard in the West End, who have good jobs, both of them working, and they are talking about raising families. I ask them, "What are you paying per month for your suite?" Without hesitation they say $300. I know I've never paid $300 a month for anything, let alone rent, and I've had to work.

You take that for granted as though that's fine. You pay $300 a month and doesn't that bother you? Don't you want to rebel? How can you afford to do it? You're working and you're making $450 or $500 apiece; what else do you do? "Well, we want to have a good place to stay. We feel that we want our kids to have a good environment, so we feel that $300 is not too much."

But I don't feel that housing should be primarily an area for which the speculators and exploiters can barter and subject people to this kind of misuse. It's one of the faults in our system, Mr. Speaker, where we've allowed the competitive feature to go too far. I'm for competition provided it doesn't cripple people, provided that we don't get so many casualties, provided we give people some sense of belonging — that we don't alienate people, that we don't overkill.

I think that what is happening is that we have a large body of people who are not really in the game at all, who are just victims of a system that has refused to recognize them except through some very small tokenism kind of programme — a grant here and a grant there and putting them on some list to get in some kind of public housing that is going to compound their problems.

I'm hoping that the Minister in his new department will take a look at the overall problem, the sociological complications that are involved in people's living situations, and will not be too concerned about the expedient measures and be guilty of the things that the government in the past has been guilty of — the federal and the provincial government — of setting up housing projects simply to get people in a physical setting that predictably will create problems.

I think that, because of the means test or the method by which we decide who goes into these low-rental places, we start selecting out of the general population people who have certain specifications or certain characteristics. We get the blood too rich in one area. Instead of a balanced sampling of the community we end up by pulling people out of a certain categorical area, and they go into the housing project or whatever their situation is, and all kinds of other problems start developing. Then we have to spend more money on the follow-up programmes and welfare and all kinds of other problems that result.

I would hope that, in keeping with the idea of

[ Page 641 ]

human dignity, we allow people to have their own place, have their own choice — give them some respectability and give them some sense of dignity. The problem is related to housing and is related to all other social problems that we have. I don't think that we can expect to do an expedient job without paying the price. The more responsible job is to give people a chance to live in their own individual areas, to cut down on the high-rises, to spend the money in the various communities where there are people who have large places.

For instance, if you wanted to put it on a cyclic concept, many of the older people have worked, paid for their homes, raised their families; the family grows up, moves out and you end up with an older person with a very large home, who can't afford to pay the taxes because of rising costs but who is stuck with maintenance and all other kinds of related responsibilities to that property.

What should happen is a plan that allows these people to receive revenue from that property — to be able to convert, if necessary, that property into an income for themselves, so that they can have some dignity too, without losing their property, as is the case in the West End where some of the old people had to get out because they were no longer working. Their pensions didn't allow them to stay and they simply had to opt for an alternative which meant moving out into some old folks' home someplace, giving up their property and a place that's been their home most of their lives. This, to me, is a tragic situation.

There probably would be scores of formulas that we would use for different situations. One of the formulas I have suggested is allowing a cyclic kind of plan where we give money or arrange for people to get the necessary funds to convert an older home where the persons may be at retirement age, help them stay in the force, help them stay in the action, give young people a chance to go and live under those conditions where the whole scale is such that they can afford it.

This aids the problem of diversity. It allows the various communities to participate in the housing field instead of having these large partially occupied houses and old folks who are lonely, who are alienated, who can't keep active. Let them get involved. Let's put people back in these homes and not have the large developments in one area, which has been a traditional way of solving the housing problem.

I think that that concept if employed, will involve more people actively in the problem of supply and demand. Because they don't require as much space when they get older.

For instance, my neighbour had to move out of her house. She was in her 70s, her husband had died several years earlier, her family was gone, grown up, so she got out and moved into a trailer. Now it seems to me that if she could have had people around her because of converting and had been able to get involved again in a real way instead of having to move out because she didn't have the income, we would be going a long way toward solving the housing problem. There must be scores of houses around the Vancouver area where there is just one family living, where people have not been given encouragement to develop these homes for a licence to operate them for income. I think that this is something that should be looked at very carefully.

I feel that the problem with the housing situation, Mr. Speaker, is that we've had about a dozen speakers stand up and they've all touched on different areas. The Minister's going to try to get the best advice and information from each of their contributions. But no matter how much we talk and how much we theorize, the people out there want some action, because right now we're at the zero point. There just aren't any houses available.

I would like to see us immediately, if not sooner, make available funds to homes, as I've just finished describing, to encourage people. If it's the municipal level, then maybe the municipalities should begin to look into the opportunity of utilizing the available spaces that exist throughout the lower mainland, giving people a reason to get involved and try to help solve this.

This is a community problem. The government just can't go out and buy land, put up new buildings and expect to have everybody work out their problem. This is a social problem as well.

I think that this is what should happen; this is something we can do right away: there's no reason why people can't start right away using their homes for taking people in. I think it should have the support of the government and the community.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): It's a pleasure to participate in this debate, particularly when we're talking about something as important to the Province of British Columbia as housing.

One of the things that I want to say, before I launch into some remarks about the housing, is that I think it's time that the Premier of this province stopped the tactic that he quite often uses of misleading the people of this province by quoting only parts of the section of the Municipal Act. He, in a speech a few minutes ago, misled everyone in this House and everyone in the public sector by suggesting to them that the statutes that were on the books, placed there by the Social Credit government prior to the NDP taking over, gave the same authority, the same power, if not greater powers than you presently have in the Act.

HON. MR. BARRETT: More, more, more power.

[ Page 642 ]

More power.

MR. SMITH: Well, Mr. Premier, through you, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to quote not only the section of the Act that he read, but the whole section, and the one that it refers to which he conveniently left out, section 791.

Interjections.

MR. SMITH: He has a very selective memory, Mr. Speaker. Section 791:

"In addition to any other powers to acquire property which the regional board may exercise, the regional board by its servants may enter upon, break up, take, or enter into possession of and use any real or personal property within the regional district not publicly owned when necessary or convenient for any of the purposes of the regional district without the consent of the owners of the real or personal property…."

AN HON. MEMBER: Without the consent of the owners.

MR. SMITH: That is where he stops, Mr. Speaker, but the rest of the section says,"…but subject to division 4 of part 12." Now let's read division 4 of part 12.

AN HON. MEMBER: Okay, let's read that.

MR. SMITH:

"The council shall make to owners, occupiers, or other persons interested in real property entered upon, taken, expropriated or used by the municipality in the exercise of any of its powers, or injuriously affected by the exercise of any of its powers due compensation for any damages, including interest upon the compensation at the rate of six per cent per annum from the time the real property was entered upon, taken, or used…"

AN HON. MEMBER: Big deal.

MR. SMITH:

"…necessarily resulting from the exercise of such powers beyond any advantage which the claimant may derive from the contemplated work. And the claim for compensation if not mutually agreed upon, shall be decided by three arbiters to be appointed as hereafter mentioned."

AN HON. MEMBER: Who decides the compensation?

MR. SMITH: In other words, the Act provided that if the regional district or any other municipal corporation invoked powers under the first section of that Act, they were obliged to abide by section 478 of division 4 of the same Act. It's a little bit ridiculous when the Premier gets on the floor of this House and suggests that the type of legislation that was in force before had more powers available to the Minister than they presently have under this bill. It's a little ridiculous.

AN HON. MEMBER: Vote against the bill.

MR. SMITH: I think we hear too much of this, of the people who are now in the seats of government, the Premier and the Members of the executive council, using the old tactic of only quoting part and parcel of Acts that are presently and have been in existence for some years. That's cheap politics, Mr. Premier. Cheap politics. It's unfortunate that you would stoop to that when we're discussing something as important as housing in the Province of British Columbia. It is.

Let's take a look at the housing problem in the Province of British Columbia.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Twist, twist.

MR. SPEAKER: Order. I wish Members would not use the word "twist" on either side of the House.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I never used the word "twist." (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sure you didn't.

MR. SMITH: It was an extraneous remark from somewhere else. I didn't hear it.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, you pointed in the right direction. (Laughter.)

MR. SMITH: Did I?

MR. SPEAKER: But you could point on both sides, too.

MR. SMITH: Now, let's get back to this matter of housing and what I see as part of the problem. One of the problems is this: if we do not encourage people as we have in the past to own their own houses privately wherever possible, we will have gone in a direction completely opposite from what I believe people really want. There's a pride of ownership, regardless of whether it's a home, a car or a piece of furniture. That is the thing I think we should encourage above all when we talk about housing in the Province of British Columbia. Certainly we should encourage

[ Page 643 ]

people to own their own home as a first priority in the province.

Now what happened after Bill 42 — and I'll refer to Bill 42 because it was part of this problem — with respect to the actual cost of real estate in the province? It immediately escalated anywhere from 25 to 100 per cent overnight. It doesn't mean that there was any less property available. All it meant, Mr. Speaker, was because of the old law of supply and demand, the government, unfortunately, created in the minds of the public an artificial shortage of land. Because of that, prices of property went up and the blame for that must lie on the shoulders of the present government of this province. They were as much responsible for this as anyone else. In matter of fact, more responsible than anyone else for the escalation in the price of land. So that now the individual who previously had looked at a lot for $5,000, plus or minus, is now looking at the same type of property in the same location, the same lot without any greater services than before, at a price of $15,000 to $20,000 a unit.

You're not going to solve it by public housing, simply because you first of all inflated the price of land far beyond what it should cost. You're going to take that land as you suggest, redevelop it, put houses on it, and you're still going to be in a position that the average person will not be able to own his own home.

By amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act we discouraged people from this idea of going into the business of building houses in the Province of British Columbia.

The amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act and the provisions in that are certainly on the side of the tenant and not the landlord. Perhaps that's the way it should be. But in our attempts to solve some of the injustices we created an overbalance in the wrong direction, so that anyone contemplating building today, who has the market and the funds available, will not go into the business of building houses for resale if they can possibly avoid it.

Certainly, one of the factors is this problem of tenants continually abusing the privileges of occupying these homes or suites or apartments that they would build. This is one of the reasons that many people are trying to get out of the business by suggesting that they will put the apartment blocks up for condominiums or strata titles so that the individual can own that property and they can get out of the business — get out of the business of housing. So that has created a problem.

There is another problem that has been created by the fact that the prices of building materials have escalated considerably over the last 18 months. So have the price of labour and the price of sub trades escalated rapidly over the last 18 months.

Bill 42, as I said, is not completely responsible, but certainly it has added fuel to the fire. Those of us who are in this House must realize that part of this real problem of land assembly and the price of assembling land are direct results of Bill 42 being improperly applied on a blanket basis throughout the whole Province of British Columbia.

Interjection.

MR. SMITH: Drive the price of land down? Not when you created an artificial shortage by putting in a blanket policy throughout the whole province. What has happened time and time again, Mr. Speaker, in this House is that the NDP have taken a good idea — something that was badly needed in the public sector — and then have turned around and come up with the type of legislation that makes it completely and almost invariably impossible for people to take advantage of the legislation and become owners of private property — to become owners of homes or apartments or condominiums, or whatever, in the Province of British Columbia.

It would seem to me that no one will deny the right of an individual to own his own home. We do have a critical housing shortage in the Province of British Columbia. We need far more units per year than are presently being built just to keep even. But some of the legislation that has come into this House prior to the introduction of Bill 49 has not helped the situation; it has hindered it. We've even had the Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) talking about persuading people by taxation, and that's just one step from confiscation of private property by taxation.

We need a housing Act in the Province of British Columbia, but we do not need the type of legislation which puts people in a worse position after the Act came into the House than before. For the Hon. Premier or any of the Members of his cabinet to suggest that this bill is going to solve the housing problem in British Columbia is not a correct assumption. It is not a correct assumption.

Certainly we need more units, but we will watch with interest, Mr. Speaker, the operation of this housing bill because I don't think it will adequately do the job. We will give it a chance to try but we will be the first to stand on our feet, either in this House or when it is out of session, and say to the Minister who is responsible for this bill, "It doesn't work; you are not doing a job; get on with building houses and accommodation for people in the province and, if you don't get what you need under this, scrap it and start over."

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): I want to say that I have certainly listened with a great deal of interest, both this afternoon and last week, to the debate on this very, very important problem in the

[ Page 644 ]

Province of British Columbia.

I have listened to people who have said that this legislation will create serfs of many people in British Columbia. I don't know whether I entirely agree with this or not, but I do want to say that there is a problem. For the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) to stand on his feet and say that Bill 42 hasn't really contributed to the increase in the price of land in British Columbia is to try to put a smokescreen over the whole situation, because it really has.

I think the government should, in all sincerity, recognize what has happened. If you want cooperation in this province from the opposition, you had better start becoming a little more responsible yourselves. Don't make those false…. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I didn't really mean to say that. Don't try to mislead us, because Bill 42 did increase the price of land.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Are you threatening us?

MR. PHILLIPS: No, I'm not threatening you, Mr. Premier. I want to work with you to solve this problem.

The Minister of Agriculture tried to go around the world and say how the price of land has increased. Certainly the price of land has increased, but it has increased more in British Columbia and it will go higher. You know that to be a fact and you don't have to be defensive of it. I'm condemning you because of it, but I am condemning you more because you try and tell the people that it isn't so.

Now I have spent a lot of time in this legislature talking about the effects of Bill 42. I hate to remind the government of this but many of the predictions that I made are coming home to roost.

We do have a problem and I would like to maybe make a suggestion to the government. We seem to be trying to build houses in British Columbia, and indeed in Canada and in all North America, the way we built houses back in the early 1900s. I think that we need to take a radical new approach.

When the Japanese can build a supertanker in three parts — one in one port, one in another port and another in another port — and then bring them all together and assemble them with all of the interlocking pipes and wires and so forth, surely to goodness technology can come up with a way of pre-building sections of houses to cut down the cost of construction. There's just got to be a better way. That's why the price of housing, other than land, is so high.

Interjection.

MR. PHILLIPS: I've got a couple of words for you in just a moment, Mr. Minister, and very sincere words, too.

The cost of money: are you going to do anything to bring down the cost, the interest rates? Look what's happened since you came to power. Last year what has happened? The interest rates have skyrocketed. Now, in all sincerity, I am not going to blame that on you. But is the Minister of housing going to have available mortgage money at low interest rates? Mr. Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett), are you going to make available to him housing money at low interest rates?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Read the budget speech.

MR. PHILLIPS: Since this government came to power and since Bill 42 became law, there has been practically nil construction of apartments. This has created the great shortage. Since Bill 42 the construction of houses has not kept up with the demand because builders are not going to build houses when our socialist government says that they are going to go into the building of houses. No one knows; it's again the uncertainty that I spoke of earlier in this House.

Interjection.

MR. PHILLIPS: What bothers me about this housing Act… I think it is a sincere attempt on the part of the government to try and solve the problem, and I am not saying they are going at it the right way. But I heard the Premier in this Legislature last spring, when we were passing the industrial development corporation Act, condemn me no end because I asked to have it set back for six months so that we could study it.

He said "No, no, we've got to get on with the job. Companies are out there waiting to be formed. Young entrepreneurs are out there waiting to be helped."

How many have you helped, Mr. Premier? How many businesses has the industrial development corporation Act of British Columbia helped to get on the way or helped to improve the ones that are going? How many? A big, fat zero.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Throwing sand in the gears again.

MR. PHILLIPS: The Minister of housing has had his portfolio for quite some time; yet in his talk in this House he does not give us one concrete, positive approach that he's going to take for housing. How soon, Mr. Speaker, is this industrial development corporation going to get underway?

HON. MR. BARRETT: You're on the wrong bill.

MR. PHILLIPS: I'm not on the wrong bill. I'm not

[ Page 645 ]

on the wrong bill at all. The party that really did more in British Columbia to help individuals own their own homes or their own condominiums was the Social Credit Party when they were in power, through their homeowner grant and through the Provincial Home Acquisition Act. And there was more on the way. Low-interest money was on the way; but not the approach of this government to own all the land and lease it back.

Who wants to build a house, Mr. Speaker, on their land? Who will build a house on their land and put all of their savings into it on their land, when at any time this government can just pull the rug right out from underneath? They've got a house and no land to put it on.

Interjection.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, the Minister wants to know who I'm supporting. I'm supporting any legislation that will bring in housing to the needy in this province. If the Premier and the Minister of housing are truly concerned about the price of land, they will take the land that they have bought and they will resell it to individuals at a reasonable price. They will sell it back so that the people can have their own little piece of real estate, so that people can have their own land to put a house on.

Now you say he's going to turn around and sell it in three or four years and he's going to make a profit on it. You can write into your legislation that if you sell a piece of land at a reasonable price to a person who is going to build a house, and he sells it at a profit, he has to pay you a certain portion of it, the same as the Provincial Home Acquisition Act. If he sells the house before a certain period of time is up, he has to repay it to the government.

Interjection.

MR. PHILLIPS: Five years. Right. You could do the same with land. It's not necessary that the government control all the land that they're going to put this housing on. This I think is a completely wrong approach. I think you should sell your land, as I say, at a reasonable price, with a clause.

Now, I come from the northern part of the province. Real estate for housing in the City of Dawson Creek has probably always been the most reasonably-priced real estate in British Columbia. And I'll tell you why.

Early in the history of that city some forward-looking, courageous men purchased a great tract of land under an outfit known as the Dawson Creek Athletic Association. The city has always had within its boundaries large tracts of land, serviced, ready for sale and they have kept the price at a reasonable level in the city. Why? Because they own the land. But they don't go around leasing the land to people to put the houses on. They sell it at a reasonable price.

But if I own land and the city owns land and the city keeps their price down, I can't rip off, as you say, the price of my land. Because the city controls the price. The province can do the same thing. But you sell the land. That's what the whole thing is about. You don't have to control it, you don't have to own it, you don't have to lease it back, but you can control it.

Now unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, after Bill 42 the price of housing lots nearly doubled in the City of Dawson Creek. And as I say, the real estate in Dawson Creek is probably the most reasonably priced real estate anywhere, I would say, in North America, within the boundaries of a city. But after Bill 42, they can't move out, and up went the price almost double.

One way that we can control the price of houses is to provide reasonably-priced land. If the government wants to go out and buy up land, buy large tracts of land and sell it back, that's what they should do. That way, they control the price.

I want to say that we've got to show leadership and we've got to ask the industry to come up with new methods for house building, With the technology that is in the world today, surely to goodness there can be some way that we can build houses cheaper than we build them. We're building them with the identical methods that we used back in the early 1900's.

Now just prior to the election last year, Mr. Speaker, I had a gentlemen who had a brand new concept of building houses. He was building houses made of aspen, popular in our area. He had a pilot project going. He was going to utilize the native wood which at the present time, Mr. Speaker, is not being utilized in any type of industry at all.

The northern part of the province is abundant in aspen. Hundreds and millions of cubic feet of it exist and it's not being used. When land is cleared it's plowed under and burned.

This man had a good idea. The aspen is dry and it's light to move and has great ability not to warp. Maybe I'm not phrasing that right, but at least it maintained its dimensions. This man had an idea where you build a solid wall out of this aspen and the inside is finished to the taste of whatever you want. If you want mahogany panelling on it, you've got it; if you want oak panelling on it, you put it on. The outside is completely finished in cedar siding or any siding that you want. Right there the whole wall was completely finished, the wiring was in it. If it was an inside wall of a bathroom, the plumbing fixtures were in it.

I had this gentleman come down to our Department of Industrial Development, Trade and

[ Page 646 ]

Commerce, and I had him go over to the federal Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. They thought it was an excellent idea. Had we gone back and formed the government, we were going to help this man with low-interest-rate money right away so that he could get this project underway because it was a real project.

I think the man has got an excellent idea. His name is Albert Olivier. He is a man who has worked on this idea and really done something with it. He's building a pilot project now. But that man has been waiting over one year since the socialist government came to power for them to fulfill their obligations and their promises that they were going to help people like this, through their industrial development corporation. This man is waiting. And I am sure another man I know of who is building log houses could go into production of log houses, but these people are waiting. For what? Who will give them the money? Not the banks. Who will give them the help that they need? Not the banks; not the federal government. Now who is going to do it? I think with some help from the industrial development corporation of British Columbia, with a little bit of courage — and maybe you might fail in the odd area — surely to goodness these people with these ideas can be helped and maybe we can come up with two or three new methods of building houses.

We've got to have a break-through. Otherwise you can own all the land in British Columbia, you can lease all the land in British Columbia and you're still not really going to help the citizens of this province to build their own homes. Not under the present method, Here's an article out of the October 5, Vancouver Province. Here's a fellow who has come up here from the States. He says the price of housing in British Columbia is out of all reach. "I shouldn't buy now because they're higher than they are anywhere." But, he says, "If I don't buy now," it says, "it may seem expensive in 1973, but it will be cheap when you look at 1993." That's the case. And that will be the fact unless we find some new method of building houses in British Columbia.

It's a serious problem. I don't think you're going to solve it with this bill, although I'm in support of anything you will do in order to alleviate the situation. But I ask the Minister of Finance to get on with your industrial development corporation. Seek out those men in British Columbia who have ideas on new methods of building houses. Give them a hand. Put up some pilot projects. Spend some money. Even if you get only three out of five successes, if you can come up with one new method of building houses it will have been worth all of the effort.

I mean that sincerely. I wish the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) would listen to me. I hope that the Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce (Hon. Mr. Lauk) is listening to me. I hope the Minister of housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) is listening to me. Because I want to tell you that the only method by which you are going to be able to provide the housing requirements for this province is to come up with a new method. Find out those men; put an ad in the paper; offer some incentives to people who can come up with new ideas; then, when they come up with new ideas, be prepared to put your money on the line and develop some pilot projects. Maybe then you will have fulfilled some of the responsibilities that you so dearly want to fulfill.

The Premier says there's urgency in getting the bill passed. The bill was passed. Now let's get on with the job.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): I'll be very brief as well. I'm very happy to see both Ministers of housing in the House this afternoon: the one on that side of the House (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) and the one on this side of the House, the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston).

I'd like to know which one has it right though, because the Minister on that side of the House, in his opening remarks was telling us about the great response that he had from the municipalities with regard to them getting land. He said some were cool, but it was a great response. But the Minister on this side of the House said that they didn't get any response. They were very disappointed. Which one is right? Which one is going to be the real Minister, I wonder?

I'd venture a guess, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister on this side of the House was right; that they didn't get any response from the municipalities because they haven't told the municipalities of the kind of thrusts that they are going to get into with housing in this province. Certainly in the bill that's before us now.

We need a housing Act in this province, we need a housing Minister, we need some new directions in housing, but certainly this bill doesn't give us any idea of what the thrust of the programme is going to be to help us to develop good, low-cost housing in the province of British Columbia. It would seem the only thing that is going to happen in British Columbia is some kind of a leasing programme. It seems the new Ministry is going to hang its hat on that kind of a programme, and that isn't enough.

We need to be looking at more things this government has been doing that have escalated the cost of housing. One of them is the amendments that this government made to the Assessment Equalization Act. It has been a terrible burden on the taxation of all kinds of property in this province: urban property, rural property, small holdings, and certainly commercial developments and small commercial developments in the major cities of British Columbia. That's the kind of thing this government has to be

[ Page 647 ]

looking at, Mr. Speaker, if it wants to bring down the cost of housing.

It's nonsense to say that Bill 42 had no effect on the price of land and housing in B.C. Of course, land prices are escalating all over North America; all over the world, I suppose. We must recognize how much of the blame can be placed directly on governments for those increases. I suggest here again, much of the blame for escalated costs of housing can be placed directly at the doorstep of governments at various levels.

Bill 42, however, has certainly caused the price of land to rise dramatically over and above that normal inflationary factor, and that's bad enough. But the shame of this government's land-use policy is that it has caused land values to escalate far above the normal inflationary rate.

The lady Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster), in her remarks the other day, was absolutely right when she said that people want to be in their own homes. They do not want to be tenants of the provincial government.

Another reason for the escalating cost of housing and land prices is that this government is so niggardly in its aid to municipalities that the municipalities have to slap on phony taxes, and that causes the price of land to go up. Because of this treatment by their senior government, municipalities are forced to add on things like $300 per lot for this development, $400 per suite for this development — some way they have to get some money out of the developers or out of the people who are buying homes; some way so that they can meet the costs of services.

It's services to the people that are costing money — all kinds of services. Yet we are forcing the local government to take the blame. The government hides behind the phony taxes of the local governments and says: we didn't do it; it was those local governments that are the culprits. And that is phony.

Serviced lots in my area have risen from $3,000 to $4,000 before Bill 42 to something like $12,000 to $15,000 today. That is a fantastic, shameful increase.

The concept that land-banking by itself will increase the supply of available land isn't correct at all. I agree that a programme of land-banking in connection with some of these other things that I've talked about would certainly help to bring down the cost of land — at least we hope that it will help. It will not increase the supply of available land very much.

Planners in this area say there is already enough land already designated for urban use in the lower mainland to provide for housing developments for 25 years, four times as much land lying vacant ready to build houses on it than is needed in the next 10 years. The Municipality of Surrey has enough land already zoned for housing to accommodate a half-million people. That's already zoned. So land-banking is not going to increase the availability of land because the land is already there.

What you have got to do is start putting houses on that land; get a construction programme going; build houses and get people into them. That's what you need; not a lease programme to hang your whole housing hat on.

You are not going to help the average homeowner in British Columbia by doing the kinds of things that the Agriculture Minister suggests when he says that he is going to confiscate by taxation. There is some strange obsession by those people on the other side of the House, Mr. Speaker, that people who own land or build houses are some kind of a terrible breed of ogre. The developer.

AN HON. MEMBER: They buy houses themselves.

MR. McCLELLAND: Do they do that? It's funny that the people on the other side of this House do like to own their own homes and take every opportunity to buy the expensive waterfront property whenever they possibly can. But they don't want other people to own their own homes. Everyone who owns land, if you believe the people on the other side of the House, is some kind of a dirty speculator.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: The Premier, Mr. Speaker, appears to be a little touchy on the subject of home ownership for some reason. I don't understand why he should be so touchy unless he has some kind of a burr under his bonnet that is making him touchy like that.

This government's policies, if the policies are only what we have been given the indication of at this point…

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: What Langley road? Oh, come on.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. McCLELLAND: This government thinks that everyone who owns land in British Columbia is a speculator. More and more and more, as each of its Members speak, they talk about the kind of repressive taxation that is going to force people out of home ownership and into row housing. They are going to force the people off the land and make them all become tenants if they continue with their taxation policies.

I read an interesting article the other day from the

[ Page 648 ]

New York Times of earlier this year. It was called "New City Rises in East Germany," and it is headed "The Housing-project Blues." It is very short and I would like to read it to the House.

"Drab housing projects and problems which attend them are not confined to the western world. In a development on the outskirts of Halle, East Germany, of 16,000 people, there are no theatres or community centres, no churches or pubs, and no private shops. The only facilities are the state-run shopping centre, a pool — the one attraction — and rows of identical, dark, grey, five-storey apartments.

"Most residents are in their mid-twenties. Almost all the men and 90 per cent of the women work full-time and the children spend up to 12 hours of their day in kindergarten or day-care centres. The divorce rate is high. While there is no outright crime, there is vandalism, neglect and depression.

"The difficulties encountered with the project have figured in the shift away from planning large housing projects in East Germany and towards modernizing and rehabilitating existing housing and apartments."

I might remind the Members, Mr. Speaker, that it was that kind of thrust that happened in Strathcona in one of the most innovative programmes of housing in Canada. The Social Credit government had a major part to play in making sure there were no more of those kinds of drab, cold, housing projects developed for low-income people. I am not suggesting that this new government has any intention of heading in that direction either. I would just like to caution the government that that kind of living will not be acceptable in British Columbia.

I wonder about lease land, too, as it applies to the life of the house. How long is the lease that the Minister has in mind? How much does that lease cost? Evidence of some lease-land projects that we have had so far has seen the lease selling for far more than perhaps the property would have sold for in the beginning.

What happens after the life of that lease is retired? If the lease is tied to the average length of the house, what happens when the house wears down and the lease has run out? The person has nothing; no investment, no equity, nothing. You've taken away what is right now in our society the only possibility for ordinary people to make some kind of investment to which they can tie their future retirement.

So, Mr. Speaker, we cannot tie our future housing needs to lease programmes only. We've got to build houses and we've got to get people into them. We expect this Minister to tell us what he is going to do along those lines.

HON. MR. KING: I am pleased to say a few words in this debate. I have been listening intently to the great concern that has been expressed from the official opposition on the shelter provisions for people in this province.

I can forgive the Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland), Mr. Speaker, for not being too aware of the type of provisions that were made under the former administration for shelter and housing facilities for the people of this province. But I, Mr. Speaker, represent a riding which was very acutely aware of the housing policies of the former administration.

We saw all up and down the Arrow Lakes and the Columbia reservoir the policies of that previous administration with respect to housing. We saw that previous administration, Mr. Speaker, come in with bulldozers and bulldoze down homes and buildings while the land was occupied by people who had refused to sell out to Hydro for the pittance that was offered by that previous administration, Mr. Speaker. If they didn't agree, their concern for the land rights and shelter needs of the individuals was such that they moved in and set the torch to many of those buildings.

Now they're expressing concern about shelter provisions for the people of this province. Never did they have a policy, Mr. Speaker, of developing an accent on the housing needs in this province. I think it's shameful and regrettable that the Member for Langley now stands in this House and presumes to express concern for the people of the province when it comes to housing.

Interjections.

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I'm going to have some more to say about this.

Hon. Mr. King moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, I promised on Friday noon that before Monday was over I would refer to a matter raised by the Hon. Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson). That was to do with the leave that was presumably granted on Thursday the 11th. I have a statement to read to the House; it's rather brief.

I've re-examined the procedural matter raised on Friday morning by the Hon. second Member for Victoria. Since he asks that the error or misunderstanding relating to withdrawal of notice of introduction of a bill, being notice 9, last Thursday, October 11 be rectified properly and not by any tacit or implicit method, it seems expedient that there be absolutely no doubt as to the status of Bill 9 and notice of introduction 9 in the interest of avoiding

[ Page 649 ]

any future controversy.

I've already stated that the proper procedure for withdrawing a bill from the order paper requires as a preliminary that the order made by the House in regard to a bill's existing status on the order paper must be discharged. (See May, 16th edition, page 525.) That was not done on Thursday, nor would all the Members, it appears in retrospect, have agreed unanimously to such a request.

On the other hand when the misunderstanding became clear that it was notice 9 which was being removed, no Member at that point was under any further misapprehension as to what matter was being withdrawn from orders of the day. Yet, the Member submits that it remains to state all this explicitly in the records of the House.

It seems to me, in examining today's notices of motion, that such a way is available in today's Votes and Proceedings, page 3. If Hon. Members are prepared to do so today unanimously, it could be put on record unequivocally now by that motion being permitted by leave of the House. Otherwise, the proposed motion 17 by the Minister of Agriculture is scheduled on the order paper for tomorrow and no doubt may be called and decided by the House then if need be.

I put it to the House that if you wish by unanimous consent to suspend the rules and call that motion today, you can put it on the record today. If there's any disagreement about that, you can do it tomorrow in the regular course. It's entirely at the House's pleasure.

Leave granted.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the Hon. Minister of Agriculture put his motion?

HON. MR. STUPICH: That this House ratifies its order permitting the withdrawal of item 9, namely the notice of introduction of the bill intituled An Act to Amend the Distress Area Assistance Act, as shown in Votes and Proceedings of October 11, and, for greater certainty, order that the bill intituled Farm Income Assurance Act, appearing on orders of the day in committee stage, shall not be deemed or construed to have been discharged or withdrawn.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.