[ Page 1383 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Real Property Tax Deferment Act (Bill 16). Hon. Mr. Barrett.

Introduction and first reading — 1383

Committee of Supply: Department of Consumer Services estimates

On vote 37.

Mrs. Jordan — 1383

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1385

Mrs. Webster — 1388

Hon. Ms. Young — 1389

Mrs. Jordan — 1390

Mr. Gardom — 1391

Mr. Wallace — 1395

Mr.Chabot — 1399

Mr. Nunweiler — 1401

Mr. McGeer — 1402

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1974

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

Introduction of bills.

REAL PROPERTY TAX DEFERMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Barrett presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Real Property Tax Deferment Act.

Bill 16 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES:
DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER SERVICES

(continued)

On vote 37: Minister's office, $80,184.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Mr. Chairman, I was thinking about this whole situation over the dinner hour and our concern for the Minister of Consumer Services' (Hon. Ms. Young) responsibility to the public and the consumer in relation to the business practices of ICBC. If the Minister persists in taking an attitude of silence or giving us the arguments she gave us before dinner, which I will refer to in a minute, about being the reasons for her reluctance to protect the consumer from a fair business practice on the part of ICBC, we have no alternative but to, assume that this Minister, who we believe to be a very sincere Minister trying to do a proper job, is in fact in a position of conflict of interest imposed not by her own will but imposed by the Premier of this province, and that he has called this enthusiastic and conscientious young Minister into his office and said,"Look here, baby. You get on the back of business, you get on the back of anyone else, but you leave the government alone."

We asked on the basis of the business practices of ICBC in relation to overpayment of premiums and interest gains on the part of ICBC on the value of those overpayments, and the failure on their part to make any effort to find those who have prepaid and overpaid, and also to refuse to agree to pay interest on those overpayments.

We would like the Minister to investigate these practices and to bring a report to the public of British Columbia and, in turn, to this House.

I feel she would like to and I feel she should. This would not be setting a precedent. By the Minister's own words before dinner, she told us that she had had two complaints against B.C. Hydro, which is a Crown corporation, about their business practices and that she has, as she should, discussed this with Hydro, investigated it and had brought the matter to a happy conclusion — happy for the consumer as well as happy for Hydro, I presume. So I say there are precedent steps in a small issue that would indicate this Minister does very much want to try and protect the public and that she would be willing to look into the practices of ICBC.

When we tried to press this issue more, she said, I assume on the orders of the Premier,"I've only had two complaints about ICBC from consumers."

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): She had one today, so that's three.

MRS. JORDAN: I think, Mr. leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. D.A. Anderson), that she has an obligation to protect your interests as well as the rest of the public's interests. Maybe you need a little more help than the rest of the public; you seem to be in hot water a good deal of the time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member address the Chair please?

MRS. JORDAN: The Hon. Minister then said, "Well, I've only had two complaints." We now find it's three complaints. This, she indicated, wouldn't justify looking into the business practices of ICBC.

One thinks back and compares this statement to other actions by this Minister. I would refer specifically to the tax rebate companies and practices in British Columbia. She took prompt action in terms of advertising to the public, parallel to the tax rebate ads in the paper, cautioning people that these people were indulging in practices that might not be to their best interest. While she wouldn't bring in a remedial bill that we asked her to, she did indicate she felt the practice of these companies was such that a majority of them should not even be in business in British Columbia. She indicated that her objective would be to remove them as happy hunters on the unprepared consumer in British Columbia as quickly as possible. That was on one complaint.

I suggest that with two or three complaints she has a precedent upon which she can base an inquiry into the ICBC business practices in relation to these overpayments of premiums and this questionable advertising they're using.

I would think the last point the Minister should consider is the fact that as Minister of Consumer Services I'm sure she doesn't want to be the tail that follows the dog. She, in fact, wants to be the head that leads the tail and she wants to initiate proper business practices in this province. I would suspect the bill she intends to introduce will reflect this position.

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We would be most disappointed and the Minister herself would be most remiss and would not be meeting her obligations to her department if she just sat back and waited for problems to come knocking on the door.

We challenge her now, if this is the case, to initiate action where she has knowledge of improper business practices and not wait until she has 150 or 150,000 letters of complaints on her desk. I would apply this to ICBC. Regardless of the number of complaints you have, Madam Minister, on your desk, I would suggest the reason you don't have many more is because, in fact, people are stunned by the action of this company in terms of its possible business practices and questionable business practices. And they're not yet aware that the Minister's office exists.

So it's with these four points that I ask again on behalf of the public of British Columbia to have this Minister respond to her duty, respond to the concerns that have been expressed by individuals, respond to her own knowledge of the questionable practices in these premium charges of ICBC, and to respond to the Members of this Legislature who have asked her, in line with their duty and in line with their conscience, to assume her responsibility and to look into these business practices of ICBC.

I hope the Minister will stand up in this House on the basis of her own statements and give us the satisfaction of endorsing her salary with enthusiasm for the job she's going to do.

I would like to correct one point. During her address she suggested that for a Member of the opposition to question the business practices of ICBC, if I may quote her correctly, would indicate "imputation of improper motives of government."

I wouldn't want that statement to stand on the record because there is no intention on the part of the opposition or with the public to impute improper motives on the part of the government in this issue. It is merely a question of examining the fact and finding a fair amount of indication that this is a matter which should be investigated.

I'd also like to bring up one or two other matters with the Minister. One is in relation to her statement that she had been requested by the Northern Development Council to have an investigation of food prices at the consumer level in the northern part of British Columbia.

I would like to ask her if this is the council that is so diligently working and has had to date, following a year's establishment, I believe, one meeting, and that in fact this request was the outcropping of that meeting.

I would also suggest to her, Mr. Chairman, that there has been, as we all know, inquiry after inquiry after inquiry after inquiry — four official inquiries, including a royal commission at the federal level — about this matter of whether or not there are unreasonable profits being taken along the line between the production of food in Canada and the cost to the consumer. I would suggest if it is in fact the Minister's intention to have another inquiry into this matter, that she not confine it to just the northern part of the province.

I have a few figures here that might interest the Minister. They are not extensive, but I did relate them to the B.C. products, all of which are involved in marketing boards, because the Minister made such a very strong attack against marketing boards in her statement. I'd point out to her, for example, on the price of eggs last Thursday, which was March 14, 1974, in Prince George Grade A (large) sold for 99 cents in one store, which is a chain store, and one dozen large sold for $1 in a private grocery store in Prince George. In Victoria the Grade A (large) were $1. In another chain store in Victoria Grade A (large) were 95 cents.

In Nelson, Mr. Chairman, Grade A (large) were $1 a dozen, and in a chain store 97 cents. In Abbotsford Grade A (large) on the same day were 97 cents a dozen, and in a local food centre 94 cents a dozen. In Fort St. John on the same day in the chain store Grade A (large) were 99 cents a dozen, and in Fort St. John at what I presume to be an independent grocery store $1.05 a dozen.

Now I find that those prices are extremely interesting, because they indicate that Nelson, in the Kootenays, would have the highest prices below the central northern reaches of the province, and that, in fact, there is not a major spread: Fort St. John 99 cents, Prince George 99 cents and Victoria 95 cents.

Then I looked into the price of milk, homogenized milk, and in Prince George a quart was 52 cents. In the independent grocery store it was 52 cents. In Victoria it was 44 cents. In Victoria at another market it was 49 cents a quart. In Nelson it was 46 cents a quart, and in another store in Nelson 48 cents a quart. In Abbotsford it was 46 cents a quart. In Fort St. John it was 45 cents a quart.

The other B.C. product that I compared I would question, because it's from Fort St. John. It is my understanding that it is mostly Alberta butter sold there. I'll give the figure of 90 cents a pound. In Abbotsford it was 86 cents a pound, in Victoria 83 cents a pound, in Nelson 84 cents a pound, and in Prince George 87 cents a pound.

I have quoted these figures, Mr. Chairman, and these comparisons, not because I think they are startling and are going to answer any questions, but to point out to the Minister that I feel it is an exercise in futility to flounder around with just one area. If you are going to examine the true facts on the cost of the delivery of food to the consumer from the producer.

I would urge you, if you are going into this question again, that you go into it very thoroughly,

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that you go into it on reasonably representative regions of the province, and without question that you include the Kootenays. This was the west Kootenays that I quoted, because I couldn't reach the store I wanted to in the east Kootenays. I would suggest, on the basis of these figures, that we may find food prices in the Kootenays, east and west, are at times considerably higher, or higher than they are in the north. If the Minister is going into this, then I think this is one of the questions that should be answered.

On this subject, Mr. Chairman, I would also suggest to the Minister.... I don't want to reveal any of the information of the agricultural committee because it is still sitting, but I am sure that the Hon. Members wouldn't mind me mentioning that in our inquiry into the profits and the handling of B.C. fruit and vegetables by B.C. wholesalers and retailers, the major ones, we found no particular evidence of excessive markup, and we found a very strong emphasis on their part to promote B.C. produce. In fact, even though it cost more at the wholesale level, they promote B.C. produce over imported produce as long as B.C. produce is available. I think it is fair to say that most of the Members were impressed by this.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I certainly got the impression that while all those appearing before the committee tried to be very factual in their presentation, there was no question that they would reveal no more than they had to, with their competition sitting right beside them. I don't say this to cast any aspersions on the wholesalers themselves, but I think if I was in business, and a highly competitive business, I certainly wouldn't go around giving my competition all my information.

I would suggest to you, Madam Minister, if you are deeply concerned, that you meet with these people individually, in camera, and that you yourself have a committee with you. But that evidence presented before that committee to you should be a matter of confidential record, that this evidence could not be used against these companies in public. Out of that meeting, if you in your wisdom, and with your committee, felt that in fact there were practices that should be corrected, this should be taken up with them, as a trade, on the basis of general impressions. Then if they did not comply, you would turn the matter over as a matter of public concern with fresh inquiries.

I really don't often advocate secret meetings, and I don't mean this to be a secret meeting, but a confidential meeting. But it is going to be extremely difficult for anyone at the political level to really find out in fact if the trade itself does not believe that there could be improvement in the marketing of produce in British Columbia, in order to bring down the prices to the consumer and meet their needs as well as meet the business needs. This would be a very significant step. To my knowledge it hasn't been done in Canada, and I hope the Minister will consider it.

I also feel that out of that type of inquiry consumers in British Columbia would have to respect the opinion of the Minister and her staff in this matter. For too long there have been accusations and false accusations regarding whether or not there is an improper or excessive markup through the various chains of getting our produce to market.

One other point on that, Madam Minister. I think that in that inquiry there should be a thorough study as to whether or not B.C. produce is used because of its popularity and the efforts by the retailers, wholesalers, the producer and the Government of British Columbia to promote British Columbia produce, to make it popular, and whether, in fact, this isn't being used to subsidize imported produce of a different nature through the cost of the B.C. produce. I think there are certain areas where you will find that B.C. apples are used to subsidize bananas, as an example, and this should be weighed as to whether or not it, in fact, is in the best interests of the B.C. producer — who, frankly, is my primary concern — and then the B.C. consumer.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Minister would like to comment. I do have some other matters that I would like to bring up with her, but I hope she will answer regarding the ICBC situation and also regarding a responsible, in-depth study into the costs of food in British Columbia.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, I had hoped the Minister might reply on ICBC. One of the complaints that she referred to — it must be one of the complaints — is one I sent her about discriminatory pricing. I sent a copy of this to the Attorney-General, who was civil enough to reply, also to the federal Minister of Consumer Affairs, but as far as I can tell I have received no reply from the Minister. Perhaps she might reply this evening.

The fact is that discriminatory pricing is taking place. Very severe discrimination is taking place, and nothing is being done about it. I will quote a couple of paragraphs of my letter to make you aware of the problem, Mr. Chairman.

"Dear Minister:

"I have recently become aware of a situation in which a corporation doing business in British Columbia is involved in discriminatory pricing practices. I am certain you will agree with me that it is highly questionable for a firm which is providing an identical service to its consumers with identical costs for servicing its product to each member of each group of consumers to differentiate between individuals with regard to price.

"This firm has given no logical economic justification for its acts and is pursuing this

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discriminatory policy on the basis of the previous commercial dealings of the customer with other companies. These previous relationships have no bearing on the present or future relationship between the corporation in question and its new customers.

"Specifically, I wish to request formally under the provisions of section 5(c) of the Department of Consumer Services Act that your department investigate the process by which the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is promising premium rebates to some insurers and refusing them to others, despite the fact that it is providing identical service at identical cost to the customer within each category of consumers."

This is the type of thing which certainly should be looked into. We cannot ignore complaints of this nature from Members of the Legislature about ICBC. Discriminatory pricing is wrong, and it should be stopped. If ICBC wishes to provide a low rate to people within a category, let them apply it to everybody in that category. Let's not distinguish between people on the basis of what firm they might have dealt with previously.

This, is a point I raised with the Minister back on January 9, 1974, and I'm still waiting for some action on behalf of the British Columbian consumer to make sure discrimination ceases.

But that wasn't the main point of rising to my feet this evening. That's an important one but not the major point I wish to make this evening. I realize the Minister is new to her department; perhaps she hasn't had a chance to look at the mail in January yet.

The main point in rising to my feet was to mention an industry where we have a virtual monopoly, where we have prices which are perhaps two to three times that which would prevail in the case of competition. I'm referring specifically to an industry which affects many people in this room. It affects two people there, three people there, your Deputy Minister, four front benchers: namely eyeglasses and spectacles.

I'm quoting a report from The Globe and Mail from December 3, 1973, of a Mr. Ross Henderson.

"Most Canadian consumers pay two to three times as much as they should for eyeglasses because of a lack of competition in the Canadian optical industry."

He reaches his conclusion based on research done by him in Ontario, based on research done in Saskatchewan by the Government of Saskatchewan and by the University of Saskatchewan.

I have been looking into this matter in British Columbia and I have discovered that, as far as my research indicates, the situation is just as bad in British Columbia as it is east of the Rockies.

The problem of this high cost for these people who wear glasses is the fact that there is a monopoly situation, a monopoly controlled by one firm, the Imperial Optical Company Ltd. based in Toronto. This firm, under a variety of names, has a virtually octopus-like grasp on the entire industry of the preparation and sale of glasses in Canada and specifically in B.C.

A former accountant for the company has said that Imperial controls 300 related firms in the industry. This pattern is repeated in British Columbia where the firm not only controls about 80 per cent of the optical laboratory business but has a virtual monopoly at the retail level.

I brought here with a few notes for my speech the Vancouver telephone directory, and I thought the yellow pages might interest you. If I look in the telephone directory under Opticians you might think there was competition because there are plenty of them advertised. Lots of them. Where are we? Optical Supplies & Laboratories.

The fact is that virtually all these companies listed are controlled by a single company. Sure, they operate as individual firms, but they are forced or they are required to buy a minimum of 85 per cent of their supplies from their parent company. This gives the parent company a monopoly upon the whole industry, a monopoly aided by the fact that, of course, they own the specific firms in the business.

So under Optical Supplies & Laboratories there are some 15 firms listed. There are only three that are significant: Imperial Optical Co. Ltd., Bausch & Lamb Optical Co. Ltd., and AOCO Ltd., which is the Canadian subsidiary of the American Optical Company. The two latter are relatively unimportant when compared with Imperial's share of the business. It is my understanding that Imperial controls 80 per cent of the laboratory business in this province.

But an independent retailer who threatens Imperial's share of the market can, of course, be frozen out, because of the 25 laboratories in British Columbia only four are not under the direct control of Imperial.

I have got the list of them here. I can go through some of them, and go through them as quickly as I can. First is AOCO, American Optical; second is Bausch & Lamb; then you get into Imperial and it goes on and on and on — Imperial, Imperial, Imperial.

Under Opticians — Dispensing, the first one, Baker Optical, is a small independent; Booth Optical Co. Ltd. Is Imperial; Brentwood Optical is American Optical; and then you get into an independent, Burnaby United Optical; and then you go back to all the Imperial Optical.

We have one group of independents of some size in this area, which is London Drug Optical. But look what happened, Mr. Chairman, when London Drug Optical started cutting in at all to the market. Why, nothing else but the Imperial octopus formed its own

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London Optical Ltd., and London Optical is part of Imperial. London Drug Optical, of course, is the independent.

So they are doing everything possible to cut down by making sure they buy up company after company and own all these companies. The reason is pretty simple. The natural question comes: if they are all owned by the same person, Percy Herment, why is it that he leaves all these 300 companies operating as essentially independents?

Well, he's quite clear. He says, and I think he may well have a point here, that people like choice, so he leaves all these companies in the business even though it doesn't matter one whit whom the public goes to deal with because they will all wind up as Imperial in the end. I quote the man as saying, and I'm again quoting the article by Ross Henderson: " 'If we put the Imperial Optical name on every building, two-thirds of them would go out of business. People like to have a choice,' said Herment, Imperial's president, in a recent interview."

So you see why they keep this great charade going of competition. There is none. But people like to think there is, and they like to choose. Therefore we have a situation in which the names are maintained even though the entire control is in the hands of one company.

So there are 60 firms of dispensing opticians. The list contains Booth Optical Co. Ltd., Prescription Optical with 18 outlets in greater Vancouver, Hale Optical with six outlets in the Vancouver area, London Optical Ltd. with 10 outlets in the Vancouver area. It is interesting, Mr. Chairman, that the three firms I have just mentioned have just one thing in common — they're all part of Imperial.

Imperial outlets in the greater Vancouver area have a stranglehold on the industry, and they dominate all three levels: retail, wholesale and the laboratory level. We've got the Imperial retailers forced to purchase the bulk of their supplies from the parent at wholesale outlets. The only non-Imperial operation of any size in B.C. Is London Drug Optical. This firm's outlets, plus a number of the small independent operators, are all that keep Imperial from total control of the industry.

This problem was brought up in British Columbia when the Foulkes report was looking into medical services, and it was raised a number of times. Every time it was turned back — perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly; I don't know — on the grounds that it was not something for that particular report. But I think it is time that the Minister and her department look into this.

We have a situation where it is claimed, both in Saskatchewan and in Ontario, that there is a substantial increase in price to the consumer as a result of a monopoly situation. I'm sure the same facts may well be true in British Columbia.

I personally think the people of the province should get the best they can for their money, and it is doubtful that they are getting it under the present system with Imperial as the totally dominant firm, in the whole industry at all three levels that I mentioned.

One thing I would like to suggest to her, before I go any further, is that she does not suddenly suggest that if there is a private monopoly they should substitute a government monopoly in its place. That won't solve the problem of lack of competition; it won't solve the problem of choice for consumers.

Certainly the question of monopoly, whether it be government or private is something that she should be looking into, and I think that she should perhaps consult with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) and even the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) or at least of....

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): It comes under the Combines Investigations Act.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: They cannot yell.... Thanks very much. I'll give you five minutes on that if you wish.

The Attorney-General, with his enthusiasm for sloughing off the problem on somebody else, has suggested it be sent to the Combines Investigation Division. Well, somewhere I have a quote here if I can find the thing — right here. David Kilgour, a former University of Toronto law professor, probably well known to the Deputy Minister and now in private practice, had a good study of this, Mr. Attorney-General. Perhaps you've heard of the man — Kilgour.

He came to the conclusion that prosecution...he left no doubt that any prosecution under current law would fail. That's a quote from him — or from the paper reporting his conversation: "The Canadian combines legislation requires proof that there is a monopoly and that it is operated against the public interest...." et cetera, et cetera.

"Dominant vertical" is the unfortunate term, which perhaps the Attorney-General knows more about than I do, but that's what apparently prevents prosecution under the federal combines legislation. Now I trust that the old standby excuse of no action will not be present here because Saskatchewan and Ontario are taking steps, are looking into this, and if those provinces are doing so, I think there's every reason for us to do the same thing.

Anyway, where was I? I trust, however, as I mentioned, that there will not be just the one monopoly substituted for another.

The next point I'd like to raise is also distressing. It is the fact that a good number of doctors wind up in debt when they leave medical school. If they're in the business — the eye business — frequently the

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company that loans them money is an Imperial company, whether it be a front company or directly. Often these people, when they leave medical school with existing debts, with heavy expenses for setting up their practice, need money.

At that point they need large amounts of money to equip an office. We find curiously enough that Imperial Optical and its subsidiaries are quite willing not only to finance it, but to do the whole job for them right down to hiring the receptionist for them. Of course, with a substantial debt hanging over their heads to the company, and with the knowledge that Imperial likes business, it's highly unlikely — indeed it's thoroughly improbable — that the doctors in question go outside and suggest to their patients that they go elsewhere but to Imperial's outlets for glasses.

In case of any doubt, Imperial makes doubly sure by generally putting them into buildings where the only outlet is an Imperial outlet. So when you have this combination of Imperial financing the medical training of many of the people in the industry, and the doctors owing large sums of money to a single corporation resident and in the same building as Imperial services down below — the Imperial Optical Service down below — you have a situation where the market is almost totally tied up, and I don't think it's proper.

So, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the Minister get on to this subject. The other problem is, of course, licensing opticians. We haven't got the type of controls in this area that other provinces have. It's something that I have been looking at over the last 18 months and it's clear that more should be done. But this, of course, more properly falls outside her department and in the department of the Minister of Health Services (Hon. Mr. Cocke). But as far as affecting retail sales and prices is concerned, there's no question that we face an enormous monopoly situation, a monopoly situation which would not be improved by switching it into the government's hands. Indeed, it would undoubtedly be made a great deal worse.

We face a monopoly situation where steps could easily be taken at the provincial level as has been done in other provinces. I'd like to know what the Minister is doing about it, whether she has done anything, whether she plans anything and, indeed, whether she will treat this request for an examination into this monopoly situation with a little more courtesy than she treated my request about discriminatory pricing of ICBC, which, I might add — to return to ICBC — had it been done by a private company, would have put the directors in jail under the Insurance Act.

So those are two subjects I'd like to raise this evening. I wonder whether the Minister would like to comment as soon as possible on them so they're not simply lost in the continuing debate.

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver-South): Mr. Chairman, I'm going to be very brief, but I would first like to congratulate the Minister on the organization and the work that she has put into her department so far. I would like to congratulate her too on her choice of Deputy Minister. I think she's made a very fine choice. From what I have heard of him so far, on radio and television programmes, I've been exceedingly impressed.

I'm glad that the Minister is going to start a debt counseling service in storefronts so that the poor and the needy can go and find recourse to justice in one way or another. We live in an age of a great deal of confusion in the market, and the marketplace is becoming more confusing all the time. Also, because of inflated world prices, it's becoming more and more difficult for people to be able to be consumers and stay out of debt and to be able to understand fluctuations of prices and things of that kind.

Interjection.

MRS. WEBSTER: Yes, natural graphs. The world shortages of various kinds — sugar and coffee are supposed to be in short supply at present — along with the general inflation of other prices such as beef and commodities of that type and with the increase of world population.... We're not the only country that's having trouble along these lines. The poor countries of the world are having much more trouble than we're having to be able to compete and to be able to get even enough to live on.

One thing that Europe has done over the past 10 years is to consolidate into a common market so that the various countries in Europe can help each other; and they have formed the European community. In so doing, all those countries have converted to the metric system.

This is now having quite an impact on the whole of the western world, Mr. Chairman, because we're so closely tied to Europe. This is like a pebble being dropped on water and the waves grow wider and wider and wider. It means that very shortly we too will have to convert to the metric system.

Some of the plans are in the making now. It's not going to be an easy task. Although the metric system is much simpler than ours, it's going to cause a great deal more confusion in the marketplace.

One of the problems in a changeover from our system to the metric system is in the ability to think in metric terms, in metric units; to be able to operate on the metric system we have to know what certain amounts look like automatically. I think this is going to be a difficult problem. It says here, for instance,"We must develop ideas for comparison such as that 20 millimeters is about the width of one finger, and 100 millimeters is about the width of a hand. One can, a 15 ounce can of food, is about 400 grams."

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Now to be able to convert our thinking from the inch-pound type of syndrome into metres and millimetres and grams and litres is going to create considerable difficulty. Certainly when you go to the marketplace and you go to your stores and look on the shelves for various things or try to buy fabrics and decide how much you want, you have to be re-educated in your thinking from the inch-pound system to the metric system.

It should be very simple because the metric system is all in units of 10. It's really much easier than ours. But we've been so ingrained with the old inch-pound system that it's difficult for us to rethink. It will be quite easy for children who are taught right as beginners in school and brought up on that — with this exception: because their parents have been taught in the other system, there could be considerable confusion. So I went to the library and I looked up the Wide World Encyclopedia. It says here:

"The metric system is based on the distance between the north pole and the equator, which is about 6,200 miles. A line running from the north pole to the equator is 10 million equal parts. Each part is a metre, or 39.37 inches."

Now, that's the confusion; it's difficult. So that means that one metre is approximately 39 1/3 inches.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member relate her remarks to the administrative responsibility of the Minister of Consumer Services?

MRS. WEBSTER: I am, Mr. Chairman. I'm trying to make the Minister realize the confusion, and I would like to ask her some questions about it in a minute.

One litre is approximately the equivalent of one quart — that's not too difficult. One ounce is approximately the same as 28.35 grams. One kilogram is about 2.2 pounds.

Now, this is what I would like to ask the Minister. Does she know when the metric system is going to be taken over? Has anything been done in her department, or is she considering any educational programme in relation to the change-over from the inch-pound system to the metric system?

HON. P.F. YOUNG (Minister of Consumer Services): In regard to the metric system, yes, I'm aware of the metric system. I lived in a country that used the metric system. It's very easy to learn the metric system. It was originated by Napoleon and it's a very excellent measuring system. It makes far more sense than feet, inches, pounds, ounces, et cetera.

It is now being incorporated into the educational system. I believe the medical system is already extensively using it. You'll find in the grocery stores that the metric count is already being implemented. In fact, if you look on your toothpaste tubes you'll find that your toothpaste containers are referred to in grams. You'll find that some of your food products are also in grams as well as ounces and pounds.

So it is being phased in over a period of time. One of the members of my department is sitting on the metric committee. So it's not anything new. It's a phase-in and it's being done country-wide — in fact, it's being done North America-wide.

Now, the Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson) refers to a letter that he sent me. I'd like to tell you about that letter. I received that letter at 9:45 a.m. on January 10, which was a Tuesday morning, and it was hand-delivered to my office five minutes prior to my leaving for a cabinet meeting at 10 o'clock. When I arrived at the cabinet doors I was met by the press and I was asked what I thought of the Hon. Member's letter. I told them the truth, that I hadn't had an opportunity to really look at it because I had only received it a mere five minutes before. They then informed me, Mr. Chairman, that the letter had been given to the press the night before.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! Shame!

HON. MS. YOUNG: I thought to myself and I said vocally to the press: "Oh, really?"

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Was he playing politics?

HON. MS. YOUNG: Oh, I don't know, Mr. Premier. I don't know what he was up to.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Liberals don't play politics.

HON. MS. YOUNG: Oh, they don't. Well I'm glad to hear that, because they had me footed.

The press got the letter a good 14 or 16 hours before I did. I think that's real courtesy, to give them the letter before I received it.

In my view it was a spurious policy he was enunciating here. It was a discriminatory policy, because he obviously hadn't done his homework. If he had, he would know that the insurance companies in a Senate investigating committee in the United States, which stretched over a period of four years, discovered that the insurance companies in North America had been extremely discriminatory in their rate structures. They had set rates that depended on where you lived, what kind of work you did, if you were black or white, if you were a longshoreman or a bartender or a waitress that worked at night, and what district of the city you lived in. If you lived on one side of the street you paid a different rate than if you lived on another.

I might add that in my view anything relating to

[ Page 1390 ]

this subject belongs under the estimates of the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) and I think it should rightfully be there, and these questions should be asked of him.

Now he talks about the optical industry.

Interjections.

HON. MS. YOUNG: Well, I think that if you'd done your research you would have found out that those insurance companies in British Columbia are principally owned by American corporations and you would find that the practices they used in the United States are essentially the practices they used in this country. They don't change much when they cross the border; we've found that out.

Now, in the matter of the optical industry, the Member talks about Imperial Optical. We're quite aware of Imperial Optical and their operations. There is at the present time an investigation going on under the federal Combines Investigation Act, and the Hon. Herb Gray has announced this investigation. Therefore I think it would be inappropriate under the circumstances for me to comment further on this, because if they are found in violation of the Combines Investigation Act this is a criminal offence. I would suggest that if he doesn't believe this he should check with Mr. Gray with his own party, and he will find out it is true.

Ontario and Saskatchewan have been making some inquiries but they have gone no further than just making inquiries.

In reply to the Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan), I stated prior to the supper hour that I had no reason to look into the business practices of ICBC. I feel that is rightly under that Minister's estimates.

I also reiterate, as I have reiterated numerous times, my position on the matter of marketing boards. They are a good thing. I believe in them. I sometimes don't feel that they communicate as well as they should on how they arrive at some of the things they do, but the principle of marketing boards I fully support and I will continue to support them.

MRS. JORDAN: I listened with great interest to the Hon. Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster), who is not here, and her comments on the metric system. I do believe it is going to be very confusing to people and I would commend to the Minister a printing in the form of a rotating dial aid for people such as myself.

HON. MS. YOUNG: They're already published.

MRS. JORDAN: What did intrigue me was that if a can of salmon weighs 440 grams, I can hardly wait till I get on the scales, and then I thought what a riot it's going to be when the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) gets on the scale.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Order! (Laughter.)

MRS. JORDAN: And if we put the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Radford) and the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) and myself on the scales, we'll have a new record in British Columbia. Maybe we should do that to hail the advent of the metric system.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether the Minister of Consumer Services is a spiritualist or not, or believes in omens or signs, but if I remember correctly, in the French Revolution the ladies used to knit as the heads rolled. As Victor Hugo said in Les Miserables — and I'm better at German than French — "As the heads rolled the ladies laughed and lost not a stitch." I wish the ladies in the gallery this evening a good evening's knitting. I hope that you too don't lose a stitch.

Interjections.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I think, Mr. Premier, there is probably a lesson to be learned. There are some very serious questions before this Minister and she is not answering them. We feel you are interfering with her ability to carry out her duties. I refer to ICBC.

I was most interested in the Minister's comments on the monopoly situation and that Imperial Optical is being investigated under the federal Combines Investigation Act, of which we are all aware. But maybe the Minister would advise me whether a Crown corporation can be put under investigation under the federal Combines Investigation Act.

As the Hon. Liberal Member (Mr. D.A. Anderson) deplored the fact that Imperial Optical controlled 80 per cent of the market, I wonder what the Minister has to say about the fact that ICBC controls 100 per cent of the market.

One cannot help but wonder, in your bland refusal and blind-eye attitude towards the particular practice of ICBC I have consistently brought to your attention, if in fact you are not saying right across Canada, to the Americans and to anyone else,"never mind what your business practices are; come to British Columbia. You can establish a monopoly; you can overcharge; you can make interest profits on overcharging; you needn't bother refunding; you needn't bother paying interest on those refunds."

Is the motto of the NDP government in British Columbia going to be, do as I say, not as I do? Is that going to be the motto for British Columbia? Why don't you advise your Minister of Consumer Services that she is free to carry out her duties and investigate the rates of ICBC and their practices?

Interjection.

[ Page 1391 ]

MRS. JORDAN: Well, Mr. Premier, the public of British Columbia wish they had that money back so they could buy a cup of coffee.

I would like to ask the Minister her plans for introducing consumer education into the schools. I recognize this falls under the Minister of Education. As an individual in the former government I spent a good deal of time and at times became frustrated by the roadblocks within the department and at times within the teaching profession in trying to see that there was a three-tier consumer-education programme in our schools. I would hope the Minister of Consumer Services would spur the Minister of Education to see that we do have a three-tiered programme in the schools, and that this start in the primary grades and move up to the secondary and senior secondary levels. If we do this, there has to be a concentrated effort on the part of the UBC education programme in training for teachers, as well as Simon Fraser, to see that teachers are properly trained in consumer affairs.

The word I hear is that teachers are not immune to the problems of the ordinary consumer and have their fair share, if not more than their share, of budgetary problems and consumer problems.

I don't think you necessarily have to rely on people from your department to go out. I've discussed in part with you a training programme. I believe there are many people in the community who could be used as resource people. It would not necessarily be an expense. They would be quite happy to go into the schools and have the students out of the schools into their place of business, into banks, into credit unions, into all types of business areas, so that young people could learn at first hand the mechanics of business.

Also, with these resource people, young people could try and understand or have people explain to them inflation and the very grave dangers of becoming a chronic debtor or over-subscribed in one's credit. If we don't start exposing young people to this type of sound budgetary programme in the primary grades, particularly now that money is losing its value so rapidly, then I would suggest that the problems of the future will be worse than ever. They not only will have the debt load that we are creating for them but they are going to have their own faulty management problems to contend with.

Again I would ask the Hon. Minister: what is your motto going to be for British Columbia? How can you possibly stand in this Legislature and talk about monopoly situations and your opposition to them, and yet blandly turn the other eye and suggest that ICBC, perhaps one of the cruelest monopolies in its approach at the time, is in fact not practising proper business practice? You don't see anything to turn a hair about on it.

I can do no more than to suggest, as I did before, that I believe the Minister really would like to look into this aspect of ICBC. She must now make a decision between her responsibilities as a Minister and her loyalty to the Premier of this province who in essence is her boss. I say that her responsibility is to the consumer in this province. At no time in the future can you stand up and condone monopoly situations in the private business sector, at no time will you be able to stand up and condone overcharging and lack of interest payments by private business unless you examine this situation in ICBC.

The same with the advertising. The advertising is all the worse in ICBC because thousands and thousands of the public's dollars were spent not to tell them about ICBC and the progress of the programme but simply to ram down their throats the fact that this government wanted them to be proud of ICBC and to con the public of British Columbia with their own money that this was a benevolent, appropriate company.

I say if the company isn't good enough to stand on its own two feet, and it could be if it was properly managed, then it has no business in B.C. If the company can't stand on its own feet and become part of the pride of British Columbia because of the service it offers, then it has no right to utilize the public's money to con them and to ram a concept down their throats which isn't even factual. "You're the boss." We have all had letter after letter from people who say,"If I'm the boss then sell the company."

So, Madam Minister, for your department you must, for the sake of your effectiveness in the future, look into this matter.

I also would like to have you answer my questions regarding consumer education in the school and your use of community resource people to carry out this programme. I think it would stimulate a great deal more interest in it than if this Programme were carried out strictly by people from your department or those in the teaching profession. The community resource people bring in a great deal of variety and would offer stimulation that can't be encouraged by just one or two people approaching the subject.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Chairman, it seems what we are having here really and truly is nothing more than powder-puff Naderism. I would like to draw a couple of topics to the attention of the Hon. lady Minister, but perhaps first of all bid welcome to those people in the gallery who left Maynard's auction to come over here, and who are fast returning back to Maynard's auction.

I would like to draw to the attention of the lady Minister something of which she is aware and something which she is apparently proving to be absolutely powerless to do anything about. I am talking a little bit about price increases, government

[ Page 1392 ]

direction and government philosophy.

We find the price of bread has increased, the price of milk has increased, sugar has doubled over the last week or two, gasoline in all likelihood will be going up about six cents a gallon, probably on April 1. Insurance, a Member mentions over here, has increased. The price of cigarettes is going up two to three cents a pack. Coffee prices are perking right over the top. Candy bars have become almost out of reach for the kids. The price of beef is reaching the moon. Mr. Attorney-General, I tell you that the cattle rustler today has taken over from the safecracker as the criminal elite, make no mistake of that.

Is there any better selection or any better value or any better service for the consumer? And the answer is no, no, no in each case. Struck out on all counts. Even worse, by this government's example of not fighting but compounding inflation, this is the most serious thing you have done as a government. In the headlong run into inflation what have you done but just go ahead and increase a little bit more? Your programmes are chock-full of nothing more than government fat.

You have fantastically, fantastically expensive furnishings. I read in the paper this morning, and I suppose it was an answer that we finally got from the Minister of Transport (Hon. Mr. Strachan) who is not in his seat at the moment, that the furnishings for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia came in at $1.4 million. Since when does an insurance programme have to be housed like the Taj Mahal really and truly in the Province of British Columbia?

Your promotions on the whole have been horizontal. We have had the worst salary rip-offs in the history of the Province of B.C. Mr. Adams, I think his name is, who was talked about in the House earlier today, is earning $3,000 a month for another 18 months of no work. What a way to earn a living in B.C.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. GARDOM: Don't do a thing and earn $3,000 a month.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. GARDOM: I'm glad you called me to order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the Hon. Member to relate his remarks to the direct administrative responsibility of the Minister of Consumer Services.

MR. GARDOM: I am, because she is to protect the consumers. Who, indeed, is the consumer, Mr. Chairman? I'm glad you directed my attention to that because the consumer in the Province of B.C. Is the taxpayer, and it comes right out of his pocket. This is what he's going to have left in his pocket by the time he's through with you people — boom all. That's right.

Mr. Bremer — what a deal for him! Marvelous! Two years' pay for nine months' work, and you won't even table the contracts in this House to see whether or not these are illegal or legal settlements. The cabinet and the backbenchers are Marco Poloing all around the world, and there's a bureaucracy that's going to choke a horse.

The consumer, as you illustrated to me, Mr. Chairman, is the B.C. taxpayer and he has been absolutely clobbered by this government.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's been ripped off!

MR. GARDOM: In the face of all that, when the government had one thing specifically between its total control, with this fighting new Minister who is going to fight tooth and nail, blood and bone for the consumer, what did she do? Whimpered into a corner. Flew United into a corner. (Laughter.) That's right. She had the opportunity of holding the line with the, price of B.C. natural gas.

What was her present to the consuming public in B.C.? A 15 per cent increase.

AN HON. MEMBER: Thirty per cent in the Interior.

MR. GARDOM: And 30 per cent in the Interior. Oh, you've done a big job, I'll tell you. You've abdicated your responsibility, and so young in the job. What a meteoric career. I suppose that if history repeats itself, you might have a meteoric demise.

I tell you, you have moved very quickly, Madam Minister. You came from the blue skies of United into the stormy clouds of the B.C. Federation of Labour, and then into the uncertain waters of socialistic politics and now to the comfy-cosy corners of cabinet. That's right. But if history repeats itself, I think you'll find the same speedy way out that you found in.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's the United way.

MR. GARDOM: You know, that might be unfortunate for you, because as a lady you're a very charming one. I've got to say that without making any bones about it. But the natural gas increase — New Democratic Party, I'd say, my foot. I'd say that's New Democratic piracy and nothing else.

I want to talk about marketing boards. Probably the comments that I'm going to say tonight about marketing boards will be individual comments, and they're going to be fairly strong.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: And out of order.

[ Page 1393 ]

MR. GARDOM: No, they're not the slightest bit out of order, because they're within the portfolio of this dear lady who is doing her level best to protect the consumers — she says, Mr. Attorney-General.

First of all, it is a misnomer. Marketing boards they aren't; if anything, they are producer boards. They have never ever produced in the Province of British Columbia a market — at no time. They have never ever produced a better product — at no time. They have never ever produced a better source of production — at no time.

What they have produced is this: they have produced artificial prices and they have produced artificial values. Their concept initially was obviously one of socialistic motivation, and their activities and their personnel have all been bureaucratically oriented, ever since they first came in in the Province of B.C. And the profit, if any, as in this government, seems to be primarily for the bunch of pencil pushers within their own administrative process. If they were ever needful, Mr. Chairman — and I truly question that fact — today they are an embarrassing, unwieldy, unworkable anachronism.

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: I find that I've got a supporter in Shuswap (Mr. Lewis). Thank you. The Hon. Member for Shuswap says he's going to support me. Well, we may be two Members alone, Mr. Member for Shuswap, but I'm prepared to stand up here on my own two feet and express my opinion on this point, and I hope you do the same thing in this debate.

Historically, Mr. Chairman, marketing controls have never ever worked — maybe to a small degree in a short run, but never ever in the long run. They've never ever produced one better potato, or one better apple, or a better glass of milk or rack of lamb or side of beef. The only thing they have served to do is produce a series of rigid non-democratic controls, which have been followed with ritualistic intensity to the extent of almost bordering on a funny-farm — totally to the detriment of a free-competing economy, totally to the detriment of qualitative choice and to the detriment of the consumer and the producer.

If anything, Mr. Chairman, they have favoured most of the time an elitist bureaucracy, they have pandered to the middleman, to the distributor who has enjoyed throughout the greatest of the spread. The break has not gone to the producer, the break has not gone to the consumer, where it should go in each case, but principally it has gone to the distributor.

It's not enough to stand up and criticize. To improve the situation we must better link the vendor to the purchaser, the producer to the consumer. Let them each do their own thing, and let the market find its own bench line, which surely in a democracy is a democratic necessity and a democratic right.

Through you to the lady Minister, if there had been the same controls on other primary products such as fishing and mining and forestry as we have found in the agricultural industry in the Province of British Columbia over the past 25 years or so, there would have been insurrection in B.C. Mining would not have permitted it. They'd have been at the doors of this chamber. Lumbering would not have permitted it. They'd have been at the doors of this chamber. Make no mistake of that. And certainly the people in the fishery industry would have been too.

If the argument before was one to attempt to cure problems of distribution and supply — I think this was one of the arguments — it's done a mighty poor job, because modem technology has belayed that. Distribution today, Mr. Chairman, is far easier. It is more efficient. It's quicker and we've got greatly improved technology. So is supply more efficient. We've got better technology there. We have refrigeration. We have better storage techniques. They have all been expanded and they've all been modernized.

But these existing marketing controls are not working; nor are they desirous in the best interests of our present day economy in this province. I would say that every possible attempt to wean off this compulsory.... What a word that is in a democratic society — "compulsion." I think I'm going to have a couple more statements about that. But every attempt that we can have to wean off this compulsory measure should be taken. Compulsory marketing of farm products — that's what it is.

Well, okay. Let's expand the theory and the concept. If you are going to have a compulsory marketing of products, why not all products — lumber, fishing, minerals, and all of their products and by-products? Similarly, if you advocate a compulsory marketing — which I don't for one second advocate — of all products, why not a compulsory marketing of services — the trades and the professions and all general labour?

I'll tell you why not — because that is locked step, knee-jerk right into the USSR. That's exactly what it is. I'd say, Lord help us from the radicals in this group that is now in power in the Province of British Columbia, who might favour that as a positive and necessary step.

The whole world today is starting to turn the comer, Mr. Chairman. They are getting tired of being regulated and designated from cradle to grave. They have given up freedom for pseudo-security and they no longer wish to do that. They have come back to the true value, which is the value of freedom, and the sooner we get back to that, not only in this province, but I would say in the whole western world, the better.

[ Page 1394 ]

I'm going again to mention one specific topic before sitting down. And that's one of the most ripped-off consumers of all in the Province of B.C., and that is the liquor and the wine consumer. We're producing $111 million of net profits....

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's my department.

MR. GARDOM: No, when it was your estimates you said it was her estimates. Now that it's her estimates you say it's your estimates.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It's mine.

MR. GARDOM: Well, Humpty Dumpty's back on the wall again, but when you fell off in your estimates I'm now going to approach your colleague. Thank you, Mr. Attorney-General, for your....

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Hon. Member is in order, providing he relates his remarks to the Minister of Consumer Services.

MR. GARDOM: Thanks so much.

If we put $111 million of single dollar bills into this chamber it would fill the whole place. But still there is no customer convenience. Madam Minister, this is your bag — now, write it down: no customer convenience, NCC; no consumer consensus — NCC again; just bad selection — JBS; poor quality — PQ; and questionable service — QS. That's what we have. That's what the consumer has from the Liquor Control Board today.

They're dispensing liquor today in a method that is only Liquor Control Board–oriented, not customer-oriented. The old adage that the customer is always right certainly does not apply and never has applied with this board.

There should be a selection of good wine and that selection should be selected, Mr. Chairman, by the consumer, not by a bunch of Liquor Control Board bureaucrats. The consumer is the one who should have a dominant voice in the purchasing practice.

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: Why do you say that's too much? Why do you want to impose your funny kind of taste on the rest of us? Who likes cured haggis? (Laughter.) Who indeed likes cured haggis?

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: You personally select what? You don't buy much. You might select a little, but you certainly don't buy too much. But customer convenience is the thing that we want to have. We need wine and spirit counseling, refrigerated beer — a terrible thing to suggest. Hey, B.C. wake up! There are fridges in town!

The buyer should also be able to take advantage of bulk or loss leader sales. And you know, being less expensive does not necessarily mean inferior quality. But the European suppliers and the American suppliers are not able to crack this tasteless liquor monopoly that exists in this province. You're bypassing all sorts of far, far superior wines and all sorts of less expensive wines and liquors; you're brushing off quality, you're brushing off moderate prices and you're brushing off the consumer at every turn of wheel.

Now it's not been possible under any former administration and I criticized every former administration without success, without success, to see if we could have this thing properly, interestedly functioning from a consumer point of view; and that's never been possible here.

I don't know whether the impossibility has been to crack the civil service in it or the Liquor Control Board or the fact that government has been afraid to make a change.

I really and truly don't know why anyone should have to support an inferior product. To that extent I concur with the remarks of the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) a few days ago when he described what he considered B.C. wines to be. He used the word "lousy." I won't be as strong as that, but some of them I must say are really as close to dreadful as one could find. There's no reason why we should not see that the people have what they wish to have; and that is better selection, better choice and better quality.

Before sitting down, I want to speak about three quick things. Once again, misleading advertising: are you able to do anything about it — yes or no? If you aren't.... You say the answer's no.

HON. MS. YOUNG: Soon.

MR. GARDOM: Soon. Well, okay, and I'd be most interested in seeing what the measures are. I'm not going to repeat a talk that I've given before in this House, but misleading advertising is unfortunate and, mind you, totally unnecessary, and the sooner we can do something about it....

I commend you upon your bill which I can't talk about — the debt counselling thing. I think that's a very good thing, but I'd reiterate a suggestion I have made before and that is that we should have a public investment bureau for the purposes of people who wish to receive a little bit of inexpensive, free advice before they get into the stock market.

There are no end of people in the Province of B.C. today who continue to invest in the market, who find they look upon it perhaps a little like Reno; they go for the long shot but then again they wish total

[ Page 1395 ]

security. They should be better informed of the attendant risks. Sometimes that information is relayed to them by the people from whom they purchase these stocks and sometimes it is not.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): I know we look upon this government as the takeover government but I was really shaken when I heard they were going to take over the metric system as well tonight from the Member for Vancouver-South (Mrs. Webster). There's no limit to what they're going to try and take over apparently.

I missed the debate last night but I've listened to a lot of the comment today and I have to agree with the Member who has just spoken, Mr. Chairman. I think there's a real danger in this whole field of consumer legislation that apparently the state has to be responsible for every single little thing that the individual does in the marketplace. Just where are we going to draw the line? That's what I would like to know.

For example, with respect to the Member who has just spoken (Mr. Gardom), he wants counseling about how people invest in the stock market. I just say that if you want to invest in the stock market, that's a straight gamble from the word go. I don't know what we're coming to in this province if we have to expect the state and the government or the Ministers or cabinet to look after people who want to play the stock market. I'm sorry, I just can't buy that, and I can't buy a lot less, I'll tell you.

This whole business of consumer affairs worries me to no end, because I can just see Big Brother government being given all kinds of responsibility to spread his tentacles all over the marketplace, just because there is a percentage of correction that needs to be done.

There are unquestionably things that need to be done and I'll quote a few of them tonight — I won't take long. But on the other hand, let's not go overboard to have this big, impersonal, amorphous thing called the state poking its nose and its grubby fingers into every little thing that an individual citizen does or doesn't do in the marketplace.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I was certainly distressed, if I got the general thrust of the Minister's remarks, that the legislation will not apply to Crown corporations. I think I missed that part. I would say that if we're going to have rules, then they've got to apply to everybody and they've certainly got to apply to the Crown corporations also.

But there's just another aspect of all this that bothers me. It's my understanding that even when a consumer has a legitimate, demonstrated complaint, the person who has been taken to the cleaners — if that's a fair expression — has himself got to take the, matter to court. I would like to know from the government that where somebody has been the victim of a rip-off situation: does it not seem reasonable that that person should not be faced with the expense and the loss of time from work and so on to take the matter to court?

Should not we have some agent or some form of government department that does the actual taking of the offending person to court? Not being legally trained, I don't know what format that might take. But it seems to me — and I have talked it over with people in the consumer field — that so often, when the citizen has been the victim of some rip-off and then they learn that they have to go through the whole business of taking the seller or retailer to court, they back off. This is a great reason why many of these people never finish up in court when they should. I'd like to hear the Minister talk about that.

The other aspect of consumer legislation provincially which bothers me is the degree to which there seems to be a real danger that we will duplicate and overlap federal legislation. Now it's very interesting, Madam Minister; I sat in the public galleries of the House of Commons yesterday and I was very fascinated to hear one of the Members of the opposition ask Mr. Stanbury what he was going to do about these companies who buy income tax rebates where the net existing interest rates, if you calculated it out, would be 50 per cent, or some ridiculous figure.

Well, what do you know, Mr. Chairman? Mr. Stanbury said: "Yes, this is a serious business and what we need is joint legislation between the federal and provincial governments." The Member on the opposition shouted,"When are we going to get it?" Mr. Stanbury didn't answer. But I thought it was interesting that on just the one day that I could be there to listen to the question period this particular question would come up — when we're on the point of asking the same question in this House.

I do feel that this kind of behaviour, if it's legal — and I suppose it is at the present time — is the kind of rip-off where I think the government should be encouraged to provide the kind of legislation which just prevents it completely. I don't see why not ... or at least have some strict limitation.

I was also very worried to hear a statement this afternoon about the publishing of lists of offenders. The Member for Vancouver–Point Grey talked about freedom; here again, with all the good will in the world, maybe there are some people who should be publicly embarrassed by having their names published. But it just reminds me a little bit of the old custom of putting somebody in the public stocks and having all the public coming and throwing apples at them, or whatever it was that they did in those days.

[ Page 1396 ]

I think that while we do have a section of society that needs to be disciplined, or needs to realize that they cannot abuse privileges of being in the market place, on the other hand let's not go overboard and have a big bureaucratic structure of civil servants who spend their time pen pushing and filling forms and researching a whole lot of information, and then by some power which might easily be abused publicizing the guilty parties, I think there is a real danger of excessive government interference in the legitimate interest and affairs of private citizens and corporations.

In other words what I'm trying to say is that I hope we'll preserve some sense of balance, that in trying to correct problems in the marketplace which unquestionably do exist we will not go overboard and try to take the consumer by the hand and treat him like some child who has no personal responsibility himself.

Every single one of us has a responsibility when we go into the marketplace. I just shudder to see the kind of society we're building if we let every individual think if he makes a bad purchase, or if he gets sucked into some deal that anybody with half a brain would see was stupid to start with, then all he has to do is run to the consumer affairs department which in turn year by year will have to double, triple, and quadruple the staff to keep up with these stupid complaints. I just see that as one very substantial danger.

Already, I understand, there's certainly a duplication of approach. We have very excellent Better Business Bureaus in this city and in other cities and I'm informed by them that many of the letters which they have received have carbon copies to half-a dozen other agencies here, and to the Minister perhaps, and to the Ottawa and to the Consumers' Association of Canada and so on and so forth. Some of these people are already submitting their complaints to several agencies.

The Member for Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) also mentioned false advertising and it was my impression that the federal government legislation is a reasonably effective measure in this respect and probably the Minister can respond to that. But this is the information I've discovered from inquiries.

It would seem that on the same theme on how far we go and how far does the department function that the most useful way that I think the money could be spent or a large part of the budget could be spent would be in fact in providing information in the most up-to-date, most effective publicity methods.

I still think that if you provide somebody with information and they still go ahead and make stupid purchases then I don't know that the state, or you o your brother or sister have any responsibility to protect somebody from their own stupid action when they've already been warned and told. I've got few examples here that make you wonder if you could ever help some people.

The whole question of trades licences is something else that should be looked at by the Minister and I wonder if perhaps your department would consider setting up some system of screening and checking out people who are now given trade licences at the municipal level with a very minimum amount of research as to the suitability to the selling whatever it is they're selling.

There might or might not be loss of revenue to the municipalities, but really as I recall when I served as an alderman the main thing the municipalities worry about is just the whole question of zoning — whether somebody's trying to sell goods from the residential property and this kind of thing. But whether the person has any kind of bad record of having been through some nefarious selling practices before doesn't seem to be entered into. That's always just done after the bird has flown the coop.

So I think there's a great potential for the provincial government to look...or the Consumer Services department to consider becoming the agent to issue the licences after a satisfactory screening procedure of applicants. This is the first year we've debated this department but as the time goes by I hope we'll be fair enough to the business communities, and contrast the volume of business transactions with the number of complaints. It is very easy to say that there have been X complaints or Y complaints, but I think there has to be set against the context of how many such transactions are taking place.

It's very easy to quote examples of many complaints in a certain field, but as I say if it's a transaction for example of a grocery chain store, their transactions must number in the millions every year. And if you have a hundred or two complaints from that kind of background I don't think we should get too excited, or too concerned about that type of complaint.

This matter of direct selling. The Minister responded to that and I gather somebody had brought up the issue of direct selling. Here is one area where the Consumer Protection Act has certainly got loop-holes which either should close provincially or you should deal with Mr. Stanbury or whoever is dealing with it federally. I won't read the whole letter but it's very interesting because it brings in the nationalist theme that the Minister mentioned earlier on this afternoon. This is from a lady in my riding who said:

"I received a phone call yesterday from a sales representative from MacLeans, Chatelaine, and True magazines offering me a free cook book, or gardening book just because I answered my phone.

"As the conversation progressed I was told I

[ Page 1397 ]

would receive copies of Macleans, Chatelaine and True for 19 months. Having had similar sales pitches from Macleans when I was living in Edmonton I listened and waited. Sure enough I would only have to pay 60 cents a month for 90 months. I made a quick estimate but asked the person calling how much this would be in all.

"She stalled a bit and tried to evade my question but finally admitted that this would be $54. But she did admit that 90 months was a long time."

There's more to the letter, but basically it's worth mentioning that the citizens in our society are not all stupid. I hope I haven't created the impression that I think that all consumers who get into difficulties are stupid, that's the last thing I'm trying to say. And this lady obviously isn't. She says:

"This is a miserable racket for our best-known national magazine. Yet we are urged so often to support our national magazines. Are these methods of promotion approved by the editors of Macleans, and if so Peter Newman, Barbara Frum and others certainly drop in my estimation."

And there are some other comments that are not quite as relevant.

But anyway this direct selling situation must be tackled, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. And as I say some of the legislation really has very substantial loop-holes. Forgive me if I'm repeating something that was said last night, but this three-day cooling-off period when they can cancel the contract, they don't have the three-day option if the sale is for less than $50 for one thing. And the buyer does not have the option if the contract "was solicited, negotiated, or concluded by a seller or salesman who occasionally carries on business outside of his permanent place of business located in commercial premises in the province."

Who occasionally carries on business outside of his permanent place of business. Now, who interprets what you mean by "occasionally"? Do you sell once a week, once a month, or once a day? So persons can move around the province and have an office in some one single location and move around and get through the protection that's supposed to be provided in this Act. So that the Consumer Protection Act only appears to do something about direct selling. But perhaps your Deputy has some ideas from his experiences as to how this can be corrected. I think we should make it plain that it is a problem, and I appreciate your comments that you want to try and do something to stop the sale for 8, 9 and 10 years of magazines.

The other kind of situation, for example again, and this is the kind of experience that we have from the Better Business Bureau — somebody gets a service provided, whether it's cutting down a tree or unplugging a sewer or whatever it might be. Then when they find that it's $9 an hour they holler and scream to the Better Business Bureau. And when the Better Business Bureau asks them: "What agreement did you reach before you started to unplug your sewer?" the consumer says,"Oh, we didn't ask."

Now once again how far is government and the state supposed to be responsible for the individual? I just can't understand anybody, unless they're willing to pay whatever the bill is without complaint. But if there's any concern on the part of the consumer about the bill he or she will receive, surely to goodness it makes the most basic of common sense to ask the supplier of the service what he's going to charge you — and if you don't want to pay $9 an hour you don't get the service.

Here again I just worry that it looks as though we're going to make government responsible for affairs which I happen to think are the explicit responsibility of the individual himself or herself. I just hope and pray that this department isn't going to mushroom into just a great big bureaucracy, as I say, where half of the responsibility you are asked to shoulder is not a fair, in my opinion anyway, or a wise function for society. The individual has to realize his own responsibilities.

There's one particular area where again I do feel that something must be done and that's in this area of dance studios and health spas. Believe me, we've had our fill of this in Victoria.

We had one dance studio back in December, 1972, which was based in Arizona. I'm probably not telling the Minister anything she doesn't know, but I think the people in this chamber should know the degree to which this goes on and the kind, of money that's prepaid. Then suddenly the instructors and the manager and the secretary all leave town and people are left holding the bag who have paid up thousands and thousands of dollars for prepaid dancing lessons that would go on till the year 1990, but round about 1972 the provider of the service disappears.

There again it brings up the point that a lot of the people who are taken in by this are too embarrassed to take any action or to admit that the situation occurred to them. One woman stated that she wouldn't like her daughter to know how foolish she had been and that she had been luckier than most. She only paid between $5,000 and $6,000, prepaid, for dance lessons. They wouldn't allow a refund of this money before they skipped town. They wouldn't even allow a refund even on a doctor's certificate saying that the person really wasn't fit to be engaged in this.

Just to give the House some idea of the specific nature of this problem, in the case of this Fiesta Dance Studio, the sums involved by the individuals ranged from about $800 to $8,000. You say to me

[ Page 1398 ]

that maybe they shouldn't prepay, but the fact is that the actual service being provided, as long as it continued, was perfectly satisfactory. Many of these people enjoy the social benefits in mixing with people and having a night out and so on. It has a very useful social function teaching people to dance. I'm not for a moment suggesting otherwise. But as I say, you also have the whole question of individual responsibility.

There's one example here where the dance studio agreed to cancel two out of three contracts which this individual had signed and three months later the man had signed another contract for $900.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: For dancing lessons, but you prepay them. You'll be dancing till you go to your grave on some of these contracts.

There's one incredible example, Mr. Chairman, of a 57-year-old lady. Just listen to this — you won't believe it. She paid $18,000 over a six-month period for dancing lessons, and then she went on welfare because she had used all her money prepaying dancing lessons that would take her the next 10 years, even if she had used the dancing lessons. This outfit left town and I don't know where they are now....

AN HON. MEMBER: Did she come from Oak Bay?

MR. WALLACE: Oh, you have to be able to dance when you're a politician, that's for sure — whether your dancing the right or the left. (Laughter.)

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: I just wish I hadn't gone to that dance last night, or I wouldn't be feeling quite so tired today. But this is a serious matter, and these health spas are not too much different. Again, let me make it plain that they're not all doing this. Some of them you pay as you go and I'm not issuing any blanket condemnation.

I named the Fiesta Dance Studio, but we do have the same problem with spas. The Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) isn't in his seat, but I wonder if the Member for Kamloops would like to comment on Hilton-Tru-Dimensions.

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: No I'm not filibustering anything. I'm just getting the message across as to some of the things that have to be corrected in this province in the legitimate area for the Department of Consumer Services. I think a lot of the area is completely illegitimate and keep your fingers out and don't be pressured by the public into doing things for them that they should do for themselves. But there is a legitimate area such as this kind of situation.

In Kamloops there were between 700 and 1,000 people prepaid at this spa to the total amount of $168,000. They had an operation in Victoria. It was sold. The one in Nanaimo is closed down and they've moved their equipment to Edmonton and set it up there under another name. I suppose when things get hot in Edmonton they'll move to Manitoba or Saskatchewan or Ontario. I just think that this has to be an area that requires immediate consideration.

Incidentally it is interesting to return to the point of the trade licences, because I understand that the person involved in this venture in Victoria had a criminal record. He had just completed parole and he opened up the business in Victoria. I would suggest that if the trade licence was issued with any kind of preliminary screening, and the person had previously been involved in this kind of business adventure, we would have less chance that the licence would be granted. I understand that this isn't the first time this has happened, by a long way. We had the same problem in Vancouver about a year ago.

Again, to relate the federal legislation, I understand that some of these spas are now assigning the commitment to a finance company. Under the Bills of Exchange Act of the federal Legislature the finance company is equally responsible for seeing that the service which was contracted for is actually provided. Therefore there does seem to be good reason to think that with provincial-federal co-operation we will avoid overlapping and duplication, but at the same time we can create legislation which is needed, and perhaps you can close the gaps in the Consumer Protection Act. So I would suggest that it's very important that provincial and federal governments co-operate to avoid both the administrative duplication and duplication of staff who are doing the same job.

The food freezer plan has been discussed. Here again, I find it very difficult to understand how stupid some people can be. This person who got into this food freezer plan had accounts payable of $24,000. When he decided to sell the business to another gentleman, who presumably didn't understand what it was all about, he sold the business for $1. It doesn't take much insight to realize that the guy who bought it for $1 subsequently had to declare bankruptcy. The consumer gets ripped off in a situation like this, but the person who originally established the business and committed himself for all that amount of money to consumers seems to be able to go off free of any penalty. Presumably once again the consumer has to take the person to court. I think that really is so basic that it has to be point number one in this whole debate — to what extent can the consumer who has certainly been losing money by

[ Page 1399 ]

some device such as this I've mentioned...? Should not the government provide some way or some form of assistance so that the consumer can have his day in court?

The whole question I presume of warranties has been brought up. Again, a warranty isn't much good if you have to send your clock or your radio back to Chicago to get it fixed. There was the Longines Symphonette Company, as I recall, and my daughter received a clock radio as a present. But anyway when it went wrong I forget where on earth she had to send it — to Atlanta, or Chicago or somewhere — and pack it up and send it off and wait weeks and weeks. I'll be fair and say that it finally came back repaired, but these are the kind of details that warranties should make a great deal more explicit than they do.

We always joke about the fine print, but the fact is that that is where the truth of the matter very often lies. Many purchases would not be made, I am sure, if more people understood the fine print. Maybe the lawyer says that this is the chance you take when you buy, but I think there has to be this sense of balance.

In regard to the dancing studios and the spas, I wonder if the Minister would consider some bonding process or some bonding technique whereby first of all the applicant for the licence should be screened at the provincial level, and then there should be a bond. It seems to me if bonding of car salesmen is desirable, as indeed it seems to be, and is the current practice, why should we not have bonding of this type of service also?

We also, I think, should touch upon the Trade Schools Act. There the business schools are bonded and yet even there, I understand, in Victoria — I can't recall the exact name of the trade school — people prepaid for one year's training, and the company folded up. So it may not be the whole answer just to have bonding, because it would seem that in this example of the trade school the bonding wasn't too much of a success.

While I am talking about bureaucracy, I wonder if the Minister would tell us just exactly how many store front offices she has in mind. If my original fear is in any way justified, that more and more people will expect more and more of government to protect them from actions which they themselves should be responsible for, how will we resist public pressure to have a storefront in every town and village and goodness knows how many in the large cities?

I can see this is a tremendous danger. I understand this has happened already to a considerable extent in Manitoba. I wonder if the Minister will give the House a general outline of the degree to which we are going to have these offices in different towns and cities.

Another question I would like to ask, Mr. Chairman, in these storefront offices, will there be legal aid readily available? If the government isn't going to provide the mechanism to take the producer to court, is there going to be some mechanism at least whereby legal aid is made available to the consumer, so that the consumer at least is in a financial position to pursue justice in the market place?

Or maybe the Minister feels that legal aid is under the Attorney-General. It seems to me it's so intimately involved with both concerns, of consumers' affairs and the process of justice, that we should really try and determine to what degree legal aid will be a very important aspect of the advice given in the storefront offices.

Just in finishing, Mr. Chairman, I hope that the Minister will consider another area where I do think government must be involved. That is in this whole question of charitable solicitations — this business of some organization coming into town and putting on some public function or a circus, or some such public performance, and taking a certain percentage of the take and part of the money finds its way into a charity.

I am sure that the Minister well knows that so far as the Lotteries Act is concerned, and the legislation governing bingo games, there are rules and regulations, and a certain percentage of the profit must inevitably be recorded as going to the charity.

This does not apply in other areas where we are dealing with funds being raised for charity by certain organizations. In fact I understand there was a case in Vancouver of a travelling art display to benefit a retarded children's association. The money was being put into a post office box, and the money was being taken by somebody else, and there was no payout at all to this charity in the long run. No records kept, no receipts, and I suppose to this day the organizer of that particular scheme is not to be found.

I understand that the Union of B.C. Municipalities is also very concerned about this charitable solicitation situation, whereby associations can put on such functions, with no real accounting of how the money is broken down, and whether in fact the charity received the money, or whether the organizing body takes 95 per cent of the money, and the charity gets 5 per cent. There is no regulation similar to the rules applying to the Lotteries Act.

It would seem we are frequently talking about Alberta in this House, whether it is beef cattle or oil or what have you. But here is one area where Alberta has a charitable solicitations bill, and it also has provincial licensing, I might say, so that it seems to work well there. I think that it is an area that deserves your new department's attention here in British Columbia.

MR. CHABOT: Last night I had the opportunity of saying a few words on this vote 37 which we are presently discussing.

The Minister and I were having a very quiet chat

[ Page 1400 ]

relative to her administration of her new department when we were rudely interrupted by the Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley) and it appeared at the time that the Minister was concerned about some of the dollars that he had spent on the purchase of the Glenshiel Hotel.

I am not going to ask the Minister really to investigate whether the Minister of Public Works wasted taxpayers' dollars in the purchase of the Glenshiel Hotel. I do want to reiterate and again ask the question. I was very attentive this afternoon in listening to the Minister give some of the answers to the Members who had posed certain questions to her. They failed to ask what I consider the very reasonable question and she failed to comment on it. That deals with the question of the sale and price of lumber in the Province of British Columbia. Because it was very emphatically and well publicized, the statement of one of the Ministers of the Crown, the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) who suggested prior to the government getting involved in the manufacture of lumber that the lumber manufacturers in British Columbia who were selling lumber at the local level on the domestic market at a comparable price to the international market were criminally irresponsible.

I want to know whether the Minister really agrees with what one of her colleagues has to say about the lumber operations in British Columbia.

Now the government is in the business of manufacturing lumber in British Columbia. Are they about to establish a two-price system? A domestic price and an export price? I think it's a very sincere question. I want to know if there is any substance to what one of your colleagues has had to say. Or was it cheap political talk? We want to know. The people of British Columbia want to know as well as to whether the government is sincere in what they said, or is it only cheap politics?

Now we see in the new estimates of the Department of Consumer Services, an estimate in the amount of $1,169,000, a potential staff initially of 42 people. We haven't been given any indication whatsoever that there's going to be a better job done than basically, probably a little bit more, but not substantially more than what the one man operation of the Consumer Service Branch of the Department of the Attorney-General did in the past. We haven't been given any clear-cut indication at this time.

Is your department going to be basically a super-snooper department? Are you going to establish a bureaucracy? Is this what you intend doing with the $1,100,000 which you are asking for us to vote at this time? What kind of real action are you going to take to protect the consumers of British Columbia?

There are many people in British Columbia that are asking questions regarding ICBC. There's been little advertising on the part of Dunsky who has been promoting ICBC in the eyes of the public, through full-page ads. We want to know what action your department is going to take to let the people of British Columbia know, when it is applicable, that they have been. overcharged on their insurance rates. Are you going to advertise the fact that if the rates this year are in excess of what they were in the previous year as has been stated by the Premier of this province that a refund will be available to the people?

We have seen the kind of costly ads put into the newspapers by Dunsky, who most of us people in this chamber recognize is a friend of that government's. We want to know whether you are going to engage Dunsky or some other public relations firm to let the people of British Columbia know that they have been gouged by ICBC.

I think you have a responsibility to tell the people that if their rates are in excess in 1974 over the 1973 rates, they are entitled to a refund. You have a responsibility to ensure that ICBC does not gouge the motoring public of this province and I want to know what you intend doing about this.

The Minister has made a few statements since she has been in office. On September 7, 1973, she talked about the high price of sugar. She talked about the gouging by the B.C. Sugar Refineries. She says their sales are up by 3.6 per cent and their profits are up by 61.8 per cent. I'm sure, Madam Minister, you remember those statements. She suggested at the time that possibly this British Columbia company was taking advantage of a shortage.

Would you believe, Madam Minister, that from the time you made that statement in September, 1973, sugar has increased in price dramatically? At that time a 10-lb. bag of sugar was retailing at approximately $1.79. Today — and I'm not going to suggest this is a firm price in every retail store in British Columbia, but it's an average price — a 10-lb. bag of sugar is retailing at $3.65. That's a doubling of the figure at which you stated that the B.C. Sugar Refineries Company was taking advantage of the consumers in British Columbia. The price has doubled. What action are you going to take to ensure that the consumers of British Columbia are not being gouged, as you suggested they were being in September, when the price was half of what it is today?

Then on September 18 you made further statements. You talked about the price of salmon in British Columbia. You were talking about a seven-and-three-quarter ounce can of Gold Seal sockeye salmon, which is put on the market by the Canadian Fishing Company. You suggested that in June it was retailing at 81 cents a can and that you were disturbed that in September it had increased to $1.29. I made a phone call this afternoon to establish just what that salmon is retailing for in a retail store. I

[ Page 1401 ]

am not going to name it — I'll leave the naming and the attacking to you, Madam Minister — but it was one of the large chain stores in British Columbia. They said it was retailing at $1.59. What a dramatic increase from September again — a substantial increase.

Really we want to know, Madam Minister: are you only talking about action or talking about what you, in your language, might consider a rip-off, or are you going to take some type of action to ensure that there is not this kind of rip-off that you suggest is taking place in the marketplace?

I'm not going to go into the whole spectrum of every type of product selling on the shelves in the various grocery stores, but I was told as well in this phone conversation — and this was free advice given to me — that apple juice, for instance.... I am not going to attack the fruitgrowers of British Columbia, but you have a balance to maintain in your portfolio if you are going to justify the kind of dollars you are asking us to vote for you at this time. Apple juice was selling last year at three 48-oz. tins for $1. I am told today that it's on the shelves at 75 cents a tin. Is that kind of return being reflected in the return to the producer, is it gouging on the part of the wholesaler, or is it gouging on the part of the retailer?

Madam Minister, I think we are entitled to some sort of answers. Do you suspect that the wholesaler, for instance, when he is passing on these price increases which are being passed on almost on a daily basis, is waiting for new stock to come on line, or is he just, because of anticipation or because of the fact that there has been an indication given to him that a price increase is going to come on stream, increasing the price of his existing stock and passing it on to the retail outlets of British Columbia? Do you suspect that this is taking place? If you do, Madam Minister, what action do you propose to take?

We now have this new bureaucracy established in British Columbia whose responsibility is to protect the consumers. We want to know, Madam Minister, what you propose to do for the consumers of British Columbia.

MR. A.A. NUNWEILER (Fort George): I want to make some comments about one of the more far-reaching causes of the cost of living, particularly in the northern Interior of British Columbia, and that is the disparity in freight rates.

MR. CHABOT: Oh, stop attacking your employer.

MR. NUNWEILER: Our region has an average income, according to statistics, of $3,900 a year approximately, and that compares to approximately $3,800 a year in metro Vancouver. It is interesting to note that it is not because of higher wages in the region, generally speaking, because in the major industry, the forest products industry, the base rate is lower in our area than it is on the coast. It is $4.38 an hour in our area, compared to $4.45 on the coast.

There was a considerable study done by a community committee, representing labour unions and the large corporations with large payrolls and retail people in our area, which drew these conclusions from some of the studies that they had done.

Of course, expenses in our area are considerably higher due to climatic conditions, higher freight rates, higher cost of clothing, fuel, automobile expenses, snow removal and so on. It works out to approximately $200 a year more in living expenses than in a similar family situation in the metro area on the lower mainland.

Freight rates are very discriminatory. I'll quote a few examples. We find that to be so in rates from eastern Canada for manufactured products, for example stoves and freezers. The same product to be transported from Montreal and Toronto to Vancouver costs $7.21 per hundred, The same thing to Prince George, which is 250 miles closer, costs $8.42 — 16 per cent higher into our area.

The canned goods freight cost for an 80,000-lb. rail car is $2.20 per cwt. to Vancouver and $2.84 to Prince George, which is 30 per cent higher.

Household products, soaps, cleaners and so on cost $2.79 to Vancouver and $3.46 to Prince George, a difference of 25 per cent.

A chair, for example, with a wholesale value of $38 costs $16.55 to transport by rail from Ontario to Prince George. That is 44 per cent of the cost of that item for freight alone.

We have some other examples. We can use Edmonton also for an illustration. A chair from Ontario to Edmonton will cost $11.50; same thing to Prince George, which is only 400 miles further, costs $16.50 — a difference of 45 per cent.

A dresser will cost $3.62 to Edmonton, and to Prince George $6.75 — a difference of 81 per cent.

A chesterfield from Ontario to Vancouver will cost $9.15, and to Prince George $13.23 — a difference of about 45 per cent.

We hear from time to time that eastern Canada would like to have the west subsidize their gas rates. If we calculate the petroleum subsidy, which I understand is about 15 cents a gallon, on the basis of 10 gallons of gas per week per family in the east, and 1,000 gallons of oil per year, it works out that the family east of the Ottawa Valley is being subsidized by $200 to $250 per family per year on the cost of gas and heating oil by the west.

I would submit that if we could subsidize eastern Canada with fuel, then certainly we should be entitled to equalization of freight rates and take that disparity out of the cost of our commodities that we have to purchase from them.

[ Page 1402 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. NUNWEILER: Also, the impact of freight rates has a very serious effect on the health of our secondary industries, as well as our cost of living. To give you a further example, under the existing freight structure the preferential treatment that is given to certain cities and not to others in effect is discriminatory. Do you know that it is cheaper to ship from Ontario to Vancouver and from there to Prince George than it is to ship from Ontario to Prince George direct. It is 650 miles further to go from Ontario to Vancouver to Prince George than direct from Ontario to Prince George, and it is cheaper to ship the long way around.

It is just ridiculous to think of traffic going into Vancouver, through the bottleneck, through the warehousing, the transferring, and the changes through the terminal and all the way back to Prince George. That it should be cheaper to ship the long way around just doesn't make sense.

Now we have the iron and steel from eastern Canada. Angle bars, to give you an idea of the difference in cost, from Toronto to Vancouver cost $1.64 per hundredweight. From Toronto to Prince George they cost $2.24 — a difference of 35 per cent. Rates to Prince George are 25 to 35 per cent higher than to Vancouver.

We also have information that shows that steel shipments from Hamilton to Prince George cost $3,136, while from Hamilton to Vancouver is $2,296 — a 33-1/3 per cent difference.

We have evidence that shows shipping of commodities from Prince George to Terrace. Compare that to the same commodities from Montreal to another place at the same distance, and that will show the difference. The Montreal rate is $488 per car, and for Prince George to Terrace for the same thing is $1,016.

It is no wonder that we have such a higher cost of living with discriminatory freight rates. I would hope that we will get some support from all sides of this House to put pressure on Ottawa to give us equalization.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Chairman, I think the Member for Fort George (Mr. Nunweiler) shouldn't have been hurried in his presentation. I certainly would like to see Xerox copies of all of the details he presented.

HON. MR. BARRETT: He wanted to get it in before Friday afternoon.

MR. McGEER: Well, he could have taken, as far as I'm concerned, all of Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday, and he could have presented it while you're playing rugby in Japan, because that kind of thing is important. I don't think the House should be hurried when we are getting this kind of definite information on discriminatory practices.

I don't know whether the Premier shares the sentiment, but I would like to see, Mr. Member, all the details of what you have. I will certainly pick it up and be prepared to make many speeches of the same kind. It's this kind of detail that we have been needing for some time in this House, and I think it's a matter of regret that the Premier was continually heckling one of his own Members. Let is never be said that we would heckle the Member for Fort George (Mr. Nunweiler).

I welcome the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to enter this debate. I haven't so far had much to say about the highly important portfolio that we have been discussing — namely Consumer Affairs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Consumer Services.

MR. McGEER: Yes, I always make that blunder on this side. My apologies — we wouldn't want to suggest that that Minister has any affairs at all.

AN HON. MEMBER: I think you should withdraw that remark.

MR. McGEER: I didn't make that about the Member for North Okanagan, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member continue, please?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I want to welcome the new Deputy Minister. I hope that he has a successful and productive time here in British Columbia. We understand that he left a very distinguished post in the east to come out here to the wild west. We know that he didn't do that for the purpose of getting us into the typical consumer legislation to protect individuals against dance studios, encyclopedia sales, vacuum cleaner promotions or even the shoddy merchandise presented by Eaton's department store. The new Deputy who came all the way from Osgoode Hall has bigger things in mind.

Of course, Mr. Chairman, the test of the Consumer Services is not whether you tackle the niggling little things like dance studios and encyclopedia sales and all the kinds of things that take up time in debate.

We want to know whether the Minister and her Deputy are going to be prepared to take on the big fellows in British Columbia — the things that really make a difference to all the consumers. That's what we want to know.

The Minister hasn't had very much to say so far, at least while I've been in here, but I want to suggest....

[ Page 1403 ]

Interjections.

MR. McGEER: We hear you over the loudspeaker, Madam Minister.

I want to suggest, Mr. Chairman, if I may — I don't know that I can do this in the two-and-a-half minutes that are left to me, but it's been hard to get the floor in this debate — who some of these big fellows are.

I'd like to commence with one by reading a letter from the constituency that I represent. I know that the Minister will want to hear what this particular citizen of British Columbia thinks about one of the big fellows in this province. He has this to say:

"As a constituent of Point Grey, I would like to add my voice to the many already bemoaning Autogouge. This scheme may be beneficial to the majority of drivers, but I personally feel as if I have been shaken down by a legalized extortionist.

"First there was the car insurance. I own a 1967 Ford Ranchwagon. It is badly rusted and has 132,500 miles on the odometer. To insure this car for the compulsory $250 deductible collision policy I must pay an extra $70 above the basic PL and PD rate for the 1966 model.

"This is a joke. Though it is listed in the gold book at a retail value of about $1,200, my car is probably not worth even $250. I am paying a premium based on the value of a car worth nearly five times as much as mine.

"Today I received a further insult — I must pay $13 to renew my driver's licence. Autogouge euphemistically calls this one a 'driver's insurance policy.' "

Now, get this, Mr. Chairman — listen closely, please.

AN HON. MEMBER: Autogouge?

MR. McGEER: Just bear with me while I finish this letter, It's a very important letter.

Interjections.

MR. McGEER: I'll be happy to read the letter tomorrow or Friday or whenever we meet again.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Suits me. If you'll be here, I'll be here.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the floor.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I draw your attention to the clock. Are the filibusters over?

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:01 p.m.