[ Page 3859 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions

Funds for student summer jobs. Mr. Fraser — 3859

Construction contracts let to non-union firms. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 3860

Disposition of request from Marie Mills. Mr. Wallace — 3860

Motor carrier rate increases. Mr. Smith — 3861

Date of takeover of ambulance services. Mr. McClelland — 3861

RCMP questioning of 15-year-old student. Mr. Curtis — 3862

Discussion of Firenza case sub judice. Mr. Morrison — 3862

Assistance for autistic children. Mr. D.A. Anderson 3862

Public Works Fair Employment Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 87).

Report and third reading — 3862

Income Tax Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 102).

Committee, report and third reading — 3863

Community Care Facilities Licensing Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 109).

Committee, report and third reading — 3863

Income Tax Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 102).

Third reading discharged — 3863

Committee stage Amendment to section 5.

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 3863

Report and third reading — 3863

Tuberculosis Institutions Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 113).

Committee, report and third reading — 3864

Police Act (Bill 91). Committee stage.

Amendment to section 4. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 7. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 13. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 14. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 15. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

On section 16.

Mr. McClelland — 3864

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 19. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3864

Amendment to section 22. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 23. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 24. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 25. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 28. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

On section 28 as amended.

Mr. Smith — 3865

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 30. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 32. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 37. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 40. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Amendment to section 58. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3865

Report stage p. 3865

Accelerated Park Development Fund Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 114). Committee stage.

On section 1.

Mr. McClelland — 3866

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 3866

Report and third reading — 3866

Real Estate Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 124). Committee stage.

Amendment to section 6. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3866

Amendment to section 8. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3866

Amendment to section 14. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3866

Report stage — 3866

Assessment Authority of British Columbia Act (Bill 147). Committee stage.

Amendment to section 10. Hon. Mr. Barrett — 3866

Amendment to section 12. Hon. Mr. Barrett — 3866

Amendment to section 14. Hon. Mr. Barrett — 3867

Report stage — 3867

Logging Tax Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 149). Committee, report and third reading — 3867

Motor-vehicle Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 138). Committee stage.

Amendment to section 7. Hon. Mr. Strachan — 3867

On section 12.

Mr. McClelland — 3867

Hon. Mr. Strachan — 3867

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3868

Mr. Phillips — 3868

Hon. Mr. Strachan — 3868

Report stage — 3869

Leaseholds and Conversion Mortgage Loan Act (Bill 133). Committee, report and third reading — 3869

Provincial Home Acquisition Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 140). Committee, report and third reading — 3869

An Act to Ratify an Agreement Bearing Date the 16th Day of November, 1964, Between the City of Prince Rupert, Canadian National Railway Company, and Her Majesty the Queen in Her Right of Her Province of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 145). Committee, report and third reading — 3869

Energy Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 18). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3869

Mr. Smith — 3870

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 3873

Mr. Wallace — 3876

Mr. Richter — 3881

Mr. L.A. Williams — 3881

Mr. Gibson — 3883

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 3884

Division on second reading — 3884

Protection of Children Amendment Act, 1974 (Bill 154). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Levi — 3884

Mr. Schroeder — 3885

Mr. Wallace — 3885

Mr. L.A. Williams — 3885

Hon. Mr. Levi — 3886

Mineral Royalties Act (Bill 3 I ). Second reading. Mrs. Jordan — 3887

Universities Act (Bill 157). Hon. Mrs. Dailly. Introduction and first reading — 3893

Interpretation Act (Bill 110). Discharge of second reading — 3893

Interpretation Act (Bill 153). Hon. Mr. Macdonald. Introduction and first reading — 3893

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1974

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, it is with great sense of welcome that I ask you to acknowledge the presence here today of Members of the Quebec National Assembly who are guests here for two days of visit and discussion on various subjects of procedure and other matters of interest to parliamentarians.

On the floor of the House are: the vice-president of their assembly, Mr. Harry Blank; Mr. Samson, who is the representative of the opposition; and Mr. LaCroix, the government Whip. I would ask the Members to acknowledge their presence.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, je voudrais dire à nos amis de la belle province avec nous ce jour: "Bienvenu et bonne chance." (Laughter.)

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Pour le Parti Crédit Social, ce me fait beaucoup de plaisir cet après-midi de souhaiter le bienvenu aux Députés du Québec et leurs femmes dans notre province ici aujourd'hui. Nous avons avec nous en haut: M. Blank et Mme Blank; M. LaCroix et Mme LaCroix; M. Vincent Chagnon et Mme Chagnon, de Lévis; M. Prudent Carpentier et Mme Carpentier, de Laviolette; M. Page et Mme Page, de Portneuf; M. Guy Bacon et Mme Bacon, de Trois-Rivières; M. Marc-Yvon Coté, Député de Matane, et Mme Coté; M. Camil Samson et Mme. Samson — M. Samson est membre du parti Créditist Social de la Province de Québec; M. Gilles Bellemare et Mme Bellemare, de Rosemont; M. Jacques Tremblay, Député d'Iberville, et Mme Tremblay; M. Jean Boudreault et Mme Boudreault; M. Roberto Wilson, Director, Interparliamentary and Public Relations office du Québec.

J'espère que votre voyage et votre conférence ici serout agréables et couronnés avec succès.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Messieurs, comme vous avez écoutés l'aspirant au "leadership" du Crédit Social national, M. Chabot, (Laughter) il faut que j'ajoute quelques mots de la part du Parti Libéral. Je souhaite bien que vous êtes ici àVictoria pour le beau temps et pour le plaisir. J'espère bien que pendant ces deux jours que vousêtes ici nous aurons du temps d'avoir des conversations, surtout avec mon ancien ami, M. Blank.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker…. (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: You'll hear it in Gaelic. (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, after the French roll call I thought it was the Member's first campaign speech for a while there, but as a Scotsman who doesn't profess to even try to speak French but would like to, let me welcome you to this House on behalf of the Conservative Party and say that nothing but good can come of this kind of exchange. We hope you will come again soon.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all of us as MLAs I want to thank the Members from the Quebec National Assembly for joining us. There are regional problems in this country, but the differences between Quebec are so little that my solution is that we carve the country down the middle and call the western part British Columbia and the eastern part Quebec, and all the problems would be solved. (Laughter.)

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I know that the House read with sorrow and concern the news from our nation's capital this weekend regarding the grievous illness of our Governor-General, Mme. Léger. I want to advise the House that on all your behalfs I have sent a communication to Mme Leger and the Governor-General expressing our hopes for a recovery and a return to duty just as soon as possible.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, last year I had the opportunity of embarking on a programme of spending some time doing real work with other people of this province. I had the great honour of spending some time on the fish boat, Western Warrior. It is a purse seine boat, and today the crew of the Western Warrior are with us: Captain Johnny Watson and his wife; John Sponza; Eldon Mickelchuk; Dan Ralph; Olav Olafson; George Olafson; and their wives. I ask the House to welcome them.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, seated in the gallery are 80 students from the Greek community of Vancouver-Burrard, accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Pappas. I'd like the House to join me in saying "yassou" to those students.

Introduction of bills.

Oral questions.

FUNDS FOR STUDENT SUMMER JOBS

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Mr. Speaker, a

[ Page 3860 ]

question to the Minister of Labour: with reference to Bill 101, Special Provincial Employment Programmes Act, providing an amount not exceeding $30 million to stimulate and promote employment for students, why were students who applied on May 23, 1974, advised that there were no further funds when, in fact, Bill 101 only provided the funds by law on May 30, 1974?

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, of course the development of the programme and the selection of the different areas of the province which would be mounting the programmes had to be done much prior to the time that the bill was passed in the House. Accordingly, the employment requirements in terms of the numbers of people that could be employed was designated and, in fact, fully subscribed up to that point in time.

It's not a question of when the money was allocated; it's a question of when the programmes were fully subscribed to and endorsed by the various branches by the department.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Supplemental to the Minister of Labour: in view of the fact that there are 1,257 job vacancies in greater Victoria alone, and there seems to be nobody available to fill these jobs, and a large number of these jobs happen to be in the tourist industry, where is the Member finding the students and the persons to fill these job vacancies this summer?

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that employment is so good in the province, that we do, in fact, have a shortage of manpower. That's a distinctive departure from the old days of Social Credit.

There were some 12,000 jobs created under the various programmes of the student summer employment programme. There is a variation in the programmes put forward. There was STEP and SWEEP and Initiative '74 — these were all programmes based on different concepts. Some were to develop expertise in their chosen professions for university students; some of the programmes were to provide employment experience, job experience, for those people in high school so that they may later obtain references and so on. Some were, in fact, assistance to private enterprise to assist them in securing students for the summer.

Now, although the bill was not passed through the Legislature prior to the end of May, in effect the advertising for all these programmes — so the community could be aware of the assistance available to them — started much, much before that, as I think the House is aware. Of course, we now have the authority of the House to make the expenditures, once the programmes are initiated.

MR. PHILLIPS: A further supplementary, Mr. Speaker: in view of the fact that the Minister does recognize that there is a shortage of persons to fill jobs in British Columbia, how can he then justify spending public moneys on many programmes which will be make-work programmes?

HON. MR. KING: I think that justification is very, very easy, Mr. Speaker. I think what we are providing in the way of positive employment with good remuneration to students enables them to further their education with a minimum of grants from the government directly, which was the case in the past. I think that it's preferential from a social point of view, as far as this government is concerned, to have people involved in gainful employment, worthwhile job experiences rather than have them on the dole of grants and so on to ensure that they receive a good education in our society.

CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS
LET TO NON-UNION FIRMS

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Labour: Has the Minister investigated complaints by the B.C. Construction Association that a government contract has been given to a non-union firm to build 150 condominium units, town house units, at Champlain Heights?

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, this is the first I've heard of the incident. If the Member has some communication on it, I'd be pleased to look at it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: May I further ask in a supplementary whether it will be government policy for houses constructed under the Department of Housing to go to union contractors?

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, that involves an interpretation of the laws that exist on the statute books. There are many varying circumstances that I wouldn't want to give a carte blanche answer on a hypothetical question. That could well be the case, but it depends on the circumstances involved.

MR. SPEAKER: I would point out that it appears to be a solution to the legal proposition that is already on the statute books.

DISPOSITION OF A REQUEST
FROM MRS. MARIE MILLS

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, this seems to be the

[ Page 3861 ]

Minister of Labour's big day. I'd also like to ask him whether he intends to reply to the request of Mrs. Marie Mills, who is an admitting officer at the Gorge Road Hospital, for a meeting to discuss her personal situation in regard to the first agreement at Gorge Road Hospital. I might say she wrote to the Minister on May 8.

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I make a habit of answering all my correspondence and arranging meetings with everyone who requests a meeting wherever possible. I'm not familiar with this particular request, but I'll certainly investigate it and report back to the House if the Member wishes.

MR. WALLACE: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the Minister if any consideration is being given to allowing employees of long standing to have exemption from compulsory union membership when a first collective agreement is being considered — members of long-standing, people employed 11 years prior to the first agreement.

HON. MR. KING: Well, there is no statutory requirement that anyone belong to a trade union in the province. That is a condition of their collective agreement between the employer and the bargaining agent, so there's no statutory requirement as far as the Department of Labour is concerned, either now or was there ever in the past.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I think the Hon. Member has taken off on a different tack in questions, has he not?

MR. WALLACE: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I'm simply trying to ask if the Minister was giving any consideration to people of long standing who have been employees for, say, 11 years prior to the first collective agreement, being excused either union membership or the paying of union dues, if this is their choice. That's the question.

MR. SPEAKER: I think that is a matter of law, really, and not for interpretation by a Minister.

MOTOR CARRIER
RATE INCREASES

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Mr. Minister, there's a great deal of concern among all the licensed motor carriers in this province over, first of all, the phasing out of the PUC, then the inaction of the new commission that has been appointed to investigate rate increases. They've put the problem to you in the form of a brief on April 18 and to date they've had no reply and no action. Would the Minister indicate how soon there will be some action taken on this very important matter?

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): I want to let the Member know that applications to the Motor Carrier Commission are being processed much more expeditiously than at any time in history. So you were wrong in point No. 1.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. STRACHAN: 2. I have applied for and been given permission to, as I told you during estimates, add eight or nine more people into that department.

3. You said "no reply and no action." I did reply to the telegram sent to me. The Motor Carrier Commission met with the representative of the ATA. Every application that has been put forward to the commission for an increase has been met.

Further, as I say, we're going to try and get some extra staff. Indeed, I expect a flood of them now. We cannot at the present time…. Now, let me say that next Friday the chairman of the Motor Carrier Commission is meeting with the new president of the ATA. But there is a process and a procedure laid down. What they were asking for was a blanket increase across the way.

Now, they have differing cost increases and the Motor Carrier Commission was set up to bring some equity into it, and it's been handling it in that way. But the chairman of the Motor Carrier Commission is meeting with the new president of the ATA on Friday.

MR. SMITH: This coming Friday?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes.

DATE FOR TAKE-OVER
OF AMBULANCE SERVICES

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): A question to the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker. During debate on the Emergency Health Services Act, the Minister indicated at that time that the target date for take-over of the ambulance services was still July 1. In view of the fact that some municipalities have been told that date can't be reached, is there a new date for take-over of the services in the province?

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I indicated at that time, during the debate, that we wanted to be into the ambulance service on

[ Page 3862 ]

July 1. Now to be able to implement every aspect of our direction by July I would be impossible. As far as taking over individual ambulance services throughout the province, that will take a little time and I can't give you the exact date for a specific area. Although I could do, if I was asked the question direct or at least if we corresponded on it or by phone call — then I could get in touch with our ambulance people and find out exactly how quickly they are prepared to move into a particular area.

MR. McCLELLAND: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Will there be any retroactive aspect to this take-over up to July 1 or back to July 1 for those municipalities which are paying grants in assistance to ambulance services now?

HON. MR. COCKE: I will have to take that as notice. I suspect that that's precisely what we will do — try to take the responsibility between July 1 and whatever time the actual take-over has occurred.

RCMP QUESTIONING OF
15-YEAR OLD STUDENT

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Education: Is the Minister aware of an incident earlier this year in North Vancouver School District 44 where apparently a student, 15 years of age, was removed from school and interrogated by RCMP officers with respect to an alleged offence, and that the questioning included the parents' place of employment, nature of their employment and other matters?

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): I was not aware of that specific case, but I would like to make it clear that we have very stringent regulations that no child or student should be interviewed without the parents being called in.

MR. CURTIS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. That has been made apparent to this particular case. To assist the Minister, I would refer her to a letter dated February 7, from Mr. Elrod. But have these instructions been repeated for all school districts and all district superintendents? Apparently as recently as February-March, the matter was not being strictly adhered to.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I don't remember the date that I asked those instructions be sent out again. It could have been just following February. I'll check on it for you, Mr. Member, but they have gone out.

FIRENZA CASE SUB JUDICE

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): My question is addressed to the Minister of Consumer Services. Did the Minister in discussion with the B.C. auto dealers on Friday afternoon discuss the Firenza subject, a subject which is before the courts now?

HON. P.F. YOUNG (Minister of Consumer Services): Mr. Speaker, I alluded to the case in that there was a case.

MR. MORRISON: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact then that this subject is sub judice and that it was rather a lengthy discussion, does the Minister feel that she has prejudiced the case by discussing this subject with the dealers at that time?

HON. MS. YOUNG: No, I don't, Mr. Speaker. I merely repeated the charges that had been made by the federal Department of Consumer Affairs.

ASSISTANCE FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: To the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Speaker: may I ask the Minister whether he's rejected the request for provincial government support for a residential treatment centre for autistic children here in Victoria?

HON. N. LEVI (Minister of Human Resources): Yes, we have. We met with them, I think, two weeks ago today and there were to be some continuing discussions between the board of the Autistic Society, Mr. John Noble of my department and Mr. John Walsh of the Education department.

The House might be interested to know that we are providing, at the moment, continuing assistance to some of those children within the school system.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: May I ask the Minister a supplementary, then? Are the continuing discussions dealing with the possible establishment of a residential centre or are they simply dealing with other methods and ways of helping the students concerned?

HON. MR. LEVI: They are dealing with alternative methods of use of existing facilities and that kind of thing. Those discussions were agreed to when I was present, and they are continuing.

Orders of the day.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Public bills and orders, Mr. Speaker. I have been informed by the Clerks that a report on Bill 87 would be in order today. Although it is noted in the orders of the day that it is not printed I have been informed that it has been printed. So I call report on Bill 87.

[ Page 3863 ]

PUBLIC WORKS FAIR EMPLOYMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

Bill 87 read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 102, Mr. Speaker.

The House in committee on Bill 102; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 5 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 102, Income Tax Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 109, Mr. Speaker.

COMMUNITY CARE FACILITIES
LICENSING AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 109; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 11 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 109, Community Care Facilities Licensing Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave of the House to discharge third reading of Bill 102 to permit me to move amendments in my name on the order paper. (Laughter.) (See appendix.)

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 102, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Committee on Bill 102 — it would happen when the Quebec assembly is here. (Laughter.)

INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 102; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Amendment to section 1 approved.

Section 1 as amended approved.

Sections 2 to 4 inclusive approved.

On section 5.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. (See appendix.)

Section 5 as amended approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 102, Income Tax Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete with amendments.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): On a point of order, so that we don't have a third run-through may I ask, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Finance intends to move the section 6 amendment standing in his name on the order paper?

MR. SPEAKER: Is there another amendment? Good heavens!

MR. CURTIS: Oh, I see — section 5. We're all human. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. BARRETT: I believe that two of us out of 55 made a mistake today. (Laughter.)

Bill 102, Income Tax Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

[ Page 3864 ]

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 113, Mr. Speaker.

TUBERCULOSIS INSTITUTIONS
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 113; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Section 1 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 113, Tuberculosis Institutions Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 91, Mr. Speaker.

POLICE ACT

The House in committee on Bill 91; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive approved.

On section 4.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): I move the amendment standing in my name on page 23 of the order paper. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 4 as amended approved.

Sections 5 and 6 approved.

On section 7.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments standing in my name on the order paper. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 7 as amended approved.

Sections 8 to 12 inclusive approved.

On section 13.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment, Mr. Chairman. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 13 as amended approved.

On section 14.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment, Mr. Chairman. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 14 as amended approved.

On section 15.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment, Mr. Chairman. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 15 as amended approved.

On section 16.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): I would just like to ask the Attorney-General whether or not any consultation was done with the RCMP before this section was put in, what their opinion is of it and whether they can live with it, in fact, under the terms of that section.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the answer is yes, there was consultation, of course, at the local level in that the assistant commissioner was part of our deliberations leading up to the Act. Further to that there was a meeting with the top staff of the RCMP in Ottawa in Solicitor-General Allmand's office. As a result of that there were amendments not to this section but to another section dealing with the disciplinary code within the RCMP. So they were fully aware of the Act and I think they are happy with it.

MR. McCLELLAND: All right, they were fully aware. But were there any reservations expressed by the RCMP with this section?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Not with this section.

Sections 16 to 18 inclusive approved.

On section 19.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 19. (See appendix.)

[ Page 3865 ]

Amendment approved.

Section 19 as amended approved.

Sections 20 and 21 approved.

On section 22.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 22. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 22 as amended approved.

On section 23.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 23. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 23 as amended approved.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 24. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 24 as amended approved.

On section 25.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 25. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 25 as amended approved.

Sections 26 and 27 approved.

On section 28.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 28. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

On section 28 as amended.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Section 28 says: "Where a board is of the opinion that its municipal force requires assistance in the performance of one or more of its duties and functions, the board may appoint such persons as it considers necessary as special municipal constables."

Would the Minister indicate to the House where he thinks this special provision of the Act would be required, and under what circumstances?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, the special constables for the most part are game wardens and peace officers who are not full-time policemen. In this respect the municipality might be in difficulty and the board can make recommendations to supplement the existing force.

Section 28 as amended approved.

Section 29 approved. On section 30.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 30. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 30 as amended approved. section 31 approved. On section 32.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 32. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 32 as amended approved.

Sections 33 to 36 inclusive approved. On section 37;

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 37. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 37 as amended approved.

Sections 38 and 39 approved. On section 40.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 40. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 40 as amended approved.

Sections 41 to 57 inclusive approved. On section 58.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 58. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 58 as amended approved.

Sections 59 and 60 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

[ Page 3866 ]

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 91, Police Act, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 114, Mr. Speaker.

ACCF.LERATED PARK DEVELOPMENT
FUND AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 114; Mr. Dent in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. McCLELLAND: Can I just ask the Minister, Mr. Chairman, whether or not any of this money will be spent in any of the regional parks to develop some regional park facilities?

HON. MR. BARRETT: No, Mr. Member.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 114, Accelerated Park Development Fund Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 124, Mr. Speaker.

REAL ESTATE AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 124; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 5 inclusive approved. On section 6.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendments to section 6. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 6 as amended approved. section 7 approved. On section 8.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 8. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 8 as amended approved.

Sections 9 to 13 inclusive approved. On section 14.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I move the amendment to section 14. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 14 as amended approved.

Schedules 2 and 3 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 124, Real Estate Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 147, Mr. Speaker.

ASSESSMENT AUTHORITY OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA ACT

The House in committee on Bill 147; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 9 inclusive approved. On section 10.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I move the amendments to section 10. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 10 as amended approved.

Section 11 approved. On section 12.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I move the amendments to section 12. (See appendix.)

Amendments approved.

Section 12 as amended approved.

[ Page 3867 ]

Section 13 approved.

On section 14.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I move the amendments to section 14. (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 14 as amended approved.

Sections 15 to 22 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 147, Assessment Authority of British Columbia Act, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 149, Mr. Speaker.

LOGGING TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 149; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 149, Logging Tax Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 138, Mr. Speaker.

MOTOR-VEHICLE
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 138; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 6 inclusive approved.

On section 7.

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper creating section 7 (a). (See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

Section 7 as amended approved.

Sections 8 to 11 inclusive approved.

On section 12.

MR. McCLELLAND: When I first noticed that this section was being repealed, I thought somebody had taken some action about a problem I raised in his House some time ago with regard to an Aldergrove resident whose driver's licence was cancelled because of an indebtedness he had with the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund.

This section of the Motor-vehicle Act, of course, allows the Motor Vehicle Branch to suspend licences if there is a debt owed by the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund. It is no longer in operation, I guess, so that's the reason for the appeal of this subsection of the section.

But once I read the Act again, Mr. Chairman, I see that nothing really has been done in this case. It's really not fair to a person who can have his one means of going into bankruptcy proceedings effectively stymied because of this section 1n the Act. It means that while bankruptcy proceedings, for instance, are open to almost everybody else in the province, a person who is in trouble with the Motor Vehicle Branch doesn't have that same road open to him because the branch has the opportunity to cancel his licence. That person then cannot pursue a normal livelihood.

I would suggest the proper thing to have done would have been to have cancelled this whole section 1n consultation with the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), who promised to look into this problem. I assume he is still looking into it because I have never heard any more from him. There has to be a better way of handling these things.

If a person owes a debt, he has normal ways in which he fulfils that obligation. But for the Motor Vehicle Branch to be able to hold a further hammer over the head of a person who is in indebtedness just isn't fair. In my opinion, it kind of cuts across the legal rights of an individual.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: As the Member says, for many years the private insurance companies have

[ Page 3868 ]

been able to request the cancellation of a licence if any individual was failing to meet his regular payments to the….

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, but it's more than the private insurance companies; it's the superintendent of motor vehicles too.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, that's right. As I recollect the wording, he "may." But it was a matter of fact that this was done.

We're repealing section 84. Added to that, as a matter of policy within the department, is the fact that we will not — I emphasize the word "not" — allow the cancellation of any driver's licence upon the request of an insurance company because of anything that happened with regard to the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well, all right. This has already been done. I'd suggest maybe you could look at a case that has already been handled that way. You could perhaps go back and look at that one over again.

Section 84 isn't being repealed; only section 84(3) is being repealed. So the superintendent of motor vehicles still has the legal right under this Act to cancel a person's licence if he has a judgment against him with regard to any kind of an accident or proceedings from an accident for damages resulting from bodily injury to or the death of another or damage to property in an amount exceeding $250.

So you still have that legislation there, regardless of what you say. If it's going to be policy, what's the point of having that legislation?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, this repeals section 84 (3).

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, but not section 84, which gives the superintendent of motor vehicles the same right as the private insurance companies had under the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The superintendent of motor vehicles does have the right to cancel a driver's licence for cause.

MR. McCLELLAND: Why don't you sit down and read this section for a moment? It says that it gives exactly the same right to the superintendent of motor vehicles as the private insurance companies had in the past.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: No.

MR. McCLELLAND: It does, Mr. Minister. It allows the superintendent to cancel a driver's licence if that driver is in default of any kind of judgment anywhere in Canada or the United States.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the section that enabled the superintendent specifically to cancel a licence because somebody was not paying back to the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund what that fund had paid out to some other party was section 84 (3). This Legislature is, hopefully, about to repeal section 84 (3). That will eliminate the underpinnings for any kind of a cancellation that now exists.

MR. McCLELLAND: There's no reason for a Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund any more. It's meaningless.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, the fund is still there. Of course it is still there. The fund is the creditor of a great many people in the Province of British Columbia. It is still owned by the private companies. But there will be no official backing up of their requests to cancel a licence from here on.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): We have a situation now which refers to this. Because of certain laws in the United States, a motor vehicle insured under ICBC, travelling in the United States, where they are in collision with an uninsured vehicle in certain states in the United States…. That indemnity fund could come back on the individual. In a case like this the superintendent has the right to cancel a motor vehicle licence because of a claim like that.

Maybe the Minister would like to tell the House this afternoon whether he's going on an advertising campaign with ICBC to tell people that this type of insurance is now available for an additional cost of $5 — or included in his normal ICBC policy.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I read Wasserman's column too, the one that drew attention to that particular instance. I intend to discuss it with the other directors in a meeting that we're having this week.

Section 12 approved.

Sections 13 to 18 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

[ Page 3869 ]

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 138, Motor-vehicle Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete with amendment to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 133, Mr. Speaker.

LEASEHOLD AND CONVERSION
MORTGAGE LOAN ACT

The House in committee on Bill 133; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 16 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 133, Leasehold and Conversion Mortgage Loan Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 140, Mr. Speaker.

PROVINCIAL HOME ACQUISITION
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 140; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 6 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 140, Provincial Home Acquisition Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Committee on Bill 145, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO RATIFY AN AGREEMENT
BEARING DATE THE 16TH DAY OF NOVEMBER,
1964, BETWEEN THE CITY OF PRINCE RUPERT,
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY COMPANY, AND
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN HER RIGHT OF
HER PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

The House in committee on Bill 145; Mr. Dent in the chair.

Sections 1 to 4 inclusive approved.

Schedule 2 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 145, An Act to Ratify An Agreement Bearing Date the I 6th Day of November, 1964, between the City of Prince Rupert, Canadian National Railway Company and Her Majesty the Queen in Her Right of Her Province of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1974, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, second reading of Bill 18.

ENERGY AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, we're improving in this little bill the powers of the public represented by the Legislature with respect to energy prices and supplies in the province. Part IV has existed on the books, but the previous licensing system would prove to be cumbersome and bureaucratic and the price restraint provision in Part IV can be better implemented in terms of the kinds of amendments that are now envisaged in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, in this field, we must have these back-stop powers. I have also today filed an amendment to this Act, which will be discussed in committee, which will enable us as a government subject to resource revenue to make consumer grants to energy companies and petroleum companies, provided they are Cooperating with the price guidelines that will be enunciated from time to time by the Energy Commission.

There are certain fuel areas — and I think immediately, of course, of propane — where the

[ Page 3870 ]

average home that has to employ propane is hardest hit in terms of the cost per BTU to heat that home, and many people depend on propane because of their location — Squamish, Port Alice and many other parts of the province. That price has been very, very high and very difficult to control because half of it, at least, comes from the Province of Alberta.

I'm thinking too in terms of home-heating oil which again compared to our natural gas is an expensive home-heating energy source. I have the figures, but I don't see any point in going into them. I think all the Members understand that home-heating oil per BTU is more expensive and some people, of course, cannot take advantage of the natural gas which is piped into many of the communities of British Columbia, but not all. Vancouver Island is a good example of where that kind of cheap energy source cannot be used.

So we think that we should be free, if we do assist those who really need the assistance most in terms of any kind of a consumer energy grant, to insist at the same time, to give us that additional clout if you will, that the petroleum companies meet provincial guidelines in that they are as fair as can be with respect to what they charge for their products to the people of the province.

We're also concerned in this field that if we're going to have guidelines in any fairness, we have to be concerned about refining capacity in the Province of British Columbia. We as a government are concerned about that. We have now a short-fall, in terms of crude refining capacity, of about 20,000 barrels per day. And it would be unfortunate if we had to sit back and watch the big oil companies go ahead with their plans, which they've had for a long time, to build refineries and petrochemical industries in Alberta and ship the product out to the Province of B.C. at a higher price instead of doing the refining ourselves.

I think to get control of this situation so we're not in a situation of total disarmament in the face of the multi-national international oil companies, that we should have greater refining capacity in the Province of British Columbia, and that's something to which earnest attention is being given at the present time.

The product will not be a problem because we have the Trans-Mountain going through us to Cherry Point.

We will be speaking, and have been speaking, in terms of export permits with the federal government, and we are on good terms, relatively speaking, not with the government but with the National Energy Board in that respect.

You know, when the Alaska oil comes in and comes down the Pacific coast, it might amount within about four years to as much as two million barrels per day. So I don't think we're facing oil shortages after the immediate hump by any means, but we are facing a shortage of refining capacity in the Province of British Columbia which is going to accelerate through the years. It's 20,000 now; it's going to be much more in a few years time.

What we're asking from the Legislature at this time is the back-stop powers and the ability to become, as part of the programme of this government, masters in our own house in British Columbia as far as we reasonable may, so we think we should have Part IV of the Energy Act in a spruced-up, modern form and we think we should have these additional powers which will be the subject of amendments that are now filed on the order paper. I move second reading.

MR. SMITH: I listened intently to the remarks of the Attorney-General, and it follows what I would consider to be a traditional pattern that the Attorney-General has certainly developed over a period of time when introducing matters of legislative actions that may be a little controversial. He looks around and finds, somewhere in the course of his remarks, a straw man, builds it up, then completely flattens it and says, "This is the reason that we had to introduce or re-enact Part IV of the Energy Act, because we're concerned about the supply of energy, particularly propane and this type of produce, to the people in the Province of British Columbia, and unless we re-enact this section, of course, we won't have the control or the power that is needed to protect those people of the province."

So it's become a very familiar technique and a very familiar pattern, Mr. Attorney-General.

AN HON. MEMBER: A charade.

MR. SMITH: It is, Mr. Member, a charade in many respects. I would like to know, in re-enacting Part IV of the Energy Act, which is the provision for the regulation of the petroleum industry, why did the A-G delete requirements that the Energy Commission seek the consent of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council before implementing the powers under sections 66, 67, 68, 70 and 71?

Mr. Speaker, it was bad enough when we passed legislation in this House, or at least the government majority passed legislation in this House, providing for the variation of the provisions of certain Acts and the implementation of those Acts by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. But now it's completely unacceptable when you erode still further the responsibilities that you as a member of cabinet took an office to assume, and as a Minister of the Crown, while deleting any authority or responsibility and delegating that to a politically appointed commission — completely removed even the jurisdictional powers or the powers of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, which is the cabinet — and you put that total responsibility in the hands

[ Page 3871 ]

of a non-elected body, appointed on a political basis…

AN HON. MEMBER: Just like Alberta.

MR. SMITH: …and they will henceforth become the real power in the control and distribution of the energy sources in the Province of British Columbia.

From the day Part IV of the Energy Act is proclaimed it will be Mr. Rose who will call the tune for the petroleum industry and they're going to have to march to whatever tune that happens to be.

One principle that is paramount in my mind, and I think of great importance to any industry in this province, whether it be free or regulated, is that competitors would compete under the same rules and regulations and under the same operating and taxation regulations if we are to be able to determine accurately and fairly how a Crown corporation or any other corporation under the jurisdiction of the Crown or in which the Crown has an interest compares with industries and corporations financed by private capital.

During the last two years all Members of the opposition have witnessed enough punitive legislation and heard enough statements by Ministers and government backbenchers, really flying trial balloons for Ministers, to know you have no intention of fair and equitable treatment, particularly when you decide, at the discretion of the cabinet, to enter into the petroleum refining business in the Province of British Columbia. I predict that that's the direction you are going, Mr. Attorney-General, and that you have full intentions of setting up some sort of a refining facility in the Province of British Columbia through a Crown corporation controlled under the Energy Act. It's there and I think this is the direction in which you are proceeding.

The day that happens will be the day that you will use the provisions of this Act to create what I would consider and call a favourite nations treatment on behalf of your own Crown corporation as between it and other competing companies. You'll give them preferential treatment on a preferential basis.

If the Attorney-General or any other person doesn't agree with that statement I would like those people to look at the provisions and anomalies of section 66(2) (b) and (c), and section 70(b) and (c).

I submit that these sections provide the vehicle to allow favourite concessions to one or more competing companies, including a new competitor such as a government sponsored cooperative petroleum marketing corporation or a Government-controlled and — managed corporation. One way or another, that's what the direction is, as I see it.

The powers to abuse and strangle legitimate competition should be removed instead of re-enacted in this legislation. It is desirable in any industry, including the petroleum industry, to follow the principle of obtaining the lowest net cost possible, thereby providing products and services to the consumers at the best price possible. This was the intent of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, and look what's happening there. We're subsidizing it out of general revenue now in order to give the corporation a favourable balance sheet at the end of the year so that they can deceive the people who buy insurance and tell them that they are operating for less cost than they really are.

Because of vague and unclear terms the implementation of this bill, particularly as it refers to price in sections 68, 69 and 71, will become a bureaucratic and unworkable nightmare. There are available in the province about 400 different petroleum products including gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, jet fuel, oils and greases, just to name a few of them — 400 different categories of products available in the Province of British Columbia.

Just what does this bill mean when it refers to the price of petroleum products? I'd like the Attorney-General to verify what he thinks it means when he closes debate, on second reading. Will each separate petroleum product be subject to control by this amendment? If that is the intention, how many inspectors have you hired or will you have to hire, or how many people are waiting in the wings for a job which will be created by the implementation of this particular section?

One point I must raise with respect to lowest cost control. Sections 67 to 73 of the old Part IV were eliminated. This was done, as the Attorney-General said at that time, in recognition of the bureaucracy and red tape which would be involved in administering the licensing activities of the individuals not licensed under the previous Act. The Attorney-General himself admitted at that time that it would be an impossibility to set up the machinery and enforce it without costing the people and the taxpayers of this province a tremendous amount of money.

However, Mr. Attorney-General, section 72(k) in Bill 18 reintroduces the same potential in a generally worded style. Why? Who are you trying to fool? Did you think you could remove it from prominent exposure and then slip in the provisions by a backdoor method? Is this the reason for section 72(k)?

I submit, through you, Mr. Speaker, that the potential for a bureaucracy controlled by the government to withhold approval of a licence, or grant it, under the sole powers assigned to the commission is still there. They'll be the ones to decide who needs a licence and who does not receive one. It's not as prevalent or as noticeable as it was before, but it's still there. I say to the Attorney-General that if he wishes to play fair with

[ Page 3872 ]

the public of this province that provision should be deleted forthwith.

Several sections refer to sellers of petroleum products. Under the Act you are giving the commission the exclusive right to establish a system of registration and licensing of sellers. They can grant approval for different prices for different areas of the province, and they can grant approval for schedules of pricing different qualities, quantities, standards, grades and kinds of petroleum products. It's a very interesting point.

I would like the Attorney-General to tell me: will individual service station operators be classified as sellers? Will they? If so, does this mean that the commission will determine the retail pump price between dealers and their customers? Is that what you intend?

Also, if you intend to license the retail sellers of petroleum products in the Province of British Columbia, will this commission give certain preferential treatment to one company, or a seller representing one company as compared to another, particularly if it happens to be a question of location and preferential treatment to a Crown-sponsored corporation as compared to the other companies who are presently in the business of serving the public in the Province of British Columbia?

Interjection.

MR. SMITH: There's not? If so, how do you propose to rationally and fairly establish the retail pump price for, say, Prince George as opposed to Vanderhoof, where sales volume and unit cost show demonstrable differences and deficiencies? Certainly if you are going to get into that area, which I believe is your intent, you are going to have to determine the actual costs of operation in one part of the province as compared to another.

Now if retail dealers are to be classified as sellers, do you intend to use a licensing requirement to restrict the number of retail outlets, or to give preferential treatment to one brand operator as opposed to another? The impact this legislation will have on the petroleum industry in this province I would like to comment on for a few minutes.

Certainly there's a feeling in the industry of uncertainty because legislation which is purposely vague, purposely indefinite and subject to interpretation by an appointed commission creates a great uncertainty throughout the industry with respect to their future. They've talked to every Member of this House, I believe, about feeling uncertainty with respect to their future, and certainly I know that they've made their views known to the Attorney-General.

The only conclusion we can come to is that the Attorney-General has already chartered his course and he has no intention of listening to the valid objections and complaints of a large industry in this province — no more so than the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) is prepared to listen to some of the legitimate complaints of people who are operating in the forest industry of this province.

You know, if there's uncertainty among the people who operate in this particular industry in this province, then there will be uncertainty in the minds of the people who supply them with finance for expansion and moderation.

Certainly the Attorney-General must realize that when those conditions exist capital dries up, particularly loan capital. Bankers and other financial institutions suddenly decide the risk is too great, particularly in view of a very unpredictable return.

I can imagine a representative of industry going to a large banking concern after this becomes law, asking for substantial capital in the form of a loan to finance expansion of their operations or modernization, and being asked by the bank manager to interpret what really will' happen to them under this section of the Act. They're going to have to turn and say, "We really don't know." It's all left in the discretionary hand and to the exclusive power of an appointed commission appointed by the Act itself with no further recourse through the members of cabinet or this Legislative Assembly.

It will be interesting to find out, in view of this, what happens to the life blood of the petroleum industry which is new exploration in the province.

We have to compare ourselves with those people who have the availability of petroleum to them in their particular province. Of course, the closest comparison we can make is with the Province of Alberta. It is a matter of record that the reserves proved up in Alberta last year amounted to some 370 million barrels of potential product. The exploration expenditure to find those reserves amounted to $75 million. It doesn't take any great mathematician, Mr. Attorney-General, to realize that the potential cost of production from those reserves per barrel amounts to $5 a barrel.

Certainly we can no longer look for cheap petroleum products, either in Canada or any other part of the world. The highly-producing, low-cost reserves have been pretty well developed. The step outs today are into areas of extremely high drilling costs and, quite often, very minimum potential return. The only exception to that as far as potential return is the Athabasca tar sands which have a tremendous potential in terms of recoverable hydrocarbons. But it's a very expensive area to develop. The cost will be well in excess of the $5 per barrel that the Province of Alberta knows it costs them to locate the 370 million barrels of reserve product they did locate last year. There's going to be

[ Page 3873 ]

a great increase in the price of petroleum products. There has to be if you consider the fact that those reserves will be very expensive to develop.

We look at the Arctic and its potential. It's staggering when you consider the cost of drilling wells and then, in some way, figure out methods of financing a pipeline to transport the reserves to the parts of Canada that can use them and refine them.

The Attorney-General has referred to the present shortfall in the petroleum refining industry in the Province of British Columbia. The figures I have differ slightly from the Attorney-General because the figures I've received indicate a shortfall presently of 25,000 barrels a day. The projection is that this shortfall will increase yearly by 5,000 to 8,000 barrels a day.

It's also an economic fact of life that the minimum size of a refinery to be economic is 150,000 barrels of production a day and that it should fall in the area between 150,000 and a maximum of 250,000 barrels a day to be economic.

It's very apparent that at the present time, with only a shortfall of 25,000 barrels a day, a new refinery for the Province of British Columbia is going to be a very expensive venture regardless of who gets involved, whether it be the provincial government or one of the other corporations.

Probably the most economic answer to that problem is an increase in the refining capacity of some of our present facilities to put in additional, expanded facilities — a couple of cat crackers and a high tower and possibly some modernization of the present refining capacity to increase their production potential from whatever it is presently to accommodate the increased shortfall of 25,000 barrels a day.

It is also obvious that regardless of how we increase our refining capacity in this province, we don't have the product to supply it. If, as a result of uncertainty in the exploration field, the companies divert their exploration capital from the Province of British Columbia to the high Arctic or to the Mackenzie delta or to the Province of Alberta, we will never produce enough product in the Province of British Columbia to accommodate our demand for that product on a refined basis.

It is possible, I suppose, that we can look to Alberta to supply that shortfall as they're presently doing. But when you look at the increased costs of potential production in the Province of Alberta we realize that the cost to ourselves is going to be fairly substantially increased regardless of what happens and who produces the additional product or refines it.

One of the conclusions, I suppose — and perhaps the conclusion the Attorney-General has already got in mind with re-enacting section 4 of the Energy Act — is that, because of these problems of increased refining capacity and of higher costs, the Attorney-General will decide that it will be an opportune time to move in and take over the petroleum industry in the Province of British Columbia. He will do it on the basis that the government will be able to supply the product to the people of the province cheaper than the industry itself can do.

I say that you have a right, if you so desire, to control the petroleum industry. But along with that right you have an obligation to spell out your policy to the industry in clear definitive terms. You have an obligation when you present legislation to this House to have that legislation clearly indicate to the industry what part they will be allowed to play in British Columbia's future.

If you are pursuing a course of takeover, why don't you say so? If you intend to enter into the production and sale of petroleum products through a Crown corporation, say so. To date your policy has been lukewarm; it has not been very well defined. In some cases it's non-existent. Too much discretionary power is left in the hands of the commission.

It creates an uneasy climate and precipitates action by these companies in areas other than in the Province of British Columbia when it comes to increasing their exploration for hydrocarbon energy.

Mr. Attorney-General, regardless of what you may have said in opening second reading of this bill, this legislation does nothing to improve the situation. It's not going to help, in my opinion, to create any further petroleum products in this province or provide it to the people of this province at any less cost. The deliberate use of vague terms and granting of extreme arbitrary powers to the Energy Commission, which you have done by the provisions this Act, leaves us no alternative. We will have to oppose the bill, Mr. Attorney — General, because of those reasons which I have outlined.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): The debate on this is more or less two-fold. First, we have the bill itself and, secondly, the statements of the Attorney-General. If I could start at the statement of the Attorney-General and the comments he made, perhaps I could raise a few queries which come to mind and which he could, I trust, clear up when he comes back into the debate and SUMS UP for the government.

First, the Attorney-General mentioned increasing refining capacity in British Columbia. I can agree that the reasons he gave are excellent on the face of it; we need more refining capacity and he wishes to have refining capacity carried out in the province. But it seems totally contradictory to the position taken by the Premier with respect to his conversations with Premier Lougheed of Alberta, namely the control a province exercises in terms of processing of their own

[ Page 3874 ]

raw materials.

Lougheed in Alberta, as is well known to all Canadians, has the desire, Mr. Speaker, of establishing a petrochemical industry in Alberta. Unless the Attorney-General comes up with a more convincing comment than the very, very off-hand remark that, "We're going to increase refining capacity" — and presumably that means importing crude from Alberta at least initially…. I'll go on to the other reference he made in a moment.

But as far as I can gather from everything that Lougheed said and, indeed, everything that the other leaders in Alberta have said, we're going to find out that we're not going to get Albertan crude because they want to refine it. Obviously they want to have the petrochemical complex just as far as possible within the confines of Alberta.

If I am wrong on this, I have missed the point of the discussions by Premier Lougheed which I heard both at the Western Economic Opportunities Conference, which I attended as an observer, and the federal-provincial energy conference.

We are now, I think, coming up to one of the areas where the government's — and the Premier's in particular — statements, conflicting statements, are going to have to be reconciled. He has cast scorn upon federal efforts to regulate the price across the country, reduce the price, and insulate Canada and B.C. In particular, I would say, as far as we are concerned, from world price effects. Yet at the same time he has taken a position of supporting publicly the Premier of Alberta in his efforts to have total provincial control over products such as oil and natural gas.

I don't understand this dilemma. I cannot see how we in B.C. can argue in favour of greater processing of our own raw materials, of maximum processing for ourselves, and at the same time attempt to get maximum processing of an Alberta product when we know full well that the Premier of Alberta wants to process that just as far as he can.

There seems to be a real conflict with respect to any oil we would receive through Trans Mountain Pipe or any other system from Alberta. I raise this simply for clarification It's not a point of debate really. What does the Attorney-General mean by that reference? What has been the extent of our discussions with Alberta? Are we to build new refineries and then find out we're not to get Canadian crude? If we don't get Canadian crude and we turn to the second source of crude the Attorney-General mentioned, which is American crude, we are getting into some very sticky areas indeed.

First, it is totally contrary to both Canadian national policy….

Interjections.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, the Attorney-General adds — which is not being picked up by Hansard…. If I'm wrong perhaps he'll correct me, but I believe he stated that we are not going to American crude but there will be a surplus on the coast because of the Alaska delivered American crude. Am I right on that, Mr. Attorney-General?

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Yes, but then we go back to the first point, Mr. Attorney-General: using this excess that comes down through Trans Mountain just doesn't seem feasible in the political sense. It may be technically feasible. It may be economically feasible. But surely, given the public stand of our Premier and the Premier of Alberta, it's not politically feasible.

It just doesn't make sense to argue that because American crude will replace Canadian crude in the Pacific northwest and because Trans Mountain will stop delivering crude to the south at some foreseeable time in the future — this, I think, will be news to Trans Mountain as well as some of their suppliers in Alberta…. Assuming all this takes place, the assumption that we in our turn can pick up all that other crude is yet to be proven or yet even to be hinted at by the people who probably count a lot more than we do; namely, the suppliers — which essentially means the Government of Alberta.

Now I don't know how the government intends to get around that, because we might have great refineries built in British Columbia which would rival for stupidity the great heavy water plants put up in Nova Scotia by the leader of the Conservative Party nationally. They are useless edifices, rusting, because it just doesn't work.

Now if we can't get the crude for that, we might well wind up in exactly the same position — a massive capital investment with little return.

Sure, the Attorney-General will no doubt suggest that there will be other sources. But other sources are very unreliable, as recent events have proven. We need the protection offered by the Canadian federalism — the umbrella that was provided by essentially the federal government and the two producing provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan — which was hammered out over the last few months. We need that. Indeed, it would be most unwise for us to go into offshore purchases of any sort in light of the possible disruption.

If you add into that the fact that offshore deliveries are quite contrary to both provincial policy as well as national policy on the west coast at the present time — for a number of reasons, not the only one of which is environmental — you get yourself into a very interesting box as far as I can see. I just don't see a way out of it.

I think that the suggestion you made, Mr.

[ Page 3875 ]

Attorney-General, may be on the face of it interesting. But it's going to have to be looked into very closely. You simply haven't been at all convincing in your statement that this greater refining capacity will be a good thing for B.C. or a feasible thing for B.C. You cannot get around, as I said, the dilemma posed by the statements made by the Premier of this province with respect to raw materials. Obviously if it applies to our raw materials it must also apply to the raw materials provided by the Province of Alberta. So that's one point.

The second one was the question of consumer grants to companies. I think you used the term "playing ball with the government" or "cooperating with the government" and with the Energy Commission. I can see the need to subsidize perhaps certain areas. You suggested one or two communities on Vancouver Island with respect to natural gas; and that may well be desirable.

But we are departing totally from the concept of pricing based upon cost just as we've done that now with automobile insurance in the most recent few days. I wonder precisely where you are going to stop — or I should say where you are starting and where you are stopping — in this particular area. If it's a few communities on Vancouver Island or the west coast or the Interior which are isolated and do rely upon either sea shipments or trucking to get natural gas or propane, fine. But are you going to extend that further to, for example, deal with people who might be serviced in the regular way by regular gas mains? I don't know and I'd like a little more on that.

The bill itself — and you know this, I'm sure, Mr. Attorney-General — is simply loaded with those things which we object to so often — namely, government powers. You've got the power here to vary an existing contract, no matter how a company deals with his customer; no matter….

The government may decide the deal is too favourable to the customer and vary it so that the government's mistakes are covered up — or the Energy Commission's mistakes — by boosting the price. You've got the power to name just about any price you like for just about any product you like. Indeed, this will take a fantastic amount of regulation. If you multiply the number of products by the number of outlets, you get a minimum of 400,000 potential transactions in any category. It might take an army of bureaucrats to organize that.

We do feel that this bill in principle — and we've got a lot of detailed amendments which we trust will be coming up later — just gives over totally to the commission the entire question of pricing. It departs totally from the idea of pricing based on cost. We just fail to understand how you intend to implement this type of legislation.

I ask you this question in all seriousness: where the legislation is specific, if we could see specific areas in here where subsidies would be paid, where these consumer grants to either buyers or sellers would be paid, we might be a little happier with it. But we're groping here simply with a bill which gives total power which might be used for the one or two communities for one or two products or might be used throughout for reasons of public policy which we just have no idea on at the present time.

Mr. Attorney-General, may I remind you of the question of automobile insurance? We were told constantly that there would be no tax money going into Autoplan. We were told constantly that the insurance aspects of Autoplan would be paid for by premiums. Then the government reversed itself. The legislation, I believe, permits this. I differ here with the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan). Things have totally changed.

Now with this legislation the same thing could happen. I plead with you to offer the House some more explanation of precisely how you intend to use the powers. We're going to vote against this in second reading because the power is too extensive. No question about that. But even despite that particular statement of mine, I do urge you to explain, perhaps to the backbenchers sitting here as well as ourselves, what you have in mind.

The industries could be completely dominated and will be completely dominated by an aggressive, energetic group heading up your Energy Commission. It could totally take over the pricing mechanism. It's going to spend a large amount of time, presumably under section 68 and thereafter, finding out the cost and insisting upon price changes based upon their findings. It's going to simply have a government agency which is going to totally direct.

Surely we should know exactly how far YOU expect to extend this particular Act. Is it going to go to the local gas station? Obviously it can go to the local gas station, no question about that. Furthermore, under this Act there is no way another gas station could set up in competition because you might well think that his advertising, for example, which is going to cost money, was wasteful.

You know a lot about expensive advertising, having done all those ICBC ads, and you may prevent him from even having a crack at the existing competition for that reason alone. The possibility of a new company breaking in with this particular legislation, as I see it, is next to nil because of your total control over pricing, your total control over variation of contracts, your total control over licensing.

Now, Mr. Attorney-General, at this stage in discussing this in principle, I won't go into the details of course, the clause by clause. But the basic objection to the Act is it is totally unclear as to what it is going to do. We know what it can do; it can totally take over this industry, drive out any

[ Page 3876 ]

company, make sweetheart deals with any cooperative which might be in competition with a private company or anything of that nature.

It can prevent new entry into the industry. It can totally control pricing for political reasons or any other reasons. I'm not saying you'd do it for political reasons — but it could. And you know that. On the grounds of these wide, sweeping powers, we find it impossible to accept unless you come up with a remarkably convincing performance in your summing up.

On the other two points, on the question of refining capacity and these consumer grants, we need again a great deal more information. I cannot get over, as I wrestle with this after hearing your words, the dilemma posed by your desire for increased refining capacity. We're simply not going to get the crude as far as I can see.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: National allocation. I talked to Macdonald.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: It's great that you have the faith that "Thumper" Macdonald will be the Minister one month hence. I might question that. (Laughter.) I've had my battles with the fellow frequently and I would think another Liberal minister might be a great deal better. But nevertheless you're clearly basing your entire bill upon Cousin Thumper.

You're basing your assumptions behind this bill upon facts which may change. The national allocation may run into the problem of provincial autonomy in these areas. Your own Premier has argued frequently in favour of the Alberta position which is contrary to the national one. He's got a joker clause about "if you nationalize everything, okay." But until that day occurs, he's supported essentially the reverse of the federal position. He's in support of the Alberta position, while at the same time taking advantage of the federal effort to keep prices at a reasonable level in this province.

I wonder, Mr. Minister, when you sum up, whether you'd spend some time dealing with that particular aspect of it.

On one final point, I have amendments in the orders of the day on this. I have amendments in my hand which I understand have been introduced today and they extend for two full foolscap pages.

The bill itself is not all that long, running to two-and-a-half sides, and you've virtually rewritten the bill. I really wonder whether it's the best type of approach to introduce a bill which is obviously imperfect, clearly defective in many respects, which you recognize yourself is defective in many respects because you've amended it by substantial alterations introduced one by order paper, and two by amendments today.

It's a difficult bill to grasp the concepts of because it goes into other legislation as well. When it is amended the very day it comes up for second reading, the difficulties are compounded.

I would suggest that you cease our discussions on this, have this withdrawn at least temporarily to be re-written, incorporating your amendments so that we could at least have a bill before us, a single document before us which illustrates what you want to do, rather than going to three different documents and realizing that one or the second one may cancel out the third and having to go back and forward leafing through it. It's just a bad way, I feel in a very technical sense, of handling this type of legislation or indeed any other.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): I've listened very closely to the comments of the opposition and this party will certainly oppose this bill.

I'm rather surprised that there's been a sense of questioning as to why there is so much power in this bill. Really this puzzles me when I think of the repeated statements we've had in this House by the Premier that the answer to all our problems in the energy field is public ownership. Public ownership means complete and total control by the government of energy sources, production, distribution, the whole field of energy resources.

So when we start from that basic, clear definition which the Premier's given in this House on many occasions, he admits that it will not be accepted as a national policy and therefore one has to deal with second-best alternatives.

I would think that this is just one of these second-best alternatives — that the Premier would love to see the oil industry and other natural resource industries completely and totally under public control, public ownership. In the meantime at least we have this bill which certainly goes some distance towards gaining the same kind of power and control. Certainly, the government has often scorned the opposition for being concerned about power to Ministers in bills, but certainly if you look through this bill, practically every heading of each section has the word "power" or "control" in it — power to regulate the petroleum industry, as it starts off, number one….

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: That's what it's about, all right. You know, Mr. Speaker, this aspect is very interesting. We have such a sanctimonious attitude by the federal NDP, how bitterly opposed they are to price control and wage control and income control and so on. They're talking out of one side of their mouth about controls, yet here we have in this bill complete and clear and total control of prices, of a certain commodity. We've already had this

[ Page 3877 ]

government set a freeze on rents. It's now going to give itself the power to control the price of gasoline and fuel oil and so on. So how is it we can have them talking out of one side of their mouth about how such a bad thing is wage and price control when out of the other side of their mouth, they're busy in effect bringing in legislation which is control? The Attorney-General needn't shake his head. We've got control on rents….

AN HON. MEMBER: Quit making foolish remarks. Quit the campaigning.

MR. WALLACE: I'm not campaigning. I'm trying to point out the contradictory nature of statements by this government.

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: The Minister agreed that the heading on section (65) says "Power to regulate the petroleum industry" and he says that's what it's all about. You're absolutely right. Right through each paragraph of the bill it just gives this government complete and total power to do anything it wants with the petroleum industry, short of outright nationalization.

I don't know why the government just doesn't try and take the industry over and go the whole route. This sort of in-between method where you try to pretend the oil companies are still independent companies, free to run their own show and you throw a bill like this at them, it's just farcical. You might as well go the whole road and nationalize the industry.

But no, that's not the way this government works. This government wants the best of both worlds. They don't want to have any of the risks and problems of ownership, but they want to have the control of prices.

That's a delightful situation to seek and it's much the same with the mining industry. They want to hammer the mining industry with royalties, but they don't want to take any of the risks of exploration by getting right in there and taking over the industry. Only when they're losing, as the Minister said, when they can't sell it, they'll stockpile the ore and then they might take it over.

So that there should be no misunderstanding about the central thrust and force of this bill — and that is that this government seeks to gain complete and total control of the actions and just about anything you can imagine that relates to the petroleum industry.

It uses delightful phraseology, Mr. Speaker. I think it's only right without quoting any particular section to say that "no person shall take any action which unduly increases the price" of the product. "Unduly increases," what a delightful phrase, "unduly increases." I can think of 50 different aspects of human endeavour where you do something "unduly."

I notice the Deputy Attorney-General smiling because he knows full well, and it must be very difficult if we ran our laws in this province by what is a price increase that is undue.

It goes on right through other headings — "power to vary approval," "power to vary contracts…. power to make regulations." And of course it always finishes up with the power of entry and seizure. When we complain about that the Attorney-General always says : "Oh, that's been in those bills for a long time." Well, remember how you used to talk about the PUC. When we complained about any bill where there was power to enter and seize documents, the Attorney-General always said: "We've got that power in lots of bills." It doesn't make it any more necessary or valid or desirable just because we've got it in other pieces of legislation.

I know this government gets very sensitive when they hear us using words like "dictatorial" and "erosion of freedoms" and so on, but in this bill we have that same kind of power given to the Minister. It mentions in section 80, the last section of this bill, that it can be considered an offence under section 114 if a seller of a product refuses to comply in certain ways. I think that the repetitive nature in which we are presented with this kind of power in repetitive legislation is bound to make the opposition very concerned that in effect the Attorney-General is taking this measure of control.

When I talked about the delightful phrase "anything that unduly increases" I hear the Minister made a statement when he introduced second reading where he said that they would consider consumer grants where companies "cooperate" — I think that was the word that the Minister used. That word, "cooperate," is another delightful word, Mr. Speaker. Cooperation is such a relative thing. Sometimes you can cooperate by just doing what you are told. Of course, other times if you show a little bit of independence and speak up you might be considered as not cooperating. So the Minister's introduction of second reading, I thought, was phrased in the equally delightful language as occurs in some of these sections about "increasing the price unduly" and consumer grants "in response to cooperation" by oil companies.

I think the former speaker, the Liberal leader, talked about the vague language in the bill. I, with respect, don't think the language is vague; I think that it's just that its meaning is endless. There's nothing vague about the language; it's just that there's words used to give the Minister the massive extent of power that he wants. There's no mystery there — it's right there in plain English.

When talking about grants I must say also that the government should not be the least bit surprised if

[ Page 3878 ]

the opposition is a little apprehensive when you start talking about grants and subsidies in the recent light of the Premier's proposition to subsidize Autoplan with money that he's already taken from the taxpayer in the form of increased gasoline prices.

We have legislation before the House that enables the Minister of Finance to extract higher royalties. A large part of the 8-cent increase is going to the provincial government and, lo and behold, the big Santa Claus Minister of Finance is going to give Autoplan subscribers a subsidy on their premium. This is presented as some kind of consumer grant, when all it's doing is bailing out Autoplan, which has fallen so short of the commitment that was made that the Premier had no alternative but to work out some kind of political gimmickry.

As I've said before, this mention by the Attorney-General today that there are going to be consumer grants to whatever companies chose to cooperate…. I suppose cooperate means in the NDP terms. Do what the NDP government wants, and cooperation that meets their approval might just lead to some kind of financial grant. Well, I think that's coming pretty close to bribery, Mr. Speaker. It's a carrot-and-stick approach.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I'm glad that the Attorney-General is confirming the fact that this is a carrot-and-stick approach. If they are good and cooperate, to use the Minister's words, then they might just get along fine with the government. But they just have the great big club of this NDP government hanging over them if they don't cooperate.

Not only does this government wield clubs and give its Ministers tremendous power….

HON. MR. COCKE: Sweeping!

MR. WALLACE: Yes, that's right sweeping powers. The only sweeping that will be done at the next election is that you'll be swept right out of office because of what you've done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WALLACE: The government laughs and mocks us because we talk about sweeping powers, but I'm really not the least bit joking when I say the reason that government over there is going to fall, Mr. Speaker, is exactly because of the kind of powers that this government is taking to itself in this kind of bill. They can laugh and joke and mock us on this side of the House, but that prediction in my view is one of the ones that will very clearly come true, and that is that that government will be defeated because of this very kind of legislation.

I am meeting people in many places who voted NDP last time. Don't kid yourself that it's just the opposition party supporters that are taking this point of view in relation to this kind of legislation. It's many people who were so sick and tired of the Socreds that they would do anything to get rid of the Socreds. So they voted NDP, but they didn't vote for this kind of bill — no, sir! That's a fact. It's the clearest fact in conclusion out of the last election that is becoming more and more obvious as every day goes by.

The trend that I sense is that many people are becoming very alarmed. I'm not talking about the extreme right-wing reactionary, either; I am talking about many people who read this kind of legislation and listen to the press reaction, the media reaction, the commentators who interpret this kind of legislation.

I'm really doing the government a good turn when I tell you just how much this reaction is occurring in the community, because if you put the brakes on and stop bringing in this kind of legislation, you just might be in power for quite a long time. But as long as you keep presenting us with this kind of bill, then that makes the future more rosier for the other 61 per cent of the voters.

To get back to the bill, Mr. Speaker…. You've been most tolerant.

The government, in addition to this kind of power which it is taking to itself, has already told the oil companies "Well, you can forget about the federal guidelines do what we say." We've had this hassle in the last week or two where the provincial government asked the oil companies who exceeded the 8-cent raise to juggle the prices around a little bit and charge a little bit more for heavy oil for industry. What you make up on the swings, you'll lose in the roundabouts. If we have this kind of horse trading going on in an informal way without regulations in effect, goodness only knows with what force the Energy Commission will come down on the heads of the oil industry once we pass this bill. I think that again is just confirmation of the Attorney-General's statement that this indeed is a carrot-and-stick approach to the control of the oil industry.

The Attorney-General, in introducing second reading, also trotted out this phrase that seems to be getting more popular every day in British Columbia — "Masters in our own home." I forget the other bill he quoted the other day…or one of the Ministers raised this phrase also, and I begin to wonder if we're getting more and more separatist in our approach in this province, or at least if the NDP government is becoming this way. If there is to be a Crown corporation which will go into the petroleum industry, are we to have the same kind of competition that we have with Plateau Mills where

[ Page 3879 ]

they take the necessary legislative steps that they don't pay for income tax?

Here again, that's the kind of competition that the NDP believes in — not equal competition. "We'll compete with you guys," they say. "We'll compete with the private sector. The private sector companies will pay income tax, but we'll cook the books, or we'll draw up the legislation in such a way that we don't pay income tax." Now that kind of competition is very clever for the government because it gives them a tremendous advantage, but I think it's just another device which enables them to make the private sector of the economy in this province more and more difficult to survive. It will lead inevitably to public ownership.

When the Minister closes the debate maybe he would tell us why this government doesn't just go the whole way and nationalize these ogres who are considered to be these companies that are alleged to rake in fantastic, excessive profits and windfalls and God-knows-what. Maybe the Minister would tell us why he wants this measure of control without going the whole way.

I'm also interested in another contradiction or apparent contradiction which maybe the Minister can clarify. We've had frequent statements in the House that people in the north country in British Columbia are not treated fairly — that many of the resources are derived from the north country but the citizens living in that part of the province are taxed or penalized in various ways which this government, and I think the opposition parties, consider to be somewhat unfair. Yet we've got a section in this bill which allows for all kinds of "power to vary" — I think is the headline — different prices for different parts of the province, different prices for sellers, schedules for different qualities, et cetera.

I thought it was the aim of this government…it certainly has been said to be the aim in regard to automobile insurance that there should be one premium price for the same car whether you drive it in Prince Rupert or Vancouver Island, and it just surprises me that we've got some clear power in this bill whereby there could be any kind of variation that the Minister or the commission desires. I wonder if the Minister could touch on that when he winds up second reading.

I think finally that the same kind of argument which I know will fall on dumb ears, or deaf ears, or whatever kind of ears that won't listen — there are none so deaf as those who will not listen — can be applied to this debate as we've applied to Bill 31. Exploration is the first part of this whole vital complicated industry. As soon as you bring in legislation or take measures which act as a disincentive, if that's the word, to exploration, then at a time when this province and this nation and in fact the whole industrialized part of the globe is desperately seeking to locate and develop greater amounts of oil and coal and all forms of resources, minerals, here we have another bill which in effect says to the industry: "We will control and regulate you from the word go until the product is finally sold." On that basis can the Minister tell us whether or not he considers that this will result in investment capital being placed elsewhere or in another industry, or at least diverted from the kind of amounts of capital which obviously are required to find new sources of oil?

If there's one subject that any citizen can read any and every day in the week in any newspaper, it is the whole question of resources — proven reserves, those reserves which are not yet proven, the exploration in all corners of the globe, in the furthest arctic or offshore. It is such a vital subject. Surely it starts with exploration and encouragement to companies and to investors to put up both the necessary money and expertise and technology to try and find new sources of oil.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Do you support Stanfield's freeze?

MR. WALLACE: I do.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: We're talking about a temporary freeze which, in the course of time…. Now I didn't ask to get into this debate. I was accused of campaigning a minute ago. I'm trying to answer the Attorney-General. We're talking about a 90-day freeze which will….

HON. MR. COCKE: What happens when it thaws?

MR. WALLACE: Well, we certainly wouldn't do what the Americans did, where you just take the lid off and let the whole thing run free. There's no purpose in controls….

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I think that at least there is some logic and consistency in the argument that you try at least even on a temporary basis to control the whole situation and not pick off rents or oil in isolation to all the other aspects of increment prices. At least we have that measure of consistency and logic, which is more than can be said about this piecemeal approach that we do in this House where one week we're talking about rent freeze, and this week it's petroleum products and gasoline. What will it be next week? Are you getting to the food industry next week, to control the price of bread and butter? You might as well. But to do it on this haphazard,

[ Page 3880 ]

piecemeal basis to me seems really unrealistic in the total picture.

You may laugh and scorn the Conservatives and their incomes and prices control policy, but there's some very substantial logic and consistency in the argument. Just because that approach has failed elsewhere or has been less successful, shall we say, it hasn't failed everywhere. The Americans did a better job of controlling inflation than most other countries. The reason their inflation is now….

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: They have now, and the reason they have is that all of a sudden they stopped all controls. Now that doesn't make sense. You can't just hold things in line for a very short period of time and then just suddenly remove them all.

HON. G.V. LAUK (Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce): You just said a temporary freeze.

MR. WALLACE: Yes. A total freeze is temporary — for 90 days. After 90 days there will be programmes to allow guidelines to be produced in the same way the Minister or the Attorney-General is talking about guidelines that your government gave to the oil industry in this province in the last few weeks.

The federal government gave guidelines as to how much the gasoline might reasonably be increased. That's all the Stanfield policy is about, but the 90-day idea is to try and at least hold everything still and at least break this idea that prices inevitably go on and on and on without any reasonable control.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please! Could we return to the bill, Hon. Members?

MR. WALLACE: I was merely responding to the Attorney-General's comments.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sure glad that I've convinced everybody about the Stanfield policy.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I really appreciated the interruption.

MR. C. LIDEN (Delta): Stanfield isn't going anywhere, anyway.

MR. WALLACE: Well, we'll see. I feel that regardless of how the House may or may not disagree with controls of the kind that are the substance of the federal election, I do feel that here this bill certainly is a measure of control far beyond what is necessary or desirable and it's written in the same expansive language which really, to us on this party and on this side of the House, is something which is most undesirable, and yet is so reminiscent of many other bills that we've seen through this House. We just feel that the effects on exploration will be bad because this is no temporary control. This bill is here to stay, and as I say, we probably can look forward to an extension of it in the form of a Crown corporation competing in the way the NDP looks upon competition with private enterprise. And it is more than likely that….

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): We're all for competition.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes, you're all for competition. I agree. You want to be competing in the game and you want to be the referee and you want to make the rules as well. That's a great way to compete. I think anybody would win a ball game under those terms.

HON. MR. LEA: That's the IT&T way.

MR. WALLACE: No, that's not the IT&T way. The IT&T haven't the kind of power you guys have, or any government has…. Did you want a rerun on that statement I just made?

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: The difference, Mr. Minister, to try and answer your question is that this is control for as long as you are government. The kind of control I'm talking about is temporary control followed by attempts in cooperation with industry and business and employers and employees to develop guidelines, mutually agreeable to all concerned — not enforced from the top by this kind of legislation.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Well, maybe so. We just happen to think it's got a lot more potential than this kind of legislation where you beat private enterprise over the head until it does what you want it to do. For an open government, as you profess to be, this kind of legislation to me is just a complete, total contradiction. You're not going into consultation or discussion with the industry. You're bringing this bill in and it just beats the you-know-what out of it if they just don't fall in line. Although the Minister's

[ Page 3881 ]

promised some kind of a deal if they cooperate, and what that word "cooperate"….maybe the Minister could give us some sort of wider explanation of "cooperation." I think really the Minister means that if they cooperate in bringing down prices to the degree that seems acceptable to the Minister, then that's what he means by cooperation.

I think that is like a husband and a wife getting into a fight, and the husband hits his wife and she doesn't complain to the police. That's the kind of definition of cooperation I think the Minister's trying to bring in in this bill.

He spells it out and says what's to happen, and the companies go along with it, and that's cooperation. Well, Mr. Speaker, that isn't our concept. We feel there's a host of reasons why we would oppose this bill, but perhaps the last one is the depressing effect on exploration and the search for new oil sources, and the diversion of risk capital. I think this, as much as any other of the reasons, is why it's pretty important that the bill should be reconsidered.

The last point that is perhaps also worth mentioning is that if the Minister wants to have this measure of control and considers that the companies have not cooperated, could he comment on the meetings which — I am not sure, is it today or tomorrow that the Energy Commission is meeting with the two companies who have adhered to the 8 cent increase?

I would like to know if the Minister could bring us up to date on what kind of, shall I say, cooperation the Energy Commission is receiving from these companies.

MR. F.X. RICHTER (Boundary-Similkameen): It seems, with the number of amendments that have come in today, and in light of the fact that his bill has been on the order paper for some time now, that this must have been an afterthought; or else it's in conformity with policy that was outlined in Toronto on the weekend by the Premier of British Columbia.

I'm rather amazed at the measures that are contained within this bill, particularly in light of the fact that it's well known that British Columbia doesn't produce the amount of petroleum it requires, and certainly imports the biggest percentage of raw products for our present refineries.

Certainly the importation from Alberta is not going to get greater; it's going to get less. When the Premier states quite emphatically over the news media that he is opposed to bringing oil from the Arctic by way of pipelines down to British Columbia — that would not be interfered with by Alberta as far as their requirements are concerned…. Certainly it is a very substantial supply which could warrant then the additional expansion of the refineries through this bill for the refining of a product in British Columbia.

Now it's all very well to say that you're opposed to the transmission of petroleum products by pipeline because of the ecology and other factors stated by the Premier, and then on the other hand say that you are opposed also to bringing the same products by way of the west coast. To me that is a far more dangerous situation ecologically and environmentally than to bring it by way of pipeline. If the product is available in the north in the Mackenzie delta, or even from the various islands in which oil has been discovered, it would appear to me that to make the objectives work that are contained within this bill, you're going to have to have an initial supply.

Now we know very well that because of other legislation we have less activity in the oil patch to date by way of our own exploration in British Columbia. I think there is a very, very large amount of petroleum products still undiscovered. It would be my thinking that if you are intending to process your own products along with what products you might be able to get from Alberta either you have to give some impetus to the further exploration and development of our own products in the Province or else you have to think in terms of bringing the products from the Arctic.

I can't see, with the amendments that have come in at this time, how we can intelligently discuss the contents of this bill. The amendments are going to change it very drastically. So when we come into committee stage we're going to be moving all kinds of amendments in which we have to go through the process of redebating.

This idea of bringing in legislation and then bringing in an abundance of amendments, I think, is very, very poor thinking and poor policy on the part of the government. I know that unless the legislative counsel are given directions along the line that the government anticipates this legislation to follow…. Then you turned around again, just because the Premier went to Toronto, and came up with a new policy. Well, I can't quite follow the sense of the time that's spent in this Legislature debating "have-not" legislation that hasn't got all the facts and figures in it. I would have to oppose this legislation on that basis.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, I don't think these amendments that have come in the last few days make it difficult to debate this bill. The government is famous for its second looks and third looks and fourth looks. We had this with the daylight saving time, and it doesn't surprise me.

I don't know why the government even bothered to introduce legislation as lengthy as this particular bill. In effect, what the government is asking us to enact is a bill which, so far as the control of the petroleum industry is concerned, simply says that the Energy Commission can do anything it wants.

[ Page 3882 ]

I don't know why we couldn't have just had a nice one-line bill saying that the Energy Commission is hereby empowered to do anything it wants, and to the extent that regulation may be required by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council can pass such regulation. Then we wouldn't be bothered with all the concern that has been expressed today about all these amendments. That's, in effect, what the government is doing with the statement of this responsibility. It's giving it to the Energy Commission and saying: "Whatever needs to be done, in your opinion, go ahead and do."

If you look at the words that are in the amendment, Mr. Speaker, the only reason they're there is because the government gets some political satisfaction out of offering in its legislation what the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) called a carrot. I think there is a better description. They talk about rolling the pork barrel. Now we're rolling the furnace oil barrel around the Province of British Columbia. The Hon. Attorney-General admitted as much when he opened the debate. If there are certain areas where certain fuel supplies make it difficult, then we'll give a little grant here and a little grant there.

This government has got delusions of "gran"-eur, Mr. Speaker. I don't think that we should assist them in carrying out that particular design.

There's no question that what we see in the amendments today emanated from some brilliant shaft of intelligence that the Premier got from his advisers before he went to Toronto and made his speech. There's no question about that.

Interjection.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Well, either that or he found that his proposal for using ICBC was meeting so much resistance that he had to find some other way of passing on to the motorists of this province the assistance that he promised them some several weeks ago and tried to indicate would be done through ICBC. Now we're going to be able to separate certain classes of consumers who are going to get certain benefits out of this legislation. Therefore, it will work in that way.

I was surprised that the Attorney-General raised the matter of refinery capacity in the Province of British Columbia and our need for expanded refinery capacity. One of the reasons we don't have refineries being built today is this very legislation which is being amended and the concern of those companies who are in the refining field as to whether or not they should invest further capital in the Province of British Columbia.

The Minister says that we've got to process as much of the crude oil as we possibly can in the Province of British Columbia. I was startled to hear that, because the chairman of the Energy Commission just a few weeks ago took it upon himself to be highly critical of the fact that refining companies in the Province of British Columbia were indeed taking the crude oil and refining it and shipping the refined product to the States. I thought this was what we were in favour of.

But the energy tsar didn't think so. He found that to be completely repugnant. He thought that the oil companies were somehow or other getting around somebody by doing it this way. Now the Attorney-General is suggesting that that's exactly what we should be doing. At a time when, by reason of the availability of crude and other products, we in British Columbia were in a surplus position so far as gasoline was concerned and found a market for it, the energy tsar saw that it should be criticized.

It seems to me that we're going from pillar to post and from side to side on this whole matter of energy as between the government and its commission, and between the brilliance of the Premier and his advisers. We're not taking hold of the energy problem as a whole, and as a petroleum problem in particular, and doing something about it within the area of government responsibility.

We are not self-sufficient in British Columbia with respect to our petroleum supply and our demands. We never will be unless there is significant work done in the field of exploration. Other Members speaking in this debate have indicated quite clearly the impact of this kind of legislation on the decisions to invest in exploration by those companies who know what to do and who have the funds to put into exploration. It turns it off. No question about that.

What the government should be doing is directing itself to two areas: (1) the discovery of additional supply; and (2) the conservation of the energy resource. Those are two areas of proper responsibility for the government. Yet this government seems bent on ignoring the second, namely conservation, and destroying the first, and fiddling around in the middle, which is the retail-wholesale area so far as petroleum products use and distribution is concerned.

The recent decisions by the national government and the provinces of Canada with respect to the utilization of crude oil and its various products in this country and the construction of an oil pipeline, which is going to take western Canadian crude into the heart of the eastern market as was never before the case, thereby providing an alternative source of crude when the price of foreign oil is too high, will have the result of shortening to a very significant degree our abilities in Canada to use our own Canadian crude for our own requirements.

It has been suggested that perhaps 10 or 15 years is about the limit of the proven resources of petroleum crude in this country. Mr. Speaker, those limits were predicated upon the availability at

[ Page 3883 ]

acceptable prices of crude from the world market. By depending entirely upon our own known resource, it is now responsibly suggested that five years is the limit of time that we can expect to depend upon crude oil from Canada to meet our own needs.

That only indicates to you, Mr. Speaker, how important it is that this government do everything they can to encourage exploration and discovery in order to enhance supply, but equally if not more importantly to turn its attention to conservation. Instead of making grants to consumers, we should be encouraging people with grants, if need be, to cut back on consumption. Until we adopt these attitudes, we are going to carry on moving headlong at ever-increasing speed to the day when we will not be able to exist in our society, as we have learned to enjoy it over past years, because the petroleum resource is not going to be there.

That's the direction we should be going. We shouldn't be dealing with this kind of legislation which, if anything, is only a punitive attempt to deal with a bogeyman that this government has raised, namely the multi-national corporations. It's a very popular bogeyman that the NDP has in this regard. If you haven't got multi-national corporations then you can start attacking the national corporations. You always find one. Mr. Speaker, we're soon going to come to the day if this government keeps on going the way it is where the only corporations they'll have to attack are the ones they created themselves. But you know, the country can't wait until the NDP has gobbled up all of the bogeymen until it finally comes down to its own, namely the corporations and the commissions which they have established with powers that a multi-national corporation never dreamed of having.

Mr. Speaker, when I look at this legislation it occurs to me that if somehow or other the government could harness the power that they're giving to the Energy Commission, they could heat every building, they could air-condition every building, they could operate all the. lights, and if they could convert it into electric power for automobile use they could operate every vehicle in the Province of British Columbia just with the power given to this commission. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that the government doesn't realize that by putting these kinds of powers onto paper and vesting them into a commission, they don't create energy, they just waste it. That will be the consequence of this amendment in Bill 18.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Speaker, the government has received a lot of good advice this afternoon. I hope it pays attention to some of it and I don't propose to repeat any of it except that portion which relates to power and to the unbridled power that's contained in this bill.

Interjections.

MR. GIBSON: I'm talking about the power of this bill, because as the Attorney-General knows, it has absolute power if it chooses to exercise it, and that's when the public has to watch out. It doesn't matter who they're attacking; when they're exercising their absolute power in that way, the public has to watch out.

AN HON. MEMBER: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

MR. GIBSON: Somewhere down the road, Mr. Attorney-General, the absolute powers that are conferred in this bill are going to corrupt absolutely. You know the sections that are in it. They've been referred to this afternoon — the power to set prices, to give rewards to this company and that, to do differential things, to vary contracts at discretion and then require that the new orders be carried out.

The Attorney-General knows that energy is a big money industry. There are going to be persons seeking to make deals. I don't care if at the moment you have a saint in every political and civil service position that's dealing with this Act — the powers are so unrestrained that somewhere down the line there is going to be corruption as a result of deals being made because of the discretion that's been conferred in this bill, as surely as night follows day.

The Attorney-General has introduced in this House, Mr. Speaker, a Public Officials Disclosure Act. That's chicken feed compared to the kind of disclosure that ought to be required under this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Of private oil companies?

MR. GIBSON: I mean of the details of the orders of the commission and exactly why they're made and exactly who's benefiting. That's absolutely essential. The only even partial defence against the arbitrary powers conferred in this bill is disclosure. As the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound has just said, will the Attorney-General put on the record with precision exactly what disclosure the commission is going to have to make in the actions it takes under the amended Part IV of this Act? Is it going to have to make public every order it makes?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes.

MR. GIBSON: Is it going to have to make public the reasons for making that order?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes.

MR. GIBSON: Is it going to make public the factual background that has gone into all of those

[ Page 3884 ]

determinations?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, public hearings.

MR. GIBSON: The Attorney-General says public hearings, but more than public hearings. As the Attorney-General knows, in decisions of this kind there's an enormous amount of background staff work and there's a lot of opinion that goes into the decisions that finally come out the end, opinion which is never canvassed at public hearings but rather opinion that goes on inside the commission itself. It's only this very complete kind of disclosure that can keep these powers above suspicion, and I hope the Attorney-General will spell that out because the powers in this bill are too sweeping, even with such disclosure, but that's the only minimal defence the public will have. I hope in closing debate he will go into that in some depth.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Attorney-General closes the debate.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I wouldn't want to start an argument about a simple little bill like this, but really the Member who has just taken his seat is so concerned that everything be done out in the open by the Energy Commission, and it will be, because they will be doing the people's business.

But he doesn't care at all about the kind of private power that is wielded by the big oil companies to the detriment of the consumers and to the detriment of the economy. Look at the way they pile up their profits. You say, "Hands off." Gulf Oil profits doubled in the first quarter of this year in a period of adversity. No, there is nothing you are prepared to do about that, is there, Mr. Member?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I don't say "hands off" at all.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: When we say, "How about a little protection for the people of the province whose oil resource it really is?" — oh, you begin to talk about swooping powers and all the rest of it.

Really, this is an open operation. It's not going to be an all-or-nothing thing. We are not going to have to control everything. There may very well be selective controls to check abuse where it occurs, Any government that was afraid to take that much of a stance would be delinquent trustees for the people. They should be fired out of office.

Not one of the parties opposite here…. All three of them are prepared to say that the government should do nothing to protect the consumer of gasoline, to protect the consumer of propane or home heating oil. Let them be exposed naked to the blasts of the international marketplace. It's all right with that opposition, but it is not all right with this government.

I move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 33

NAYS — 14

Bill 18, Energy Amendment Act, 1974, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Second reading of Bill 154, Mr. Speaker.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
AMENDMENT ACT, 1974

HON. N. LEVI Minister of Human Resources): The principle of the bill is concerned with the rights, specifically, of children and their protection. The first part deals with the battered-child problem that we have in the province. We are introducing that section in respect to a request from the doctors, through the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) and then to myself, in order to amend the Act.

In this way the doctors are subpoenaed and they must appear. They have these safeguards under the section so that they will not suffer any loss or damage as a result of giving evidence.

The bill also concerns itself with the introduction of lay panels in respect to matters dealing with the protection of children. The House has been apprised of the background of lay panels in a report — the second report of the Berger commission — that was filed in the House. In that we have attempted to

[ Page 3885 ]

involve the community in the dispositions regarding children that are before the courts. There will be sitting with the judge two lay people from the community, who will not be acting as judges but will be acting as representatives from the community, to give some balance, depending on the particular kind of case that might be before the judge.

These panels are not new. They are in British Columbia or Canada but they have been operating with much success in Scotland and in Sweden. What the panels are concerned about is that the judge will have his views balanced by the views of various representatives from the community. So we would not get into the situation, as we do sometimes, where the judges' views on how children might be raised are the only views that become involved in the decision. What we will have is people giving their input, whether they come from whatever socio-economic strata of society. So there is a balance.

There is also, of course, in certain areas of the province real concern about cases of Indian children that are before the courts. Certainly there will be the opportunity for Indian people to be part of these panels too so that we can give very much consideration to the Indian culture and the extended-family situation that exists in many of the reserves.

There is a third part to the bill which deals with compelling the parents to appear in court. Under another Act, the Unified Family Court Act, we have set up the position of family advocates.

Those family advocates are there to protect and to advocate for the interests of the child. To pass the interests of the child, while perhaps in theory have always been foremost, the legal representations with respect to the case have always been for the parents, particularly in a custody case. Here there will be family advocates.

Those advocates, if they are to work on behalf of the best interests of the child, must be able to secure full disclosure before the hearings. They must be able to seek out the truth so the child can be adequately represented. That means there must be a close examination and the fullest disclosure in respect to the interested parties — the parents or some other adult. There must be an examination of the capacity and the fitness of each party. It must be gone into thoroughly before a final decision can be made, again in the very best and special interests of the child in the case.

The fourth part of the bill deals and enjoins with the Family Relations Act. If there is an action in relation to the child or the family in one court and one under the Protection of Children Act, they can, in fact, be treated as one case.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Our party supports the bill in principle and may have some questions in committee.

MR. WALLACE: We also welcome this legislation, particularly the general idea that it should be easier for people to report or pass on information which leads them to suspect that a child is being abused or neglected. This freedom from liability in the court by passing on such information was formerly extended to physicians but I understand now would extend to any person under the provisions of this bill.

There are some points we can discuss in committee. There are two particular points I would like to have the Minister enlarge upon.

First of all, the kind of persons who will be considered as lay members of the panel. What particular background or training expertise is to be considered suitable for a person filling this very important role? I notice that certainly is something of the nature of a person serving on a jury because I notice an employer is obligated to give a person time off from work if he or she serves as such a panel member.

The second question is about the term "family advocate." I've had some disturbing information brought to me on specific cases regarding the use of so-called advocates in connection with community action groups. I'm not sure to what extent I'm confusing terms or whether this term "family advocate" is not very specific other than as you have mentioned, Mr. Minister. The person obviously appears on behalf and acts on behalf of the child's best interests.

But again, I wonder if the Minister could give us some general outline or definition of the background training and expertise of a person who will be filling the role of family advocate.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I would like to second the questions posed by the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) with regard to the use of the panel.

It has always been, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, in the courts of this province and indeed, of Canada and other jurisdictions of the western world that when matters affecting a child come before them, the predominant concern the court has in reaching its decision is what is in the best interests of the child. The interests of both parents or of either parent or other persons who may be involved in the proceeding come secondary to that fundamental consideration.

When I read this legislation, I thought how wise it was to expand the list of individuals who might be involved in determining what was in the best interests of the child. This is not to express any criticism of our judges for the way in which they have carried out their responsibility. I often believe many judges would welcome the opportunity to have qualified, responsible and interested persons assisting them in

[ Page 3886 ]

making what often is a most difficult decision.

Yet, when I read the sections dealing with the establishment of the panel, I wonder in what direction we are going. I have often criticized the government for its tendency to appoint people to positions. Yet it seems to me that we've gone too much the other way in this particular Act.

I know the Lieutenant-Governor has power to prescribe standards or qualifications that a panel member may have, but I'm surprised to find anyone interested in a particular area may submit his name and, having submitted his name, unless, I suspect, there is something particularly wrong with that individual, he will go on that panel. The person who decides whether a person submitting their name shall go on a panel or not is not the Minister of Human Resources but the Attorney-General. That makes me wonder too because it just doesn't seem that the direction in which we are going with regard to family and child matters in this province is being followed when we put t his decision into the Attorney-General's department where there has been a tendency to move away from the administration of justice structure in attempting to solve some of these family relations difficulties.

There is one other section I hoped the Minister would look at and perhaps clarify my thinking. Once a panel is established, when a particular matter comes before a judge for decision and there is need to have a panel empanelled if I may pose it that way, it's the clerk of the court who does it. He does it by rotation. He starts with the name following the last name that was on a previous panel and goes from there. That seems to lack some of the consideration that might need to be given to the establishment of a panel in a particular case. I think the idea is sound; the direction in which we are going to lend assistance to the person who must make the decision is a wise one to be followed. But. I suspect it is too much like choosing a jury.

In the use of juries in our system we have the common jury, which is selected virtually from the voters list. But in special cases where matters requiring expert knowledge and experience are, involved there are special juries in which you may choose people who by reason of their background would have a better opportunity to appreciate the problems that will be presented to them as the evidence in a particular case unfolds.

It seems to me that we should be looking at it from this particular point of view. If there is to be a roster, it should be a roster of people who have some real background experience. Even then, there may need to be some care taken in which person from that roster you choose for a particular case.

I would hope the Minister and his department could give some consideration to that because I think there are some improvements to be made in this legislation. It's not going to be easy. Maybe we'll be left at this particular time in trying it this way to see what our experience is and then come back at a subsequent time. But I do believe there is that weakness in this new step we're taking, which I certainly support.

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

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the two Hon. Members for their suggestions.

In respect to the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace), and the family advocate, the two people who have been appointed at the moment are both lawyers. Certainly one of them, Mr. Summers, has considerable experience in the area of family law and family cases. The other person is a lawyer but has extensive background in social work. We're fortunate to have two people like that. That's the beginning of it.

There is no relationship to the advocacy role that the Hon. Member's referring to. The adversary role that he was talking about in terms of the community action is a programme that we funded really in relation to advocacy relating to regulations of the administration of the Social Assistance Act and problems that flow from that. And there are other problems in the social service area, but they are quite different. Certainly in the family advocacy Act work under the Family Relations Act, there is very definitely an area of expertise there.

On the use of panels, I think it should be kept in mind that a unified family court project is by nature a pilot project, an experimental one, and that also apart from the amendments in respect to the Protection of Children Act we've undertaken not to amend any more laws than we have to in order to make the thing work. We will be looking at the operation as it exists. There are at least two evaluations going on, one of them evaluation that is being provided and aided by the federal Family Law Commission, who are interested in the project. I think that by the time we've had an opportunity to see how it operates over the next several months we'll be in a position to make any amendments that we need to make.

In respect to the special panels, it would seem to me that in drawing up lists of people — and there would be approximately 100 people — they would be chosen from a range of backgrounds and experience, certainly with a heavy emphasis on family experience because we are dealing with children. It may very well be possible to constitute such a panel in the way the Hon. Member says in respect to particular areas. There are a range of problems, of course, that the panels will be dealing with in all of the types of cases that comes under the Protection of Children Act. But

[ Page 3887 ]

I've certainly noted what the Hon. Member said and I'll certainly bring this to the attention of the people who are operating the unified family court operation.

I agree with him that I think the judges will look upon this as a very definite help for them in terms of the panels because it's a very, very difficult proposal to be able to come up with some kind of fair kind of decision. I know that prior to the operation of the unified family court, I'd been very concerned about the fact that children were not previously represented in every case in which they were under the Protection of Children Act. What we did undertake to do was to see that the children's interests were represented.

It's not going to be easy to find first of all the right kind of panels. I appreciate the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) pointing out to me that the Attorney-General would be the one who would be selecting them and we'll have a little discussion about that. The whole thing is in the nature of a pilot project and we're looking for a little flexibility. I think we'll be in a much better position to see how things go after we've had about six months of the operation. As the Hon. Members know, once this is passed, the project will certainly be going. Certainly the early indications around the other support services in relation to the unified family court indicate to us that we've already learned a lot about the kind of services we need to put in there.

Motion approved.

Bill 154, Protection of Children Amendment Act, 1974, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Adjourned debate on Bill 31.

MINERAL ROYALTIES ACT

(continued)

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Mr. Speaker, in speaking to the motion that is before the House at this time and which has had considerable debate, I think we must accept that the core of one of the problems right now is the fact that the bill itself to all evidence indicates an ill-thought-out, instant, and what appears to be very ruinous two-tier mining royalties imposition. In listening to the debate, one can hardly help in coming to the conclusion that it is a double imposition imposed for a philosophical doctrine without any consideration by the government or, with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, by the Minister, as to individual ability to pay any in-depth understanding of the industry itself, without any apparent understanding of the interrelationship between this industry and other industries and the economy of British Columbia, and how stability and quality and thoughtful expansion of our resource industries in British Columbia — in this particular instance, the mining industry — is going to be hampered by the Ministerial discretion in the bill and by a lot of economic facts which haven't been taken into consideration.

I'm sure the Minister must be aware, although it isn't reflected in his bill and it's one of the reasons for this motion, that it's the resource industries of British Columbia, whether it's forestry or in this instance mining, that dictate to a large degree the development of secondary industries and the development of service industries with their related jobs and the related buoyant effect it has to the individual families. If there is not the sound basic resource industry and capital invested in that industry, then there won't be sound basic expansion and capital investment in the allied industries and in the service industries. And then there won't be the job-creating abilities and the stability — creating ability which we need in British Columbia so much at this time.

We are asking to have the bill delayed for six months' study, Mr. Speaker, because examination of many of the clauses of Bill 31 seems to show a complete vacuum of knowledge of the historic problems that we have had in developing secondary industry in British Columbia. I would refer specifically to the hopes of developing a secondary processing industry in British Columbia. It has been difficult enough to think in terms of the future. Surely the Minister must know, as he's spoken so many times in glowing terms about the hoped ability to establish at least one secondary processing industry in this province, that there must be a continued and assured source and stable supply of the product to go into that processing and that there is a very costly aspect in British Columbia because of our distance f Tom competitive markets for the secondary products, and that B.C. has had a history of unnaturally high cost of production because of our geography, because of our small population and because basically the economy of British Columbia has been such that working people, rightfully so, expect a fair and good return for their efforts. If they are going into remote areas to mine or to explore, it's not only the return that they want, which they wish to be higher than if one is sitting in a comfortable position in Vancouver or Victoria, but it's the freedom of spirit that they want. Our cost of production is higher because we have unrelated ore bodies around the province and also our climate, and this includes transportation.

Added to these historical problems, Mr. Minister, which are not really that great in overcoming them because our population still isn't that large, the transportation problems still haven't been solved to

[ Page 3888 ]

the degree that you can say it was a simple matter to transport these raw materials and other factors. There's the added cost of pollution control as the people in British Columbia will expect it to be practised in the development of a processing industry.

Added to that are the current world and national economic monetary problems. There seems to be no relation, Mr. Minister, in this bill to some of these fundamental facts.

I think that it's just impossible to develop an economically viable- processing industry of our raw minerals and resources in British Columbia if we don't have an efficient and healthy primary mineral resource industry. And all indications from not only the debate in this House, not only letters which have been sent in by major mining companies and small mining companies, from individual engineers, but from people themselves who have been in exploration for years and have never made any major profit, people themselves who work in the mining industry today as employees, as fundamental ground workers, mechanics — and certainly the allied industries….

I've been amazed, Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister, at the content of the mail that I have received, and I'm sure that other Members are in the same position. Certainly there's been a fair flow from the major corporations, but there's been a very heavy flow from individual people and very small companies, companies that I never dreamed would be related in any way to the mining industry.

I have had letters from women who are deeply concerned that their role in job opportunities is expanding; and it's expanding or has been expanding into the mining industry. Their opportunities to be truck drivers, or heavy-duty mechanics, or equipment drivers, or to mine — and mining has been a closed industry to women because of superstition — are now expanding or were in the process of expanding — not to a large per cent; I think about 2 per cent of the whole industry employment picture involves women in the field service.

Still, they fear — and I believe they are right — that these opportunities are not going to be there for them in the future. How could a young lady, recognizing that there are still built-in prejudices, enter into BCIT for a training programme which would lead her to a hopeful opportunity in the mining industry, when she reads Bill 31 and combines that with some of the other bills in this province, but specifically Bill 31, and recognizes, if she thinks — as women are most inclined to do — of what the long-range effect of this bill is going to be…?

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Did I read the bill? Yes, Mr. Minister. I read the bill. The main question before this House is: have you read the bill? Certainly from your debate it would appear that this is questionable. You told us after 18 months, or the 18 months it took you and your staff to prepare this bill, that you lost $1 million.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Maybe…. I'm sorry, it is $100 million. You see, you don't even know whether it's the $1 million I say it is or the $ 100 million someone told you it was.

There's strong reason to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister hasn't read the bill — but, more importantly, that the Minister doesn't fully understand the bill or its implications. I had the privilege of working with or across from this Minister for some time. I certainly would be convinced that he wouldn't try to do anything or be partner to any legislation that would be harmful to the people of his own interest and his life's work — and that is the mining industry. So I suggest that he hasn't read the bill; and certainly he doesn't understand it.

I believe that it is important, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, in speaking to this motion, to bring to this government's attention, to its private Members' attention, and certainly to the attention of its conscientious Ministers the whole national and international economic situation.

If one reads these indicators correctly, governments today, and particularly in British Columbia, where we have a small population and where we are dependent on populations of eastern Canada and in the offshore markets and really in the eastern States for our products, the Government of British Columbia should be smoothing the province's basic economy and smoothing the secondary industry and encouraging them to be adopting a solvent and stable position in their financing.

That, Mr. Minister, is in order to stabilize their ability, should the occasion arise…. We all hope it won't, but you cannot close your eyes to the fact that some people say it has arisen. It's simply a matter of when it's coming home to roost.

They should be adopting a solvent and stable position in order to stabilize their ability to compete and to continue to compete on what market there will be on an international level, and to strengthen their own position and their ability to maintain and create jobs out of the basic industries of this province. So if a downturn comes, or a correction comes, we can be sure that our resource industries — and if it should ever develop, our secondary processing industry, and in turn the related industries that do spin off from these resource industries — are in a position where they can not only make cautious expansion but that they can maintain their job capabilities; that they can maintain steady employment to the people of British Columbia, and

[ Page 3889 ]

that they can maintain guaranteed pay cheques to every family in British Columbia.

That is essential, Mr. Minister, because there are uncertain times ahead. They are here today, and this bill doesn't take any concern or any notice of this. I find it disturbing that this government is consistently taking the resource industries — and in this instance the mining industry and related industries of B.C. — in isolation in their thinking and in their legislation, without relating their position in any way to future world markets and to the world economic jitters that are around us.

These economic jitters are concerned about spiralling interest rates. They are concerned about the results of the drying up of capital for major corporations, for their financing. They are even more concerned about the intense drying up of capital for small companies and little independent business people.

They are concerned, and the jitters reflect around the concern, for prime interest rates, which are at a near record high. They are concerned that this capital will not be available even at a prime interest rate, because it just will not be economic to borrow at that rate and to produce in British Columbia with the uncertainty that is reflected in this bill and in other bills.

The opportunity for small and large companies to raise short-term operating and expansion capital is rapidly decreasing today. Too many people are concerned and as late as this weekend — with the fact that corporations in North America are not liquid and cannot be solvent if they can't achieve the capital for expansion and operating costs they need. The latest figure I have, which was released this weekend — and it relates to the United States — is that in the first quarter of 1974 corporations generally had only 17 cents in cash for each dollar of debt that they owed. This was a drop of three cents per dollar from 1972.

Mr. Speaker, this is a dangerous position for any corporation to be in at any time, and it is extremely dangerous for any company to be in at this time. I ask the Minister, in relation to Bill 31: do you have figures such as this available to this House for British Columbia? Do you know whether or not the industries and the small businesses related to the mining industry and the mining industry itself are in a position where they can survive if they can't achieve reasonable interest rates on capital, and if they can't achieve capital?

If you don't have these figures, I suggest that this is another very firm reason as to why this bill should be hoisted for six months and examined thoroughly in order that the Minister can see how the economic climate around the world and in Canada is moving and in what position our own companies, our own job-producing companies, the small companies and the allied companies to the mining industry in this province, are — to a position where they will be called upon to maintain the stability that this government isn't showing.

This bill completely ignores these factors, Mr. Speaker, and it ignores another factor which I feel is important when we think of the bill's isolation from the national and international economic picture. That is the more subtle but very real threat to businesses of all sizes, whether they are in the resource industry or not, but particularly in the resource industry, of their growing inability to raise long-term capital that they need if they are going to streamline their maintenance processes and if they are going to streamline their production, as they must do if we are to utilize our resources as conservatively as possible and if the products of those resources are to remain competitive on international markets.

I wonder if the Minister is aware that for this type of financing companies don't go to short-term, prime-rate risk capital from the banks but go directly to bond issues. Bond issues today are too costly, and they are also depressing the stock market from which the high-risk industries and many other industries achieve their capital. This is turning people away from investing in bonds and in stocks which many of these mining companies and the allied companies, big or small, need if they are to carry on efficiently, if they are to expand and to be in a position where they can offer the stability for Creating jobs for the individual.

I was just opening my mail, Mr. Speaker, and Odlum Brown and T.B. Reid just came in today. I don't usually read it but their first line under market comment is:

"Stock prices suffered further losses during May as interest rates continue to climb and investors become increasingly nervous that a major credit crunch could be developing."

Surely, Mr. Speaker, this must mean something to the Minister and to the Minister of Finance. Surely this must bring home to you the risk that you are taking in this type of open-ended and unfair legislation which is not based on facts but based on emotionalism.

I suggest these national and international facts and concerns, plus what has been described most adequately as the disincentive that is built into this bill in the form of eventual double royalties based on philosophy rather than ability to pay, places the mining industry in British Columbia in an impossible position so that they will have little choice but to maintain their present existence — and that's what it would be: an existence — or to withdraw from British Columbia.

What is the effect of that going to be on the supply of resources for secondary processing, on the supply of jobs and the expansion of jobs within the industry, and the stability and supply of jobs in the

[ Page 3890 ]

allied industries?

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that another point, in speaking of national and international economics that we have to take into consideration in this bill, is that it is another arrow into the inflated concern about the stability of the economy in British Columbia and about the desirability of British Columbia as a place in which to invest not only with large companies but with small companies, and not only in the mining industry but in many industries.

The Minister must surely recognize that not all investors are big corporate investors. There is a multitude — hundreds of thousands — of small investors in British Columbia. The major multiplicity of businesses in our province are small businesses owned by individual families and often operated by individual families. In my view at least, these are in large part the strength of your economy because they form the buffer between big government and big business.

If the people do forever what they are doing now, which is to say, "I'll wait and see if there is a change of government," or, "I won't invest in British Columbia" — and these are little people — then the Minister is taking part in a programme that is upsetting the stability of our province. We have done well in British Columbia not only because of economic development but because a lot of that economic development, regardless of all the holes you want to poke in it, has arisen from political stability and from the confidence people have that you can come to British Columbia, work hard and get a fair return. If the government's answer to all of this is, if the resource industries or allied industries refuse to expand or wish to withdraw because of lack of profit or capital, Or if the mining industry becomes high-grade and wasteful to meet costs, if jobs are lessened or threatened, or if, as I say, allied services suffer, resulting in capital- or job-loss problems, then the government will step in.

This is not too inconceivable, Mr. Speaker. In a report from the Premier's office, dated May 31, 1974, the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Nimsick), in an article entitled "Nimsick Assures Life for Mining Towns," said the government

"is not planning to go into the mining business but it would consider temporary measures in order to keep a community alive.

"Lands, Forests and Water Resources Minister, Bob Williams, used similar reasoning in the government's purchase of the Ocean Falls forest industry operation."

Mr. Speaker, this speaks more volume than appears in four lines in this particular report. There is some suggestion in listening to this debate — or the lack of facts that come to this debate — that this might well be the government's intention. Rather than stepping in to save a little community, they will be stepping in to take over the mining industry.

If you do this, Mr. Minister, without thinking of the problems I have outlined as far as international and national economics are concerned, you are going to….

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I would think.

MRS. JORDAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I recognize your point and I feel this very much relates to the motion before the House. In drafting the full motion of the bill, the Minister obviously hasn't given consideration to these points I have been discussing.

The last point in this area is, if the government through ill-thought-out legislation — in this instance Bill 31 which we are moving to have examined thoroughly for six months — has in the back of its mind to go into the mining industry, the government will have the same problem in raising capital, in being competitive, in production costs, in transportation problems, in providing job security and in the problem of high interest rates as businesses have today and that the mining industry and its allied industries are facing today.

When you examine the content of your bill in the light of the international monetary situation and the government going into the business, Mr. Minister, you will find that you will run into the same international bureaucracy that faces many industries today. The government, like private corporations, will face even higher interest rates to borrow its capital, if it can get it, because it is high-risk money.

Once the government through a Crown corporation enters into a high-risk field and has to face these problems, there is the danger that the favourable borrowing position that has been built up for British Columbia over the years through sound financial management and through the efforts of the people will be jeopardized. You'll find this on examination of these facts when you hoist the bill for six months. You can't have the government involved in high-risk ventures and high-risk financing going into the same market for capital for more solid ventures that it might need for schools and hospitals and not find the government borrowing position threatened. You've diluted the resource of your province in terms of its ability as security.

I suggest again that in entering the international markets — because there is a limit to the amount of money in the provincial treasury from tax dollars — the government will find itself beholden to and at the mercy of international moneylenders. It will find itself subject to foreign influence and ultimate control by this need for capital at a time of international monetary uncertainty.

If the government doesn't go to the capital markets and the national and international markets, it will have to make one of two other choices: One will be a

[ Page 3891 ]

combination of going to the international market and the concern for diluting the province's prime borrowing position and the influence we would be under of foreign control and foreign money. Combined with that would be further taxation on the backs of the people of British Columbia. Or else, in order to carry out its objectives, the government will have to tax working people of British Columbia unmercifully.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Minister, you say I told you there weren't going to be any workers left. I didn't tell you that. You must be dreaming. That remark is just about as inane as your remark the other day when my colleague from South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) was describing some of the more sophisticated and advanced means of extracting minerals from the ocean floor and you said, "Impossible, it sounds like Buck Rogers." Not only is it not impossible, Mr. Minister, because those processes are going on right now, but Buck Rogers died years ago. If you want to liken it to a modern-day programme of future science at least use Star Trek and show us that you're moderately up to date.

There will be workers left in British Columbia, thank goodness, Mr. Speaker; but if this government continues on this path without examining, as we want them to do, the long-term consequences of this bill, you will have to resort to one of the three suggestions I've made. One of those will include increased taxation off the backs of the people of British Columbia.

If you're not aware, Mr. Minister, the people out there today are feeling the lash of some of your radical legislation and your approach to revenue resources. All they know is that they are paying more for food, they are paying more for shelter if they can get it, they are paying more in land taxes, they belong to a compulsory high cost insurance programme and that the great windfall profits from the petroleum industry that were supposed to go into their pockets are in fact going in to shore up a Crown corporation which has been developed on philosophy and political decisions rather than a sound economic basis.

If you examine those, it's your own legislation, Mr. Minister, which has really fed the fires of inflation in British Columbia beyond anywhere else in Canada. They know it. That's all the more reason. Surely the government wants to learn from its mistakes and its past mistakes. Don't add more fuel to the problems and to the fires through Bill 31. Withdraw it and examine it and see what these problems are and bring in a better bill that will be fair.

In this bill as in other bills there is the concern on the part of the public that this government is again dabbling, with a philosophical view, into the business world and that in so doing the government is proving completely unresponsive to any suggestions or corrections that should be made.

Mr. Speaker, the other day in the debate someone, I believe it was my colleague for Langley (Mr. McClelland), referred to Bill 31 as being misnamed. He suggested it should be the Yukon Development Bill. I would say the Yukon Bonanza Bill. The Minister said oh no, no, no, no, no; there's nothing to that, there's no need to consider that. Well, Mr. Minister, with all the statistics I'd like to point out a few more to you. I don't intend to use many in this debate.

As far as claim staking in British Columbia is concerned …. You don't seem to understand when we speak in provincial figures, so I'd like to narrow them down for you and give you just two years and four centres of the province so it's not too complicated. In 1972, claim staking in British Columbia in Nanaimo was 265 and in 1974 65; in 1972 in Cariboo 392 and in 1974 207; in Atlin…

MR. PHILLIPS: Don't give him any figures.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I'm trying to make it as simple as I can, Mr. Member. You know, I'm a homemaker and a mother and I'm always told in this House that I'm not very bright — although I happen to be right a lot of the time. It's amazing. I can understand this, I can understand this. I know that there's something wrong when I look at these figures. I hope you, Mr. Minister, clever as you are, can get your thinking down to individual claim staking in this instance, get your thinking down to the average family — the mother, the father, the children in this province — their concerns and to how your legislation is going to hurt them in the long run.

…In Atlin, in 1972: 318 claims staked, in 1974: 66; in Omineca, in 1972, and I'm sure you better hold your hat, Mr. Speaker, when you hear this: 1,265; and in 1974: 241.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Member. That spells nothing but down, down, down. Certainly there has been some decline owing to the federal legislation. But Mr. Minister, the major decline has come since your government took office and since you have started espousing either your, or your executive assistant's, mineral policies and you've been enacting some of your legislation.

What's happening in the Yukon where the companion bill should be the Yukon Bonanza Bill? Claim staking, exploration and development activity in both the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Mr.

[ Page 3892 ]

Minister through you, Mr. Speaker, is up over 200 per cent. Surely that in itself should make you stop and retract your words and, what's more important, retract your bill. Show what a big man you are. Show how concerned you are.

The lack of a small man is his inability to face facts and reason and to admit that he should take a second look. The mark of a big man and a commendable Minister is one who stands up and says; "You've brought a lot of evidence forward. I recognize it's important. We will examine this bill. We will be concerned about what is happening in British Columbia."

I would suggest, Mr. Minister, that you not seek the advice of your colleagues in this final decision because they're not helping you. Seek the advice of your private Members. Seek the advice of the public who knows what's happening and you are prepared to face the facts as they are.

Mr. Minister, while the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) and that Galloping Gertie of the highways, the Hon. Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea), used similar figures in the north to what the Premier used in the House on Friday, they were not wrong in what they said. They, Mr. Minister, just didn't tell the facts and relate those figures to the cases as they actually exist. The people up there aren't surprised. They're getting used to the fact that if this government doesn't want to be confused by the facts, it certainly doesn't want to be confused by the truth. It certainly doesn't want to be dumbfounded by the full picture of the situation.

What should concern you, Mr. Minister, more than the fact that they're running around the province using facts in a somewhat illegitimate manner, is that the Premier of this province got up in this House and, if it is correct in Hansard, goofed completely with the facts. He rattled around here on Friday morning with such statements as "dollars into the rich pockets off the backs of people of British Columbia," and he danced, and he acted as a jokester. But in several instances, Mr. Speaker, he not only didn't tell the facts, he was dead wrong. That's the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett).

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: I would hope that the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King) would want to know the truth and if his leader is wrong would want to know these facts and who would be as open-minded and fair as to adjudicate the situation as it's going to affect his constituents, rather than the way it's going to affect his philosophy. If your philosophy, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, isn't capable of analysis and adjustment to the realities of life and isn't capable of principle then it's a philosophy that has no place in British Columbia.

The Premier said in the House on Friday that the Minister was too modest. He joked about the bill. He joked about the ads that were put in the paper by the employees of many mines and many interested people in the province — some people in my own constituency. I didn't realize how much mining influence there was in the constituency that I represent. We don't really have a major mine in the area. We have a lot of small prospectors, but the number of businesses in the North Okanagan that derive a fair share of their work, their job opportunities and their income from the mining industry is astonishing…. But what about the propaganda the Minister puts out? I won't read a letter now, Mr. Speaker; I know you don't want us to carry on the debate too long. But I've got letters from individual citizens who have written to you and received a copy of your letter in which you accuse the mining industries of feeding propaganda and threatening people. They want to know why you're using government money and government stationery to spread propaganda.

More importantly is the concern for the display of the cavalier attitude of the Premier of this province in his debate the other day for the facts. Either his display and his attitude was through ignorance of the facts or we can only assume that the Premier himself is not interested in the facts.

I cite for your example, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier and the Minister of Finance said that Kaiser Resources made $13 million in 1973 against $3.4 million in 1972 — an increase of 282 per cent. Mr. Speaker, the record reveals that Kaiser reported losses in 1972. Kaiser Resources shareholders have not yet received a single cent in return for their investment. Their investment is of a value around $156 million.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians bought 25 per cent of the stock. They bought it at $12.50 a share. By the time this government gets through just discussing this legislation and not passing it, those shares are trading on the market Friday and today at $2.25 a share. Mr. Speaker, those shares, to a large degree, are held by small individual citizens. I think that in itself — the drop in the stock — is sufficient reason to have the Minister hoist the bill and examine it.

Let's look at another example of the Premier's misinterpretation — if I may call it that — of the facts in the House on Friday. He said that Bralorne Resources made $2.3 million in 1973, up from $649,000 in 1972. He said that that resource was placed in the ground by God, not Bralorne Resources. No one disputes the last statement.

What we do dispute is his statement of income and its source. Not one single cent of Bralorne income came from British Columbia in the last three years. Their income came largely from the oil and gas fields in Alberta. In fact they had a $3.5 million loss on

[ Page 3893 ]

Bradina Joint Venture on Owen Lakes, near Hazelton, in British Columbia. I don't intend to defend them but I point out the fact as well that they spent $1.5 million on a gold mine in Bralorne and this is yet to be in production. There has yet to be a return; there may never be a return.

Mr. Speaker, God may have put the resources in the ground but the Minister knows and we know that it is not a magical name of a company that has an inflated ego that takes those resources out. It is surveying, staking, engineering and all together resourcefulness of individual people. There is a high risk in terms of input by people. There is high risk in terms of any expense.

I will continue next sitting, Mr. Speaker, but I want to make the point that in both Bralorne Resources and Kaiser resources the Premier's statements in this House on Friday were not reflective of the true situation. Either this comes from ignorance or from the fact that the Premier chooses to disguise the real intent of his bill. Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: Before we conclude, I want to remind the Hon. Members that you are all invited to the reception in the Ned deBeck lounge following 6 o'clock adjournment and dinner in the parliamentary restaurant following after that, I believe at 6:45 this evening. If you have your wives available too, I think there will be ample space tonight.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I ask leave of the House to table the report of the committee on university governance.

Leave granted.

UNIVERSITIES ACT

Hon. Mrs. Dailly presents a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Universities Act.

Bill 157 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to discharge the order for the second reading of Bill 110, Interpretation Act, and that the same be dropped from the order paper.

Leave granted.

INTERPRETATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Macdonald presents a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Interpretation Act.

Bill 153 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

[ Page 3894 ]

APPENDIX

The following amendments are referred to on page 3684 et seq.:

91 The Hon. A. B. Macdonald to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 91 ) intituled Police Act, to amend as follows:

Section 4, line 10: By deleting the number "(1)", and substituting the number (3)".

Section 7, subsection (5), clause (b), line 1: By deleting the words "upon its request,".

Section 7, subsection (5), clause (c), line 1: By deleting the words "upon its request,".

Section 13, marginal note, line 3: By striking out the word "commission" and substituting the word "commissioner".

Section 14, subsection (4), line 4: By deleting the word "a" immediately preceding the word "civil".

Section 15, subsection (1), line 5: By adding, after the word "constable", the words "or peace officer".

Section 19, subsection (1), line 3: By adding, before the word "board", the word "police".

Section 22, subsection (3), clause (a), line 1: By striking out the words "hold office during the pleasure of" and substituting the words "be employees of".

Section 23, fines 8 and 9: By deleting all the words after the words "estimate, and" and substituting the words "shall report its findings to the board, the council,, and the minister."

Section 24: By deleting section 24 and substituting the following:

"Request for assistance of other forces

"24. (1) The provincial force and every municipal force, upon receiving a request for temporary assistance made by the provincial force or a municipal force, shall assign to the force making the request such constables as it is practicable to assign for the purpose.

"(2) Where a constable is assigned to a force under subsection (1), his jurisdiction extends to the jurisdiction of the force to which he is assigned."

Section 25, subsection (1), line 5: By striking out the words "requiring the board to" and substituting the words "recommending that the board".

Section 28, subsection (2), line 1: By striking out the word "A" and substituting the words "Subject to a collective agreement as defined in the Labour Code of British Columbia Act, a".

Section 28, subsection (3), line 5: By deleting the word "a".

Section 30, subsection (1), line 5: By adding, after the word "constable", the words "or peace officer".

Section 30, line 16: By adding, after line 16, the following words:

"(4) Notwithstanding subsection (1), a municipal constable has, while he is on duty in the course of his employment, the jurisdiction throughout the Province of a provincial constable.

"(5) Where a municipal constable exercises his jurisdiction under subsection (4) outside the municipality of the board that appointed him, he shall, if possible, notify the provincial force or municipal force of the area in which he exercises his jurisdiction in advance, but, in any case, shall forthwith after exercising his jurisdiction, notify the provincial force or municipal force."

Section 32, subsection (1), line 1: By striking out the word "commission," and substituting the word "minister,".

Section 36, clause (c), line 1: By striking out the word "commission," and substituting the word "minister,".

[ Page 3894A ]

APPENDIX

Section 37, line 15: By striking out the word "commission" and substituting the word "minister".

Section 37, line 22: By adding, after the word "constable", the words "and any member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police serving in the Province".

Section 40, subsection (1), line 2: By striking out the words "the provincial constable or", and substituting the word "a" .

Section 40, subsection (3), line 2: By adding, after the word "commission", the words "and the minister".

Section 40, subsection (4): By deleting subsection (4) and substituting the following:

"(4) Where the minister receives a notice requesting an inquiry in respect of a complaint against a provincial constable, the minister may direct that the inquiry be held, in the discretion of the minister, by the commission, or by such committee as the minister may designate, or jointly by the commission and such committee as the minister may designate."

Section 58: By striking out section 58 and substituting the following:

Amendments and repeal

58. (1) The Municipal Act, being chapter 255 of the Revised Statutes of British Columbia, 1960, is amended:

(a) By repealing section 644 and substituting the following:

"644. (1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any Act or the Letters Patent incorporating a municipality, but subject to the Administration of Justice Act and the Police Act and section 643, it is the duty of each municipality to bear the expense necessary to

(a) generally maintain law and order in the municipality; and

(b) provide an office for the police force in the municipality and provide premises as a place of detention or make an agreement with some other municipality for the use as required of an office or of premises as a place of detention.

"(2) A copy of every agreement made for the purpose of subsection (1) (b) shall be filed with the Attorney-General."

(b) In section 645, (i) in subsection (1), by striking out the words "city or district" in the second line and (ii) by repealing subsection (2).

(c) In section 652 by striking out the last sentence.

(d) By repealing sections 653, 658, 661, and 663 to 677.

(2) The Police Act, being chapter 283 of the Revised Statutes of British Columbia, 1960, is repealed.

(3) The Vancouver Charter, being chapter 55 of the Statutes of British Columbia, 1953, is amended by repealing sections 473A and 481 and the heading "POLICE MAGISTRATES" preceding section 481; and substituting the following section 481:

"481. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this or any other Act; but subject to the Administration of Justice Act, and the Police Act, it is the duty of the city to bear the expense necessary to

(a) generally maintain law and order in the city; and

(b) provide an office for the police force in the city and provide premises as a place of detention."

(4) section 64 of the Wildlife Act, being chapter 55 of the Statutes of British Columbia, 1966, is amended by striking out the words "constable of the Provincial police force" in the first and second lines, and substituting the words "peace officer".

[ Page 3894B ]

APPENDIX

The following amendments are referred to on page 3866:

124 The Hon. A.B. Macdonald to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 124) intituled Real Estate Amendment Act, 1974, to amend as follows:

Section 6:

(a) Dealing with section 51 (4) (a), line 1: By deleting clause (a) and substituting the following:

"(a) comprised of proposed strata lots where the strata plan of buildings proposed to be constructed has not been deposited in a Land Registry Office; or".

(b) Dealing with section 51 (4) (c), line 1: By deleting clause (c) and substituting the following:

"(c) the creation of the proposed strata lots or the units has been approved by an approving officer;".

(c) Dealing with section 51 (4) (d), line 1: By deleting the words "at least ten per cent of any moneys" and substituting the words "all moneys".

(d) Dealing with section 51 (4), second last line: By deleting the words "any interest in" and substituting the words "title to".

Section 8:

Dealing with section 54 (8) (a), line 2: By deleting the words "section 8" and substituting the words "sections 17, 18 excepting clause (g), 19 (1), and 20".

Section 14 (3):

By deleting subsection (3).

Section 14, subsection (3), line 2: By adding at the end the words "; but a subdivision plan so filed shall, notwithstanding the coming into force of those sections, comply with sections 50, 50A, 51, 52 54, 63, 64, 65 and Schedules 1 and 2 of the Act as if those sections had not been repealed or amended by this Act."

The following amendments are referred to on pages 3866 and 3867:

147 The Hon. David Barrett to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 147) intituled Assessment Authority of British Columbia Act, to amend as follows:

Section 10 (1), line 10: By inserting, after clause (b), the following as clauses

(c) to (g):

"(c) To divide the Province into such number of assessment areas as it considers advisable:

"(d) To develop and maintain programmes for the education, training, and technical or professional development of assessors, appraisers, and other persons qualified in property assessment matters:

"(e) To prescribe and maintain standards of education, training, and technical or professional competence for assessors, appraisers, and other persons employed or engaged in property assessment, and to require compliance with the standards so prescribed:

"(f) If considered advisable, to authorize the officers or employees to perform technical or professional services, other than those required under the Assessment Act, at the request of the Crown or a municipality and to fix and charge fees for those services:

"(g) To ensure that the general public is adequately informed respecting procedures relating to property assessment in the Province:"

and by relettering clause (c) of the Bill as clause (h).

Section 12 (1), line 1: By inserting, after the word "Act," the words "but subject to the regulations, ".

Line 3: By deleting the word "his" and substituting the word "its".

Section 12 (2), lines 2 and 3: By inserting, after the word "Act," the words 49 upon the recommendation of the authority, "; and by deleting the words "he con-

[ Page 3894C ]

APPENDIX

siders" and substituting the words "may be".

Section 14: By deleting clauses (c), (e), (f), and (g), and relettering clauses (d), (h), and (i) as clauses (c), (d), and (e),

The following amendments are referred to on page 3867 et seq.:

138 The Hon. R.M. Strachan to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 138) intituled Motor-vehicle Amendment Act, 1974, to amend as follows:

By adding after section 7, the following as section 7A:

"7A. Section 29 (6) is amended

"(a) by striking out the number '(5)' where it appears in clauses (a) and (b), and substituting in each case the number '(3)'; and

(b) by striking out the word 'speedometer' wherever it appears in clauses (a) and (b), and substituting in each case the word 'odometer'.