[ Page 2067 ]

CONTENTS

Point of order

Request for ruling on discussion of Dunhill Development Corporation. Hon. Mr. Barrett — 2067

Mr. Speaker — 2067

Mr. Phillips — 2068

Mr. Speaker — 2068

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 2068

Mr. Morrison — 2068

Mr. Bennett — 2068

Mr. Gibson — 2068

Mr. Speaker — 2068

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Housing estimates On vote 111.

Mr. Chabot — 2069

Mr. Gibson — 2069

Hon. Mr. Nicolson — 2069

Mr. Gibson — 2070

Mr. G.H. Anderson — 2077

Mr. McGeer — 2078

Mr. Chabot — 2081

Hon. Mr. Nicolson — 2082

Mr. Chabot — 2084

Hon. Mr. Nicolson — 2084

Mr. Schroeder — 2085

Mr. McGeer — 2086

Mr. Morrison — 2087

Hon. Mr. Nicolson — 2088

Mr. Morrison — 2088

Mr. Bennett — 2089

Hon. Mr. Nicolson — 2091

The House met at 8 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, this afternoon a matter occurred that I must apologize profusely to the House for. I did not take the trouble, unfortunately, to get the message when it was presented to me in its real terms. It apparently was in Bill 7, amendments to what had been a message bill. I took it as being a message bill and corrected, quite improperly, the Premier for introducing the thing, as I took it at the time, incorrectly. He was right and I was wrong, and I must apologize.

I might say that I discovered this on my own, which shows you how important it is to read what you are getting. When you get the message, get it right. (Laughter.)

Anyway, the Hon. Premier presented amendments by message to Bill 7, and quite properly asked the House for leave to move that the said message and the amendments accompanying the same be referred to the Committee of the House having in charge Bill 7. I thought I was correcting him and I was really making a mistake.

Consequently, I would ask the House if I could have leave of the House that the message and the amendments accompanying the same be referred to the Committee of the House having in charge Bill 7.

Leave granted.

MR. SPEAKER: I want to thank the House for that, and apologize.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, did I hear you say that you apologized profusely? I don't remember you ever apologizing profusely. (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: That shows how wrong I was.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, before we proceed to Committee of Supply, I would ask your ruling on a matter related to a discussion in committee. The item is Dunhill company limited, and its aspects of purchase by the government and properties it holds.

Apparently there is a court case related to certain statements around the shares, the assets, dates of purchase and other relevant material, with which perhaps you are familiar. Before the House adjourned at 6 p.m. I indicated to the Chairman that I wished him to discuss this with you. I don't know whether he has or not. I want to bring it to your attention that we have had decisions in the past by previous Speakers about discussing matters that are before the courts as being sub judice, and we are prohibited from discussing them.

I would appreciate a ruling from you rather than forcing the committee Chairman into the same position again.

MR. SPEAKER: I have one question in regard to the request. As I understand it, and this is, I think, public knowledge from what's been filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, an action of defamation is in being at the present time, relating to allegations concerning a radio station. A group of plaintiffs of the company of Dunhill is suing the defendant radio station and Gary Bannerman with respect to statements that were alleged to have been made between certain dates.

This House has knowledge, so far as I know, of a transcript which was tabled in the House by the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips), which deals with very extensive allegations as to improprieties alleged in that broadcast by the principals of the Dunhill company, and presumably drawing into that Members of this Legislature.

I can only go by the scope, the width, of the allegations that were tabled in this House in considering the width of the area concerned that is, in effect, sub judice. I have no knowledge of the evidence that might be adduced in a defamation action, other than the allegations that were made on a radio broadcast which, by their nature, appear to be defamatory.

Certainly they may or may not be. That is not for me to say or for this House to say. On the other hand, we have an equal duty to the courts of the land. That is that anything that might prejudice either the plaintiffs or the defendants, or indeed the public good, should not be discussed when the court which is duly charged with the responsibility of dealing with the issues freshly and without public comment from this body is still to discharge its function.

I would suggest to the Hon. Members and to the Chairman that any matters that have to do with the whole transaction and the matters tabled by the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) should, I think, wisely be avoided in any discussions in committee.

At the moment that is all I can say. It seems to me that the Chairman will have to be guided by his own common sense and his realization that he does not know how wide the allegations may go in regard to the test of the matters before a court of law.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of record, though, that the House does have knowledge of these allegations, because they were

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discussed in the House and documents were tabled in this House.

MR. SPEAKER: It seems to be the same transaction so far as we can all determine at this stage.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. If this civil suit which is allegedly before the court never gets to court, debate on this very important public matter will have been, in effect, stifled.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, no one can assume, until the matter comes before the court whether the matters that are before the court are being proceeded with or not, from a standpoint of good faith or bad faith. It is not for us to say that either. In fact, by merely saying it we may be prejudicing a proper court case.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to bring to your attention that because the matter was brought before the courts, there are two motions on the order paper that have been withdrawn — because of the sub judice aspect of those motions once the writs were issued in the case.

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. It seems a little strange to me that on Saturday when we discussed vote 106, which was a very wide-ranging discussion — and a lot of information was given to us at that point, as well as information of documents that would be filed with this House — there was no complaint at that point asking for a stifling of the debate. But when we get onto another vote today, vote 111, and we ask for the papers that were voluntarily offered to us on Saturday, suddenly we find we have a new problem facing us. I would like, first of all, to find out why you waited until this particular time.

MR. SPEAKER: You mean me? I have no knowledge of what happened in committee until the matter is presented to me in the House.

MR. MORRISON: I would like to know, then, why someone else didn't raise the matter on Saturday when we discussed the subject in great detail.

MR. SPEAKER: I think every Member has the duty….

MR. MORRISON: Now that we are waiting for documents which were volunteered, it seems that they are now looking for a new ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: All I can tell you is what I would say to the Chairman involved in Committee of the Whole House. As I said, I have no knowledge, as Speaker, of what happens in Committee of the Whole House. But the question has been referred to me right here and now in the House. I can only tell you what my opinion is.

Actually, the decision will rest upon the Chairman in committee when the matter comes before him. It is up to every Member in the House to zealously guard the whole principle of sub judice, if he believes in the British parliamentary system and the courts of law.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I would understand that those points dealing with Dunhill that weren't read into Hansard, the ones not tabled in this Legislature, but dealing with the government's use of Dunhill and various aspects of Dunhill as to their evaluation and appraisals dealing with their evaluation: those are free for discussion, is that right?

MR. SPEAKER: I don't know that until the Chairman looks at it. I don't know what questions might be asked. All I can say is that if a matter of, lets say, appraisals of property had to do with evaluations placed upon the corporation, and that impinges upon whether it was a good deal or bad deal, alleged in the allegations in the radio station broadcast, that is something the Chairman will have to grapple with when the facts are before him. I don't know anything other than a hypothetical situation.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): On a point of information, Mr. Speaker, is the Chair, in making this set of guiding remarks, following previous precedent in the British Columbia Legislature? Or is it drawn largely from May?

MR. SPEAKER: It is drawn from both sources. As a matter of fact, the matter was dealt with by Speaker Irwin in a decision relating to a case involving your father. In that instance he said that certain questions be permissible, but other questions would not be. I could find you that citation, and I would send it to you on that point. But it strictly limits it because in many cases in court they may deal in cross-examination with a wider range than the specific allegations. This makes it difficult for the Legislature to know when it is trespassing and when it is not.

There are also the decisions in May, in the 17th edition, page 352, page 368 and page 396, all of which indicate prohibitions against this House dealing with something that may in time be of great importance in court and may be prejudiced by our discussions.

MR. PHILLIPS: (Mike not on.) We'll try and abide

[ Page 2069 ]

by your ruling and I guess time is on our side.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING
(continued)

On vote 111: housing and development, $50,000,000.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Just a few words about Dunhill Development, that $5.8 million fiasco the government has taken over. Completely unjustified, completely unnecessary in order to get housing moving in the Province of British Columbia. They bought some contracts; the Minister said he has engaged expertise. This is one of the reasons why Dunhill was purchased by the government: to get this tremendous amount of expertise at 40-some-odd thousand dollars a year for those individuals who are principals in Dunhill to be engaged by the Crown on a two-year contract. What a fiasco!

The first action taken by that little group of experts was an attempt to negotiate the purchase of a large highrise complex in Burnaby. They failed on their first attempt to demonstrate that they had a semblance or some degree of expertise. Once they started negotiating it wasn't too long until the private developer, Daon Development Ltd., swooped in and took over the financially-embarrassed contractor who was anxious to get rid of the problem he was facing by the construction of this large complex in Burnaby.

What do the principals of Dunhill, these great experts, have to say? They say they are unable to move fast enough because of red tape. Where is that red tape? Is it in that new, fledgling little Department of Housing in Victoria?

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): That's in the expertise.

MR. CHABOT: Red tape. Bob McMurray, business editor, The Province newspaper, February 15, 1974. That's the kind of expertise that's been engaged. Their first attempt at getting into housing, not getting into it on its own, initiating something constructive, but by their attempt to take over a financially-embarrassed contractor in Burnaby they failed. They failed to a private developer. Doesn't that give you a message, Mr. Minister, that the private sector is more capable and more flexible in its financial endeavours in providing housing in British Columbia?

Fiasco No. 2 was in Mission where Dunhill was going to develop 350 acres of OMI land just on the outskirts of Mission and establish a $50 million housing development which would provide a community of about 6,000 people. Dunhill was turned down by that community and, more embarrassing than Dunhill being turned down, was the fact that the silent Minister was there. He was there to lend prestige to their application in Mission to develop these lands controlled by Dunhill. How embarrassing to a Minister of the Crown to be turned down by a municipality of this province!

"The Minister was there," it says, "to add weight to the proposal. The Minister had absolutely nothing to say when he was turned down." He was told, though, the reasons for its turndown: there has been a failure to provide or to complete the approaches to the new bridge and the highway network in that particular area; the extreme pressure a development of this nature would put on the hospital of that community. The government had not made provisions for additional hospital facilities to meet the tremendous increase in population this development would generate. Also the sewage treatment facilities would grind to a halt, according to the mayor of that community.

And you say you engaged expertise? That kind of expertise we don't need in this province. It's time you hired some people who understand the housing field. There was an absolute waste of taxpayers' dollars. If you suggest the $5.8 million purchase of Dunhill resulted in acquiring some expertise, I want to assure you that the first two attempts to move into the housing-development field has been a disaster.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Just a few remarks to make to the Minister on the general subject of housing. I would like to ask at the outset if he has at this stage an answer to the question I asked him on Saturday afternoon just before adjournment. I was particularly interested at that time in the total number of lots municipalities have put forward and the province has agreed to entirely provide for the cost of servicing with water and sewage, the average cost of such servicing, and the average cost of complete servicing of new lots in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. I can proceed without that if necessary, but it would be helpful to me in some of my later remarks if the Minister has a response at this time.

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): Well, okay. First of all, the Member for Columbia River referred to the Zajac property which is in Burnaby at North Road and Lougheed Highway. We were primarily interested in seeing that this project remained under active development. Our primary interest was served when Daon, a very respectable development company, took it over. They did overbid us by some $50,000.

The statements about red tape, I believe, were made by Mr. Zajac. He perhaps had some

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rationalization to do for his actions.

The main interest was served with this project, just as we took action when 18 units were going nowhere, headed for bankruptcy and delayed in getting on the market. We took action there. Certainly, we didn't offer too much; we must have been in the right ball park as Daon did this.

On the OMI properties, the press might have its interpretations. I happened to be present at the meeting. One of the major reasons that came across to me for being turned down was that the community was engaging a planner. They felt it would take a couple of months more before they had a planner in the area. They had been leaning on the regional district for planning service up until that time and they felt that the planner, whom they were advertising for, would take a further two months to acclimatize himself. It would be perhaps four months before he would have the lay of the land and be able to be of some assistance to them in this matter.

Two of the people on council, the mayor and the head of the planning committee, seemed to bear this out. The head of the planning committee is a professional and has expertise in that area. Discussions are proceeding with the municipality and we're looking into some modifications and their primary needs in the area.

The Member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) did ask some questions about servicing. I think it would be very difficult to say exactly how much it would cost.

We have included in this vote a target figure of about $14 million for provision of services for lands for residential purposes throughout the province. It's recognized that this sum of money will not provide for servicing for all lands acquired or anticipated for acquisition. Some of the acreages intended for long-range development, funds for such purposes will be requested from the Legislature as needs and programmes evolve. It's further anticipated that all the work will not be completed in the fiscal year and that very large holdings will be developed in phases to meet local demands.

I'm sure Members are well aware of the varying problems in servicing raw lands — low-lying ground or solid rock base, clay soils and gravel base and so on, as well as the cost and availability of material, equipment and experienced personnel in local areas. Also, the costs of work relate to the form of housing anticipated, that is whether the land is to be used for single-family dwellings or multiple dwellings, or a comprehensive development.

For example: approximate servicing costs at Mackenzie are $13,000 per acre for normal residential development; Williams Lake, $20,000 per acre; and in Prince Rupert, costs will approach $40,000 per acre. We get into muskeg situations in some places. I understand it's necessary to bring in hog fuel and gravel from outside areas in some of the northern coastal muskeg areas and development costs can be quiet prohibitive.

So, for initial planning purposes a gross servicing evaluation has to be used and it is best related to cost per acre rather than cost per lot, the latter refined as development plans become firmer. The current estimate for initial calculations is $20,000 per acre. I could send over to the Member, or make available to other Members, some estimates for: Prince Rupert, phase 2; Mackenzie, phase 1; Mackenzie, phase 2; and Williams Lake — where it's broken down — water mains, hydrants, sanitary sewers, storm sewers, drainage and curbing, roads, grading, gravel paving, water and sewer connections, street lighting, underground electrical, clearing, engineering design and supervision, acreage costs of servicing per acre and so on. I could send over some ideas on four examples on which we have some estimates. Perhaps if the other Members would appreciate it, that could be circulated.

MR. GIBSON: I appreciate very much the Minister's comments there. The reason for my interest in those particular figures will become evident later in my remarks and it's very helpful to have them.

I would suggest that, without doubt, we are in the middle of a housing crisis. The Minister used those words on Saturday and I concur in them. I think there are a number of indices available to us to show that we are in a housing crisis.

The first of these, of course, is provided by the price of homes. I'll get to rental accommodation in a moment, but as far as owner-occupied homes…we were visited with a headline on February 15 saying: "City's Housing Height Tops All." It went on to describe how a survey of the Canadian Real Estate Association had found prices of single-family dwellings in Vancouver, as measured by the Multiple Listing Service transactions, up 32 per cent. That's 32 per cent in one year, Mr. Chairman, which means at that rate, housing prices double just a shade over two years. That has to be described as a crisis, I think. And it seems to be accelerating. That's one of the worrisome things because it was, if memory serves, about a 23 per cent rise in 1972 and about 20 per cent in 1971, so we have here a very real problem.

I can read the average sale price of Vancouver homes — I won't go back 10 years, I'll just go back over the last five years: In 1969 the average sale price was $23,939. In 1970, up just a little bit to $24,239. Then the rise started in 1971 — up to $26,471. In 1972, $31,465, and in 1973, that fantastic jump up to $41,505. That's for an average home sold under the Multiple Listing service, Mr. Chairman. Very, very worrisome figures.

The next sort of indicator we have as to whether

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there is, indeed, a crisis or not is the rental vacancy rates which in the early years of the '70s hovered between 3 per cent and 1 per cent, but always staying above that 1 per cent figure, and is now down to…the last figures I saw were 0.3 per cent for the greater Vancouver area.

Now, 0.3 per cent, of course, Mr. Chairman, is virtually a full house. There's just no room there for people to move around and that means that rents go up very quickly. Indeed, the trend in rents before the recent proposed legislation, which we cannot at the moment discuss, looked as though it was going to surpass the rise in the price of owner-occupied housing.

Then there is a third piece of evidence. We have the work of a United Community Services study, which a group of researchers made public in November of 1973, and which describes the extraordinary rise in the price of, in this case, an average home in Burnaby over the past 10 years. I'd just like to quote a few words here: "A United Community Services study in Burnaby showed that in 1973 the average cost of a typical building lot increased 72 per cent over 1972" — that's the building lot alone. This reinforces what many members of this chamber have been saying to the effect that the basic problem is the land cost, but that's not all. The one year land cost boost was from $14,500 to $25,000 in this instance, but over the 10 years from 1963 to 1973, the total cost of similar housing rose 191 per cent, from $16,540 to $48,064.

Now here's one of the extraordinarily shocking statements: "of this increase, the survey showed that 87 per cent" — that's 87 per cent of the 191 per cent — "occurred during the past year." And that counted that 72 per cent increase in land costs and a 27 per cent increase in labour and materials. I find that a surprisingly high increase in labour and materials. It may be that a part of the reason for that is an escalation in the average quality of the dwellings concerned. The Minister might have a comment on that.

But over this 10-year period, from 1963 to 1973, the percentage of total cost of labour and materials to the total cost of the dwelling has dropped from 76 per cent to 24 per cent. Of course, property taxes over the 10-year period went up dramatically, 157 per cent in all, with an average of $43 a year.

This United Community Services investigation pretty well concluded that by 1973 anywhere in the Greater Vancouver Regional District the purchase of a single-family dwelling had escalated beyond the cost of the ordinary household with only one working person. Where two people are working it's still possible, and it's still possible to own your own home if you've had the good fortune to live in it for a long time, or to receive it from your family in one way or another, because your parents have moved to an apartment, or whatever. But apart from that, the average young people nowadays find it very difficult to own their own home. Mr. Chairman, why should this be? There appears to be….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Just before the Hon. Member proceeds, I would point out that the main point of this vote is the provision of money for housing and development by the Department of Housing. And therefore I would ask him to relate his remarks to the vote before us.

MR. GIBSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. I would like to draw your attention to the ruling that you made on Saturday afternoon which I thought was an excellent ruling, if I could just quote here…my remarks were as follows:

Mr. Chairman, on the assurance which I understand is available, that it will be possible to discuss factors relating to housing supply and demand, all factors related, I am quite happy to postpone my remarks until Vote 111…

Later on the Hon. Member for South Okanagan (Mr. Bennett) said, "Mr. Chairman, with the same sort of condition to the Minister, I wonder if we discuss many of these things under other votes."

And the Chairman, yourself, in the chair noted:

Order, please! This is a ruling of the Chair, and I would rule that any matter pertaining to housing could be brought up under vote 111.

It was under those conditions, Mr. Chairman, that the House reached a very amicable agreement which concluded the Saturday session concerned. And the Minister received his salary vote and we went home to prepare our remarks confident in the knowledge that it would be possible to discuss all matters related to housing under vote 111.

So if I may, I will press ahead on that theory, on the feeling that it's very important to discuss questions of supply and questions of demand in trying to get at the housing situation….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I was absent from the Committee just prior to coming in and taking the chair at the point that these remarks came up. However, I must clarify this. The Chairman must rule according to the rules of the House and rules of Committee. It was my understanding that under this vote, 111, there is considerable scope for discussion — as I look at the title of the vote and as I consider the subject matter covered by it.

I don't think the Hon. Member would have very much difficulty in relating his remarks to the vote that is before us. But I would ask him to observe the rules of the House in this matter.

MR. GIBSON: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll certainly do that. As I say, I propose to set out

[ Page 2072 ]

some factors related to supply and demand and that which brings us to the housing crisis, which is a label both the Minister and myself have put on this problem.

Now the Minister has said on several occasions that the real problem is a lack of serviced lots. I'm finding difficulty understanding in this estimate or from the Minister's remarks to date exactly what is being done to solve this problem of serviced lots. It's clearly not a question of availability of land.

I have here two quotes from a Greater Vancouver Regional District planning officer. First of all, he says:

"There are approximately 29,000 acres of vacant land" — 29,000 acres, Mr. Chairman — "already designated urban 1 in the official regional plan. The demand for residential land in the next 10 years requires only 8,300 acres, or about one-third of that total. Including commercial, residential, recreational and industrial land, there's enough to accommodate our needs for the next 25 years at present densities."

That takes no account, in other words, of the many possibilities of higher density, infilling and so on.

So it would seem that the land is available. And it would seem the problem we are faced with here is one of the provision of these lots onto the market — and then the placing of hammer and saw to wood to get something done. I'd be awfully glad, after I resume my chair, if the Minister would certify to this House that there will be more housing units produced in British Columbia in 1974 than there were in 1973.

He has been planning about a year, since last May, I think, since his appointment last May. He has a budget that's gone up fivefold, from $15 million to $75 million. So I presume this is just a pro forma request, and that the Minister should have no difficulty in certifying that more houses and units will be built in this coming year, with all his planning and with all the money he has.

But the fear that lies behind many of my remarks tonight is that, irrespective of what he might certify, there will be fewer units constructed in 1974 than there were in 1973 — irrespective of all the land available, and irrespective of the money he's been given to do the job.

Now I'd like, as I said earlier, to examine some of the factors related to supply and demand, because I don't think the solution is leasing, Mr. Chairman. The Minister has suggested to us earlier that leasing is the way out of this. It's the way out of it, in his view, if I understand him rightly, because it would, if he is able to arrange it thus, take some of what he calls the speculative factor, by which I assume he means windfall profits, out of the price of land.

But I wonder how that would work, Mr. Chairman. We had a fair amount of time on leasing earlier on today, and I'm not going to go through all of those arguments again. But there were many obvious defects to it. The Minister cited some mysterious advantages: for example, land assembly. But along with the Hon. Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson), I find it difficult to understand why the government needs this power of automatic land assembly when of course it has the power of eminent domain whenever that may be required.

On the other hand, against these vague and mysterious advantages of leasing, we have the terrible defects of transferability. One of the phrases the Minister used in his concluding remarks on leasing this afternoon — and he may elaborate on this — was the phrase "guaranteed purchase." Now guaranteed purchase of a lease sounds pretty good, Mr. Chairman. It sounds like you're getting a guarantee of something. But it's a guarantee of what?

Suppose that you've got a lease which you have with the grace and favour of the Crown and your house is sitting on it. In your lease it says that if you want to sell your improvements on that Crown-owned lot, the Crown will guarantee to buy them. Indeed, it may say that you can't sell them to anybody else. But at what price, Mr. Chairman?

There is the exact question. Who sets the terms? Any time the ordinary citizen is dealing with the government, Mr. Chairman, you and I know who sets the terms. The government sets the terms. It's bad enough when the ordinary citizen is dealing with large landowners or landlords. But when it's the government that's the landowner and the landlord, what chance do we have if we are indeed all to become tenants of the state, or if many of us are to become tenants of the state?

I very honestly fear that many of our freedoms will be in the process of erosion, that it's just one more instance of state control. How do you appeal actions of the state with respect to Crown-owned land that you happen to lease? How can the state at the same time be the regulator, which is its job, and also the party that is being regulated? We're running into this same difficulty all throughout the economy as this government chooses to delve ever more deeply into the business sector.

In land and in housing it's particularly critical, because there is no other matter which cuts so close to the bone of the ordinary citizen, their land and home being not only their place of residence, but often their major investment — often their only investment. So I don't see leasing as the solution to the problems of housing.

What I see as the solution to the problems of housing is a tremendous increase in supply of residential units. I am very seriously bothered by the possibility, and perhaps the probability, that the actions of the Minister and his department, as good-intentioned as I have no question they are, will

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be counter-productive in the sense of putting 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 or 4,000 more units on the market in 1974 than would otherwise be the case — and at the same time keeping off the market 10,000 units which would otherwise have been built by private builders. And it's critical that these units be built.

Now the same GVRD study that I cited earlier suggested that in the Greater Vancouver Regional District over the next 10 years, I think it was 10,000 units a year would be required. That's just for new housing. Of course there's replacement housing, which runs in the neighbourhood of 5,000 or 6,000. The Minister; stated earlier on in this debate that he thought something like 18,000 or 19,000 per annum in the Greater Vancouver Regional District would be required to ease the crisis. So there is that tremendous demand, and that's just in terms of people and in terms of replacement housing.

There's also a tremendous and increasing demand in money terms. There was some discussion on Saturday on the availability of mortgage money. Now I don't have the figures for 1973, but I do have something here about the growth of mortgage loans approved on new residential construction from 1970 to 1972.

In 1972, according to these figures, which were garnered by the Vancouver Bank of Montreal: $2.295 billion, mortgage loans approved on new residential construction. In 1972, $3.49 billion. A very rapid rate of growth, as all the evidence I have seen is that the supply of mortgage money increased even beyond that in 1973.

The supply of money doesn't seem to be the problem in the housing field. Indeed, it seems to be part of the cause of the problem because the money available is escalating at a tremendous rate as governments and private institutions do their best to provide the financial resources necessary to upgrade the quality and the quantity of our housing stock.

Yet at the same time, the actual physical supply isn't being increased at anything like the same rate as the money supply. The money supply is chasing housing. You have the natural inflationary phenomenon of supply and demand, where the greater amount of money chasing the lesser amount of goods causes a rising price.

Again, Mr. Chairman, the solution is simple: the provision of more serviced lots and then allowing the construction industry to get on with its job.

What are the factors in this supply situation? On the rental side, I'm very concerned, and that's one of the reasons I was hoping the Minister would undertake that, come what may, there would be more housing units this year. It looks to me like the rental construction side of things is going to completely dry up.

I would be very interested if the Minister, when he resumes his place in this debate, could give this House some estimate of the number of rental units under construction at this time in 1973 and the number of rental units under construction presently. I very much fear that the number of units under construction presently, in two months, three months and six months hence will be half, perhaps less than half of the number last year.

Apartment popularity has been heading downwards. Incidentally, the figures I have here seem to contradict what the Minister said about the declining importance of single-family dwellings. They seem to be going up in importance, not only in British Columbia but all across the country, where apartment starts as a percentage of starts have been going down. By 1973, apartment starts were running only about 40 per cent of total when they peaked at 50 per cent in 1969.

But, nevertheless, apartment starts as a percentage of the total residential housing field, even at 40 per cent, are very, very important. If that share of the market dries up, we are in very bad shape.

So, if we can't look to apartment supply — and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House on that and tell us why we can foresee good apartment supply (I'm betting that we can't with current government policies) — then we have to have quite a boom in single-family dwellings.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: I'm not arguing with myself, Mr . Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman; I'm trying to understand the policies of this government which seem so much to be contradictory with the words of the government.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: I'm having a little difficulty hearing the Minister, Mr. Chairman; if he would speak up a little bit. The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) had some sage advice.

I wonder if the Minister or the government has any policies with respect to the encouragement of growth in one region of British Columbia as opposed to the others. My knowledge is mostly of the Greater Vancouver Regional District but I have reason to believe that is where the problem is most acute by far. So a simple question here without suggesting particular means, which I will come back to later if the Minister doesn't have any ideas on it, is: what is the government doing to try and steer growth in British Columbia and encourage people to settle where there is more room and better housing at lower cost.

Question No. 1 is growth.

The second question I have relates to how the Minister proposes to….

[ Page 2074 ]

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Is that your second question?

MR. GIBSON: The second question I have in this stage in my remarks, Mr. Minister, is how the Minister proposes to work with the municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District to encourage them to accept their share of growth.

As the Minister knows, at a staff level, the Greater Vancouver Regional District is currently producing — indeed, were to have produced by today, April 1 – a set of provisional allocations of growth between the various municipalities making up the regional district.

Growth has been very unequal up until now. If we take the last available inter-censal period between 1966 and 1971, the enormous discrepancy in growth rates is apparent. Delta grew by 122 per cent; Port Coquitlam by 76 per cent; Port Moody by 53 per cent; Coquitlam by 30 per cent; Richmond, 23 per cent; Surrey, 20 per cent; North Vancouver District, 20 per cent; Vancouver by 4 per cent.

To what extent do those growth rates reflect the ability of these various municipalities to accept new residential construction? To what extent do they reflect the eagerness on the part of some municipalities and the extreme reluctance on the part of others to accept new growth?

To what extent do they reflect transportation policies? The senior planner of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, Mr. Peter George, has an interesting quote here which relates to my own riding. This, again, is in The Province of February 2, where he says as follows:

"Talk of developing the Blair Rifle Range of 656 acres in North Vancouver cannot proceed without consideration of the third crossing problem and some form of rapid transit."

Well, this again ties in precisely with the problems of the government. I won't argue the case again today for a third crossing; that was done on Saturday. But it is very much a part of the housing problem to the extent that the North Shore can be helpful to the Greater Vancouver Regional District in the solution of housing problems.

The Minister, I have no doubt, has looked at some of the reasons municipalities may be reluctant to accept new housing. The Minister apparently feels very strongly about this because there was a remark that he made in his intervention in the budget debate which so struck me at the time that I marked it down. I would like to quote it now. He said:

I regret that a few municipalities around Vancouver appear to be discouraging housing. This is something that I intend to work on because I simply will not tolerate outright opposition to providing new homes for the thousands of families in this province that require better accommodation.

One of the Members from this side of the House said, "What are you going to do; take over city council?"

It raises that question, and the Minister has unquestionably given a lot of thought to it. New residences and therefore new people can imply a lot of charges on the local community, charges in terms of services like parks, community centres, better roads, water and sewage charges, and this type of thing. It appears that some municipalities have restricted supply of their land in the approval of building permits in order to escape those kinds of charges or at least keep them at a level they can stand.

There is another suggestion which has been made: some municipalities, those blessed with a goodly allocation of land themselves, have not been in any hurry to sell this land off but have rather preferred to maintain the market at a good level. You can understand the bind these municipalities are in because they have a responsibility to their own ratepayers to keep their taxes as low as possible. Their land is one of their precious assets. But the other side of the coin is that it raises the housing prices for all the rest of us.

I was much struck by the comment of a real estate man quoted in The Vancouver Sun of March 4. He was speaking of this problem of higher prices for land and what it did to the housing costs. He noted that about 5 per cent of housing on the market is built by developers each year. If the price of an average home, because of an increase in land costs, was up $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 in a given year, so does the price of all of the other 95 per cent of our total housing stock already in existence. In other words, the price of residential housing is determined by the price of the latest unit built. The price of all the older houses floats up along with the new houses.

It doesn't simply raise prices for the people who have just bought today or last week; it raises prices for the whole community. At the same time it raises taxes for the whole community because taxes have to be paid on assessed values, and assessed values are moving quickly up.

So with this difficulty between the municipalities, the Greater Vancouver Regional District has come to the tentative conclusion, and I'd be interested to know if the Minister shares it, that there should be on a voluntary, negotiated basis, some kind of allocation of growth between the member municipalities of the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

It seems to me that that is the logical road to go down, but at the same time it seems equally important that there must be negotiation, there must be a voice in every municipality and hopefully there will be no need for coercion. In particular there should be no need for coercion by the provincial government because this government, Mr. Chairman, has found itself very prepared to use its muscle, often

[ Page 2075 ]

in the privacy of the back room, in ways that I don't think would lead any Member on this side of the House to suggest that it be given more muscle. I think these kinds of arrangements have to be made between the municipalities working through their regional district.

There would be an obvious set of advantages through arriving at some kind of plan for the allocation of future growth. The municipalities could better plan their land use for the next 10 or 15 years, not just in residential terms but industrial and commercial, school, and so on. Capital budgeting could be done better. It would make it easier to avoid redundant services in adjoining municipalities, parks planning, and so on and so on.

I stress again that these subregional growth targets can't be imposed as a top down solution. So I'm delighted that the GVRD is working on this and I would appreciate the Minister's comments along that line.

One of the very interesting correlations that's been developed is the correlation between the assessment growth and population growth. Common sense would suggest to us, Mr. Chairman, that assessments would grow roughly in direct proportion to population, but in fact if you plot the growth rate in assessment and the rank order in growth of assessment versus growth in population from 1966 to 1971 you would find an amazing thing. The community with the highest growth in population, which was Delta, had the lowest growth in assessment, and the community with the lowest growth in population, namely Vancouver, had the highest growth in assessment. You can draw a straight line showing an inverse relationship and almost perfect negative correlation right through the middle there. You find that Surrey, which out of these 13 communities was the seventh highest in population increase, was the sixth highest in asset growth, and so on. There's an exact trade-off down the line.

This leads us to some kind of a theoretical proposition that the faster the rate of growth in a municipality, the greater will be its lag in assessment. This goes a long way to explaining why municipalities have been so reluctant to accept new growth.

What are the ways of solving that? If all the municipalities were one, the problem would be automatically solved, at least in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, but that's not the case. So what else can be done?

There's a possibility of equalization of the burden of growth in between the member municipalities. It's a kind of a tax-sharing relationship — almost the same kind as we have on the federal-provincial scale with the equalization formula between the areas with the greater financial resources and those with the greater financial needs. This could make it possible for municipalities with greater growth to stand the cost of that growth, and at the same time for the municipalities with lesser growth to give some help to the neighbour municipalities who are accepting the burden that they aren't. There's something in it for everybody. This kind of working together, and the sharing of the tax basis of the municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, I think, is important. It might be called regionalization of growth costs, or whatever label you might put on it. I make that proposal to the Minister.

That has so far had to do with the receptivity of municipalities to new residential growth. How about the housing demand itself? One of the pernicious aspects of the inflationary spiral in housing we're seeing right now is that people seem to have lost faith in other kinds of investments. They don't have faith in Canada Savings Bond any more — at least, a lot of them don't — because the coupon rate is less than inflationary. They don't have faith in the stock market or the bond market, because experience in the last five years has shown that these things just aren't very good investments.

The only things that have been good investments in the last five years are what I would call hard, tangible assets. Of this category of assets, by far the most available and the most useful — because you can use it as well, which you can't a bar of gold — is a house. So a great deal of the price premium on housing today, I would suggest, is caused by investment demand, by expectational demand of people saying: "Here is the best place to put my money."

I wonder how the government goes about curbing that philosophy, because the end result of that philosophy is just madness. It's an increasing transfer of wealth and resources in the community from the have-nots to the haves, from those who do not own property to those who are fortunate enough to own property. It is a very real problem, and I would like to hear the Minister's comments on that.

Next I'd like to hear the Minister's comments on ways to open up new land. Is it indeed the case, to quote our GVRD planner, that there's 29,000 acres ready for conversion into serviced lots in the regional district? Is the figure, indeed, much higher? I've heard the figure of 50,000 from other sources. The land appears to be there. How is the Minister going to get it onto the market?

There are a lot of policies that he could look at. Some of them he has looked at, I know, because he's told the House about them. His emphasis on planned-unit development projects I think is a good one. It gives us the possibility of 10 or more single-family dwellings on an acre of land without any substantial loss of privacy, and that's up from the four or five that you get normally. So that kind of doubling is a great step forward.

Can the Minister take steps to facilitate re-plotting

[ Page 2076 ]

of existing municipal land? Can he take steps to encourage the development of infilling through purchase of certain lands, through replotting schemes, through preparing development plans?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Just for the guidance of the Hon. Member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) it would be helpful if I read the section from the budget speech just so that he can keep his remarks somewhat more relevant. As I said, there is considerable scope, but I would like to read the words here so that he will have something. On page 20 of the budget speech:

"Initially the Department of Housing will have $50 million for programmes of land assembly and servicing neighbourhood improvements and cooperative housing and family and rental housing. Under this programme the province has the flexibility to build houses on government land and either sell them, using the first mortgage programme, or rent the properties."

This is the section 1 think we are now debating. As I said, it does provide considerable scope, but I would ask him as far as possible to relate his remarks to these items.

MR. GIBSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm trying to deal at the moment with some of the specific techniques for the increase of the availability of serviced land for housing.

Is there anything the Minister can do, working with the municipalities, to speed up decisions on subdivision plans? Is there anything he can do to establish a complete inventory, and I won't talk about the whole province, but just in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, a complete inventory, municipality by municipality, of land which either is available or ought to be available for conversion into serviced lots and the construction of new dwellings?

There is again this question of working with municipalities, and once again I would want to come back with my caution to the Minister that he must not seek to ride roughshod over them. In that connection, I was very concerned to see remarks attributed to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) in a speech to the Delta Chamber of Commerce, which I trust does not represent government policy, but which perhaps I might just read out to the Minister of Housing who has the direct responsibility to see if in fact they do represent government policy.

The Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources is quoted as saying:

"A system of incentives and disincentives for municipalities may have to be established if they do not rezone more areas for two-family residences. No one," he said, "not even Russia, has solved the housing problem yet, but the government has established a housing department and is providing money and a few ideas."

He went on to suggest duplexing through greater Vancouver. He said:

"If that doesn't work, I think the province is going to have to look at a system of incentives and disincentives for municipalities to get the job done." Then he elaborated later on to reporters that: "I think that the province must look at the whole process of aiding municipalities in relation to the housing problem. And if municipalities are clearly preventing a positive approach to providing more housing, then the province has to look at ways of encouraging them."

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister will reassure us that the other Minister, that Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources, wasn't in effect making to the municipalities an offer that they couldn't refuse. He has to assure us that his relationships with the municipalities will be such as to take into account their responsibilities. They do have responsibilities for local development and we in this chamber, and in particular this government, must not seek to usurp those functions.

I'd like, in conclusion, at this stage to suggest to the Minister three things that might be helpful in freeing up land for completion in the near future as serviced lots.

The first general proposal I would suggest to him is a gradual shift in taxation policy, which the province can influence, of a higher taxation on the land component and a lower taxation on the improvement component in the residential field. How this would work in the industrial field I have no idea, but in the residential field I think that it could act as a positive encouragement to the creation of structures on land rather than the holding of land.

I would secondly suggest — and this is why I asked for the average cost of servicing a lot — that this government should undertake to pay for the complete cost of servicing of new lots put on the market for the next few years. This is obviously an enormous sum of money. If we're talking about $5,000 a lot on the average, and if we're talking about 20,000 lots a year, let's just say, or lot equivalents — because much of this is higher-density dwellings — we're talking about $100 million just there. But what's the effect of spending that $100 million?

The effect of spending that $100 million is that we save something like $2 billion in house prices in British Columbia that would otherwise be pushed up. Remember that 20-to-1 ratio — that the houses that come on the market each year are only about 5 per cent, only about 1 in 20 out of our total housing

[ Page 2077 ]

stock. If we can lower the prices of those new homes by $5,000 by paying for the servicing of the lots, then we will drive down or stabilize the price of housing throughout British Columbia — of existing housing — to that extent. So, as huge a sum of money that it is, it is the kind of sum that by the province spending it, it can save that much in housing costs for all the rest of us. The Hon. Members across are saying aye; they don't like to hear these good ideas.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: A little bit yet, Mr. Premier.

Next, is there some way — and I don't mean in the way of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources — but is there some way we can give active encouragement to municipalities to proceed with the quick opening up of their land? Now in the North Shore municipalities it would take the form of improving the transportation, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman: a third crossing, for example. Buses are very helpful too. It could take the form of per capita grant incentives as well, to help these municipalities, to provide a tangible encouragement to them and to say, in effect:

"We realize that growth presents a very real cost to you, quite beyond the cost of servicing the lots, which now hopefully the provincial government will pick up, but costs well beyond that. Because this is a provincial problem and not just a problem relating to any municipality, we do not want to remove from you, the municipality, your jurisdiction, but we are willing, from the tax resources of the entire province, to help cushion the particular load of growth that your particular municipality has to bear."

Now, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, you could take this approach to all of these growth costs or just a portion of them. Just equalize to the average that the municipalities throughout the province bears.

But I would suggest to you that those three steps, a gradual shift of more of the tax load from the improvements to the land, a complete government payment of servicing costs on new lots, and positive encouragement to the municipalities to make it advantageous to them to absorb growth, and possible for them to absorb growth, would be a great and positive contribution to solving the housing crisis.

It won't help on the rental side until you remove the uncertainty there, but it can help on the owner-occupied dwelling and, in particular, the single-family dwelling which, in spite of the remarks of the Minister in his opening comments on these estimates, I believe will remain the dominant form and the preferred form of accommodation in British Columbia for many years to come yet.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): I've been following this section of the debate with interest up to vote 111, and I just have a few remarks to make on it.

I was particularly attracted by the previous speaker when he spoke of the ease…that there's mortgage money, lots of mortgage money, available. Well, I suppose there is a lot of mortgage money available at the interest rates they're charging. But this problem isn't only confined to British Columbia, because I understand from the article in The Vancouver Sun on Saturday, coming out of the debates in the parliament buildings in Ottawa, that 40,000 new homes were built in Toronto in 1973, but at an average price of $46,210; and only 136 purchasers could qualify for the CMHC loans out of all of those homes being built.

I was particularly interested too, Mr. Chairman, in the amount of the expenditure, $50 million, as to whether it's going to be enough or not. I have another article here from one of the B.C. newspapers where it says:

"Bill 42, known as the Land Commission Act, was introduced. The residential housing lots in many areas of the province have doubled and they've even quadrupled in price."

Four times, just because of Bill 42. Then the article goes on to say:

"The second drawback, of course, is the high cost of money. The previous Social Credit administration was making great strides toward their ultimate goal of providing low-interest money for housing in British Columbia." Oh, it also says: "As the MLA Member of the opposition charged with the responsibility of being the housing critic, I look forward to giving the government many suggestions during this session of the legislature."

Well, it's signed "Don Phillips, MLA," and I'm still waiting to hear some of those suggestions about improving the housing situation in British Columbia. "The price of the average home in Toronto is increasing at the rate of $4 an hour."

That's a cheerful thought for the homeless of that city and elsewhere to ponder.

"The national goal of 200,000 new dwellings was exceeded in 1968. Last year there were 269,000 housing starts.

"In Ottawa the price of an average house increased from $25,000 to $39,000 between 1965 and 1972. The average for all Ontario was 23 per cent. In Mississauga the lot prices increased from $20,000 to $42,500 in the past year.

"A Calgary man transferred to Montreal sold his house for $54,000; one year ago he bought it for $35,000, and he wasn't happy with the profit. He has a recently married son who is now looking for a home at inflated prices.

[ Page 2078 ]

"In Ottawa a house sold last April for $45,000 to $47,000 and three months later it resold for $72,000. It is now advertised for $95,000."

The reason I wanted to bring these up, Mr. Chairman, was because Ontario, as far as I know, and Alberta, as far as I know from what I last heard, are still governed by the free-enterprise Conservative Party, the home of investment and turnover and everything great for the electors in the province. It looks as though their situation is worse than ours, and they haven't got a Bill 42. They haven't been able to do a thing to keep prices down; in many cases they are going up faster than the B.C. rates. They still have a tremendous housing shortage. Rentals are approaching zero in the City of Toronto and yet we still have the statement that Bill 42 has doubled and quadrupled lot prices in British Columbia.

Other statements from the House in Ottawa show that there have been leaps in the price of both housing and land in two provinces at least in this country that don't have any Bill 42. Therefore I can't see any reason why their lots should be going up in price if Bill 42 is what did it in British Columbia.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): I was certainly interested in what the Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) had to say. Of course, we all know that there is a shortage of housing right across the country and that other provinces have had similar difficulties to our own.

Mind you, the statistics have shown on the average that housing has experienced more of an inflation in British Columbia than anywhere else in the nation. One can always find isolated examples. They have been quoted in the press, but there have been numerous stories. I didn't bother to bring the documentary evidence into the House because I felt that it was generally accepted that housing has gone up faster in five years in British Columbia than anywhere else in Canada.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: Nonsense and poppycock!

MR. McGEER: It may not all have been due to Bill 42 but I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that it hasn't gone down as a result of Bill 42. Mr. Chairman, it was only a month or so ago in this very assembly when the Attorney-General stood up and said there was going to be an investigation in British Columbia because of the tremendous speculation in the housing market. I've got the story right here. I did bring that evidence into the House.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Could you have some order please, Mr. Chairman? The Premier has got his three-second attention span going this evening. He's very upset about the fact that Members of the Opposition are taking a close look at the estimates. It's a big budget....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Member proceed with his remarks in regard to the vote?

MR. McGEER: No one in the opposition would want us to skip quickly past $50 million…

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): Where's Rodney?

MR. McGEER: ...particularly in a field, Mr. Chairman, that has experienced, as I was mentioning to the House, this enormous inflationary increase.

HON. MR. LEA: Hey, where's Rodney?

MR. McGEER: Certainly this is a vote that should be considered in more depth and with greater public scrutiny than in any province in Canada. We certainly intend to do our duty in this Legislative Assembly to try and understand why it is that we've had these fantastic increases in housing costs.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Could I ask the Member a question? Does that include Friday as well?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Premier, I know Friday was a big day because you ended your campaign in Nova Scotia and you came back to see how things were going in British Columbia.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Will you be here Friday?

MR. McGEER: But I can tell you that the housing crisis was on while you were there…and I don't think they're going to do very well in that election.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Will you be here Friday?

MR. McGEER: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I was doing my best.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would respectfully request the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey to make his remarks relevant to this vote and not to respond so much to the asides.

MR. McGEER: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'll do my best. If you can keep order I promise to keep to the point.

[ Page 2079 ]

HON. MR. LEA: Where's Rodney?

MR. McGEER: See what I mean, Mr. Chairman? I heard that. I don't know who Rodney is (Laughter), but it's these asides that tempt me. They really do. I'm struggling to keep on the point, and, Mr. Chairman, I think some of the Members on that side don't want to hear what I have to say about housing. I think they're heckling me. It's most unfair, Mr. Chairman.

In any event, we've got this probe which the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) has just promised that we're to have in British Columbia because we have had speculation. We have had these fantastic increases in housing costs. Mr. Chairman, this kind of thing is impossible if there's adequate supply. It only becomes a device that can be placed in the hands of the greedy and selfish to bid up prices when there is a shortage.

If ever there was an admission on the part of the government that it has not seen to it that there is an adequate supply of housing, it was the Attorney-General's speech in the budget debate promising to have an investigation. That promise was confirmed again today. Mr. Chairman, I hope when this investigation takes place that the Attorney-General will examine the activities of the Housing department itself.

I have another story here. This was February 16. Perhaps this was what the Attorney-General referred to. It involves a bid by Dunhill Development for a piece of property that Daon had bought from some other developer. Here's what the story said: "Why is Dunhill so keen to buy the project?"

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. This matter, I believe, was canvassed earlier this evening when the Member wasn't in the House.

MR. McGEER: Well, it was made clear in this that they would have to say so in a markup. Isn't that the very thing that leads to increases in housing costs?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Member be seated, please?

I would just point out to the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey that a point of order was made and he should extend the courtesy to the Chair to allow it to make a reply to the point of order before he continues with his speech.

In response to the point of order, I would point out to the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey that the subject matter which he presently has raised in this newspaper clipping has already been brought up by another Member of the committee. Therefore I would caution him to keep his remarks brief so that he doesn't become repetitious.

MR. McGEER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can tell that there are other Members of the House who are pursuing this sort of thing with the same kind of vigour that I am. Certainly we don't want to have the government guilty of pushing up the prices of any real estate development. Certainly if the government bids on land or any housing development and pushes the price up because of that bid in their desire to get property in their own hands, ultimately that cost has to be passed to the people of British Columbia. It has to be passed on in higher rents. It has to be passed on in higher taxes because the money is going to go to the developer and we're going to have to pay. I don't think the government should be bidding up the price of real estate. I think the Attorney-General is correct to investigate. I hope his investigation will include the activities of the Department of Housing.

Mr. Chairman, this vote is for $50 million. It seems like a lot of money. Compared with the size of the budget and other votes that we're passing, it is a lot of money, but compared with the value of real estate in British Columbia it's a drop in the bucket.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister can correct me if I'm wrong in his estimation of money, but if we're to build 40,000 units in British Columbia, 40,000 would be inadequate to meet our needs. If we were to build just that much it would involve a minimum of $400 million expenditure in housing, probably $800 million and perhaps $1 billion, just this year alone. That sum total wouldn't amount to more than 5 per cent of the total housing that now exists in British Columbia, so that if you look at cost value of everything that we have, this sum of $50 million would not equal 0.5 per cent — scarcely a drop in the bucket.

Anything that the government does in the way of making cash available either for mortgages or for lease-purchase arrangements is going to have so little effect on the total supply that it cannot possibly catch this rocket that has taken off in the way of values of new or old housing.

The Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) was correct in saying that housing costs have gone leaping. He was incorrect in not recognizing that it is happening right in the City of Kamloops. Examples as bad as that or worse could have been found in his own home town; they could be found in Vancouver–Point Grey or North Vancouver–Seymour. Why? Because of a shortage of supply, that's why.

Only one thing will bring the price of houses down: supply, supply, supply. That is what has to be provided. This $50 million is not going to significantly affect supply, nor can any government offer supply with 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 units. Government can only ride to victory in this thing on the coattails of the private sector.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: They've failed so far.

[ Page 2080 ]

MR. McGEER: To the Member for Kamloops, through you, Mr. Chairman, the private sector, to put it bluntly, has been throttled by the New Democratic Party government. It has been throttled by their colossal ignorance of the market demand and the market supply factors. These people think they can alter 2,000 years of human history with 17 months in office.

The New Democratic Party government has been fouling up the housing market.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: In Toronto?

MR. McGEER: It happens to be worse in British Columbia. They are making protestations, Mr. Chairman. The Member for Kamloops is defending a government, because it is no worse than Ontario and Alberta. The facts are that it is worse. If you believe the kind of King Canute chest-beating statements of the Minister of Housing, he is not going to tolerate this and he is not going to stand for that. It's ridiculous!

Every move that Minister makes dries up the supply. When that supply dries up, the speculators take over. When the speculators take over, what defence has the government got but to get in and speculate as well? Isn't that what the Housing department did with this offer to Daon? Sure it is. It pushed the price up, and that is what the man who said this statement to the press was complaining about.

The government itself is playing the game. It has to because the government itself is involved in supply and demand, just as everyone else is.

What we want, Mr. Chairman, is for that Minister and his cabinet colleagues to regain their senses. Until they regain their senses, the little people of British Columbia are not going to be able to afford a home.

I have called developers, I have called real estate firms, I have called private builders. The opinion is unanimous: supply is going to be less in the coming year and prices are going to continue to rise. It isn't good news, but it is fact. What we have got to do in this assembly is face the facts and begin to establish policies that cope with them.

This $50 million on a vote looks impressive, but what comes onto market this coming year? These 40,000 units or whatever manages to be built is only going to be a tiny little peak on top of a great big mountain of accommodation that now exists. It adds maybe 3 or 4 per cent, if that, to a large existing total. When people want to buy a home, they are not buying into that 1 or 2 or 3 per cent; they are buying into the total pool. If just a tiny little bit to the top of the mountain is added and the population increase exceeds that height, it is like a game of musical chairs: too many people for too few homes and rental accommodations. Those few people bid up the price; they bid it up awfully fast. There are houses in the constituency I represent, Vancouver–Point Grey, that are literally falling down and are selling for $75,000.

If there were rental accommodation available in that riding, these houses would drop to about $30,000 in a matter of a month. All you have to have is a few vacancies and it is like letting air out of a balloon.

Nobody is building those rental accommodations. Who wants to these days when there is a proposed rental freeze, when Bruce Yorke is around to organize the tenants before they ever get moved in? Who wants to be a landlord these days? It is not worth the headaches, is it? You lose money and you take a lot of guff from people like Bruce Yorke.

What happens is that nobody builds rental accommodations, nobody sells their home, and places that are falling down, instead of selling for $35,000 which is a little more than the land is worth, are selling for $75,000. Who loses out? Not the people who own homes but the younger families who are looking for homes. They are the ones who lose out, probably the ones who voted NDP.

I just think it is a sad thing that the Minister refuses to accept the realities of life. Those realities are that there are many people in British Columbia looking for accommodation. If the supply equals that demand, the price drops. If the supply is unequal to that demand, the price goes up.

Then the government puts on a rental freeze. That shoves it up higher. They go into leasing arrangements. That pushes the price up higher. They go into land freezes. That pushes the price up higher. All the tax money on the government's part that gets committed to these programmes is doing more harm than it does good. We are voting $50 million in this vote that, taken in isolation the way it is, is probably doing damage to the people who are trying to find homes today. That sounds extreme, I know. But if it results through mismanagement in a reduction of the total supply of housing, that will be the effect.

I would like to ask the Minister: what is the total supply of accommodation in British Columbia? What were the number of new housing starts last year? What are the commitments he has been able to learn about by talking to developers and real estate agents regarding the supply this coming year? How much has been the average increase in the cost of a home in this past year? That should be a figure you people have at your fingertips. What is the percentage increase?

How will this $50 million we are voting result in a decrease in the cost of homes in this coming year? How can the Minister justify in this vote that the money is going to be used in a maximum fashion to increase the total new housing units in British Columbia and therefore decrease, as far as is possible by government action, the cost of each individual unit to those unfortunate people who are trying to

[ Page 2081 ]

find accommodation in British Columbia today?

MR. CHABOT: Just a couple of short questions. The first one is dealing with the Daon and Dunhill episode in Burnaby which I raised a little earlier and which the Minister has answered. He's confused me by his answer. He suggested at the time that the reason why Dunhill was in the market for the purchase of this large, uncompleted complex in Burnaby was to ensure that the project got underway. Well, it's quite obvious that it will be underway with Daon taking it over, being one of the larger developers in the province. It has a tremendous success record in development of residential property in the province.

What really confuses me is the fact that Mr. Paulus of Dunhill agrees with the Minister that the most important thing is that construction isn't being held up on these badly needed units. Why was Dunhill concerned about getting another chance to take over this development? Is it for the purpose of lending credibility to that firm or credibility to its principals?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would just read a section to the Hon. Member from a decision that was made as recorded in the Journals in 1956, pages 8, 9 and 10, on January 20. These are the words of Mr. Speaker Irwin:

"The principle has been followed by the Legislatures throughout the Commonwealth — Legislatures which, like ours, are based on the parliamentary practices of the British Houses of Parliament. For instance, in New South Wales, in 1932, the late Sir Daniel Levy, then Speaker, ruled that it was 'not for the Speaker to microscopically sift the relevant from the irrelevant evidence, but to liberally apply the sub judice rule in such a way as to prevent the mischief which that rule was intended to obviate.'

"There is nothing mysterious about the words 'sub judice.' A matter is sub judice when that matter is pending for a tribunal having judicial powers.

"The reason for the rule that matters sub judice may not be referred to in debate or upon a motion is two-fold. In the first place, it might be inferred that a breach of his rule would be not only a grave discourtesy to the court, but also might be considered an improper usurpation of the powers of the court or an attempt to influence the court — an attempt of the Legislature to influence that very distinct and parallel part of the government, namely the judiciary.

"In the second place, it might prejudice that sacred right of Her Majesty's subjects to a fair trial before the proper tribunal."

I would consider that the remarks made by the Hon. Member before I interrupted him, in which he referred to a principal involved in the case and made a comment about him, should be withdrawn, inasmuch as it is clearly violating the principle of sub judice.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): The Chairman's filibustering.

MR. CHABOT: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm discussing the actions of Dunhill Developments since it's been controlled by the Crown in its endeavour to take over control of a contractor who is in receivership. Really that has absolutely nothing to do with the charges or the allegations that might be heard in a courtroom.

Furthermore, I did mention that the government had engaged what it considers to be exceptional expertise with which I differ. And I think I should have that right to differ, based on its failure to negotiate successfully two development projects which I have made reference to tonight.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Hon. Member, the remarks that you made earlier I did not rule out of order. I simply ruled out of order the point which you made at the end in which you made some comment about the character of one of the principals of Dunhill. This could be considered prejudicial and therefore would be covered by the principle of sub judice.

MR. CHABOT: Well, I'm not a lawyer, Mr. Chairman, but it's my understanding that the matter which is subject to be a court case is not a question of whether Mr. Paulus has been charged; it's a matter of Mr. Paulus or other principals of Dunhill charging a radio station and certain employees of that radio station.

I cannot understand how the reference that I am making to the lack of ability and sloppy handling on the part of these principals who are reportedly laying charges has anything to do with the court case that might and might not be heard. I'm just suggesting that the talent….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The very point of this court case is the character of the principals involved. The Hon. Member has alluded to the character of the principals involved in some way. Therefore I'm ruling that this is the very matter which is before the courts, perhaps in some other form, but I'm asking the Hon. Member to discuss the facts perhaps of Dunhill's involvement in the other matter, but not to touch upon the personalities or the principals.

MR. CHABOT: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll abide by your ruling. But I will say that

[ Page 2082 ]

the negotiations on the part of Dunhill were sloppy indeed in their endeavours to take over the construction project that was in receivership in Burnaby.

I'm wondering if the Minister could tell me why Dunhill attempted to… It was very embarrassing for a development corporation which had taken over, which had negotiated and worked long, hard hours, as is customary in the private development sector, and had basically scooped Dunhill and taken over this project. I'm wondering why Dunhill would attempt to embarrass these people by wanting to take over the unfinished project after it had already been taken over and in view of the fact that the Minister told me that the main reason for Dunhill attempting to take over this corporation was to ensure that housing would be on stream. Daon Developments has stated that they'll probably cut down on the size of some of the units. Instead of 482 units, there are liable to be over 500, and they'll be on stream in 1975 — the fall of '75 or the spring of '76. So I'm wondering just what the objective was, Mr. Chairman, for the attempt again to move in on this construction project.

One other point that I wanted to make was the question of housing. One young budding politician a few years ago gave a reasonable suggestion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. CHABOT: There's a lot of fruit-chewing in here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would request that the decision made by the Speaker on a previous occasion that there not be any consumption of food on the floor of the House be followed. Therefore I would ask Hon. Members to desist from eating food on the floor of the chamber.

MR. CHABOT: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. But a young budding politician…

MR. PHILLIPS: The Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley) is sucking a lemon.

MR. CHABOT: …a few years ago made a suggestion as to the ways and means of promoting the establishment of housing in British Columbia. His suggestion was what I consider a reasonable suggestion. It wasn't a matter of tampering and playing with the private sector or attempting to compete with the private sector, and make it difficult for them, or to discourage them from their rightful role in the providing of housing in British Columbia. But he suggested that there should be 5,000 low-interest loans established in the province of $15,000 apiece, that there should be $75,000 of mortgage money made available.

Interjection.

MR. CHABOT: Oh, $75 million. I'm sorry, Mr. Minister. Thank you for correcting me. I'm glad you correct me once a session. It makes me realize you're listening from time to time.

He suggested that the interest rate should be 5 per cent. This would really be an incentive to housing getting underway. It would also be an incentive and make it possible for the working man in British Columbia to get into housing, which is extremely difficult today. That young politician in 1969 — that little MLA from Coquitlam (Hon. Mr. Barrett) — has now become the Premier of British Columbia.

I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if you will agree with making 5 per cent mortgage money available, as was so eloquently suggested by that MLA for Coquitlam back in 1969 when he was running for the leadership of the New Democratic Party. I thought at the time, and I still think so today, that the suggestion was a worthwhile one. The suggestion is one that would make it possible for the working people of this province to get into housing. It would be a tremendous incentive as well in getting housing underway in the province.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: To start with the Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot), the Zajac property was known to be in some difficulty. I understand only Daon and Dunhill probably had the capability at that time to attempt that particular project. There wasn't complete communication between the two companies. One of the principles of Daon was away, I believe, at the time the thing was proceeded with.

It was brought to our attention in the Department of Housing some one or two months before that and was repeatedly brought to our attention. It was at that time that we had Dunhill look into this. The first and foremost purpose was to make sure this was brought on stream. Certainly, as I've outlined before, it sometimes takes two years to get an approval and it would be most unfortunate if something was delayed in the construction phase.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: We didn't try to take anything over. We made an offer, just a straight business offer.

AN HON. MEMBER: You made an offer they couldn't refuse.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: No, we didn't make them an offer they couldn't refuse.

[ Page 2083 ]

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Members not interrupt the Minister when he's making his reply.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: The Member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) gave a fairly wide-ranging speech, citing certain problems, vacancy rates, inflation of housing costs over the years from 1969, price of building-lot increases.

He asked the direct question: will there be more units built in 1974? I say that is an impossible question to answer: 1974 is a bargaining year, there have been severe shortages of materials and the outlook is not good. Certainly extra efforts will have to be made in terms of supply and looking at alternatives in tendering of contracts. Both the private and public sector are looking toward shorter tendering periods and such in this area.

There was some mention made as to the words which I used of guaranteed purchase. I merely made mention of the fact that early in the afternoon the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) had clearly pointed to two of the alternatives, I think, upon which a land-lease policy must be based. Either you allow assignment or you must guarantee purchase if you are going to be realistic about it. As I've said, I'm not prepared at this time to say which of these will be the policy.

One might wonder about what the effect of a land-lease policy might have been in an area like James Bay or certain areas of Vancouver where you look at a lot of nice, existing housing but most of it is held as revenue housing. The prices of it are very highly inflated, awaiting rezoning or redevelopment. The number of potential rental units under construction is 4,000 but it is impossible to differentiate that from the numbers which might be put under condominium arrangements. So you can't really give a breakdown on the figure and I don't think it's available from the Vancouver Real Estate Board or any other source at this time.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, 4,000 private, I believe, but that's a combination of things that will be going to strata title and to rental. Multiple dwellings cannot be too accurately broken down in predicting how they will be when they're completed.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: I did mention how we are working with the municipalities. You mentioned the fair share for growth. I don't think I would take credit for coining the words, but I think that from my own experience I came up with this very spontaneously. Like a lot of things, when the time is right, people do come up with the same thing at the same time. I was very interested to see the GVRD had sort of adopted "fair share of growth." My first recollection of this phrase in this connection was something I had mentioned myself. However, I'm sure that others came up with it at the same time or before.

It is something we are looking toward. I explained to the Members yesterday that we had quite a great deal of dialogue, especially with some of the new councils which have been elected. We are looking towards this.

You mentioned housing as investment tends to push up the cost of housing. The best counterforce to this, I think, is cooperatives. However, I try to stress that this is no panacea.

You talked about infilling and you mentioned a figure of some 20,000 acres. That's probably a more accurate figure than the gross figure which is cited for infilling in the study from which I think the greater Vancouver liveable regional plan was developed, a study I indicated earlier in which they came up with a 57,000 acre figure. I believe that some of these are unsuitable for certain purposes.

[Mr. Liden in the chair.]

Interjection.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Yes. You asked if there was a complete inventory of available land. I believe the Greater Vancouver Regional District does have a report on inventory of lands. We have, of course, a person assigned to the greater Vancouver area and he is currently collecting data on this.

You have also mentioned the speech of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) alluding to incentives and disincentives. Later on in your speech you asked three specific questions which I believe are recommendations of the regional district liveable region plan: gradual shift in taxation emphasis on residential land from being higher on land than on improvements; de-emphasizing improvements and increasing the emphasis on land; undertaking the complete cost of servicing and instituting a system of per capita grants.

I think those comments are somewhat related to incentives and disincentives as were mentioned by the Minister. These things are outside of my direct responsibility. However, they are matters in which I take some interest: the first and last, obviously.

Cost of servicing. Again, some of the financing for that comes under Municipal vote, sewage treatment plants systems Act. But we recognize that servicing of land is of very high importance and we are looking

[ Page 2084 ]

towards this.

I might say that a first emphasis is activity throughout the province and not just in the lower mainland. Servicing of lands in the outlying areas is very important towards a policy of decentralization.

The First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) has said that Dunhill might have bid up the price of Zajac. Well, we made an offer; we didn't get into a bidding war. We got out and the main purpose was served when this project was put back on the rails. I would point out that it was felt at that time by Daon and Dunhill that they were probably the only two projects that had the spare capacity at that time to put that project on the road.

To see that best interests were served our main concern was that this project get going because it had gone through the major hurdle which was the municipal approvals and was already into the ground. That's the one in Burnaby, at North Road and Lougheed.

The Member has said that anything the government does for mortgage releases will have little effect. We will be leasing — well, leasing really comes outside of this vote — but we are setting a target of 2,500 family rental dwelling units. This is our target for initiation this year. We would hope that about 1,500 would be built under section 43 at a capital cost to British Columbia of $4 million, and 1,000 under section 40 at $7 million, for a total of $11 million.

We would set a target for 1,000 senior citizens' dwelling units: 500 built under section 40, at a cost of $2.1 million; 500 built under section 43, at an outlay of $900,000 for a total of $3 million.

We are also setting a target of 1,500 cooperatives, and for leasing that serviced land we would expect, at $6,000 a unit, an expenditure of $9 million.

Servicing of lots on Crown and municipal subdivisions: an average cost of servicing a lot, we would hope for $7,000 for servicing costs. There's $14 million to be expended in that way.

Our contribution to the Neighbourhood Improvement Programme is $2 million. Land assembly would be $10 million. For grants to such organizations as the United Housing Foundation, other grants and miscellaneous expenditures in native housing, we would make an allowance of $1 million for the $50 million expenditures so that….

Interjection.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: For servicing costs. But we have land purchase costs in there as well, where we have set aside….Some of this is on Crown Land where we have no costs, others will require expenditure for servicing.

MR. CHABOT: A couple of brief questions. The Minister has not answered my question. In dealing with the Dunhill and Daon attempt to take over this financially troubled apartment complex in Burnaby, the Minister said the main purpose was served when the project was put on the road by Daon. He suggested that Daon was quite capable of getting this thing under way.

The question I asked was: why was Dunhill attempting to take over after Daon had successfully negotiated the purchase of the project? It says right here that Dunhill says it wants another chance. Dunhill then asked Daon if it would be interested in selling the project he had just bought — three 22-storey towers at Lougheed Highway and Erickson Way on which construction had just started.

AN HON. MEMBER: Make them an offer they can't refuse.

MR. CHABOT: This is a direct quote: " 'We were totally unprepared for that kind of overture from Dunhill,' Jack Poole, Daon President, said Friday. 'It took us by surprise. Usually in this game when several bidders are after property, one of them wins and that's that. Now we don't know what to do. We owe it to Dunhill to respond. We should have an answer for them within a week.' "

This is the thing that I suggested was very embarrassing to private developers who had, in fact, scooped Dunhill. The former contractor suggested the reason they got scooped was because there was too much red tape. These are direct quotes from the president of Daon, suggesting that Dunhill made a serious attempt to again take over.

I want to know why the Minister stood in his place here and said that the main objective of getting housing on stream or on line was served by the fact that Daon had taken over this complex. If the main objective of government had been served by Daon taking over, why would Dunhill then make another attempt to embarrass or to take over the project in Burnaby? Was it to give some credibility to Dunhill, to make it appear to be a viable home-complex developer in the province? That's the only conclusion I can come to and I want to know from the Minister why Dunhill made this attempt to take over the project.

One other very brief question is: do you agree with the suggestion on low-cost interest on mortgages, and abundant mortgages in the province, of $15,000 each, made by that young, budding political leader in 1969?

HON. MR. NICOLSON: To set the records straight, I believe our offer, the first offer….Daon made an offer, I understand, in the middle of the night….They worked all night. The principals of Dunhill, most notably Mr. Paulus, said that at no

[ Page 2085 ]

time…. Well, he expressed to me that we should not necessarily try to change things by some sort of force, or something. I'm not familiar with that particular newspaper article, although I've read some. I believe I read the Province article. Is that from the Province?

MR. CHABOT: This is Mike Grenby, Sun business writer.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: No, I didn't read that one.

MR. CHABOT: These are direct quotes from Jack Poole, president of Daon.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Mr. Chairman, I'm glad to see $50 million in vote 111 for housing. I think that if we were even going to scratch the surface of trying to solve the housing problem that exists in British Columbia, the figure should read something like $400 million, but at least $50 million is a start. As I listened to the debate here, we have tried to offer in the opposition, our views as to why we have the great housing crisis we have in British Columbia tonight.

We have offered the excuses that if we had a greater supply, the price of housing would decrease. We have offered the solution that the housing supplies are here. We have had all kinds of offers of solutions, but it seems to me like we have been shooting all over the target, yet few of us have really hit the bull's eye.

I think the reason why we have a housing shortage in British Columbia today is simply because you can't pay for a house at what it costs to build a house. There's no way you can pay for the house.

Let's just take our pencils out and work a bit of a model. If you were a very discriminating soul and you went out to find a building lot on which you wanted to build a house, $9,000 is likely the base price — $9,000. If you were going to build a small house on that very small lot, a house of 1,000 square feet, with building costs what they are today, even if you find a very good contractor, it's $21 a square foot for construction. A 1,000 square foot house at $21 a square foot is $21,000 added to the price of the lot, and no matter which way you figure, you've got $30,000.

One-third of the cost of the house is materials, and we can strain on that all we want to; we can pull our hair out. We can work on the cost of materials, try to hold the cost of materials down. We are only affecting one-third of the price of the house, even if we should be successful. So we say, "Well, why don't we try to hold down the cost of labour?"

Labour represents another third in the cost of a house. Even if we could keep labour down to half of what it is, it still would not affect the appreciably final cost of the house because that again only affects one-third of the cost.

Materials are one-third; labour is one-third; real estate is the other third. That house costs $30,000.

I propose that you can't pay for it. The reason you can't pay for it is because if you go to get a mortgage for $30,000, if you have a good down payment, if you can get a mortgage for 9.5 per cent or 9.75 per cent or 10 per cent, you are fortunate. Bat most people in the Province of British Columbia today don't have enough money to put 20 per cent down. As a result, they've got to go to a place like a credit union to get their mortgage and the mortgage is more like 11 per cent.

They also draw up a contract for a period of 30 years, and 11 per cent interest over a period of 30 years amounts to $60,000 worth of interest. I said the price of the house was $30,000, of which materials represented one-third, labour represents one-third and real estate represents one-third. If the price was really $30,000, all of us could afford a house. The fact is that a house, in the final analysis, is costing us $90,000.

I'd like to suggest to you, Mr. Member, that one of the reasons why the value of property has appreciated is not only because there is a shortage of housing but also because those people who have lived in a house for even a short period of time have put into that house very few dollars of principle but a good number of dollars in interest.

Let's just break it down. Let's take the same model: a $30,000 home with an 11 per cent mortgage. Before you begin to pay anything, interest alone is $275 a month; add to that the taxes of $50 a month; add to that principle of $25 a month and add to that utilities which you need to keep the place running — you're costing yourself $400 a month for just housing alone.

Those people who are expert in budgeting tell us that you should allow for not more than 25 per cent of your total earnings to go for housing. This means the minimum salary that would be used to determine whether or not you could qualify for that kind of mortgage, the minimum salary, is $1,600 a month. I tell you that the people who want and need the housing the most, the people who are the young people of British Columbia are not earning $1,600 a month. Therefore I have to come back to the original statement: we can't pay.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, even if we were building at capacity and we had an extra supply of houses on the market, we couldn't sell them because there is nobody who can afford to buy them. The reason why the private sector is not involved in capacity building is not because of the shortage of supplies, because on the railway line between Smithers and Quesnel there is enough plywood and

[ Page 2086 ]

dimension lumber to build a town for 450,000 people. We're not short of supplies.

AN HON. MEMBER: How about nails?

MR. SCHROEDER: How about nails?

We're not short of land, in spite of the fact that some would have you believe that if you freeze the land for agriculture there is none left for building. The truth is we have all kinds of land. We have no shortage of money. We have no shortage of skilled labour. But even if you build the houses and have a surplus of housing, there is no way you can sell it. The private sector knows this and as a result they are a little bit cautious about their building construction and they are holding back — one of the reasons we have a shortage. But I tell you the basic reason is: we can't pay. No way.

I would like to subscribe to the suggestion made by the Hon. Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot). There is a solution. Rather than $50 million in the housing development vote, if we could provide $400 million, and make all $400 million available at five per cent then we could begin to solve the building problem.

Let's take the same model that I created just a little while ago and use the $30,000 house. Even though you can make money available at five per cent it doesn't make the original cost of the house any less because materials are the same, labour remains the same and real estate remains the same. So you've still got a $30,000 house.

But you take a $30,000 house at five per cent and your monthly payment for interest drops from $275 a month to $125 a month. Add to that your taxes, your principle payment and your utilities — the cost is now down to $250 per month. Lo and behold, anybody earning 1,000 a month can now qualify for this kind of a home.

I would like to say, let's use the surplus money that we are anticipating in our budget this year. If we're really concerned about helping British Columbia not only in housing but in putting to work all of the employables who are now unemployed, if we want to inject into the economy of British Columbia at the place where we need the greatest injection, let's take the $400 million that we are anticipating as a surplus this year and put it into the housing scheme, put it under vote 111, if you wish. Then I believe we're at least beginning on the solution.

That's one solution. That's plan A. I believe if plan A doesn't work, you must always have plan B. There still is housing available at a reasonable price. It's available in mobile homes. I think the Minister of Housing should look into the desirability not only of mobile homes but also of mobile home parks in various municipalities.

I like your phrase "every municipality should assume a fair share of the growth." I think while you're talking about growth in these various municipalities, you need to talk to these municipal leaders about their aversion to mobile home parks.

In the Chilliwack municipality we have very few mobile home parks. But if you tried to get a zoning for an additional mobile home park, even though the need for it is obvious, you cannot get even a listening ear with those who are responsible for zoning.

I'd like to make a serious suggestion to the Minister of Housing. I'd like you to talk to those who are in the regional zones and in the municipalities about their aversion to mobile home parks, because here for $12,000 you can still get into a mobile home. For about $55 to $65 a month you can still get a 40-ft. lot, something with a little bit of green grass. I know the density is not the most desirable, but for a layout of $12,000 and for a monthly charge of $65 for a plot, you can still have a beautiful place to live.

I think we need to provide some incentives to the municipalities to encourage them to encourage mobile home parks, and at least allow the young people of British Columbia an opportunity to live in a home of their own. Thank you very much.

MR. McGEER: I asked the Minister a short time ago about the relative picture in housing in British Columbia because we're into a supply and demand situation. I rather like the suggestions of the Member for Chilliwack. They are dramatic, but obviously it's one way of getting us off dead centre.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's financial suicide.

MR. McGEER: I'm not sure it is financial suicide, Mr. Member. What we've got is suicide of a different kind going on in the province today.

Let me read some figures, Mr. Chairman, for the past 10 years for the City of Vancouver. The increase in the cost of a house in 1964 was 5 per cent. In 1965 it was 5 per cent. In 1966 it was 9 per cent. In 1967 it was 17 per cent. In 1968 it was 15 per cent. In 1969 it was 17 per cent. In 1970 it was I per cent. In 1971 it was 9 per cent. In 1972 the New Democratic Party took over, it went up to 18 per cent. In 1973 it went up a further 32 per cent. The increase in the cost of housing in the City of Vancouver in the past two years has been nothing short of astronomical. That's happened since the NDP took over.

What's required, Mr. Chairman, is some kind of dramatic action to lower this increase to some acceptable level. It's happening almost exclusively in British Columbia.

I'd also asked the Minister to tell us what the increases were in this past year across Canada. He didn't answer that. These are the figures from the

[ Page 2087 ]

Canadian Real Estate Association: in Quebec in the past year the increase was 4.5 per cent; in Manitoba, 10 per cent; in Saskatchewan, 14 per cent; in Alberta, 20 per cent; in British Columbia, 23 per cent; and in Ontario, 26 per cent. Now Ontario was worse than British Columbia but we were the second worst in the nation. Our inflation rate was five times that of the Province of  Quebec; double that of the Province of Manitoba; almost twice the Province of Saskatchewan.

Mr. Chairman, these are the realities of housing in Canada in 1973. This is why we're deliberating this particular vote so thoroughly.

Performance has been lacking, Mr. Chairman. The Minister doesn't know the number of housing units in British Columbia. He doesn't know the number of new housing starts that are being contemplated. He doesn't understand the supply and demand situation, and we've got a runaway horse in British Columbia when it comes to the cost of new housing.

Something dramatic needs to be done. This $50 million vote, large as it may seem, is not dramatic and will not substantially affect this sad situation.

I'd accept the suggestion of the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) as being worth considering. Pour $400 million or $500 million into housing; get the interest rates down to a fraction of what they are. That will certainly stimulate production.

Another way would be to eliminate the 5 per cent sales tax on building materials for residential homes and rental accommodation. That would decrease the cost of new construction and stimulate the private sector.

Another is to appeal to the federal government to remove the 11 per cent sales tax they placed on building materials. I think we should perhaps have a resolution in this House. Certainly I would support it, because I think with the inflationary increase in the cost of housing all across the country, particularly in British Columbia, it would be appropriate for the federal government to remove that 11 per cent tax, because that would stimulate new housing starts.

If we were to take off the federal tax of 11 per cent and the provincial tax of 5 per cent, the cost of materials for putting up a new home would be decreased by 16 per cent. You've got to figure that most people buying homes have to borrow huge amounts of money in order to gain ownership. The down payment is only a small fraction of the total cost.

The rest they have to get in mortgage money, which is at impossible rates. You are lucky if you get a 10 per cent mortgage today. It's usury what you have to pay, straight usury. The only relief that we can bring the average person who is trying to gain some equity in life is to get these costs down.

One way is to just pump the money in from the provincial level: $500 million if necessary. We have that money. Secondly, hack down the cost of getting some of these ridiculous taxes off home accommodation — 5 per cent at the provincial level, 11 per cent more at the federal level.

Perhaps some kind of capital cost write-offs might be instituted at the federal level too, to stimulate the production of rental accommodation.

I'll tell you this, Mr. Chairman: the Minister has announced cutbacks in the amount of new rental accommodation in British Columbia today. Four thousand new units, which I judge from what he said would include condominium conversions, is nothing short of a disaster.

To relieve the demand, total units must approach 40,000 in this coming year, of which 15,000 at least must be rental in-order to keep the present balance of rental versus ownership accommodation in the GVRD.

What's the total for British Columbia? The GVRD must account for half. Even if it's 8,000 for the whole of British Columbia, it's still only half of what it must be.

Mr. Chairman, it's a grave situation. It does require dramatic action. The government has it within its power to produce that dramatic action. Massive infusions of money into the mortgage market; reduction of unfair taxes on the materials required. It could do it as well by placing huge amounts of money at the disposal of cities and municipalities so they could service new lots at no cost to the people who are moving into new accommodation.

The cost of land is largely the cost of servicing. If the provincial government subsidizes the servicing, then the price of lots goes way down. All of that comes right off the top of mortgage money that must be borrowed at 10 per cent or more.

There are lots of things that this government can do. There are lots of things that that Minister can do. But we're just playing around with dinky little programmes that aren't meeting the needs and will only result in the cost of accommodation being pressed ever higher in this coming year.

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Earlier in this debate on another vote I was discussing cooperative and I was instructed that vote 111 was the point at which I should bring it up again. My question at that time was concerning property which the government is acquiring and leasing for fairly long periods — 50 to 60 years — to cooperatives.

I'm not opposed to cooperatives, but my question really is: as the government acquires this land, particularly serviced land, it would appear that they are then mortgaging. I'm not quite sure how they do it, frankly. They call it a mortgage, but they say at the end of the period they get the property back. But they are taking a rather sizeable markup on the

[ Page 2088 ]

property.

There's one in particular I would like to bring to your attention — and I'm sure it's happening in others. This one, I understand, hasn't been finalized yet, but apparently this is the pattern. It's the Pembroke Co-op, where the land was purchased for $38,500, but it was mortgaged to the cooperative (the notes I have are 60 years although the Minister prefers to give me 50) at 4 per cent a year.

Now that's a $10,000 markup between what the government purchased it for and for what it's mortgaged to the cooperative. If you take that at 4 per cent interest, that's costing the cooperative a minimum of $400 a year in extra interest. And if you take the Minister's figure of 50 years, that cooperative is actually paying $20,000 extra just in interest. Now that $20,000 over that 50-year period obviously has to be recaptured from the people who are going to pay the rent or whatever in the cooperative.

I'm a little bit curious as to why the government, who is trying to put out low-cost housing, trying to get these cooperatives going at low figures, who is giving them what appears to be a low interest rate — that is, a 4 per cent annual rate rather than the normal interest rate they would be paying — would then add a markup on the property that they have purchased to lend to the cooperative. So it looks like a rather sizable increase.

As a matter of fact, it appears to me that it's the sort of very thing that this government is saying — that private industry is ripping off the individuals. I don't want to get into the Dunhill situation, but I must refer to an article which is in this evening's Vancouver Sun. It's concerning statements which were made here, and I won't go into the details of it. But the Minister of Housing was actually very proud of the fact that in having purchased Dunhill they were disposing of some of the very surplus pieces of Dunhill, and that they had an excess of book value of $2,978,982.

Now it would strike me that that is exactly the situation the government seems to be giving private industry a hard time about. On one hand you are saying to private developers: "You're ripping off the customer because you've bought it at a certain figure and you've sold it at a markup." On the other hand, the government is acquiring a company, disposing of some of the surplus assets which they don't want at a very large markup, and bragging about what a wonderful deal they've made. It seems to me that they want their bread buttered on both sides.

I would like the Minister to answer both those questions if he could.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, starting with the First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison), the $38,500 purchase price is a very good price which I believe we got from the Victoria School Board. That's the price we paid for it from them.

They do not pay off the principal. It is a land lease, and we lease it to them at 4 per cent of that. Certainly, I suppose, over the 50-year period at 4 per cent per annum...That would even be subject to reappraisal in five-year periods, so it would be more than what you have estimated. That would be the minimum figure.

But if you look at this in conjunction with the 8 per cent money which they get on the improvements from Central Mortgage and Housing — this particular one might be subject to negotiation because it's a little bit out of the ordinary — they would be coming up with something….

Shirley Smith, director of the United Housing Foundation, says that co-ops tend to be $50 a month less than market rentals. Al Coley of Community Builders in the private sector says, "No, she's too modest in her estimate. It's more like $100 at the outset." So there is a considerable help to people in this cooperative type of housing.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

Now as to developers, I question the addition in that article, but it might have been difficult trying to glean it from Hansard or from my comments in the House. I don't think it was that high, but certainly I was establishing a point of some profit, and I would say at least $500,000.

I don't believe that I make a practice of going around calling developers "rip-off artists." I think that if I have said this, it would be more a comment out of character. Certainly some developers have made a bad name for others, but I have consistently pointed out where developers have not been ripped off, where developers who sold condominium units for $24,000, two years later they are selling for $50,000. So one wonders who the rip-off artist is.

MR. MORRISON: Well, I can take it, then, from the Minister's answer that the general policy on cooperatives will be that the government will take some sort of markup above their original cost of the land when they mortgage it out for that 50-year period or whatever. This is not an unusual experience, this particular one I'm referring to is really the pattern that will be used over and over and over again. Is that correct? Is that what you were saying?

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, I wouldn't call it a markup. We charge 4 per cent of the market value of the land as a ground rent. If this were compared to the 8 per cent….

MR. MORRISON: You missed my point altogether.

[ Page 2089 ]

HON. MR. NICOLSON: I'm finding it very hard to get your point.

Well, we do charge 4 per cent, the market value of the land for the ground rent portion which is our participation in the cooperative. We make other contributions as well, but that's our major contribution.

MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman, the difference, obviously, at that point is that when you talk about the market value of the land, you consider the market value as being different than your cost value when you bought that property within the last four or five months. In this particular instance you bought the property for $38,500 about six months ago and you're considering that the market value of that property today is now $48,500. Is that what you're saying to me?

HON. MR. NICOLSON: No, I believe we've established market value at $48,500.

MR. MORRISON: It's in that proposal at that figure, $48,000 at 4 per cent.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: We have $38,500…. Well, Pembroke, we have down as $36,750.

MR. MORRISON: I think you and I are looking at two different proposals.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: I can only tell you…. Okay, let's go to the Victoria West one. We took the price that we purchased it for from the City of Victoria; that was the market value that we established for the first five years of the lease. That, in general, is our policy.

MR. MORRISON: With absolutely no markup.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: With no markup.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, this $50 million that's in this vote, is any of this earmarked for developments on the University Endowment Lands?

HON. MR. NICOLSON: No, there's no physical planning been done out there at this time.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chairman, this afternoon when I wanted to talk about the lease programme I was advised that we'd better discuss it on vote 111. There was some discussion earlier this afternoon and I was trying to find from the Minister the principle on which he based the leasing programme.

I was under the impression from last fall that when they first introduced leasing as a form of providing serviced lots in the province it was to meet a particular crisis for a particular price range, a particular market. We weren't going to gauge it for the wealthy or the middle wealthy; it was to meet the young married couples or people on fixed incomes. And the rationale for leasing at that time was that these people didn't have the income or the savings, particularly young married couples, to make a down payment or to put an equity into a property so that we would lease to them. They could get in at a low price, they would get shelter and a house they called their own, although they would never own the property. I was asking the Minister if this was also a social intent of the government, owning the land. I think we ran into a conflict there with the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) when he suggested that if the government was going to supply money for its own programmes for leasing, he would like to see them give government aid to private properties and large landholders so that you would have land leased from large property owners in the private sector.

He asked the Minister for a commitment. And I would ask the Minister to give us a policy statement because I'm totally against the Government of the Province of British Columbia supporting the statement of the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound. That is, having a system like we had in England for years, where the property is owned by a very few landholders and the people are tenants, tenants of a few landowners and don't own their own homes.

The Minister himself mentioned that they are having problems with these 99-year leases now coming up. They still have the same problem they've always had — land owned by a few individuals.

I'd like to find out the Minister's thoughts. I look on land leasing as a step forward to getting land into the hands of all the people — that everybody might have not only home ownership, but land ownership. I think it's a philosophical question of whether everybody in this country can own a piece of the country.

Now, he mentioned that leasing…. He mentioned southwest Marine Drive and the upper North Vancouver, and it's true they're very wealthy people who have other investment portfolios, and are quite willing to lease because their investments for their future and their security are somewhere else. But the average person, the ordinary person, his only investment or his major investment is going to be the land that his house sits on. And the appreciable value of any piece of real estate is the land; the building depreciates.

I'd like a thought from the Minister that when he develops this lease programme, to what economic group is he gearing? Is he gearing it to the area that needs help, the area that can't afford housing, the

[ Page 2090 ]

area that can't own housing? If he's concerned, as he said this afternoon, about the social mix, he can put in regulations in any subdivision that he develops, or that the provincial government develops in concert with the municipal government, so that you're guaranteed a certain social mix so that we don't build slum areas or don't create areas that will turn into slum areas. You have a social mix and some mixing of the different economic backgrounds.

I'm quite in favour of this. I come from a small town, at least it was when I was growing up, and the advantage there was that there was this plan. You didn't have economic neighbourhoods like you have in the City of Vancouver. I think it was always very evident that you could tell someone's economic background by the school they went to. You're right; I disagree with this. I'd like to see an economic mix in neighbourhoods. I'd like to see the small town character brought into the cities because I think it's an advantage. I think the Minister's got a good idea.

When he's talking about his lease, his land, I would like him to tell me that he is going to use it to solve a specific problem, that he would also put in an option to purchase because that option to purchase brings stability and a sense of ownership and a sense of belonging to the individual, to the citizen. It takes away the urge to move.

Surely, we know we are in a fairly mobile society now and the average person may get transferred, or they're in a job that takes them from place to place.

You can put conditions in a proposal that I placed before this House in the throne speech, where we use the municipalities to develop subdivisions. We use their expertise. Rather than trying to build a bureaucracy in Victoria which would duplicate services of the municipality, give them the funds. They already have the planners and their own community plans, hopefully, and their own zoning intentions in their communities. What they need is encouragement and funds to go into their own development business.

I think if you did that, and gave the communities money to open up these lands — subsidize it and then put a five-year condition on this that they couldn't make a profit or resell it for speculation for these people who took advantage of these subsidized lots run through a municipal development programme.

You could put a five-year condition where you had an automatic rise of, say, 5 per cent or the cost of inflation, whichever was the least, to discourage people from using the government-inspired but municipally-produced subsidized and serviced lots and speculating with them and using them to help foster part of the problem we've got with an acceleration of inflation in land prices.

I think, instead of trying to buy out for your landbanks in competition with the municipalities, if you use the landbanks the municipalities already have, and use your money to lend them this money specifically to develop programmes under a land use contract specifically aimed at them gearing those subsidized service lots to meet the needs of their communities, you would be meeting the needs of housing, or the shortage of lots in British Columbia, to a greater degree than a programme developed in Victoria because every municipal government will find different needs and maybe a different bracket.

It's up to the government to set general outlines and set the terms and conditions. But this is the sort of programme that could get serviced lots on the market cheaply; it could get them on quickly. You wouldn't be duplicating in Victoria a large bureaucracy and a bureaucratic mess, I guess, that coincides with the municipal bureaucracy that's already there and geared up to produce these types of lots.

In my own community of Kelowna, part of my constituency, they are trying to get a municipal development corporation to do just that. The City of Prince George for years has municipally produced lots in concert with the provincial government. It's not a new programme. The programme could be in the amount of subsidy and the way you gear it to meet the economic requirements of each particular community.

I would hope when the Minister is talking about leased land and producing leased lots, he'll indicate that he's developing this programme to meet that area of requirement which is not being met in British Columbia now. To get into the high-cost development business with a company like Dunhill which hasn't done any low-cost developments, they've been catering to the middle and upper middle class. That's not where we have a problem.

Those people don't need government help. They don't need government-sponsored lots or housing. It's that area of people who don't have any help, who can't get the funding or the lots or the loans from the normal financial services or can't make the purchase, who need the opportunity to lease and then some opportunity to purchase later.

Mr. Minister, I would hope, when I've finished my brief remarks, that you will consider giving me a policy statement and an intent about what this government intends to do — the social implications of this leasing programme — and indicate to me that it's not just a means of the government controlling land.

I had an article here to do with the North Vancouver land-lease programme. They indicated quite strongly — and I think you will remember it — that their land-lease programme, because it wasn't subsidized and because they were pricing it up to get supposedly all the market would bear and they were pricing it very close to the purchase price — that really the people weren't getting a bargain — had one value to them, and that was future land control.

[ Page 2091 ]

The government should be, in this case, where they're meeting the needs of these people, in the business of providing serviced lots to meet the social needs of people and not for some far off future land control.

I'd like you to tell me — and it would be my hope — that you would want every British Columbian to have the right to own their own home and lot and that your programme would be geared to encourage this and to encourage the stability that this home ownership brings. I like your idea of the social mix; it's very important. I think you're to be commended if you will do this.

One other thing I was going to ask the Minister: he mentioned Saturday that he was going to table or bring or circulate in the Legislature the appraisals for the properties connected with the purchase of Dunhill Development — or Woodbridge Development.

I'm still waiting for them to be circulated because it's very difficult for us to do a complete analysis on the type of deal you've made for this company for development in British Columbia. I wonder if the Minister is going to produce that report Monday, as he specifically promised.

I dug out the blues just to be sure and it says right here:

HON. MR. NICOLSON: To be sure, I'd like to bring this into the House on Monday if I could, and I could table it at that time.

Earlier that day he circulated certain documents. So of course I know he has the same intent: that was to circulate these appraisal reports. So I wonder if we could have them, because it's very important in the appraisal of the purchase and how the company was evaluated. The Minister at different times had said that some of the appraisals were made in September to evaluate the properties for taxation purposes. Yet right here in the auditor's report, and I'll have to read this in several….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, I would draw the attention of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition that the particular subject of the appraisals appears to me to be relevant to the whole matter of what is sub judice.

MR. BENNETT: No, I'm talking about the appraisals in September that the Minister has suggested had nothing to do with the purchase but had to do with the company getting appraisals for taxation purposes within the company. These are the appraisals that were made by — was it Chauncey?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The Chair would rule that the whole matter of appraisals — upon consulting with legal advice — is directly relevant to the matter which is now before the courts. Therefore, I would rule that discussion of this is out of order because it is sub judice.

MR. BENNETT: No, I think that these particular appraisals don't have to do with any of the appraisals the Minister said the government has done on the purchase of this. These were the internal appraisals that he brought up that he suggested the company had done for taxation purposes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. BENNETT: These are the ones that he said had nothing to do with the government or that purchase.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The whole matter that is before the courts is a question about the value of this property and the knowledge of this. Therefore, anything which pertains to that or impinges upon that matter would have some bearing or some effect on it. Therefore, I would rule that any discussion of the appraisals is out of order.

MR. BENNETT: No, Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. The Minister brought these appraisals up Saturday — the justification, political justification, for the purchase of the corporation. Now at that time….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Order!

MR. BENNETT: No, I just want to make a point. At that time he specified there was a difference between two different appraisals.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please!

The Chair wishes to make a point. On what was discussed previously the Chair has since sought advice. The advice that I'm stating, in terms of a point of a ruling, is the fact that a consideration of the appraisals impinges directly upon the matter which is before the courts.

MR. BENNETT: My point of order against your ruling is that there were two sets of appraisals. The appraisal I'm talking about was an internal appraisal as stated by the Minister that had nothing to do with the purchase.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The matter of appraisals, or the valuation of the property, in any way, impinges upon the matter which is before the courts. Therefore, I'm ruling that any discussion of appraisals at any time are out of order.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Without further transgressing onto the matter which is before the court, I'd like to point out

[ Page 2092 ]

that what was asked in Hansard was a reference by the Hon. Leader of the Opposition. He said:

Earlier, Mr. Chairman, the Minister was going to get some information as to which appraisals that were used in the compilation of this list which the Minister had circulated….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, I'm not going to give any further information that isn't here, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The point is, Hon. Members….

HON. MR. NICOLSON: That information was given earlier and is on record, so there is really….

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would rule that any further consideration or mention of appraisals is out of order inasmuch as it impinges upon the matter which is now before the courts.

The Hon. Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) on a point of order.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Standing order 3. It's 11 o'clock.

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 11:05 p.m.