[ Page 403 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings Citizens' Initiative Act (Bill 34). Mr. Bennett.

Introduction and first reading — 403

Oral Questions

Penalty for driving unlicensed auto. Mr. Chabot — 403

Casa Loma purchase. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 403

BCHEU charges against King George Private Hospital.

Improperly sent ICBC cheques. Mr. Morrison — 405

Budget debate (amendment)

Division on amendment — 436

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Introduction of bills

CITIZENS' INITIATIVE ACT

On a motion by Mr. Bennett, Bill 34, Citizens' Initiative Act, 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.

Oral questions

PENALTY FOR DRIVING UNLICENSED AUTO

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Communications. Could the Minister tell me what the minimum penalty for driving a motor vehicle without current decals is?

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): According to the newspapers, it's $10; I don't know. No, I don't know what it is. I'd have to check the statute. It's a matter of record in the statutes.

MR. CHABOT: A supplementary question. The Minister suggests that it's $10, according to the newspapers.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I think the Hon. Member knows that you must not ask the solution of a legal proposition or a legal problem. This sounds more like a problem.

MR. CHABOT: I'm just trying to establish whether there is a double standard of justice in the province, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I don't think that that would be permitted in question period. If you want to make a speech about it, you can....

MR. CHABOT: The minimum is $25, and the A-G says it's $10. Will the Minister take this as notice and — come back and report to us as to what the minimum penalty under these circumstances which the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald)....

MR. SPEAKER: It's a matter of law, which the Hon. Member well knows.

MR. CHABOT: Will you take it as notice and give an answer tomorrow?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's a matter of the law of the province. It is on record in the statutes. Read the statutes.

MR. CHABOT: A supplementary question, then, to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General pay the $25 penalty personally, or will the government pay for it?

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): You'll have to speak to me. I'm his lawyer. (Laughter.)

MR. CHABOT: Oh, okay.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has raised two questions: first, should the fine for this offence be $10 or $25? As far as I know, when the decals are available but just not on the car, it's $10; but if that's not the case.... If any other person in the Province of British Columbia has paid more than $10 for that same infraction, I want to be the first to know about it.

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I want to be the first to know about it because, seriously, there should be no difference whatsoever because of rank.

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Your second question is: who should pay the fine? My department said: "We made a mistake on the car and we want to pay the fine for you." I said: "No way! My wife will pay that fine." (Laughter.)

MR. CHABOT: A short supplementary: were the decals in the car?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: They were in the building. (Laughter.)

CASA LOMA PURCHASE

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): To the Minister of Housing, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister confirm that the government applied for the CMHC loan on the Casa Loma property 10 days before the settlement with the lien holders on this matter?

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): If the Member has some information that may be useful to me in answering this, I'd be pleased to have it; otherwise I'll take this as notice.

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MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, the Minister earlier took as notice a question asking for information on negotiations between the Casa Loma group and the government, and the dates involved. This is simply a question which relates to that. I wonder whether he would be willing, therefore, to give this House information as to the dealings and negotiations between his department and the Casa Loma group prior to the settlement of the liens on this property.

The date for the settlement of the liens, for the Minister's information, was November 28. The date for the application for the CMHC mortgage, for the Minister's information, was November 18.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Housing. Can the Minister assure the House that in the costing of the Casa Loma project no work charged against the Casa Loma project was done on any other premises or for any other person or company?

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I think that, as usual, all sorts of veiled charges are being made. There's been no confirmation of any offer ever being made brought into this House. There have been suggestions of many things in relation to this, and I've tried to answer as many questions as possible.

I might take the opportunity at this time, in order to enable you to consider the question of privilege the other day, to ask leave to file a document. It's a letter from Mr. R.W. Ford, manager of Central Mortgage and Housing, to Mr. G. Chatterton, enclosing the original; also a letter to the Department of Housing to the attention of my Associate Deputy Minister, Mr. Chatterton, from Mr. Len Tye, manager from Central Mortgage and Housing; and a copy of Central Mortgage and Housing's copy of the application from Dunhill Development.

Leave granted.

MR. PHILLIPS: Supplementary....

MR. SPEAKER: May I ask the Hon. Member...? When you ask questions, it must deal with the competence of the department at a time when the department had responsibility. If you're talking about a time prior to that responsibility by government, then surely that should be made clear in your question.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, this is certainly within the Minister's competence. Would the Minister be prepared to deduct from the purchase price of Casa Loma work done on the premises of Emil Virani and Mela Virani, as is attested to by the work orders of Coastside Construction on these premises — which I am now prepared to give to the Minister.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's before the government bought it, if it happened at all.

MR. CHABOT: Did you find work that was done in California?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I think the obvious answer, again, is that if the Hon. Member is referring to a time after the government has responsibility for a project, that's one thing. If it doesn't, then his question is out of order. I don't know which it is from your statement.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, on this very subject, by way of explanation, we have asked for in this House and not obtained the appraisal which evidently Dunhill did on Casa Loma before it was purchased by the government. We're unable to obtain this appraisal that was done. We're unable to obtain the working drawings which were given to CMHC. I'm also wondering if the Minister can assure the House that he would be prepared to delete from the price.... Or was in the appraisal certain work done on the Mahal West Health Spa and charged to the Casa Loma project at the request of one of the principals of Casa Loma?

Mr. Speaker, in answering the Attorney-General's question, this work was done before the government purchased Casa Loma, but it was probably....

MR. SPEAKER: This is quite out of order. The Hon. Member knows that it is quite out of order to ask a question that has nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the Minister.

Interjection.

[Mr. Speaker rises.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I made no statement against anyone.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

[Mr. Speaker resumes his seat]

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, on the same subject, yesterday the Hon. Minister tabled in this House the agreement between Casa Loma Motel Ltd. and the Government of British Columbia. I would like to ask the Minister

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on what date the Crown received the written confirmation from the municipality of Burnaby that it had approved in principle the rezoning application, which is a condition precedent of the effectiveness of the agreement.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, I would have to take the question as notice, Mr. Speaker, as far as any date is concerned.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: A supplemental. Is the Minister indicating that such a written approval in principle has been received?

Well, if the Minister is taking that as notice as well, Mr. Speaker, my last question is: will he at the same time, in examining whether such approval in principle has been received, indicate, if it has not, why moneys were advanced? They were not to be advanced under the agreement until the approval had been received.

BCHEU CHARGES AGAINST
KING GEORGE PRIVATE HOSPITAL

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): I'd like to change the subject from bricks and mortar to people and ask the Minister of Health a question with regard to a brief submitted by the hospital employees' union on the subject of the King George Private Hospital in Surrey, which includes a statement that patients who have required immediate medical treatment have been neglected and in some cases have died. In view of the extremely serious nature of this charge, which has been denied, would the Minister tell the House if an inquiry will be carried out immediately in order that if the charge is false the people who are, in effect, being accused in this kind of brief will have their names cleared?

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, on my desk I have the document referred to by the Member for Oak Bay. There are serious charges made in that brief, and serious charges have been raised around the King George Private Hospital.

A little over a month ago I ordered a departmental inquiry into the whole hospital and its delivery of health care. We've had two or three of our departmental people investigating thoroughly, not only looking at the place but interviewing people around the hospital. There will be delivered to me today the results of that inquiry. I will read it first, and then make it public. How we will react I can't contemplate at this time. I do hope that the work will encompass areas such as these charges and whether or not these people can be exonerated.

Where we go from there I'm not sure, but suffice to say we have worked on this for five weeks, and we will have a report in full as quickly as possible.

MR. WALLACE: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Since this is a recurring problem, does the Minister have plans to set up a more frequent and perhaps more intensive supervision system for all private hospitals?

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I've discussed this whole question in my department and I'm sure we could inspect hospitals daily. But this is where the Member for Oak Bay and I part company: in the long run, profit motives in the health industry just don't pay off.

MR. WALLACE: We agree on that! I've said that many times.

HON. MR. COCKE: In any case, this is where he becomes a socialist, Mr. Speaker, and I congratulate him for that.

But in any event, in the long run I believe that the profit motive has to be taken out of the delivery of health care.

MR. WALLACE: I've said that many times.

IMPROPERLY SENT ICBC CHEQUES

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): My question is addressed to the Minister of Transport and Communications, concerning ICBC. The Minister assures me that ICBC has no management problems. Therefore I would like to thank him for his donation from ICBC. I've recently received a cheque made out to one of my companies for $254.42 from ICBC. That particular company has not been in the automobile business — that is, in the body repair business — for five years.

We never applied for a vendor's number, but we received one. I want to thank him for his donation, but my question is: could he advise the House how many cheques have been sent out in error to others like myself? I happen to have at least three in my own file and I know of others. I would like him to advise the House. I again thank him for his donation.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I will have to check on that, but I would like to give you a definition as part of the answer because I think. you will agree that's not a management problem in itself.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, it's a mismanagement problem. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Please send the cheque back.

MR. MORRISON: Oh, no, I think I'd like to keep it.

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HON. MR. STRACHAN: Send the cheque back. Come on, now. Send it back and I'll take it as notice, so I can check today. If you send me the cheque now, then I can follow it through and determine just how that was possible.

MR. MORRISON: They know about it.

Interjections.

MR. MORRISON: Mr. Speaker, would you ask that Member to please withdraw that statement he made?

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): (Mike not on.) The cars have been sold, and the companies have been good enough to tell the people to send them back and get them fixed up. I think you would be proud of that.

MR. MORRISON: Are you accusing me? That was the inference and I'd like that inference withdrawn.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Certainly he is. The manufacturer made mistakes and....

MR. MORRISON: That's not what he said, Mr. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, you sold faulty cars that the manufacturers made mistakes with.

Interjections.

HON. MR. HALL: Of course I'll withdraw, but it seems to me there's been a great deal of publicity about motor car companies — the Member has been a member of that industry — that have done that. Do you class that as a management problem as you class this one?

Orders of the day

ON THE BUDGET

On the amendment.

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, again it is a pleasure to rise in this debate. Last evening I was making comparisons between the record of the previous government and the fine record of this government. It has been rather an interesting debate about this amendment, which seems to have been very poorly chosen. They were drawing comparisons, and I'll just recap some of the arguments.

The record of that group was a 15 per cent municipal share for social assistance; we have reduced it down to 10 per cent.

They had a phantom programme for sewage treatment plant assistance; with us it is $5.7 million, I believe — certainly in excess of $5 million. Theirs would have been a quarter of a million dollars and many, many of the areas would not have qualified for one cent of assistance this year.

In other types of assistance, their attitude was to wipe out the City of Nelson power plant which had existed since the first decade of this century and turn it over to B.C. Hydro — the big, fatherly, heavy hand of Socredism.

Another type of assistance, and one which is being very well received, is the Neighbourhood Improvement Programme. There are six designated areas in this province. In Coquitlam, the programme improves streets, children's recreational facilities and storm sewers. There has been assistance from both the provincial and federal governments under the Neighbourhood Improvement Programme in Duncan, New Westminster, Powell River and Rossland, where they have been able to upgrade certain areas, provide a little bit of rehabilitation, and also provide needed recreational facilities and neighbourhood facilities. In Vancouver, and also in Victoria — in fact, in the riding of the two Members who have just left the house there is neighbourhood assistance.

I talked about the way in which the Department of Housing has removed compulsory tax exemptions, the way that the provincial government has removed housing subsidies from the backs of the municipalities. These, and many others, are ways in which this government is giving real assistance to municipalities, perhaps designated.

They have asked for an increase in the per capita grant. What does an increase in that very crude formula do? It gives the same amount of assistance to the low assessment areas as it does to the high assessment areas because it's sort of an across-the-board thing.

There are certain communities in this province that do not have the assessment base, and I wonder who they're trying to protect by asking for that type of an increase, rather than the designated funds such as sewage treatment plant assistance, which reduces excessive amortization or interest costs over and above certain mill rates. This type of directed assistance helps those areas that have a low assessment base, a low per capita assessment base. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that it's been a great help in Nelson, It's been a great help in Salmo, and it's been a great help throughout Nelson-Creston.

I think much was made of the decrease of housing starts in this province. This is not unique in Canada, and I think that those who read this morning's paper will note that this is a nationwide phenomenon, that British Columbia is doing better than most — in spite of the fact that we have the greatest increase in

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population, a population growth that many European countries don't have to cope with, that no other province in Canada has to cope with.

Sure, our housing starts were down 16.5 per cent, but how much were they down in Ontario? They were down 25 per cent, Mr. Speaker, 25 per cent in that Tory stronghold — the blue machine, which has taken better advantage, I must say, of a federal programme than that bunch ever took when they were in office for 20 years. They are away ahead of us in social programmes and subsidies and sharing and such into social housing, because they've taken up those funds for over 20 years. But they're down 25 per cent.

Who leads in terms of improvement in housing starts? Saskatchewan — up 20.3 per cent over the previous year. They were up — Saskatchewan. Of course, they have the lowest growth rate, but their housing starts were up, and good for them. Newfoundland was up 1.7 per cent.

But, Mr. Speaker, if we want to compare apples and apples, let's compare Ontario and British Columbia. They're down 25 per cent. That is the fact.

The Hon. Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) brought out some figures in his speech last evening, and it's rather interesting to note some of the things that he has said in the past, particularly in Hansard of February 1, 1973. He said: "One did not have to sit in the House prior to last August to fully appreciate the fact that the former government" — speaking of the group with which he is now associated — "have simply grown old, inept and indifferent...." Did you say that? He said that it was apparent to tens of thousands of British Columbians that the former government had to be replaced at the earliest possible date.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Yes, I said it.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I don't know if he's now responsible for his actions.

AN HON. MEMBER: This is '75 now.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: I think a very important point to point out is that he said:

I want to be fair and to congratulate the government for moving promptly and decisively in removing some of those barbed-wire entanglements which started out as strings attached to the per capita grant under the previous administration. Mercifully, you have cleared away that ever-increasing list of conditions attached to every single dollar of the grant.

What were some of those conditions, Mr. Speaker? I don't recall them all, but it seems to me that one of them was earmarked dollars for the local chamber of commerce. I think that was one of the earmarked features of the per capita grant.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): You're wrong. You'd better correct that.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Well, where was that one earmarked from? Where was that tied to? There was something earmarked....

Interjections.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, that Member last night got up and gave us hypothetical figures for projected mill increases in various communities. Now I thought that this was a good piece of spadework. I knew they were projections, and I imagine that these are the most dire predictions. But let's just examine what might happen there.

I might point out, Mr. Speaker, that I called the mayor of Nelson and the city clerk. I tried to get such figures. They said: "We don't have to figure out that budget. We've got that beat. We can do that in four nights, and although there's a May 15 deadline, we don't have to worry about that until May. We'll see what we've got at that time; we'll figure it out. Right now our finance committee is going over this programme of grants for the next year." That's what they're doing, and he thought that any such material, Mr. Speaker, was questionable.

But let's just examine some of these figures, and it is difficult, of course, to try and make projections. With what the Hon. Member said about Mission — an increase from 44.74 mills, projected increase 50 mills:

But let's examine some of these figures, and it's difficult, of course, to try and make projections. With what the Hon. Member said about Mission — on increase from 44.74 mills, projected increase 50 mills — now if that is the dire prediction, this is the worst that can happen.

1974. There has been no increase in assessment for most properties. Take some of the typical assessments, take property at $2,250 and improvements of S 10,000 at 75 per cent. Work it out at the 1974 level at 44.74 mills. That works out on property to $100.67. These are rather hastily constructed figures but I think they'll be pretty close. If we take 75 per cent of the improvements, that works out at $335.55. If we subtract the homeowner grant and the school tax rebate, taking the minimum figure of S230, we get $206.22.

1975. We take the same figures at 50 mills, and I believe we get $112.50 for property and $375 for improvements. That's a total of $487.50. Take the minimum homeowner grant and school tax rebate of $260 and that's $227.50, an increase of $21.50. The most dire is a total increase on taxation of 5 per cent. But let's be fair. A total net increase of what a person would have to pay over $206.22 of the previous year is only about 10 per cent. At the rate that other things are going up, this paints quite a different

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picture than taking those mill rates out of context and trying to paint such a dreary, glum picture.

But what is on the horizon? Have some vision. You should be urging, as I have urged. And I am very pleased to report the support that the councils in Nelson-Creston have given to the Premier's position on the sharing of natural gas revenues. If those people would put British Columbia first instead of their lust for power, if they would put British Columbia first.... I ask you, be responsible; put British Columbia first. Go talk to your council. Go talk in Ottawa. Make a fight for what is the right and responsible. Your responsibility as British Columbians is to support a fair deal for the municipalities and the Province of British Columbia.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): I am happy to take my place and support this amendment, and I'm happy to follow the Minister of Housing as well. I was looking through the library and thought I might follow his lead and quote some of his statements from Hansard. Unfortunately, he's never said anything that made any sense in this House (laughter) or offered any hope for the people of British Columbia.

It's significant that the Minister of Housing, in his comments on the amendment, didn't have the nerve to talk very much about housing, which is a disaster in this province. Instead he talked about municipal affairs about which he knows even less than he knows about housing. And he certainly showed it. As soon as he became Minister of Housing, the roof fell in.

He talks about the reduced share of welfare for the municipalities. Sure, the percentage is reduced, but the welfare bill is up — up by hundred and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right.

MR. McCLELLAND: That's the kind of treatment he gives to the municipalities.

You know, Mr. Speaker, why the municipalities won't accept housing. They can't afford to accept it because of the way this government is treating them. If you would make some kind of a formula available so the municipalities would know that they could accept that housing, they'd accept it gladly. But this government treats them like poor relations.

I enjoyed the Member for Delta (Mr. Liden) in his comments about revenue-sharing and the airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky plan that this government has for revenue-sharing. The Member for Delta went to Delta council one night before the Premier went down to Ottawa with his suggestion about the increased price for natural gas. The Member for Delta wanted to know from Delta council if they would help him out and tell him how they might spend this extra money.

He wanted to come to Victoria and tell the Premier how Delta wanted to spend all this extra money. You know, all this extra money.

Well, then the Premier came back from Ottawa with his tail between his legs — there wasn't any money. An empty bag. The Member for Delta never went back to Delta council to ask them if they wanted to share in the losses as well.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) got up as well in his election speech and talked about all kinds of things. He spread the myth again about our party wanting to do away with Mincome and Pharmacare. What total, utter nonsense. What nonsense! This party in the past created some of the most innovative programmes — in social reform that have ever been known in this country.

HON. N. LEVI (Minister of Human Resources): Name one, name one.

MR. McCLELLAND: The Minister of Highways in that election speech was simply trying to hide the facts, cloud the issue and hide the fact that the NDP has never invented social reform, but is imposing socialism on the people of this province while flying the banner of social reform. If you don't believe that, listen to the quote from the Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) when she launched her leadership campaign as the favourite daughter, when she said: "The NDP's basic goal should be to wrest power from the big corporations for the people."

I'm glad you applaud that, because I know that you will applaud the next statement as well, which says: "Improvement of social programmes like Mincome, Unemployment Insurance, the Canada Pension Plan, pollution cleanup, Medicare, while important, must not be accepted as a substitute for socialism." That's what the Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard said, so don't spread this stupid myth about the NDP having any monopoly on social reform or on social conscience. And please, Mr. Speaker, I hope the Premier will get off this phony war he's building with Ottawa, the phony war that he's attempting to build up into an election issue. And where is he now, I wonder. He's not in this House.

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to support this amendment because this government has proved once and for all in this phony budget that it's a government of broken promises: broken promises in the field of intermediate care; broken promises in the field of education; broken promises in the field of human resources; broken promises in the aid to

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municipalities, and broken promises in the one area where it could have done something to provide jobs for the people of this province, and that's in the area of housing. It's in that area that it is a complete and utter disaster.

Here we are faced in British Columbia with a housing shortage which is reaching critical proportions, a crisis proportion, and our provincial government has no direction and no real policies.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): Nonsense!

MR. McCLELLAND: The government, instead of facing up to the problems, is being blinded by it's ideological hang-ups. We're buying in this province thousands and thousands of acres of land for philosophical reasons, with no sound programme to put houses on that land to provide shelter for the people of this province. No programmes — and in the bargain we don't get the jobs which would come with the provision of those houses. With the Dunhill Development Corp., for which we paid $6 million, we got a company which hasn't provided one new house in this province since this government took office — not one new housing unit, Mr. Speaker. They paid $6 million for that company — and we thought it was going to fill some void, take the lead in developing some innovative programmes.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well, that's right; that's an interesting point, Mr. Member. The company the day before we bought it was worth $3 million. We paid $6 million.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, $2 million profit and not a house. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. McCLELLAND: All that company has done is buy up existing projects that already have been begun, and frankly the people of this province had hoped for something better.

[Mr. Speaker rises]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member be seated for a moment? Your point of order?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I remind the Hon. Members that a point of order can only be taken when it relates to something that you have been alleged to have said — and not to get into a dispute about somebody else's understanding of the facts.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair]

MR. McCLELLAND: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I really find it incredible that that Minister should stand up and tell me that I've led the people in some kind of a misunderstanding. That's an incredible statement from an incredible Minister, Mr. Speaker.

MR. D.F. LEWIS (Shuswap): It's true.

MR. McCLELLAND: You know, I wasn't going to mention this at this time, but I really can't let it pass. The other day in this chamber the Minister made a statement in reply to a question from me with regard to Meadowbrook subdivision, which is one of his shining examples of public housing, when he said in this House when I asked him what he was going to do about fixing up the defects in that development: "It's nothing to do with me; that's between North Road and the people who live there." That's what he said: "It's nothing to do with me." Just because the government owns that project.... It's nothing to do with him. It's not what he said.... You didn't have me by the hand, through you, Mr. Speaker, when we toured Meadowbrook in December, and we asked you what you were going to do about those defects then. Here's what you said; Nicolson said: "The government is prepared to see that remedial work is undertaken." The government is prepared to see that remedial work is undertaken.

Now why the flip-flop, Mr. Speaker? Why has that Minister gone back on his word and now says that the people can go and fix the stuff themselves or deal with North Road, which has got it's money out and isn't interested in spending any more money?

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Where are they taking the money?

MR. McCLELLAND: The money's being taken to California. It's not here any more. Those people will have to suffer with those defects because of the lack of action by that Minister. And he talks about us creating misunderstandings. What nonsense!

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, your Minister is doing a good job of creating housing in California — a fantastic job. The only real programme we've seen by this government is its alarming buying spree, with little or no rhyme or reason and little or no concern

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about the kind of deals they're getting into.

We're certainly not satisfied that the kind of projects this government is buying will either create jobs or create new housing. Meadowbrook is a very good example of the kind of showcase development the government says it's involved in but which is hardly showcase and hardly the kind of development to lead the way for government housing in this province. If that kind of performance from that Minister is all we can expect in this province, we'll never solve our shelter crisis.

We see the Burke Mountain scheme which they're talking about for housing in British Columbia and we find out now that in Burke Mountain, as well as all of the other schemes, the government is flying by the seat of its pants. It doesn't know where it's going, doesn't have the programmes and doesn't have a policy. Just buy the land, buy the land. Again, the ideological insistence on the abolition of the private ownership of land.

Dunhill admits that it doesn't know what is going to happen on Burke Mountain and the Housing Minister makes the same admission. Again, we see the government as wheeler-dealer in Burke Mountain: secrecy, property purchases — and this by our so-called open government.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Minister, the people on your side of the House can get in on all those deals. We don't want any part of it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. McCLELLAND: We don't want any part of it.

Interjections.

HON. MR. NICOLSON: ...name names! Name names, or withdraw.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member didn't attribute anything corrupt, did he?

MR. McCLELLAND: No, I didn't say a thing about corruption, Mr. Speaker. I won't ask the Minister to withdraw what he said about me because I accept it from the source. I wasn't making any....

MR. SPEAKER: It's much better if we refrain from personal allusions on both sides.

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Allusions.

MR. McCLELLAND: In conjunction with the problems in housing in this province, we do have the problems with regard to financial aid to the municipalities. In so many instances, the two go together. I think that in projects like Burke Mountain, Meadowbrook, Essondale, Squamish — wherever the government wants to impose large housing units on the people of those communities without any prior consultation — then we have a serious problem.

I know that many municipal politicians would like very much to take this government at face value, but it's very difficult to do that. I note from a recent issue of The Democrat — the newspaper or whatever it is — there is a comment in here by the mayor of Coquitlam with regard to Burke Mountain. The mayor says, with regard to extra costs of municipal services: "The Minister" — and he's talking about the Minister of Housing — "has assured me that Burke Mountain will not cost persons now residing in the municipality additional taxes."

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the mayor of Coquitlam would really like that to happen but I don't have the same kind of confidence in this government or the Minister of Housing. There is no way in the world that a development the size of Burke Mountain cannot cost extra money to the municipalities for schools, for roads, for transportation, for police, for social services and for so many other things. Where is the assurance by the Minister of Housing that that development will not cost the people in that community more money? Unless that Minister and that government are prepared to come up with a sound financial formula to reimburse the municipalities in actual cash payments, then I'd say that those municipalities should say: "We don't want any part of your development until you give us some money." This government is not prepared to do that for them.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, it's too expensive to do business with this government because it won't put its cards on the table. So far in this province we've spent millions and millions of dollars and we still haven't any idea what the Department of Housing is doing or what it plans to do. More shameful is that the Department of Housing doesn't have any idea either.

The housing crisis in this province will not be solved as long as this government is blinded by its obsession to gain control of the 5 per cent or less of land in this province which is not already held in the name of the Crown.

This crisis in housing never needed to happen. But

[ Page 411 ]

this government has taken over two Years — 30 months — to arrive at the conclusion that it doesn't know where it's going, but it's going full speed ahead.

MR. H. STEVES (Richmond): What did you guys do in 20 years?

MR. McCLELLAND: Unless we continue to provide incentive programmes to encourage private ownership as well as public housing, we'll never solve the problem we have in this province. We know that those kinds of incentives go against the grain of state socialism, so again we see ideology getting in the way of good common sense.

With this kind of blind allegiance to some kind of ideology, this government is not helping to solve the housing shortage, but is contributing to that shortage. Nothing will ever change until this government is out. For those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I fully support this amendment to the budget.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, when I listen to the emotionally charged speech....

Interjection.

HON. MR. COCKE: I wonder if the Member for Vancouver-Point Grey resents the fact that I'm speaking in this debate.

Mr. Speaker, the problem we have here is that the Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland) in his usual fashion tries very, very hard to make what would be desirable and what would be good goals for this province look bad by spouting off little words that he's been taught to dislike ever since he was a child — little words like "socialism" and all of these things.

I hope that our side of the House refrains from indicating some of the feelings we have towards people who are so desperately tied to the corporate giants, whose every speech is in protection of the large interests of the large empires, who have no loyalty to country and don't have any loyalty to you people — maybe a few dollars, and that's all.

Mr. Speaker, to listen to the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) attacked, as we've been listening in the last half hour, is just a little bit much because of the fact that that Minister is doing something now that has never been done in this province's history...

MRS. JORDAN: Right on!

HON. MR. COCKE: ...Liberals and Socreds notwithstanding.

You know, we used to be the laughing stock of all of Canada. We used to be, under the Socreds, the laughing stock of all of Canada. Why? Because the Liberals down there used to say: "You know, that crazy government in B.C. doesn't take advantage of any of the shared programmes in housing — virtually none." And the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey knows that perfectly well.

It's all a big illusion that they try to create. They try to create an illusion around a Minister of Housing who has only had a very short time. They try to say that he's not producing. They can't tell that to the people who are going into co-op housing in New Westminster. They can't tell that to the people who are going into co-op housing in other areas all over this province. Oh, yes, they bring up some criticism around who did this and when and how, and always these allegations that can never be substantiated are raised. But the fact of the matter is there is interest in housing. There's a Department of Housing, and I think that is very important for this province.

At the same time that Member said the welfare bill is up. Yes, Mr. Speaker, in times of stress welfare bills go up. But one of the reasons the Department of Human Resources changed its name was because of the fact that there was a great deal more in Human Resources than just welfare. Yes, a great deal more.

Under the Socreds 9,000 people in this province — this is one of those great innovative programmes that he was talking about - got a supplement to their old-age pension. I can't remember how much it was because it was so infinitesimal that it really doesn't matter anyway.

But the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi), as part of his portfolio and a major portion of his budget, provides for well over 100,000 people in this province over age 60. It was over age 65; now it's over age 60.

They talked in terms of "innovative programmes." I would like that Member to stand in his place one day and indicate to us where those innovative programmes were. I would sure like to hear him, because we saw no evidence of them.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COCKE: That's right. They thought about them, and now they are having all sorts of very grand and glorious ideas how they will support, if they are government, the programmes we have brought in. Isn't it interesting, Mr. Speaker? They are all for Pharmacare — but there was no Pharmacare under the Socreds.

AN HON. MEMBER: There was.

HON. MR. COCKE: What? Mr. Speaker, I took over that programme. What a laugh! You know, the Minister that announced that programme just prior to election day set up an organization of two people who tried to pay the bills, hoping that people would forget after the election was called that there were

[ Page 412 ]

going to be some bills paid for those in dire need. But what a laugh. That was an innovative programme? Oh, come on, I happened to take over that innovative programme, so don't kid the troops.

Mr. Speaker, that party was bankrupt in any kind of ideology that might carry it to the people. They had their little ritual dances now and again — their conventions. The cabinet Ministers used to laugh about those conventions: "Let them come up with any resolution they like — those resolutions don't mean anything to us fellows out here on the golf course anyway."

This Minister of Housing is working and will produce for this province, and he is producing for this province.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. They talk about broken promises. Every time they look at our campaign literature from the last campaign and compare it to anything they've ever done in the past, they just....

Interjections.

HON. MR. COCKE: Oh, come on. Don't raise that. They were so totally broke in ideas and innovation that they didn't have any promises to break because of the fact that they didn't make a half-decent promise all the time that they were in power.

They talk about the Premier coming back from Ottawa with an empty bag. Now that Member from Langley (Mr. McClelland) had better be ready to eat his words, because the only thing that can make the Premier's promises....

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): That's like swallowing poison.

HON. MR. COCKE: That's right. The only thing that can hurt in any way the situation we face in this province with respect to the sharing of natural gas revenues will be broken promises in the east, and I'm sure that will not happen.

HON. MR. BARRETT: The Liberals wouldn't do that.

HON. MR. COCKE: They wouldn't do it, Mr. Speaker.

The fact of the matter is there is now a new idea. There is now a new base, a new opportunity for municipalities in this province to share in revenue. Oh, and don't you resent that? Don't you resent the fact there is opportunity now for municipalities to share in revenues of the province instead of the capital grants? Those diminishing natural resources are okay for everybody to share in.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COCKE: You say: "Where's the money?" I wonder if he'll put his seat on the line if the money is presented and he's proven to be so terribly wrong.

MR. McCLELLAND: If you're so sure, why don't you give them the money now?

HON. MR. COCKE: They want us to go back to their system, and I hope that we never do.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COCKE: His day will come.

I happen to live, for two days of the week, in a constituency very close to that constituency where Meadowbrook took place. I was watching The Columbian newspaper at the time, and I watched the ritual dance that that Member for Langley did. You know, all of those black doom-and-gloom suggestions; all these terrible things were happening; all of the nefarious people in the world, and so on and so forth. I am somewhat amused because his connections with private enterprise are a lot closer than any connections our party might have with private enterprise. That's really what he's criticizing.

But the fact of the matter is that I talked to some of the experts in our area, I said: "Look at those photographs, will you, and tell me about these defects." They were people who work with their hands — carpenters who have everyday activities in this area. Some of them, of course, say that sure there are defects in some buildings, but practically every one of those photographs could have been very easily a total misinterpretation, because I'm informed by carpenters that some of the shoring up that goes on within buildings goes on within every single solitary building built in this or any other province.

MR. McCLELLAND: There are 1,800 defects.

HON. MR. COCKE: That's the kind of help that Member is always giving to anything. Do anything — produce one house, and he'll criticize that house. He'll tear that house down if he gets the chance because the last thing he wants — just like the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) — is for anything to happen here. That's clear. The Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) indicated very clearly that he's not very interested in any progress happening. Oh, we have a little argument about it and there's a matter of personal privilege and all the rest of it, but the fact of the matter is that you people are terribly resentful of anything happening in this province. And a lot is happening, so you become increasingly resentful.

MR. PHILLIPS: How come you're so protective?

[ Page 413 ]

HON. MR. COCKE: I have an opportunity to stand in my place in this House and the democratic process says that I should speak out on behalf of the people. Certainly we're not going to leave it to the opposition to speak on behalf of the people.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Prescribe for them.

HON. MR. COCKE: I'll prescribe, Mr. Premier — yes, I'll prescribe for them.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Give them a pill.

HON. MR. COCKE: All sorts of things are happening in this province. One of the things that's happening is that the Minister of Housing is working with groups within municipalities. He's working with a corporation that's assisting to provide housing in this province, and then Mr. Dark Clouds over there says: "The secrecy in property dealings...."

HON. MR. BARRETT: Doom and gloom.

HON. MR. COCKE: What if that Minister of Housing goes out and suggests that this land will be purchased for housing? What's going to happen to the price of it? What's going to happen to it? Sure, there are negotiations going on right now throughout the province in different areas for different reasons: hospitals, schools, housing, other sorts of building that must be carried on. Surely it's not up to this government to go around announcing that three years from now we will be building here and therefore you can jack your prices up as high as you like. That would be foolish.

On behalf of the taxpayers, the Minister is being completely within his office to do exactly what he's doing, and he'd be wrong otherwise.

I just want to get back and sort of reiterate my former.... We're discussing the same amendment given a second time. Virtually the same amendment that was given to the throne speech is here again introduced by that same party, by that party that in 1960 and 1961, when we had a recession in this province — as we're having now — couldn't be blamed for that recession any more than you can blame the NDP for the present recession. We don't call the shots in international affairs and international finance, nor did they then.

But I remember that in 1960-61 — December — 9.8 per cent of the people in this province were out of work; 10.9 in January. If you want me to slap around the evidence....

MR. CHABOT: 1930?

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, that's the way it was. Yes, in 1930 we had Conservative governments then, too.

Mr. Speaker, today, in spite of just as vicious a recession, we're doing better.

But I would like just again to say: how did that Socred government respond to the people out of work then? How did they respond? "Jobless Medical Aid Cut." They cut the people on unemployment insurance and welfare off medical aid because they felt, I suppose, that that might drive them back to work where there were no jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or kill them.

HON. MR. COCKE: Or kill them. Now, Mr. Speaker, that's the social orientation of that group over there who so desperately want to claw their way back into power in this province at the expense of all the people in this province. Heaven help us from them! Heaven protect the people of this province from that group of pirates!

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Mr. Speaker, I always find the Minister of Health a very entertaining speaker. He's got a lot of fire and brimstone when he stands up here to speak. I rather enjoy him when he rises in his place and attempts to defend that government over there — that government of broken promises.

During this debate, this motion, which I stand in my place to support, many of the back bench got up and suggested that they had done great things for the municipalities of British Columbia by reducing the percentage contribution towards the overall costs of welfare in the province from 15 per cent down to 10 per cent — great contribution.

In 1972 the estimate on welfare for British Columbia was $138 million; in 1975 it's $516 million.

MR. LEWIS: Welfare?

MR. CHABOT: That's the estimate of your.... Those are your estimates — $516 million.

HON. MR. LEVI: For welfare?

MR. CHABOT: The municipalities.... Welfare is up dramatically and you know it. Are you suggesting...? You had a $103 million overrun which you couldn't even find. You had to get the Premier of British Columbia to bail you out, to suggest that it was a clerical error — and you know that.

Welfare will be up a minimum of 20 per cent this year.

Interjections.

[ Page 414 ]

MR. CHABOT: The municipalities are committed to contributing in their formula of 10 per cent millions of dollars more per year than they were under the formula of 15 per cent. That's aid to municipalities, as they've suggested?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, Jimmy!

MR. CHABOT: Certainly not, and if they want to be honest, they know that they're extracting millions of dollars more from the municipalities on their formula for welfare than was extracted in the past.

I was appalled the other day when I heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) stand in his place and deliver the speech on the budget of the management of his department. In the 12 years that I have been in this Legislature that is the most pathetic speech I've ever seen delivered by a Minister of the Crown. In 12 years never have I seen or heard anything more pathetic than that speech.

The Minister spoke for about 15 minutes, and of those 15 minutes we got seven minutes of one-line jokes. While the municipalities are at the door, trying to get into the Premier's office, and the Premier's not there to answer them. And the Minister of Municipal Affairs — all he can give the municipalities is a bunch of one-line jokes. That's not good enough, Mr. Speaker, in a budget that has increased by over $ 1 billion over last year. One-line jokes from the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and hollow promises from the Premier of this province!

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): You're the biggest joke of all!

MR. CHABOT: Well, we've just heard from Mr. Magoo, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I don't think it's proper parliamentary expression to draw attention to someone's visual defects, really. If you had good vision, I suppose they wouldn't call you Mr. Magoo.

MR. CHABOT: My vision's not that good, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, it's obviously not very good in this expression.

MR. CHABOT: Well, Mr. Speaker, I wish the Minister wouldn't make his snide remarks across the chamber; and I'll refrain from doing them, myself.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm certain that you both will behave better in the future.

MR. CHABOT: There's nothing in this budget to help the municipalities of British Columbia, Mr. Speaker. This government doesn't realize that inflation, which has been generated to a great extent by that government over there, is a reality to the municipalities of this province. They're faced with inflation: rising costs, material costs, labour costs. Where is the help? There is no help for the municipalities if the government sees fit to present a budget of $1 billion more with nothing for municipalities but shallow and hollow promises.

We know full well what has happened to some of the promises of that government over there. During the last election they promised the people of British Columbia $25 car insurance — $25-a-year car insurance. We know how hollow that promise was, Mr. Speaker.

We know how hollow was that broken promise of the government regarding removing school taxes from the land, where the Minister is shifting from day to day her position as far as educational costs are concerned in this province. She suggested to the taxpayers of British Columbia that the mill rate will increase dramatically in education, because we're in a time of recession, she says, and the taxpayers will have to pay more. And the municipalities have indicated very clearly as well, because of the lack of help.... They're knocking on the door of the Premier probably right now for help. Because of the lack of consideration by this government towards the municipalities the general mill rate will go up as well. How much more in taxes can the people of British Columbia tolerate, while this government increases its expenditures by $1 billion in one year, with no assistance for the municipalities?

The municipalities want to know what kind of assistance you're going to give them. In fact, they've written a letter to the Premier asking for a guarantee or an assurance that $20 million will be made available to them this year so that they can set their mill rates accordingly.

I hope that the Premier will announce today this assurance to the municipalities, so that they won't have to tax the people exorbitantly this year. It's not good enough to give us the promise that there'll be aid through sharing of increased taxation on the export of natural gas. This natural gas export, Mr. Speaker, is on a sliding scale, and that sliding scale is downwards. Downwards! Certainly the municipalities won't buy this kind of a downward-sliding scale.

In 1973 we exported 267 billion cubic feet of natural gas. In 1974 it was down to 239 billion cubic feet. We don't know what the figure will be for 1975. But the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk) states that natural gas production in November was down by 7.5 per cent. How much more will the export of natural gas be down in 1975? How much more will it be down in 1976 — 1977? Is the government attempting to tie the municipalities of British Columbia on the downward-sliding scale of

[ Page 415 ]

assistance? It appears that way. I hope the Premier will reply in the affirmative to the municipalities. Give them an assurance, not hollow promises. Give them an assurance that $20 million will be available to them this year.

Certainly a budget of this size, over $3 billion, should be enough money to help the municipalities this year. They are not asking for a great fortune of the budget; they are asking for $20 million. That isn't much out of a budget of $3.2 billion. Certainly, I think the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) has a responsibility to tell them, and to tell them now, that they have an assurance of this assistance. But it is not reflected in this budget which we are debating. This kind of assistance is not there. There's a promise of maybe sometime in the future, without a specific amount being earmarked.

The Premier has labelled the budget a "job-security budget." Well, it appears it will be a job-security budget because the increase in taxes that he is putting on the backs of the taxpayers of this province will force them to stay on the job. Income taxes are increasing dramatically this year and all other taxes are practically going up as well. Oh, there is a fantastic increase. Personal income tax is being increased dramatically.

Interjection.

MR. CHABOT: Certainly the percentage is the same, but the inflation which you have helped create is going to take more taxes out of the back pockets of the workers in this province.

HON. MR. BARRETT: More people are working.

MR. CHABOT: The government has said in its budget address that it is going to look after the needs of the workers; there are going to be more jobs in British Columbia. They specifically stated that there is going to be $70 million earmarked for the production of jobs in British Columbia. How many jobs will this kind of money create? Based on an average of $700 per month per worker, they would only be able to create enough jobs to look after one-third of the 102,000 people who are unemployed at this time in the province for a period of 3 months. That's all.

This government has the audacity, Mr. Speaker, they suggest that this is a job-security budget. For three months they will be in a position to assist one-third of the 102,000 people seeking employment in British Columbia. Do you really believe that is a job-security budget? Certainly not. You know it, Mr. Speaker.

It can't possibly be because it doesn't look after the needs of the working people of this province.

This government has a responsibility to set the economic climate so that investment can come to British Columbia — job-creating investment. They have absolutely destroyed the kind of confidence that is necessary for people to invest in job-producing industries in this province so that investment dollars are moving out of this province to other areas in United States and other provinces of this country as well. A promise of $70 million at a later date is not good enough. What we need is action now on behalf of those 102,000 people who are unemployed.

What do we have from the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk), that great man of vision? We look at his budget and we find that his budget has been slashed in half. Last year's revised estimates: $10.8 million. There has been a reduction of $5.8 million in his budget. I thought that department over there was going to encourage the establishment of secondary industry in British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that that department is a do-nothing department led by a do-nothing Minister with no vision. No wonder we do not have any jobs in this province.

No wonder unemployment is growing with the kind of policies we see from that government in the mining field. Five thousand miners have lost their jobs in the mines of British Columbia because of the policies — not entirely but to a great extent — of that government. A reduction, of course, in mineral prices has assisted.

I want to be fair, Mr. Speaker, and I am always fair when I comment on these matters. Yet the policies of that government have denied the rights of workers in this province to be employed in the mining industry. We have 15 major ore bodies in British Columbia ready to be developed and constructed on which would create 6,000 direct jobs in this province and 46,000 indirect jobs as well in ancillary industries.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where? Where?

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): Name them.

MR. CHABOT: I'll name one — Afton. What's happening? Nothing is happening while unemployment is 102,000 in British Columbia today.

We could be doing something in the mining field. We could create enough jobs to look after half of the unemployed in this province. Yet this government establishes punitive tax measures which destroy the confidence of the investors in the mining industry of this province. What they are in fact doing by destroying investment confidence in this province, Mr. Speaker, is denying the right of working people to enjoy employment in the mining industry. That's what they're doing. And they talk about being a government for the people. They're a government against the people because they deny them the opportunity of working.

[ Page 416 ]

We've heard a little bit about housing. We've heard a lot about housing. Anyone who follows the programme of this government in the field of housing knows full well that Dunhill, that fiasco which they paid twice too much for, hasn't built one home that is presently being occupied in this province. Not one home. Every home they purchased, Mr. Speaker, they've bought from developers, those terrible developers who are hated by that government over there. Those developers have made a lot of money off that government, yet Dunhill hasn't created one housing unit that is presently occupied.

MR. McCLELLAND: No jobs either.

MR. CHABOT: No jobs either. Yet the Minister talks in his fancy, colourful brochures with all the colour pictures and the picture of the Minister, about housing for people. Oh, they're doing a great programme of advertising, Mr. Speaker, but that isn't generating many housing units in this province, not very many. We constantly get these press releases, the housing news, new projects being opened, new projects being bought from developers in British Columbia. There are announcements in various ridings. I haven't found one with an opposition Member being mentioned, but you go from riding to riding. Here's one that says: "The Department of Housing has purchased the Casa Loma apartments at 6077 Kingsway, Burnaby, for senior citizens' housing for $3.177 million." Well, that figure has been revised after a little bit of investigation by the opposition. That has been revised very dramatically by about 11 per cent, Mr. Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson): $350,000 more, Mr. Member. Shocking, shocking! Under the proposal call programme.

MR. PHILLIPS: With all those PR men, they can't even get their press releases straight. With all those PR men, all those great guys in the PR department, all their hacks, they still can't get your releases....

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, this one was announced by the Speaker of the Legislature. Casa Loma was announced by the Speaker of the Legislature. Well, the least you could do, Mr. Speaker, is ask the Department of Housing not to incriminate you further with their press releases. Certainly they should have announced it being opened. The announcement was on February 13, and it was announced Thursday. But really, Mr. Speaker, I think you should send a directive to the Department of Housing so that when they make announcements in the future, they don't involve the Speaker of the Legislature; they involve only the MLA from Burnaby-Edmonds (Hon. Mr. Dowding).

We find that this is another one that has been constructed by some developers, and I get these quite frequently. Developers are making a lot of money off this, government over here. It makes it difficult for this government to fulfil its pledge which it makes in these colourful brochures which they mail around the province.

In one it says: "The goal of this government is to provide access to adequate and reasonably priced housing." Many of these projects, Mr. Speaker, are very costly and are beyond the means of the working people of this province. There's one here that I just did some quick calculations on. This one was townhouses that were purchased under proposal call programme from Granger Industries Development for 21 townhouses. This one was a joint announcement. It wasn't a Member of the opposition who was involved in the joint announcement; it was the Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown), the favourite daughter whom the Premier says he won't support in the leadership bid.

I find in the announcement of the purchase of these 21 units, seven of them are going to cost a total of $325,000, which makes these worth approximately $50,000 apiece. I don't really believe that a working man can possibly afford to move into one of those townhouses. Yet they're supposed to be reasonably priced housing for people. At $50,000 I just can't visualize how anyone who earns a working wage in this province can afford this type of housing. If you figure it at the current interest rate of not less than 10 per cent, just interest alone on that amount is $5,000 per year. When one compares the Meadowbrook lease structure, one has to conclude that the minimum annual lease on the land which the townhouse sits on will be about $1,200.

So before that individual starts paying anything on the principal, he will have paid the cost, a minimum of $6,200 per year. That is over $500 per month. How can a working man ever afford the kind of housing which the government says is going to be reasonably priced? Even if the government brings in some kind of financial structure and reduces the interest rate to 7 per cent, it is still beyond the financial ability of working people to afford these so-called reasonably priced housing units being bought by developers and put on stream by the Housing department.

This budget does nothing for housing. This budget does very little for the working people of this province.

The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) was talking about what this budget does, saying that it is a resource-oriented budget, that the tax dollars come from the resources of this province. Let me tell you what has happened to the resource taxes in this province in this budget. The anticipated revenue from forestry in this budget is down $125 million. Is that a resource-oriented budget, Mr. Speaker? Mining taxes are down by $6 million. There is a loss from resources

[ Page 417 ]

in the forthcoming year of $131 million, and the Minister of Highways has the audacity to suggest that this is a resource revenue budget. Certainly it is not a resource revenue budget.

I will tell you where the major portion to make up this budget comes from. From people! Property taxes, $23 million. Sales tax, $480 million. Personal income tax — the biggest item in government — $655 million. Gasoline tax (get out of your Cadillacs and ride Hydro, the Premier says), $179 million — approximately $50 million more anticipated by the government in gasoline taxes. Hotel/motel taxes, $8 million. They are going to drive people to drink, I think, Mr. Speaker, because they are anticipating a fantastic growth in the profits from liquor, which have reached $155 million. Cigarette taxes from people, $23 million.

Approximately half of the budget which we are talking about, over $1.5 billion, is from people — not from those terrible multinational corporations, just from little people, just from little working people in this province. They say that it is a resource revenue budget. It is a tax-the-people budget — that's what it is!

They seem to believe as well that bigness is goodness. "Throw it around, we will be good guys."

HON. MR. BARRETT: You should be on a diet.

MR. CHABOT: Certainly that is not true, Mr. Speaker. And you should be too, Mr. Premier, on a diet. You know that. Your Minister of Highways should be on a diet as well.

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): The Minister of Highways is going to put you on one.

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, this budget does nothing to help local government. This budget gives the minimal amount of assistance to those people who are seeking employment in the province. This budget indicates very clearly to me as well...

HON. MR. BARRETT: Where is your leader?

MR. CHABOT: ...that housing is in a chaos in this province! Absolute chaos! It's being handled by a Minister who doesn't understand his responsibilities in the field of housing.

No, Mr. Speaker, this is a very timely motion that is being put by the official opposition. Now that I've said a few words in this chamber and have enlightened that back bench back there which appeared to be misled by that cabinet over there, I hope that after I have given them those facts and figures on the things this budget has failed to do they will search their souls and search their consciences and support what is a very timely and a very necessary amendment.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): I certainly have no hesitation in standing in opposition to this amendment. I think that after surveying the approach taken by the opposition, it is very clear to see that most people in this province still don't know who the Leader of the Opposition is.

HON. MR. BARRETT: What is his name?

MR, LEWIS: I have been trying to figure this out for some time. Some people said it was the Member for South Okanagan (Mr. Bennett); some said it was the Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland). But after careful consideration by myself, I have come to the conclusion that the leader of this party is still big daddy and Garner Ted Armstrong. (Laughter.) I would say that Garner Ted Armstrong has done an excellent job with that party. He has a very fine group of protegés at that end of the House.

They stand up and they have enough gall to condemn the Minister of Housing, a new Minister who set up a major programme in housing, when they had nothing whatsoever in housing to offer this province at all.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Oh, he hasn't built a house.

MR. LEWIS: He has built a house, my friend. He had tremendous accomplishments last year, and this year's budget is $90 million, compared to zilch by that party — 2,000 rental units and cooperative units, 15,000 units in the planning and construction stage. That compares very well with 20 years of neglect by your party.

It is amazing just to see how an opposition can work. If they're concerned about housing....

HON. MR. BARRETT: I've never seen them work.

MR. LEWIS: No, I haven't either.

If they are concerned about unemployment in this province, why not work with the government to try to see that better things happen, instead of being a wrecking crew?

MR. CHABOT: That's what this amendment is about.

MR. LEWIS: They talk about municipal governments and how they have been treated in this province. You know, they have very, very short memories. Can you read that heading? "Bennett Slaps Down Crying Civic Heads" Slaps them down! He said: "It is only 92 per cent crocodile tears." Have you heard this government talking that way? No way,

[ Page 418 ]

my friend. But I think one Member in this House is going to start talking that way, because I can see where many municipal leaders in this province aren't concerned either with what happens to the people they represent.

We have a very fine Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) in this House, and the only fault I can find in that Minister is that he is far too nice.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's right!

MR. LEWIS: I'm not that same type of a person, so I'm going to condemn a few people. You know, we have people in this province leading some of the municipal governments that aren't there for the betterment of the people. They are politically motivated.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. LEWIS: They are political opportunists. I believe that some of them that are opportunists went to join that party; and they deserve them.

MR. McCLELLAND: Name names!

MR. LEWIS: He says: "Name names." I'm not going to hesitate in naming names, There was a mayor in Kelowna where the Member for South Okanagan (Mr. Bennett) comes from. His name is Mayor Bennett. He went on a real campaign against this government. He wasn't working for the South Okanagan government. He wasn't working for the South Okanagan area. He was working against this government regardless of the cost. What happened to him? In the last election he went down.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, oh!

MR. LEWIS: We have a mayor in Surrey, Mayor Vander Zalm. You just tell me what interest he has in regard to the people. He's politically motivated. He's not working for the people in that area.

MRS. JORDAN: You are unbelievable!

MR. LEWIS: We can go up to the Prince Rupert area where we have a fine mayor there, Mayor Lester, and his biggest problem is that he's been so used to fighting the Socreds to try to get something — being negative — that he just can't get over it. I don't know if he is politically motivated, but he isn't working for the better things in that riding.

MR. FRASER: He's going to defeat Mr. Pothole.

MR. LEWIS: I'll tell you one thing: good things are happening in that riding despite that mayor. The MLA for that area is still seeing that good things happen in that riding.

But you know, there is good management in this province and there are good councils in this province, and mayors who are concerned about the people they represent and concerned about British Columbia. Maybe I'll read you a little bit about the mayor from Salmon Arm. Do you know that that municipality has the third-highest mill rate in this province, through 20 years of neglect by that party at the far end of the House?

This is what the mayor says:

"The Sewerage Facilities Assistance Act, introduced by the British Columbia government last week, amounts to a great big birthday present for both the District of Salmon Arm and every property owner individually. It will make it financially possible for this community to proceed with the plans for high quality sewage treatment systems and, at the same time, will reduce costs to every taxpayer by a substantial amount."

HON. MR. BARRETT: Hear, hear!

MR. LEWIS:

"Indications are that the new Act will mean that some $130 per year savings to the average property owner in Salmon Arm. (Is that not help?) District officials are jubilant about the announcement, not only because it makes it possible to proceed full bore with the local plan, but because Salmon Arm officials were, to some degree, architects of the proposal which the Minister brought forth. There appears little doubt the legislation was based upon and developed from suggestions made by the local officials."

Now there is a good indication of what can happen. Those people came down to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and presented him with a plan that they felt could work. Now that plan may not have triggered the actions of the Minister, but I would say that it had a lot to do with it.

Under the terms of the new legislation the provincial government will pay 75 per cent of the debt cost, principal and interest, for both plants and main lines, in excess of what can be raised by the municipalities through a three-mill tax levy.

I'll just carry on here and miss some of this, because maybe it covers what's in the legislation.

Interjections.

MR. LEWIS: No, no. I can read it all if you like, but I don't want to put you to sleep. Anyway, he goes on to say here that the average cost to the Salmon Arm homeowner then will be about $115 per

[ Page 419 ]

year. "Without the new legislation the cost would have been a total of $245 per unit, hooked up to that sewage line." I'd like to read a little bit more here about some of the amazing things that the mayor has to say about us. He says he told the Observer;

"I'm very happy to see the government of British Columbia giving so much great help to municipalities, especially municipalities having low assessments. Without this help it would have been practically impossible for them to implement this high-standard treatment plant." Now I'll tell you one thing: I'm sure that that mayor has never supported me politically, but he's working for the good of that community and the good of B.C.

You know, there are many, many more good articles that I could read to the House here. I just don't want the opposition to get feeling too blue.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Don't be too hard on them.

MR. LEWIS: Here's another little statement by the mayor.

"In his talks with Williams, as with other Ministers, Mayor Budziak said he was accompanied and assisted every step of the way by Shuswap MLA Don Lewis, who is really working hard for the area."

That's the type of cooperation that can exist in this province if we work together. But if we have negative municipal leaders that are politically motivated, that are working for their own interests — and trying to save this great province from socialism — we're not going to get anywhere.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Hear, hear! Vander Zalm doesn't even cooperate with his own party.

MR. LEWIS: I could go on and read many, many more articles to you, but I think I'll photostat them and send them to you, because some of them really heap praise upon this government for the cooperation they've received since we've been elected. Yesterday I had the mayor and council from Spallumcheen municipality. You know, that's a small municipality that had the gears put to it for many years by the past government. That municipality is very happy with the cooperation they're receiving from this government.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, you drove him out of the House.

MR. LEWIS: I threw out a dare to the opposition and I threw out a dare to the press to phone the mayor of Salmon Arm, to phone the mayor of Spallumcheen, and ask them what kind of cooperation they've received from this government and what sort of assistance they've received from this government since being elected. I have no hesitation in standing in this House and opposing the amendment put forward by that negative opposition. Thank you.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): I sometimes wonder, Mr. Speaker, if you shouldn't reconsider the orders of the day in this House, and perhaps we should have prayers about 3:30 in the afternoon. Then some of the words of the distinguished gentlemen who come to lead us in prayer might have some effect.

I was interested in the speech of the Member for Shuswap. I thought he had well researched it until he got to the point where it was obvious that he was reading his own press clippings; and that spoiled the effect. I was a little bit disturbed, however, with the Member for Shuswap. I've always had a great respect for him. He's a man of the soil, and I thought he had always shown in this House a willingness to deal fairly with all the issues. He seems, however, to have become a stab-in-the-back bencher, and I think it's unfortunate to see a man descend to that kind of criticism of municipal officials who are elected in their municipalities.

MR. LEWIS: Oh, shame! That's a terrible thing to say.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: If the Member is critical of the democratic process, so far as municipal government is concerned, I wish he would say so. The debates we have had from government Members with respect to this particular motion have indicated clearly that they are so convinced as to the correctness of the budget that they're not prepared to open their eyes and see what is happening to other levels of government in this province.

Yes, it is a wonderful budget. We've gone up by $1.1 billion in the amount of money that the government will extract from the people by way of taxes and other revenue sources, and which they propose to spend. But implicit in this particular amendment is the treatment that this government has afforded to municipalities in this year of apparent government bounty. There's no question that the sewage treatment assistance legislation introduced by this government is light years ahead of what we had in the previous administration. There's nobody on any side of the House, in comparing the two, who would not agree with that statement.

But in a year when we are increasing our expenditures by something like 48 per cent, surely it is the responsibility of the government to consider the plight of municipalities and to give them something more than the vague promise of some

[ Page 420 ]

financial assistance if, as and when this government is successful in concluding negotiations with the national government with regard to the increase in the price of some of our energy resources which we will sell outside the boundaries of this country.

That's the issue we really should be considering, and if the Members on all sides of this House.... If the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) is really and truly concerned with the future of British Columbia, as we all must be, then surely he must see that for his own local municipality, the other municipalities in his constituency — they need assistance in order to meet their obligations. They assume these obligations willingly. They do the best job they can at the local level. They recognize that they must balance their expenditures with the limited revenue source that they have, namely the property tax, and they would like to feel that the provincial government respects the role they have to play in this province and is prepared to treat them with some kind of equity. But this government is not, in a year, as I say, with increases in revenues and expenditures in the neighbourhood of 48 per cent over the budget of a year ago.

It came as a shock during the earlier debates to hear from the Minister of Municipal Affairs on this matter. He didn't offer any assistance to the municipalities. Instead he threatened them. He threatened them with the limitation of the authority they have had in connection with the zoning that exists within their municipalities, and with their building bylaws. Yet the Minister, I know, recognizes that the reason municipalities have been so difficult with their zoning, the reason they have been so difficult with their building bylaws, is in an attempt to enhance the very limited revenue base which they have — namely, real property taxation. That's why they've been jealously guarding the rights of zoning and the building restrictions that are applied in their particular municipality.

If this government would treat these municipalities more open-handedly, then they would be encouraging the municipalities to withdraw from some of the rigid positions which we have all recognized and which we recognize must be changed if there is to be some advance in growing municipalities. But the government is not offering them this open-handedness, is not being fair with the municipalities in this respect. It is a cruel hoax, in fact, that the budget contains the reference that for the first time the municipalities will be allowed to participate in the resource revenues which this province receives. It's a cruel hoax because we all recognize, and the Premier and Minister of Finance has said in this province, that the export of our energy resources is a diminishing source of revenue.

The government has embarked on a programme to reduce the amount of gas which will be exported from the province, and we all must applaud that. The only increase in price that is to occur is with respect to the exported resource. Therefore, if we have a diminishing amount to be exported, and if the municipalities' share is only to come from that source, then he is offering, at best, a share in a revenue source which he himself indicates is to diminish over the years.

[Mr. Dent in the chair]

Aside from the fact that it's the wrong use of the revenue resource, it is a cruel hoax, as I say, with respect to the municipalities.

If we're going to encourage the support of people on all sides of this House to do what is best for British Columbia, then the government must also undertake measures which will encourage the municipal governments to do what is best for British Columbia. In this budget the government is not giving that encouragement, is not offering the municipalities the incentives with which they can join, one with another and with the Government of British Columbia, in improving the lot of all of our citizens. That's what this amendment is all about.

The Member for Shuswap commented about mayors of municipalities who are being political. What a shocking thing for anyone to say in this particular chamber. Are there any politicians in this chamber? Is there anyone who is not a politician in this chamber? Does the Member for Shuswap criticize politicians? Or does he just criticize politicians at the municipal level who happen to disagree with his particular philosophical position? That's not in the best interests of British Columbia.

I want to go into another aspect of this amendment, the subject of housing. It too is connected with this whole problem of municipal finance and the sharing of benefits between the province and the municipalities. Municipalities have got to have help in order to provide the roads, the sewers, the schools and recreation centres, police and fire services; all the things that all of the citizens in this province would like to have in each of their local areas. And that's connected with housing.

Unless the provincial government is going to enable the municipalities to provide some relief from the costs of these various services, then the costs must be placed on the land. The cost of the land goes up; the cost of housing goes up. The individuals and the young citizens in our province say: "We cannot afford to buy a lot. We cannot afford to incur the mortgage expense to build a home even if we could acquire a lot." There is no housing.

These two problems are intimately linked. Surely the Members on the government side can understand this. Surely they should be saying to their Minister of Finance and to the Members of their cabinet: "Let's

[ Page 421 ]

do something about this in this year of apparent bounty so far as provincial revenues are concerned."

If we turn off the ability of private individuals and those in the private sector to beat this housing problem, then surely the whole burden of housing is going to fall directly on the shoulders of the Minister of Housing. Dunhill will become a bigger and bigger corporation with larger and larger responsibilities, and we will have to concern ourselves with how well that corporation is able to discharge those responsibilities.

The Hon. Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) said that Dunhill has not built one house that is occupied in this province. It cost the people of this province a lot of money to buy the Dunhill Corp. a year or so ago. How much money was it?

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Six million dollars.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: We paid $6 million of the people's money for Dunhill Development Corp. and the company has not yet built one house which is occupied in the Province of British Columbia. We've lots on the planning board and so on. Lots of developments have been purchased.

HON. J.G. LORIMER (Minister of Municipal Affairs): They build duplexes.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: They have been acquiring from the private sector existing property developments. That doesn't increase the supply at all.

Let's take Casa Loma for example. Casa Loma was already being built. The fact that the government has come along and entered into a contract to buy it for $3.177 million hasn't increased the supply of housing. The complex was still there; it was there before.

HON. MR. LEA: Who is going to use it?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Why didn't the government say to Casa Loma: "Fine, you've gone ahead and built that complex. Those units are there. We'll take $3.177 million and build another one across the street "? Then you would double the number of housing units there are available in that particular community.

Interjection.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Not if you are trying to corner the market.

The First Member for Victoria (Mr. Morrison) suggests that the government is trying to corner the market. I hope that is all the government is trying to do. I am desperately concerned that what is happening with the government is that, in an attempt to improve its image — which is a political move — it is entering into agreements in which it should not be involved. I think it is being entrapped in agreements that it shouldn't even be approaching. I think that the Casa Loma agreement is one such agreement.

The Hon. Minister of Housing tabled in this House yesterday the purchase agreement which the Government of British Columbia has entered into with Casa Loma Motel Ltd. on January 14, 1975. It is clear from this agreement that the Government of British Columbia has taken a mortgage from Casa Loma Motel Ltd. and has advanced $565,000 illegally; it has spent money outside the terms of the agreement.

The key clause in this agreement is that it is inoperative unless and until the municipality of Burnaby confirms in writing to the government or to Dunhill Development Corp. that it approves in principle the rezoning of that property. The municipality of Burnaby has not approved in principle the rezoning; it has not confirmed such approval in writing to Dunhill or to the government. Obviously, it could not.

As a consequence, there is a clause in this agreement saying that this agreement is void and of no effect whatsoever. Yet the Government of British Columbia, through the Minister of Housing, has paid $565,000 of the people's money. It holds a mortgage, Mr. Speaker, which I suggest that Casa Loma Motel Ltd. could call upon the government to remove because there are mortgages placed on the property under terms of an agreement which is void and of no force and effect whatsoever. As a result of the haste in which this government has moved into this transaction, the government is involved in an illegal transaction, as its own agreement shows. It hasn't produced one new housing unit in the course of this exercise.

Another thing is quite clear, Mr. Speaker. The $565,000 which has been paid by the government to Casa Loma Motel Ltd. was used by Casa Loma Motel Ltd. to pay off a mortgage apparently held by a company controlled by the principals of Casa Loma and a mortgage of that other company in favour of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. The $565,000 that the government has paid is now beyond the reach of the government and the government can't get it back.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): It's invested in another mortgage.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, there's another mortgage ahead of it. The government is now in the position where, under an illegal agreement, it has a mortgage which is illegally registered against the property. The very best it can do, if it can clarify this situation and have a confirming and ratifying agreement with Casa Loma Motel Ltd., is to foreclose

[ Page 422 ]

on its mortgage. If it forecloses on its mortgage, it will have to pay $3.177 million for this property, plus it will have to assume all of the additional costs that may be incurred in making certain that they get the complex completed in the way which the agreement calls for it to be completed.

We know that the complex does not measure up to the requirements of Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. The electrical installation is unsafe according to Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. requirements. The fire protection in the building is unsafe, according to the requirements of Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. The agreement calls for Casa Loma Motel Ltd. to rectify those matters. Mr. Speaker, the agreement is void. Therefore, in recouping itself from this mess, the Government of British Columbia is going to have to pay for the cost of bringing the complex to the standards required by CMHC, or it won't get any money from CMHC.

Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of activity that we have had from the Department of Housing. Dunhill has not constructed one house occupied in this province. They may have lots of plans, and they may have entered into all kinds of agreements, such as Casa Loma, but this is not increasing the housing supply. Regardless of the amount of money that may be in the budget, there is not in this budget the incentives that are required in order to ensure that the private sector, that the private individuals in British Columbia will take the steps to provide themselves with the housing they require. Part of the problem is the inability of the municipalities to perform their role, and part of that problem is the refusal of this government to treat them fairly with regard to the sharing of revenue. That's what this amendment to this motion is all about. That's what it's all about. It's all about what is required by the people of British Columbia, Mr. Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson).

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: We know what it's all about.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: The people in your constituency. That's what it's all about. It may be a political matter to the Member for Kamloops, Mr. Speaker, but it is not a political matter to me. It is a matter of what is right for the people of British Columbia.

I can never understand why this government, with the great support that it has had and it presently enjoys, is not prepared to be honest with the people of British Columbia, to be honest with the municipalities and tell them what we are able to do, and to go ahead and do it. By supporting this motion, the Members on the government side would be saying to their Minister of Finance: "We want you to do what is right for the people and right for the municipalities."

MR. C. S. GABELMANN (North Vancouver–Seymour): Mr. Speaker, I hadn't intended to participate in this debate....

MR. CHABOT: However, the Premier told you to.

MR. GABELMANN: As a matter of fact, he didn't.

The reason I want to participate in the debate this afternoon is because I think too many things are being said this afternoon that shouldn't go unrefuted, particularly in relation to the dealings with the municipalities that we have had as they relate not only to our financial participation but to our attempts to improve the housing situation in this province.

I want to talk briefly about two things this afternoon. One is the housing situation in my particular constituency and what we are trying to do as a provincial government to improve it, and secondly I want to talk about what the former government was doing in previous years about its aid to municipalities.

First of all, as all the Members of this House know, in North Vancouver we have about 6,000 acres east of the Seymour River which are available for development. The community has planned for development in that area. The people who live there now, only 13,000 of them, are very broad-minded about it, in my view, and they have talked about the need for housing in that area, even though they would be quite happy to have it sit in a pristine state as it is now. They've agreed to participate; they've even devised their own plan for how to organize that area into a viable and livable community.

The provincial government, through other departments as well, but particularly through the Department of Housing and through Dunhill Development, has been attempting to persuade the municipality, the District of North Vancouver, to speed up its plans for development of that particular area. For at least 10 years now, the District of North Vancouver has been drawing up one plan after another. We have had more plans in the District of North Vancouver as to what to do with those particular 6,000 acres than you can shake a stick at. It has been over planned and underdeveloped.

What happens when Dunhill, which happens in this case to own a small chunk of land in this area — possibly you could put 130 homes on that chunk of land — goes into the District of North Vancouver and says: "We want to put homes on this land. Let's get moving "? The district says: "Well, we can't. We don't have a plan yet for that area. We'll see what happens." Finally we get to the stage where just a few weeks ago the district was prepared to refer it to a

[ Page 423 ]

public hearing. We're making slow progress. The people in the community are prepared to have that kind of development, but the municipality has held us up one time after another.

The former government, when it was talking about expanding in areas, would not allow school boards to plan for elementary schools prior to the fact of children actually existing in those areas. For that reason, residents in existing areas that might be expanded were very reluctant to have expansion because they knew then that the elementary schools and high schools in their areas would be overcrowded.

Our Department of Education has said to the school boards: "You can project enrolments based on very solid data." If it's very, very definite that the housing is going to go in, then school boards can go ahead and make their plans. That is helping to alleviate the problem in terms of the provincial government's getting over the community resistance to expansion in that particular area.

Do you know what the hang-up is now? The hang-up is transportation because the road links, particularly between that part of the constituency and Highway 1, the small population now. The residents are saying: "We can't put any more housing in here because the road links are just not adequate." That's absolutely true. I live in the area and I know it to be a fact.

The provincial government, through the Department of Highways, has indicated that it's prepared to move and to participate as it must on a 50 per cent sharing of one particular road length that's required because of the fact of Mount Seymour Provincial Park being in the area. So we have a 50 per cent responsibility. Do you know what the District of North Vancouver tells us? They don't have enough money — they don't have their 50 per cent to participate in the building of those road links.

So what, then, do the residents of the area say? "We don't want housing in this area until they get those road links finished." They're right. I agree with them and I sympathize with them, but it's the District of North Vancouver, which owns at least 6,000 acres throughout that municipality, that is selling lots now between $36,000 and $46,000 apiece — $36,000 to $46,000 each for lots in the District of North Vancouver. Those are not view lots; those are working-class lots without a view, at $36,000 to $46,000. They're saying they don't have enough revenue from that kind of land sale to assist the provincial government in putting in proper transit and transportation facilities in that area.

That's the problem we're having, Mr. Speaker, with the development of housing in some areas. It's not the fault of the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson), it's not the fault of Dunhill Development, it's the fault of the lack of cooperation from some municipalities.

I wanted to make that point because I think a classic situation exists in the North Vancouver situation. If that continues, frankly, I'm going to have to take a position that I don't want to have to take. That is the position that perhaps one day the Laws Declaratory Act is going to have to be used here and there. I suspect that the first place it's going to have to be used is in my constituency. I know full well that I won't be very popular for that in my constituency, but I'm prepared to take that risk on occasion for the goal of better housing. We may have to do it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to move to a second area. The Social Credit opposition in particular has been lambasting us about our refusal to cooperate with the municipalities. I think that other Members of our group have adequately described to the House the number and the variety of programmes that we are committed to and in fact have underway and which are reducing the cost to the municipalities. I think that's pretty clear and I don't need to reiterate that.

What I want to do this afternoon is something that's not very characteristic for me because I have not been the mudslinging kind of politician. I'm not the kind of politician either like the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) who enjoys getting up and flailing away at the opposition — that's not my style. But occasionally my temper gets the better of me.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read to this House some quotes from The Vancouver Sun, dated February 5, 1970 — that was a time when Social Credit was in power. It's by a Sun staff reporter.

"Union of B.C. Municipalities spokesmen refuted Wednesday Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Campbell's charge that municipalities should start putting their houses in order before coming to the provincial government for help.

"Outside the House, Campbell said: 'I am suggesting that municipalities will have a stronger case if they put their houses in order and I am suggesting that their houses are not in order.' "

Next, Mr. Speaker:

"'Campbell has shown previously that his best defence is offence,' said UBCM president Hugh Curtis, mayor of Saanich."

HON. MR. COCKE: Who is that?

MR. GABELMANN: It goes on:

"'This charge is just his annual public chastising of municipalities in general,' said Mr. Curtis."

Just Dan Campbell's annual chastising of municipalities, said Hugh Curtis.

"'It is unfair for Campbell to generalize so widely,' said Curtis. 'Such a rise in cost is cause

[ Page 424 ]

for concern but there could be extenuating circumstances, such as amalgamation or a badly understaffed administration.'

"Curtis cited social welfare as a case where administrative costs have risen without a municipality having any control over them. He said the cost-sharing ratio changed in 1968, when Campbell was welfare Minister, from 90 per cent provincial and 10 per cent municipal to 80 per cent provincial and 20 per cent municipal."

Just to leave the press statement for a moment, Mr. Speaker, if my memory serves me correctly, that 20 per cent foisted on the municipalities by that government in those days was dropped down to 15 per cent just prior to an election campaign. Compare that kind of strategy with what we did by reducing it down to 10 per cent long before any election campaign. If that isn't aid to the municipalities from our government, I don't know what is.

Let me just go on a little bit further. I just want to quote this at length because I think the House and public should be reminded of where some Members of that official opposition do stand — or did stand. I know that particular Member stands in different places, in different camps, in different years, but that is where he stands. "I know Saanich is a typical case because I have checked with other municipalities." That has some ringing familiarity with some comments made here earlier this afternoon.

"' In 1966,' Curtis went on, 'our social welfare costs were $168,000, but in 1969 our share of the costs was $640,000. The provincial government would probably argue that per capita grants to municipalities have increased 200 per cent, but the welfare costs to municipalities have increased 325 per cent.'"

I'm still quoting from the Hon. Member for Saanich and the Islands.

"'That leaves a 125 per cent cost increase in the social welfare field alone that municipalities have to make up.'"

I thought the House should be reminded of those comments. But so as not just to leave the impression that I am picking on one poor individual, let me quote a little further from this press story of February 5, 1970.

"It is all right for Campbell to sit in his ivory tower and criticize municipalities, but I don't think the provincial government is going out of its way to help them,' said UBCM vice-president Henry Anderson, mayor of Richmond."

MR. LEWIS: He said that?

MR. GABELMANN: That is what was being said in 1970.

We have heard today and we heard yesterday example after example of areas where this government has increased its aid to municipalities starting with the 15 per cent down to 10 per cent for welfare costs, the sewage assistance programme...the list goes on. In fact, I remember sitting in this chair last session when the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) in fact was able to cite a dozen areas of similar contribution to municipalities.

The kind of thing we have heard from the official opposition in this debate is absolutely disgusting because it is so inaccurate and so intemperate. Mr. Speaker, I think the amendment should be defeated soundly and we should get on with the main debate.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): I want to speak only briefly to this, despite the mound of notes that seems to have accumulated on this desk. I have been doing just a little bit of investigation....

MR. LIDEN: That's a switch. You found your own speech.

MR. McGEER: Yes, perhaps it is. I usually do a lot of investigation with regard to material.

This was perhaps not an unanticipated motion, but one that came upon the House rather suddenly. It is very clear from the government benches that they weren't prepared to deal with the issues that have been raised in this debate.

I want to draw the particular attention of the House to the Trade Practices Act and mention to you and to the Minister who is responsible for the administration of this Act section 2, which says:

"For the purposes of this Act, a deceptive act or practice includes any oral, written, visual, descriptive, or other representation, including non-disclosure, or any conduct having the capability, tendency, or effect of deceiving or misleading a person."

Then it gives various subsections under section 2 until it comes to subsection 2(r):

"The use, in any oral or written representation, of exaggeration, innuendo, or ambiguity as to a material fact, or failure to state a material fact, if the representation is deceptive or misleading."

Mr. Speaker, I've got a copy here of an advertisement placed by the Premier and Minister of Finance....

This gentleman here, (laughter) depicted on the front page of The Vancouver Sun, giving a wink about how business is done — would you buy a used car from this man, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the Hon. Member relate his remarks to the amendment?

[ Page 425 ]

MR. McGEER: Well, Mr. Speaker, this document discusses the municipality's budget. As I understood the amendment — and, yes, I have a copy of it here — it seems to me that the amendment deals specifically with revenue-sharing with local government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. McGEER: Some of the Members claim that I don't know what the debate is in the House when I come in here, and I'm proving that I've got it right in front of me.

We are dealing very specifically with this matter. We're dealing with the sharing of revenue with municipalities. We're also dealing with a document that has been placed before the public of British Columbia with their money which contravenes the Trade Practices Act, which is signed by the Premier and Minister of Finance.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I know there has been a tradition of this kind of thing in British Columbia, an unfortunate tradition. It had been my hope that with the change of government this sort of sleazy political manipulation with the public purse would be abandoned for all time.

No, Mr. Speaker, it's being continued and even accelerated. There has been a change: we have a Trade Practices Act. This kind of thing is no longer legal in British Columbia.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the Hon. Member to confine his remarks to the amendment. There are three points to the amendment, and I don't think you are talking to them.

MR. McGEER: I'm going to refer specifically to this advertisement, to material facts, to state categorically that I do not believe this advertisement would stand the test of truth in a court of law.

MR. C. LIDEN (Delta): What has that got to do with the amendment?

MR. McGEER: For one thing, it's got to do with my vote on the amendment, Mr. Member, and it should have to do with yours.

I would like for the Minister to order the director to investigate this matter and take action if necessary, not against the government but against the Minister who placed the advertisement and who was clearly exceeding his public responsibility in ordering this advertisement.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. McGEER: Failing that, it would be open to any citizen or Member of this Legislative Assembly to start a court action.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the Hon. Member ....

MR. McGEER: Truth in advertising is to be a way of life in British Columbia.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, may I read from this advertisement...?

[Deputy Speaker rises.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have asked the Hon. Member to relate his remarks to the amendment. In the judgment of this Chair, this has not been done so far. Now, I'm not saying that you won't in time but I would ask the Hon. Member very quickly to show the relationship between his remarks and the amendment before us.

[Deputy Speaker resumes his seat.]

MR. McGEER: I hope I have prepared the ground well, Mr. Speaker. Let me read from the advertisement about the municipalities budget:

"In an historic revenue-sharing arrangement between the municipalities and the province, with respect to revenue from natural gas exports, one-third of the net revenue produced from an export price over $1 of our natural gas (taking into account our federal tax rebate system and other expenses) will flow to the municipalities in British Columbia."

Now, it would be reasonable to interpret from this advertisement that there was some kind of an agreement that would permit us to charge over $1 for our natural gas. No such agreement exists. Therefore, there is no revenue under this historic revenue sharing agreement to share with the cities and municipalities. Clearly false and deceptive.

An example is given:

"...if the new export price of natural gas is set at $1.50 per mcf, the municipalities would receive roughly an additional $20 annually...."

and so on. There is no guarantee from anybody that there will be $ 1.50. Then it goes on to talk about $2. No guarantee on that either.

What are we doing putting this kind of advertising in a newspaper before any agreement, any firm agreement, is obtained from those responsible for setting that price that would allow the cities and municipalities to calculate what their budget would be? If the cities and municipalities set their budgets on the basis of this advertisement, they'd be breaking

[ Page 426 ]

the law, because cities and municipalities are not allowed to set deficit budgets.

You see, Mr. Speaker, the cities and municipalities of this province could be fooled by this false and deceptive advertising into breaking the law, and all because of something the Premier and Minister of Finance, I presume on his own, encouraged by the placing of this ad.

You see how he has exceeded his authority as a Minister of the Crown and how he is vulnerable, in a court of law, to an action taken by the Ministers or the executive council or, as I read the Act, any citizen of British Columbia. This Act is going to have quite a profound influence on the kinds of things that governments can say before an election or during an election.

Before going on to other aspects of this infamous document I'd like to say a word or two about what the cities and municipalities of this province could reasonably expect if things go well.

I just returned from Ottawa, and the common talk among members of the Fourth Estate — they're seldom wrong — was that the maximum British Columbia could expect in any new contract — I understand it's corridor talk here in the Legislature coming from the Ministers of the government themselves — is $1.35 per mcf. Ministers have been hinting in whispers, in Victoria, the same sorts of things that the Fourth Estate is saying openly in Ottawa. I presume it must have some basis in fact; $1.35 tops.

What would that bring in? Well, if the figures, the numbers, that are quoted in here are not deceptive numbers in themselves, I calculate that it would be about $14 million a year. But wait a minute. The year has already started. This increase couldn't take effect before July 1 at the earliest, so the best the cities and municipalities would get would be a partial year. That brings it down to $ 10.5 million. And since there are 2.5 million people in British Columbia, that works out to $4 per capita at the most. Big deal! Historic! Historic: that's what it said here. Four dollars per capita? It's historic deception. Shame, shame on the government.

Oh, I see the furrowed eyebrows of the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan). When he sat in that seat, Mr. Speaker, how he stood up and lashed the Social Credit government for all the phony advertisements they used to place in the newspapers of British Columbia.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: You may have to prove that in a court of law, Mr. Minister. They don't look true to me. They're certainly as frequent.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: I must say, Mr. Speaker, since I've been drawn into another subject, that I didn't appreciate my taxpayer's money being spent on those ICBC ads. I just wanted it taken off my insurance.

I tell you this: Manny Dunsky must have been reading Ron Worley's book. (Laughter.)

Well, let's go on. I don't know that I really have to read the whole document, Mr. Speaker. It goes on about the fair taxes, all about the tax rebates, no general increases in personal income or sales taxes. I read through this six times. I was hunting for that bit about the increase in gasoline tax. A nice big advertisement like this with all that room on the page — not even in the little type. They couldn't squeeze in the three or four words about the price increase on gasoline tax.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would ask the Hon. Member to kindly return to the amendment once again, please.

MR. McGEER: Well, you see, it says here under section 2(1) of the Trade Practices Act that the advertisement is deceptive.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Oh, I'll be here tomorrow. With any kind of opportunity like this, Mr. Speaker, I'd certainly be up again.

It says here in section 2(l): "Deceptive act or practice includes any oral, written" — this is written — "visual, descriptive or other representation including non-disclosure." I found in my copy of the budget that increase in gasoline tax, but I hunted through this advertisement paid for with my money for that important piece of information. It was non-disclosed, contrary to what the Act I voted for in this Legislature....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would point out to the Hon. Member that the point he's making is, in my judgment, not relevant to the amendment. I would ask him to return to consideration of the amendment. There are three points.

MR. McGEER: If I can read the amendment, it says: "It failed to provide adequate financial provisions for revenue-sharing with local government."

Mr. Speaker, haven't you been here during my budget debates when I've called out for sharing of the gasoline tax with the cities and municipalities? You hadn't remembered that, had you, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're doing fine now. Keep it up.

[ Page 427 ]

MR. McGEER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But I just want you to know that had the government shared real revenues, if they had taken the gasoline tax and put that into a transit system and shared that with the cities and municipalities, then they'd have a bird in the hand. Then they would be able to plan their budgets honestly. Then they wouldn't be sucked into this sleazy, political law that depends on deceptive advertising for success and for the day-to-day operation of government.

Mr. Speaker, the budget has been a failure. It has been a failure in all those measures described in the amendment that's before us now. That's why I'll be supporting the amendment.

But it's been a failure in another respect, Mr. Speaker. It's been a failure as a moral document because it has failed to tell the truth about the true state of expenditures in this province. Advertisements have been sent around British Columbia, paid for with the taxpayers' money, that are deceptive and misleading.

The cruelest hoax of all has been played on the cities and municipalities of this province who have been led to believe that they may receive revenues far beyond what the facts of the case will permit. They cannot plan their budgets on the basis of statements made in the Premier's speech or in the advertisement placed in the newspapers by him.

Four dollars per capita. Unless there is a major refutation of that budget during the year, it's all that the cities and municipalities can expect. That isn't even catch-up. By the time the wage agreements are made public and the shock waves begin to hit all of British Columbia, we're going to find the cities and municipalities in the worst financial bind they've ever been in.

To resort to this suggestion is low tactics on the part of the government, Mr. Speaker, and I condemn them thoroughly.

MR. H. STEVES (Richmond): Well, Mr. Speaker, I've been amazed here, as I've listened to this debate today, at the opposition coming from those people over there — the Bennett home wreckers, I think they should be known as.

Today the home wreckers have been saying two things: on one side they are criticizing the government, saying that nothing's happening in housing, and on the other hand, particularly the Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland), they are making inflammatory statements that are designed to mislead and to encourage opposition to developments where they are proposed, such as the development of Burke Mountain, and I think that is disgraceful.

They also say that not one house has been constructed by Dunhill Developments. That came originally, I think, from the Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) — that Dunhill hasn't built a single house. I thought that was rather an interesting statement for him to make as well. I wonder what that Member would say if Dunhill was in the actual construction business competing with free enterprise in building houses instead of contracting them out. I am wondering if he wouldn't then be shouting "unfair competition to free enterprise."

I am very happy to hear that Member today getting up and advocating socialism. Maybe we should take him up on it. Maybe we should consider setting up a Crown corporation to actually get into the construction of houses as well as into the development business which Durihill is doing. I wonder how he would like that — if he would get up and defend the government at that time and say that we are doing what he had asked us and would encourage that programme.

Maybe we could show that the government, could construct houses cheaper and that the Crown corporation constructing houses could do the same job that Crown corporations, like ColCel, have done — actually bring benefits to the community, and at a very reasonable price for houses and share with the people buying homes the benefit of government construction.

That Member said that the houses going on the market were in the neighbourhood of $50,000 per home, and wondered how a working man can afford to live in such a house. I suggest it is a lot better than the type of housing in my area which is being provided, similar quality housing I might add, by private construction outfits, by private business, when, instead of selling for $50,000 for a home, they are selling for $69,000 to $70,000 for a home and the working man has to fork out about $600 per month to make payments. Now that's the difference between the type of housing that Dunhill is promoting and the type that is available from private developers today — a difference of about $20,000 per home.

I would like to comment briefly on some of the housing that is taking place in my riding in Richmond. Dunhill has a major housing development presently being constructed. There are several hundred units being constructed for all levels of income, for middle income, low-income families. There will be various price levels and various types of housing, a complete social cross-section, and a hundred or so units for senior citizens. There will be parks, recreation, a couple of swimming pools. It will be a complete community.

The Liberals actually don't have much better record than the Socreds, and I would like to mention something that pertains to them that's happening in my riding. Recently Dunhill provided $600,000 to buy some property in the Steveston area for some residents in Richmond to build a co-op housing development. The interesting thing about this is, and

[ Page 428 ]

here is where the Liberal record comes in, that these people are dispossessed people — people dispossessed by the Liberal government in Ottawa from Sea Island. Their whole community is being destroyed and wrecked by the Liberal government in Ottawa.

The province has conceded to work with these people to try and find some place else so their community can continue. We are helping to move those people from Sea Island, where they are being kicked out by the Liberal government, into the Steveston area where they can live and maintain their own community — the people they have lived with for many, many years — in a cooperative housing development.

That's the record of housing in British Columbia that the Liberals have.

Well, the judge actually came down on the side of the residents as well and said that the residents were being dealt with unjustly. But the Liberal government has ignored them entirely and, of course, is appealing that decision to a higher court, trying to come down against the residents of the area and kick them around a little bit more like they have been doing in the past couple of years.

They did not even try to relocate these people. They were throwing them right out of their own homes. People with some difficulty are trying to find new homes. There was loss of their own community life and loss of their neighbours, friends and so on — just throwing them to the wolves and letting them go. Now we have done something about that. Those people, several hundred families actually have been evicted, slightly under — 100 of them at least will be able to live in this development that Dunhill is helping them with in the Steveston area.

The last speaker talked about the historic revenue-sharing agreement advertisement and said that he had just returned from Ottawa where people there were talking about that the most B.C. could expect was $ 1.35 for a million cubic feet.

I wonder which side he is on, I wonder if while he was in Ottawa he put in a good word for B.C. and said that we want more that $1.35 — we want up to $2 so we will have some decent revenue from it. I hope that he was really working on behalf of the people of B.C. and put a good word in for the B.C. people while he was there.

I would like to comment briefly on aid to the municipalities. I think I can safely say that I have some knowledge of it, having been on the Richmond council for five years before I came to this Legislature. I note that while we are referring to previous statements and previous speeches from some of the Members in the opposition, I would like to read into the record a statement that appeared last fall from a former member of this Legislature, and under the heading: "Dan Admits Wrongs, Scorches Supercrats. Municipalities were not that well-treated." That's from Courtenay. It says:

"Former Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Campbell admitted in a speech to Kiwanis here Thursday that municipalities were not that well treated under the Social Credit regime.Stressing the need for a new tax deal between senior levels of government and municipalities, the former MLA said: 'I'll make this admission — municipalities were not that well treated by our government.'"

Mr. Speaker, having been an alderman in the Richmond municipality during the time that Member was in that government, I can safely say to his words: Amen! Municipalities certainly weren't that well rated. In fact I can say also quite safely that in my municipality they've never had it so good as they're having it at the present day.

We heard last night from the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) that the UBCM was concerned, that those municipalities which didn't have a great amount of population growth weren't happy and weren't getting much of the budget because of the fact that municipalities with rapid growth were getting a retroactive contribution to their per capita grants.

Well, I'd like to say that those municipalities such as Richmond have had about 10 years of per capita grants that have been far under the grant that they should have been getting. We've been getting per capita grants for around 65,000 population when our population actually is closer to 85,000.

I'm pleased to see that in this budget some recognition will be to our municipality and to other rapid-growth areas that have been struggling to make ends meet in the last 10 years — some recognition will be given to them and we'll have a catch-up clause to make amends for this discrepancy.

The second thing that I'm pleased with and would like to bring to your attention: I was able to go about a month ago to the Richmond council meeting and make a presentation to them of a cheque under the Sewerage Facilities Act. The mayor, I might add, was very happy to accept it — it was a cheque for $ 1 million.

MR. LEWIS: Did he turn it down?

MR. STEVES: No, he didn't turn it down. In fact, he said that anytime we wanted to bring him another cheque, he'd be very happy to accept that one too.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: For one municipality?

MR. STEVES: One municipality. $1 million. That amounted to about $17.50 at the per capita grant level, or in other words, about a 50 per cent increase in the per capita grant just for sewerage facilities alone in my municipality.

[ Page 429 ]

Something else we weren't able to hand out a cheque on because we just did it in legislation last year — we saved that municipality and a lot of others a lot of money on the dikes and drainage programmes. In the Fraser Valley, municipalities have to pay out a lot of different costs that other municipalities don't have, and in the past, under the sharing formula, they had to pay 10 per cent of the cost of dikes and drainage. This saving to my municipality was around $2.6 million. I think that's a considerable saving for the municipalities.

Thirdly, the community recreation facilities grant gave us $0.5 million in the past year and it also provided needed recreation centres that people were being denied because the municipality could not afford to do them under previous financing arrangements with the former government. We got tennis courts, we got extra additional community centres, we got all kinds of things in the municipality because of these grants.

We've also seen hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Human Resources department for such things as day care, such things as recently $45,000 to CHIMO, the crisis centre in Richmond, the information centre, various other activities like that.

Of course, the municipality is paying less on a percentage basis, as others have mentioned, on the welfare assistance payments. They would have been paying a lot more if we hadn't reduced that down to 10 per cent from 15.

In effect, I think if you added it all up that some of the benefits that we've had in the municipality in the past year in Richmond — if we added it all up on a per capita basis, it probably would be close to a per capita grant of around $75 per person in the past year. I think that's not too bad.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

With the 20,000 added population that we've had from the 65,000 that we've been getting per capita grants for over the past number of years — the period that the budget will be making retroactive clauses — that will add up to probably close to another $1 million that the people will be getting in Richmond that they didn't get in the past.

MR. LEWIS: Progressive government.

MR. STEVES: I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, I sure don't hear the mayor of Richmond complain and he's certainly no NDP sympathizer either. In fact, Richmond's council is so infiltrated with Socreds that it's very difficult to even get them to accept government assistance. (Laughter.) You wouldn't believe this.

They don't want it. We've been doing so many things in the community they're afraid to encourage any more. They recently turned down $20,000 for a day-care centre. They've turned down a grant of what would have been close to $0.3 million for a covered swimming pool.

MR. LEWIS: Astonishing!

MR. STEVES: They've been dragging their heels constantly over a proposal in one part of the community — a major proposal — for a neighbourhood improvement programme.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): How do you infiltrate a council?

MR. STEVES: They run with a phony front group and then declare their colours afterwards. Right now, two or three of them are trying to run for the Socred nomination, and when they get done fighting over who will be the Socred candidate in the next provincial election, maybe we'll get something done in Richmond.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, the amendment deals with three specific subjects and much of the comment from the government's side has tended to avoid it.

First is the question of unemployment. The fact is, as we indicated in the alternate budget speech, this budget does not create employment except in the limited field of the civil service. It is not a job-creation budget.

I really find it astonishing that we have had this lengthy debate, with many interventions by Members from the government side, without any real discussion of the more than 100,000 people in British Columbia seeking work. They seem to believe that if they can occupy the time of the House simply discussing various programmes, discussing various things, and ignoring the critical problem of this 100,000-person group, they will somehow or other have this problem go away. Well, it won't go away.

The amendment which was put forward by the Hon. Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) is worthy of support if for no other reason but that the government has clearly failed — every one of the government speakers has clearly failed — to really deal with the question of unemployment, which has to be a tragic waste of human resources in British Columbia, a tragic waste which is only underlined by the ad which the Minister of Finance put in in which he puts at the bottom: "Our wealth is founded in the skills of our people and in the resources which they own." When those skills are not being used because the people cannot find work, then indeed we are squandering the very wealth of our province that the Premier and Minister of Finance talked about.

Why is it, in dealing with the straight. simple

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subject of more than 100,000 unemployed, no government Member has been able to talk about what they really intend to have happen in this area in terms of getting these people work? Why is it that they constantly ignore the subject? Why is it that they simply put it aside and pretend that somehow, if it is ignored, the whole problem will go away?

The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) had a programme to send some of these people to Alberta. He was right to attempt to find them work in another province if he cannot find them work in this province. But that programme has now been terminated, The only other serious proposal seems to be that of encouraging hiring by the public sector. As has been pointed out by the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer), the effect of this will not be to take care of the total number of unemployed we have in the province, or anything like it. If we are to get a large number of people — and let us face it, 9.6 per cent of our work force is a large number of people — if we are going to get the bulk of those people working, we are going to have to use government expenditures as a lever to make sure that more employment takes place in the private sector. I will be returning to the subject of employment, particularly in the public sector as it was referred to by the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall), in a moment, Mr. Speaker, with a few suggestions for him.

The second area is the municipal finance and the assistance to the municipalities. For the government to talk constantly about a single programme or two programmes and to ignore the fact that municipal council after municipal council have gone over the budget now, and come up with the statement that it means that municipal tax levels are going to have to increase, is again burying its head in the sand.

Surely the municipal officials can be trusted. They put forward budgets. They prepare them. They put them forward to the electorate that they have to represent. Surely they can be trusted to give some reasonable indication as to what will take place under this budget. They have done so.

Simply to ignore the problems, to talk about other things, is not going to solve the problems of the municipalities. There is no question in this budget that the municipalities will not be receiving the money they require. Indeed, the hoax of a proposal to attach the municipal revenues to a fluctuating foreign-market-determined price for natural gas only makes the whole budget worse from that point of view.

How can municipalities, which are required by law not to go into deficit budgeting, budget when they do not know when there may be an increase in the price of natural gas, when they do not know what the increase will, in turn, be? If the government thinks this scheme is so great, why is it that they have totally failed to give a guarantee to the municipalities outlining to them the minimum they can expect so that they can, in turn, budget properly?

The problem with this government is exactly the same as the very first question I asked in this session of the House when I asked the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) about what she intends to do about school boards. The problem with the government is that they didn't tell the school boards then what they could expect. Therefore, they could not budget properly. Now we have in this major budget of the provincial government no real indication to the municipalities what their revenues will be so they, in their turn, can budget properly. We seem to keep these lesser levels of government — school boards and municipal councils — totally in the dark if it is at all possible until the last minute. I understand the Minister has since — and I will give her credit for this — in reply to my question, said she would be making statements later. But the fact of the matter is, and she knows it, and I know it and everybody else in this room knows it, that at the time she was withholding this information from me and from the House, school boards were trying to determine what their budgets would be and trying to draw up documents to give to her. The earlier they got the information, the easier it was for them.

The same is now true with our municipalities. They do not know what the revenue will be from the government's proposals and, without knowing what it can be, they obviously are unable to budget properly.

Mr. Speaker, this leads, of course, to one of the real problems, which we've had at the provincial level as well as at the municipal level for so many years, of phony budgeting. They make guesses. They conceal revenues or expenditures. The result is that civil servants, be they municipal or provincial, then say: "Look, the budget doesn't mean anything. There's no need to stick to any spending programme. We'll simply spend and spend and spend." The result is, of course, errors that range up to $103 million, such as the one for the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi).

Budgeting should be a serious exercise, and it cannot be done seriously by any level of government unless there is adequate information to estimate revenue. This budget fails totally to estimate the revenues from that so-called gas tax.

Mr. Speaker, the municipalities in this budget, if indeed the government has accepted the concept of revenue-sharing, should be given a percentage of the liquor tax. That can be determined with some precision by the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald).

He shakes his head in agreement. He looks quite interested in the subject. I'm delighted to have caught his attention.

They should be given some percentage of perhaps

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the gasoline tax, as has been proposed by the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey. They should, in other words, be given a percentage of some other tax which would allow them to judge with some precision the amount of money they will get. But to have them guess as to what it might be, to have them try and second-guess what might happen in some part of the United States, quite distant from British Columbia, really is not fair or sensible. So certainly, in terms of this motion, the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) is quite right. The local governments simply have not been dealt with fairly.

Mr. Speaker, on the third point, that of housing, I only say this: we are tired and tired and tired of hearing the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) come into this chamber and talk only of public-sector housing. If he is the Minister of public housing and only public housing, let him say so and let the Premier make this clear. But we take him to be the Minister of Housing, which means he must start showing some concern for overall housing starts in the Province of British Columbia, and concern for the number of houses constructed in this province, the number of apartments constructed in this province — and not simply constantly refer to programmes which he gets funded, as we discovered in the Casa Loma case, to the tune of 90 per cent or better from CMHC.

There is a con game going on here. We have the Minister constantly coming in and talking about only public housing. Now the fact of the matter is that he's responsible for all housing — the 5 or 10 per cent which is public, and the 90 per cent or so which is not. If the government policies are such that the 90 per cent is badly affected, well, clearly there is no way in the world that the public sector of 10 per cent is going to take up that slack. All I can ask is that Members of the House look at this amendment put forward by the Member for Chilliwack and start thinking about how little we have been told by the Minister of Housing about the overall housing problem in the Province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned that I would return to the subject of labour, and I'm returning to it mainly because of my unhappiness last night at the speech of the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall).

We are entering a very curious period, a total change in labour/management relations right across North America. In the old days the big industrial unions used to establish wage patterns which filtered down to the civil service and other areas. The big industrial unions obviously dominated the labour scene, and their negotiations were the guidelines to which other people related their agreements, their settlements, and the differentials were established that way.

But I believe that at the present time six of the top 10 unions of British Columbia are indeed public-sector unions, and there is no way in this world, as we have discovered time after time after time, for a public-sector union to come forward with figures relating to profit, or profitability, or indeed the effectiveness of their operations, which would give some guideline on which to base increases in pay for upcoming years.

In other words, previously there have been productivity and profitability as guidelines in the majority of labour/management contracts. At the present time that has gone out of the window because most of the major unions have become public-sector unions, and when you are dealing with public-sector unions it is a question of political muscle, or inconvenience to the public, and the profitability or the productivity of the work done obviously doesn't enter into the negotiations and into the final settlement.

Contrast, Mr. Speaker — and I would like you to contrast this — the attitude of the IWA when dealing with the question of how much to go for this year, which I would consider to be a very responsible position by them. I'm not saying the figure they decided upon is accurate. I'm not saying that at all. But I am saying they did this: they looked at the market, they looked at the industry, they looked at exports, and they said — and there was some discussion within the IWA on this, very substantial discussion — "Look, there is a profit level and a productivity level, which limit, or act as a guideline, act as a parameter, for our wage demand." I commend the IWA for doing that. I commend every other industrial union for doing the same thing, because that is, indeed, the only way they can get increases.

MR. SPEAKER: May I interrupt to say that the only mention of labour I can find in the resolution, in the amendment, is "...failed to establish incentives to develop a greater number of job opportunities "? I don't know how you relate what you are saying to the amendment.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, Mr. Speaker, the reason I mentioned this is, of course, the speech by the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall). I refer you to yesterday's draft Hansard, pages 407 and thereabouts. He spent a great deal of time — indeed, his entire speech — on this issue because it does affect employment levels.

There is no question that wage settlement does affect employment levels. Let me give you an example: The school board in Saanich, faced with CUPE demands, is laying off three people; direct correlation between wage demand and the numbers employed. I realize it is a great oversimplification to say that exactly the same thing occurs elsewhere, but I think you can now understand why the Provincial

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Secretary spoke for so long on the question of civil service settlement and why I, in my turn, would like to say a word on it too.

It's clear that the militancy in the public service unions, which is based upon the fact that inflation has eroded much of their traditional workers' salary value, is not a thing of the past. The Provincial Secretary is right in making that clear. Catch-up, as the Provincial Secretary kept talking about, is now not just a catch-up for cost of living increases but is a catch-up to other unions. We are unfortunately now in a situation of union leapfrogging, which can be very, very damaging for employment levels in the Province of British Columbia.

I'd just like to quote from a gentleman who's a very astute observer of the labour scene, Ed Finn, the information director of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers, when he said in the Canada Labour Gazette:

"This new-found militancy is contagious. It has touched off a scramble as all segments of the work force try to re-establish their place in the lineup. Catch-up has come to mean not just catch-up with the cost of living but with other unions as well. The process of, inter-union leapfrogging that is linked with inflation only as a convenience has been set in motion, and, once set in motion, it is thought that this process may well continue, regardless of the movements of prices and profits."

I stress that last statement "regardless of the movement of prices and profits."

Mr. Finn goes on in his article to point out that what we have in the public sector is a situation where there is no way of judging productivity. He goes on to point out something which we discovered in this House during the firemen's strike back last August when we were called back to force union members back to work by legislative action.

"Because governments are not only the custodians of the public interest but also the biggest employers in the country, the ability to play both roles with fairness and objectivity is open to questions."

What I'm suggesting is this: what we need from the Provincial Secretary, instead of his talk of specific cases as he did — a few genuine hardship cases — is some generally accepted criteria of productivity within the civil service so that we assure that wage increases within the public sector, wherever in the public sector it may be, are related to productivity. There is such a mechanism in the private sector, and the IWA and every other union in the private sector knows it well. But there is no such mechanism in the public sector. Until we get that, we are going to continue to have wage rates being established with no relation to not only productivity but also to numbers unemployed who might otherwise be employed, were the levels established on a more realistic basis.

This is not to say, as the Provincial Secretary said yesterday, that civil servants must be paid less simply because they are within the public sector. Let us pay them the equivalent for equivalent work. That's fair and that makes sense and no one in this party has suggested otherwise — certainly not the Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson), unjustly accused yesterday by the Provincial Secretary to that effect.

But let us also make sure that the government and the Provincial Secretary take it upon their shoulders to give us some body or some mechanism which will establish what the level should be and can give us some guidelines as to what constitutes a fair wage. We have no such ability at the present time.

The Provincial Secretary clearly forgot the words of the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) some time ago when he said that there was a gun held to his head in the case of a labour dispute. Now whether or not the Minister of Transport was exaggerating, clearly nobody pulled the trigger, or, if they did, nothing happened. I am suggesting to you that it is no good for the Provincial Secretary to tell us one thing and to say that all civil service salaries are set in accordance with what's fair and for another Minister to get up and declare that the settlement was based upon a gun at his head.

We know full well that there are sectors within the civil service which have more bargaining power, more muscle and more political power than others.

If we do not have this mechanism which I suggested to the Provincial Secretary, which I would call a fair employment commission, or something along that line — if we don't have that, we will continue to have wage levels that are out of balance with employment levels and we will continue, in all likelihood, to have substantial numbers unemployed.

The civil service will not be able to take up the slack as this government has suggested. The day is over when you could simply take unemployed in large numbers, put them at low salaries in the civil service, and therefore say you would solve unemployment problems. That's over. I think that it's time that the government realized that and looked into it.

I will amend the statement, Mr. Speaker, that I made about the name of the commission. I would suggest that it be called a labour peace commission. I suggest it be headed up by a responsible British Columbian who would be experienced in the field (and I won't go into names). I think if we had such a commission which could give us an independent, objective opinion as to what productivity might be and where the relationship to the private sector — people doing the same job — might be, we indeed would have the basis for more confidence in what the provincial government is doing with respect to its

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own labour relations.

Sure, pay the provincial civil servant a fair wage. Pay him the equivalent in the private sector. But let us make sure, Mr. Speaker, that because of leapfrogging that Mr. Finn talked of — and I quoted it to you earlier — because of things of that nature we do not simply find ourselves and the municipalities paying more and more and more to fewer and fewer people, and our unemployment problems increasing by a commensurate amount.

We have at the present time in the City of Victoria a CUPE strike on; it's no news to anyone here. Mr. Speaker, the parties are about 30 percentage points apart: something between 16 and 46 per cent is the difference. They are enormous differences apart. We do know that the city has discovered that there are many jobs which will be questionable — indeed will probably be eliminated — if indeed there's a high wage settlement. We do know that this strike may have an effect upon employment levels, and we have no impartial arbiter to give us information as to where, indeed, the fair wage lies, where, indeed, the catch-up to the cost of living or the catch-up to another union is indeed justified on the basis of extra skill, danger or any other factor.

I urge the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) and the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King) to get on to this concept. It's not new. I mentioned Mr. Finn's name. Leland Hasard of the Carnegie Institute of Technology has written about this. It's a proposal which we feel does offer some opportunity of getting hard and useful information to the public, reliable information to the public, so that we can indeed start relating such things as civil service pay scales, unemployment and, of course, the effect upon the private sector.

I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, in giving me the same latitude as was allowed to the Provincial Secretary; but I do believe this is a tremendously important part of our problem of unemployment in British Columbia. We cannot use the civil service to take up the slack when unemployment increases. It is simply not possible under existing wage levels. We probably do more to equipment manufacturers in eastern Canada and in the eastern United States than we actually do to employment levels in British Columbia when we step up the number of civil servants. There is probably more multiplier effect back in the east or in the south than there is in B.C., simply because for every civil servant, now, you generally have some pretty expensive equipment. We can no longer rely upon that approach, as the government speeches have indicated. We can no longer rely upon the civil service, if we are to pay them adequately.

Therefore the government is going to have to start on the one hand giving us the material, or an independent labour peace commission which will in its turn give us the material, so that we can judge such things objectively; on the other, it has to get away from the idea that the civil service is the way to cure unemployment. It is not. The way to cure unemployment, as the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey made perfectly clear, is to encourage spending and investment in productive enterprises, so that the net worth and total value of produces in the province is increased, and thus, by the leverage effect, you get the private sector to hire more people. You cannot simply assume that the government itself is the pump instead of the primer of the pump.

We've had debate on this motion; the government has, on these three areas, in all its speeches, quite failed to deal either with the critical problem involved in housing, in municipal finance or in job creation. Therefore there seems no alternative but to support the amendment.

MR. D.T. KELLY (Omineca): Mr. Speaker, I rise to protest this amendment.

MR. CHABOT: It's the last speech. Make it good.

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I hadn't intended to speak at this time.

MR. BENNETT: How come every one of your Members has said this?

MR. KELLY: After listening to some of the speeches by the opposition Members this afternoon, even this Hon. Member had to rise and protest some of the statements made, especially against my Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson).

MRS. JORDAN: Why?

MR. KELLY: Nobody tells me when to speak. I speak when I feel like speaking.

MR. CHABOT: You don't want to very often.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. KELLY: Probably in my riding more so than anywhere else in this province, with the planning of my government.

I'll tell you, there are more plans for employment than I could ever hope to imagine just one year ago. Just recently, the Minister for northern affairs (Hon. Mr. Nunweiler) announced the housing development plan for the Village of Burns Lake of 50 new houses, two apartment blocks with 22 suites each, which is 44 apartments, and a 55-place trailer park. It may not sound very significant to you people from the large towns but in an area like mine that is a tremendous development.

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Why are they going to build these houses? To accommodate the people who are going to come in to work at the plant that is being built there and is almost finished in construction, which is in itself job creative. Not only were there hundreds of people working in this plant but also all the people in the Burns Lake area, which had a very high rate of unemployment before, are now going to be accommodated by this plant. I'll tell you, you couldn't do it in six months or a year. It took two or three years of planning to get this thing going, but that's what's going to happen in Burns Lake. That was all accomplished by this Minister of Housing.

Not only are there houses and other things like that but there are also sewers and domestic water that had to be looked at. It's being looked at right at this present time.

Another town in my riding, the Village of Vanderhoof, has 50-odd houses going in there this spring, also lot development — all by this Minister. Only a year ago, when that village ran into difficulty with water supply, he saw fit to make sure that they did have enough water to service the town that is now built, also for the new houses that are going to be constructed there.

We have another community, Fort St. James, probably one of the finest councils in this province for planning. They've come to this government, to this Department of Housing and other departments of this government. I'll tell you, they speak highly of this government. And we speak highly of them because we know what cooperation is between municipal councils and this government, whether it be Municipal Affairs or the Department of Housing.

Things are booming in Omineca. Do you know that there is a tremendous shortage of tradesmen there?

MR. PHILLIPS: They're moving against you.

MR. KELLY: It's a nice place.

Interjection.

MR. KELLY: We're training people up there now to try to take on the jobs that are going to be starting real soon. People are going to school to learn. Some of the people who couldn't go to work because of their capabilities are now being trained to do just that thing.

MR. CHABOT: Where are they being trained?

MR. KELLY: There's a recession on; the western industrial world is in a recession. That's what caused the unemployment. Copper prices are down.

MR. PHILLIPS: Are they down in the Yukon?

MR. KELLY: They are down all over the world. You know that.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. KELLY: But I think what has been more to blame than anything else in the mining industry was the propaganda programme conducted by that opposition party in driving that industry out of this province. In fact, for several years now — and this didn't happen since the price of copper went down or since Bill 31 was introduced — they have been campaigning since we've been in power against the mining industry to make sure that they did something about the socialist hordes — anything that they could think of to get rid of us. Now they're using world economic conditions as the basis for their argument.

The price of copper is down in the 50-cent bracket. One year ago it was $1.50. I wonder what they would have said if the price of copper had remained at the rate that it was a year ago. I blame you for the actual demise of many jobs in this province because of your campaign against the mining industry.

On the basis of that, I would ask that the Member withdraw that motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, I rise as a humble student of the common laws of the British Commonwealth and the statutes of the Province of British Columbia, because I am informed that the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound got up and said that we weren't properly protected in the Casa Loma deal. He said the agreement was void.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I didn't say that.

HON. MR, MACDONALD: Yes, okay. And this is the same Member who said a little while ago that the words "otherwise acquired" implied the power to expropriate. What I want to question is where he got his papers. Where did he get these ideas that the agreement is void?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: The agreement.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Read the whole agreement. Read the whole agreement. You read what you want to read. You want to wreck the Casa Loma deal. You want to stop it, and that is for senior citizens' housing.

You know, to try to accomplish anything for the ordinary people of this province we have to pass through a curtain of flak, with innuendoes and phony legal opinions and the old wrecking gang at work.

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They've got their friends down in the municipalities, and whether it is senior citizens' housing or whatever it is they want to stop, they are the wrecking gang. You would put this wrecking gang in as government of British Columbia? No way! No way!

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Sure, you make it difficult for us. But I will tell you this, Mr. Member: you may set up your curtain of flak; we are going to pass through that because we are determined to do things for people, and particularly in the field of housing. And you think that that little opposition with all their innuendoes and their phony legal arguments are going to stop a housing project? No way!

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: On the Casa Loma deal, there is something in there about rezoning at the local level, eh?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, right!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Subject to rezoning at the local level. And why is that in there? It is in there to protect the Crown. It is a protection built in. Yes, it is. The agreement goes on to say in a later clause — I won't quote the number because we are not in a court of law here, and we never will be on this deal, because it is perfectly legal — that if by May 31 we haven't got the rezoning that we want on behalf of the people for senior citizens' housing, we have a right to retire from the deal. In that case, we get all our money back with 12 per....

MR. PHILLIPS: Where from?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: All right, you say: "Where from?" If you listen to facts, I will tell you. It is secured by mortgage. We get our money back at 12 per cent. So that is the protection of the Crown.

I don't think that the Crown will want to step back from that deal. I think they have the choice. The money is secured. Anything advanced is secured by mortgage. Read the whole agreement, not just part of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Forget the old people.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: But I don't think the Crown will want to retire from this deal, because it is for homes for senior citizens.

MR. CHABOT: Can't afford to, Can't afford to.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, we won't, because we want those people to have accommodation...

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...and we are ready to fight for their accommodation. We are ready to do something about it, and if you think you are going to stop us, you are mistaken. We have the right, and at every step the Crown is protected in this agreement. You have heard the federal Minister of Housing say it was a good deal, that it was a good price. There is only one other argument that you advanced that has to be listened to in the Casa Loma deal. The Crown, the Government of British Columbia, said that we should purchase that thing free and clear of encumbrances. "Clean up your liens. Settle your fights. If you want to hang out, if you want to go to court, do that. We are not coming in as a judge to tell you how the money should be distributed among yourselves. You can go to court on that."

But had we gone in as a condition of the purchase price and said that we were going to be a judge as to how the money should be distributed between this subcontractor, that subcontractor, this owner, that lien holder — that is not our job. We are not judges. We cannot move in there and adjudicate that thing. Those people have a right to go to court, and some of them are going to court today. And so they should. But for government to step in on that situation would be a mistake.

So what we did was what any other purchaser of a mostly completed building would do, we said: "You've got to settle your disputes; then we will buy free and clear of encumbrances." That is exactly what every private corporation would say. You people stand up for the private corporations. That is exactly what they would say. "You clear your liens up, and then maybe we will buy. But you clear that up first. I'm not going to jump into your fights and settle them for you." That is what we did. There is nothing wrong with that. The zoning thing is a phony red herring. It is mostly rezoned anyway, Mr. Member.

The 93 apartments are zoned as apartments right now by the Municipality of Burnaby. The motel units are zoned as motel units by the Municipality of Burnaby.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame on you!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: So the project is a good deal even as the zoning stands now.

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: This is not a legal

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problem. It is a political battle for homes for senior citizens.

AN HON. MEMBER: Atta boy, Alex!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: And the lawyers say stay out of it. Let's get on with the house building. Clear that darn wrecking gang out of the way and let's get on with building homes in this province. That's what we ought to do.

Interjections.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 17

NAYS — 31

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Presenting reports

Hon. Mr. Stupich presents the annual report of the Department of Agriculture for the year ending December 31, 1974.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 5:37 p.m.