[ Page 1053 ]

CONTENTS

Restraint of Speculation Act (Bill 47). Mr. Bennett. Introduction and first reading — 1053

Farmers' and Women's Institutes Amendment Act, 1975. (Bill 7). Hon. Mr. Stupich. Introduction and first reading — 1053

Oral Questions

BCR executive resignations. Mr. Bennett — 1053

Casa Loma purchase. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1053

Princess Marguerite purchase agreement. Mr. Wallace — 1054

Victoria-Seattle ferry service. Mr. Curtis — 1054

Case history on Duncan juvenile. Hon. Mr. Macdonald answers — 1055

Negotiations on Indian lands. Mr. Gibson — 1055

Change of government office locations during civic strike. Hon. Mr. Levi answers — 1055

Negotiations on Indian lands. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1055

Bridge link between Gulf Islands. Mr. Curtis — 1056

Resignation of John Trask. Mr. Fraser — 1056

Details of Minnekhada stock farm purchase. Hon. Mr. Nicolson answers — 1056

Point of order Answers to questions taken as notice. Mr. Bennett — 1056

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Agriculture estimates.

On vote 4. Mr. Wallace — 1057

On vote 5. Mr. Wallace — 1077

On vote 6. Mr. Chabot — 1081

Appendix — 1087

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Ms. K. Sanford (Comox): Mr. Speaker, seated in the Members' gallery today is Alderman Gilbert Popovich from Alert Bay. I would like the House to join me in welcoming him.

Hon. J.G. Lorimer (Minister of Municipal Affairs): On behalf of the Speaker, I would like to introduce a group of students from Burnaby South Senior High School and ask the assembly to give them a warm welcome.

Mr. H.A. Curtis (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, I would like to notify the assembly today that in the Members' gallery is a well-known Nanaimo citizen, Mr. Graeme Roberts. Would the House welcome him, please?

Mr. C. D'Arcy (Rossland-Trail): Mr. Speaker, seated in the gallery today are two distinguished gentlemen from my riding: Mr. Austin Fraser, commissioner for the Kootenay Industrial Development association; and the president of Carefree Design Enterprises Limited, Don Ewing of Trail, British Columbia. I would like the House to welcome them.

Mr. F.A. Calder (Atlin): In the Members' gallery are two exchange students from Japan. I would like the Members to welcome the visitors.

Introduction of bills.

RESTRAINT OF SPECULATION ACT

On a motion by Mr. Bennett, Bill 47, Restraint of Speculation 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.

FARMERS' AND WOMEN'S INSTITUTES

On a motion by Hon. Mr. Stupich, Bill 7, Farmers' and Women's Institutes Amendment Act, 1975, 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.

BCR EXECUTIVE RESIGNATIONS

Mr. W.R. Bennett (Leader of the Opposition): To the Minister of Economic Development: can the Minister, as executive vice-president of the B.C. Railway, confirm that the chief engineer, Mr. Wakely, has tendered his resignation and, if so, what reasons were given?

Hon. G.V. Lauk (Minister of Economic Development): Although I have my new railway suit on today, I haven't become completely familiar with the workings of the railway. I do understand that Mr. Wakely has tendered his resignation but the details of that will have to await the attendance of the president of the railway in this House next week.

Mr. Bennett: A supplementary: can the Minister also confirm that Mr. John Trask, general manager of the railway, has tendered his resignation also?

Hon. Mr. Lauk: I cannot confirm that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. R.H. McClelland (Langley): Are you denying it?

Mr. Bennett: A further supplemental: can the Minister, as executive vice-president of the railway, and the only member available to answer questions in the House today, tell us if the resignation of the chief engineer will have any detrimental effect on the construction of the Dease Lake extension in view of his senior position in directing and constructing this extension?

Hon. Mr. Lauk: It's too hypothetical for me to answer.

Mr. D.M. Phillips (South Peace River): Supplementary. Would the Minister advise the House if there is any connection between these resignations and the fact that the annual report of the B.C. Railway will be, in the Premier's own words, "a little late this year"?

Hon. Mr. Lauk: To my knowledge, that is not the case.

CASA LOMA PURCHASE

Mr. D.A. Anderson (Victoria): Before the Easter recess we asked a number of questions concerning Casa Loma, one of which was the apparent discrepancy between the market value of the Casa Loma property when it was registered by its present owners in July, 1973, and the value declared for land registry fee purposes. I wonder if in the four or five weeks that have passed the Attorney-General has had the opportunity of getting the information which he promised to get and having the inquiry

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terminated which he did launch.

Hon. A.B. MacDonald (Attorney-General): We had the matter investigated. Our officials got in touch with the declarant, who got in touch with a lawyer, the Hon. T.A. Dohm. Hon. Mr. Dohm, as he was when he was a judge (and still is), sent a letter, along with a cheque for $210 to make up a deficiency in the land registry charges, which the Hon. Mr. Dohm nevertheless argued in the letter was not properly owing. The explanation is rather complex and the letter of that distinguished lawyer states that it can be made available to Members if you want to look at the letter and see the argument that he made. At any rate, we have recovered a deficiency of $210 even though it was paid sort of without prejudice.

Mr. D.A. Anderson: I would like to thank the Attorney-General for offering to make available the letter and perhaps later in the day we will take advantage of that. May I ask, however, whether the second investigation launched by the Attorney-General on the Casa Loma affair, namely the fraud squad investigation of the RCMP, has yet come to the point of any report?

Hon. Mr. MacDonald: Nothing to report.

PRINCESS MARGUERITE
PURCHASE AGREEMENT

Mr. G.S. Wallace (Oak Bay): In the absence of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams), who appears to be our most recent admiral, could I ask the Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Gorst), who serves as chairman of an advisory committee regarding the Princess Marguerite, if the agreement concerning the acquisition of the Marguerite included the pollution control device which CP had previously stated would not be available as part of the sale?

Mr. Speaker: I would have to ask, first, whether the question addressed to the Hon. Member for Esquimalt is in respect to some duty he must perform.

Mr. Wallace: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the Member for Esquimalt is chairman of an advisory committee to deal with the further use and development of the Princess Marguerite under the directorship or the Ministerial responsibility of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources, who is not in his place today. I felt it would be quite reasonable to ask the chairman of the advisory committee for this kind of information.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would point out to the Hon. Members that you may ask questions to Ministers relating to their departments or, it says in the rule book, to other Members. But it must concern their parliamentary duties, and that means duties that are imposed by the House. Now, if he is a Member of a House committee....

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: I don't know this. It is not known to me.

Hon. E.E. Dailly (Minister of Education): I will take that as notice and get the information for the Member.

VICTORIA-SEATTLE FERRY SERVICE

Mr. Curtis: To the Minister of Transport and Communications: with respect to the new service between Victoria and Seattle, will the expertise departmental staff and others who have built up a considerable amount of experience in the operation of vessels in the B.C. ferry fleet be made available for the Victoria-Seattle service while it is not within the B.C. ferry operation?

Hon. R.M. Strachan (Minister of Transport and Communications): We all work very closely together on this side of the House.

Mr. Curtis: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I'm very pleased to hear that things are rosy and happy. But I asked a serious question: will the departmental heads and the individuals who have experience in the operation of a large fleet — in which the Minister takes justifiable pride — co-operate and make their knowledge and themselves available for the Victoria-Seattle service? It's a straightforward question.

Hon. Mr. Strachan: I think it's an unnecessary question, too. The answer is, of course, that the acquisition of the Princess Marguerite and the lands was based on the full information that had been collected by those with expertise in that field and made available prior to the purchase. That situation will continue.

Mr. Curtis: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is it not unusual to have one vessel which will be operated by the provincial government excluded from the general operation of the British Columbia ferry service?

Hon. Mr. Strachan: I don't see anything unusual about that particular situation.

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MR. SPEAKER: I think the matter is becoming argumentative.

CASE HISTORY ON DUNCAN JUVENILE

Hon. Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) asked me about a juvenile who had charges pending in and about Duncan. I don't want to particularly release the name. I have the history. There's some editorial comment here. I would like to send the history to the Hon. Member and ask him to ignore the editorial comment.

NEGOTIATIONS ON INDIAN LANDS

Mr. G.F. Gibson (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Human Resources in his capacity as responsible for the co-ordination of Indian affairs for the government. Now that the requested negotiating date of April 1 on Indian cut-off lands has passed, resulting in picketing and demonstrations in my riding and other parts of the province, I'd ask the Minister if he's now prepared to agree to set a date for the negotiations with the Indian bands concerned on these cut-off lands.

Hon. N. Levi (Minister of Human Resources): Before the Easter adjournment, I answered a similar question in which I said that we had met with the committee of the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs — myself, several of the cabinet Ministers and the Premier. At that time, we agreed that we would make a full report to cabinet. This has not been done, as a result of the long adjournment, and that is still to be done.

Mr. Gibson: On a supplementary, then, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister say when the cabinet consideration will happen? This is a matter of some urgency, as he knows.

Hon. Mr. Levi: Well, that will be a matter of making an arrangement. I can't give a specific date.

CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT OFFICE
LOCATIONS DURING CIVIC STRIKE

Hon. Mr. Levi: There was a question put to me by the Member for Oak Bay prior to the recess, in which he asked: is it correct that employees of the Department of Human Resources in Victoria, Saanich and Sidney have moved their usual offices to temporary locations during the strike of municipal employees? I took the question as notice.

We did make the move. The moves were made before the strike or the lockout situation existed and, therefore, no staff members were involved in any way in crossing picket lines. It's also important to note that before we made the move we contacted the Canadian Union of Public Employees and advised them of our intentions. They, in turn, advised us to keep in touch through the B.C. Government Employees Union, as they did not want to hold direct talks with the provincial government. This was done. The moves were made in full consultation with the B.C. Government Employees Union.

I can give you the details of the moves. The Saanich district office was moved from the Saanich Municipal Hall to temporary accommodation at Glendale Hospital; the downtown Blanshard district office was moved from the City of Victoria-owned building at Cook Street to a provincially-owned building at Blanshard Street; the adult placement section, which was operated out of the Victoria municipal buildings at Cook Street, was moved to provincially-owned premises at Cook Street; the Sidney and Islands district office was moved from the Sidney Municipal Hall at 2440 Sidney Avenue to temporary premises on the West Saanich Road.

We did not in any way interfere with the strike or lockout process. No picket lines were crossed; no departmental staff have been involved in doing work which ordinarily is performed by the CUPE employees. Our relationship with the respective municipalities is one of a tenant. When we learned that these municipalities would likely be unable to continue to supply adequate premises to meet our needs, we quite properly made arrangements to secure alternative accommodation elsewhere. None of these moves were made without full consultation with the B.C. Government Employees Union, who in turn indicated to us that they were keeping the Canadian Union of Public Employees informed of our plans.

Mr. Wallace: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Can I take it then, from the Minister's reply to my original question, that the move was taken because of the pending strike, and that while no picket lines were crossed, there would not otherwise have been these moves of office locations had the strike not been pending?

Hon. Mr. Levi: Yes, that's quite true.

NEGOTIATIONS ON INDIAN LANDS

Mr. D.A. Anderson: Mr. Speaker, supplementary to the previous question to the Minister. Can I ask the Minister what steps are now being taken to enter into negotiations with Indian bands on the general question of the Indian lands claim, rather than the specific aspect, which is, of course, cut-off lands?

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Hon. Mr. Levi: I think, Mr. Member, that that question can be answered partly by what I said before, that a full report has to be made to cabinet. I've not had that opportunity to do that.

Mr. D.A. Anderson: Mr. Speaker, a further supplementary. May I ask the Minister if, despite the appointment of the Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder) some years ago, despite the reorganization, there has been no report to cabinet on the general question of Indian lands claims? Is that so?

Hon. Mr. Levi: You may recall, Mr. Member, that the position taken by the government is that we have been waiting for the Government of Canada to tell us, specifically in writing, what its part is in these kinds of negotiations. Up to now we have not had this kind of commitment from the Government of Canada.

Mr. Gibson: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister not agree that with respect to the cut-off lands, the Government of Canada has made its position very clear: namely, that it is a moral outrage, that it should be remedied, and that the land is in the hands of the provincial government to do just that?

Mr. Speaker: I think the question is argumentative.

BRIDGE LINK BETWEEN GULF ISLANDS

Mr. Curtis: To the Minister of Highways, with respect to the possibility of a bridge link for pedestrians or vehicles, or both, between Mayne and Saturna Islands in the Gulf Islands group: can the Minister tell the House if there is any study whatsoever taking place within his department as to the feasibility of such a link? Has there been an early design, preliminary study of feasibility?

Hon. G.R. Lea (Minister of Highways): I'll take that as notice, Mr. Speaker.

RESIGNATION OF JOHN TRASK

Mr. A.V. Fraser (Cariboo): To the Minister of Economic Development as vice-president of BCR: will the resignation of the general manager, John Trask, of the BC Railway have any effect upon its operation in view of the high degree of respect held for this man by both the employees and the customers?

Hon. Mr. Lauk: Mr. Speaker, the resignation of Mr. John Trask cannot be confirmed.

Mr. Phillips: A supplementary question: have the resignations and the mass purge of the management of the railway any bearing on the second request by the railway for an additional $20 million? Is the cash flow of the railway in deteriorating condition?

DETAILS OF MINNEKHADA PURCHASE

Hon. L. Nicolson (Minister of Housing): Recently, before the adjournment, I was asked about information concerning the real estate fee paid in connection with the purchase of the Minnekhada stock farm. This property was acquired for $2 million and the Daon Development Corp. was reimbursed for a $52,500 fee paid to Knowlton Realty Ltd. In addition, tax adjustments, land registry fees and legal fees amounted to $11,464, bringing the total paid out for this acquisition to $2,063,964.

I was also asked by the Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) about adherence to fire safety standards in the citing of homes at the Meadowbrook project in the District of Coquitlam. I can advise the House that the Coquitlam fire chief is satisfied that the contractor, North Road Housing Co. Ltd., is adhering to all of the municipality's fire safety regulations.

The Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland) asked also about bylaw infractions that had been issued by the Coquitlam building department in connection with the Meadowbrook project. I am advised that notices of building and. plumbing bylaw infractions were issued in the number suggested by the Member — approximately 10 per unit — however, I would point out to the House that most of these involved normal plumbing and finishing details and that it is the normal procedure for municipal building inspectors to issue a great many correction notices after they have completed an inspection of a particular construction phase of a residential or commercial building. In fact, I am told that approximately 20 notices of this type can normally be expected in a single family construction. Of course, all notices are issued to North Road Housing Co. Ltd., the contractor. Not one notice has been sent to Dunhill.

I can also advise the Member for Langley that the North Road Housing Co. Ltd. Is responsible for servicing the one-year guarantee of the Meadowbrook homes and that a sufficient amount of funds has been held back from the purchase price to cover any warranty work.

Mr. Bennett: On a point of order. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if we could clarify or arrive at a procedure where, if Ministers have lengthy, prepared answers to questions taken as notice, that they not detract from the time of the question period. This is a

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question that has come up before, and the Speaker was going to advise on it. When they have taken it as notice, it becomes almost the form of answer as is provided for written questions.

Hon. Mr. Nicolson: Well, put it on the order paper.

Mr. Bennett: I wonder, then, when they have made that choice, whether we would have another means of presenting the answer to the Legislature.

Mr. Speaker: The difficulty is, as the Hon. Leader has pointed out, that when a time has been given for a prepared answer it can sometimes be lengthy, and I think in some cases, too lengthy. That is, it is going beyond, often, the call of duty. The point is, however, that if the answer is not given during the question period on notice, then there is no way of having supplementaries. It's obvious that we must give the answer during the question period in order that the Members may also have supplementaries. But I do urge upon the Members that they try to restrict their answers to the bare essentials of the questions so that it doesn't consume too much of question time. That's all I can do at the moment.

Hon. D.G. Cocke (Minister of Health): On that same point of order I would like to suggest that question period has been used, not from time to time but continually, as a means of making a speech in asking a question. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the opposition sometimes feels that the answers are too long, but they like to ask the question and not get the answer. It's just quite unfortunate.

Mr. Speaker: I think we all are aware of the rules with regard to question period; it is a question of all of us observing them. I think it is important that questions not be too argumentative or too much a statement of opinion but directed to the rules that are well known to all the Members. If you have lost sight of the rules, we'd be glad to forward another copy to you.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

(continued)

On vote 4: Deputy Minister's office, $864,208.

Mr. G.S. Wallace (Oak Bay): Now, Mr. Chairman, in this particular department it may be a little difficult to be specific about which issues come under which vote, and perhaps the Minister can give us some guidance as we go along.

I notice under the Deputy Minister's office there are some notes saying policy development and planning is involved. On that basis I would like to ask a few questions. The whole question of some of the elements of the management of the agricultural industry would surely come under the title "policy development and planning."

For example, at the present time there is a great deal of concern in society about the proper employment or the employment of able-bodied persons who are recipients of welfare. I notice that the B.C. Federation of Agriculture in its brief to the cabinet made note of this point. They said that over the years farmers have had a shortage of labour, particularly during harvesting periods, and that they have asked the provincial government "to reassess its position" and those are exactly the words used in the brief relative to welfare recipients who are presently enjoying the benefits of the welfare programme on the one hand, but do not particularly wish to participate in the farm labour scene on the other. I gather that the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) and the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) met with the B.C. Federation of Agriculture; the date isn't stated in this brief which was presented to the cabinet on December 19, 1974. I wonder if perhaps the Minister could give us some statement of policy and planning with regard to that very important issue, Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt that one of the subjects which is raised whenever one goes to political meetings around the province at the present time is the concern that there seems to be ever-increasing sums of money spent on welfare. Unfortunately, it is all lumped into the one word "welfare" as though all the money was being spent to support people who for one reason or another cannot work or choose not to work. There is certainly a percentage — I suppose we could debate what the percentage is — of employable people in receipt of social assistance. Since the B.C. Federation of Agriculture has chosen to raise the issue, I think it would be a very fair question to ask the Minister under this vote.

Another smaller issue that is raised in the same brief — which to me seems rather strange when we have the lumber market in a slump — is the issue that there is a real shortage of sawdust and shavings for use in the agricultural industry. The suggestion is made that again a committee be set up. I think a committee was set up. Yes, that's right, it's mentioned that an interdepartmental committee between Agriculture and the B.C. Forest Service has been set up. Apparently there is a real shortage of shavings for the livestock and poultry industry.

There are one or two suggestions made by the B.C.

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Federation as to how this might be dealt with, particularly the proposal for stockpiling. I wonder if the Minister could perhaps explain a little bit about why there isn't a better policy to assure supply of these aspects of the forest industry at a time when, it is our understanding, the forest industry would be glad to have additional methods of disposing their products.

The other question which has been raised is the farmers' difficulty in moving livestock on B.C. Ferries, during the summer months in particular. I think we have been round this race track a few times in this House in question period about the particular problems of Vancouver Island residents who have to use the ferries for some reason other than holiday travelling during the tourist season. The answer so far has always been that everyone will be treated alike, tourists and residents. But I think in the case of the moving of livestock, surely there should be some serious consideration given to the possibility of some preferential system for the farmers.

A further point that I think should come under this vote — but I stand to be corrected — is the petition or the letter that I think each MLA received regarding the development of Highway 97. The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea), unfortunately, is out of the House. I am sure the Ministers probably received the same letter that we all received asking for explanations as to why there seems to be a real intent on the part of the Department of Highways to use farmland to a greater or lesser degree or to disrupt the people in the Oliver-Osoyoos area.

I think it is worth reading into the record the resolution which was passed by the B.C. Fruit Growers Association in the Oliver area. Their resolution is to the effect that the Department of Highways be notified of their concern and that they be requested to immediately terminate the programme which is presently being carried out. Really, this resolution relates to a lot of "whereas"-es and I don't want to take up the time of the House by reading in all the "whereas"-es. The purpose of the resolution is to express the fact that the highway appears to pass through a very highly productive fruit-growing area. The widening and the subsequent loss of land is in direct conflict with the intention of the government to preserve farmland.

As I say, there are numerous "whereas"-es prior to the resolution, but there is no doubt that the B.C. Fruit Growers Association in the Oliver area is obviously quite concerned and would like to think that their concern is heard by the Minister. Perhaps there will be some suspension of highway planning until their voice has been heard or until the Minister provides them with a satisfactory explanation as to what plans are going on there.

I think these are the main points under this vote.

Ms. K. Sanford (Comox): I am not too sure whether I should be speaking on this particular matter under vote 4 either and certainly could stand to be corrected.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I think we will allow the latitude that the Hon. Minister, when he rises in his place, can indicate if he wishes to answer at this point or if he wishes it to be brought up under a specific vote. Otherwise, we would ask you to try to keep your remarks....

Ms. Sanford: My view is that it should be at this time, Mr. Chairman, because the Deputy Minister has certainly been very involved in the particular project to which I would like to refer this afternoon, It is a pleasure to speak here today on behalf of the farmers who are within Comox constituency because of the very warm feeling that they have for the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich). When I have the opportunity to speak to the farmers there, they keep coming back to me with very complimentary remarks. I would like to quote just three that I've heard within the last week concerning the work of the Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. J.R. Chabot (Columbia River): Speak to the loggers in Sayward.

Ms. Sanford: They have said: "Never has so much been done in this province for agriculture." Another comment that they have made: "Things looked so grim for farmers two years ago, but this government has bent over backwards to reverse that situation." And a third. comment: "I just can't fault the government on its work in agriculture." Those were three of the comments that I've heard in the last week about the work of this Minister.

Mr. Chabot: What about Tsitika-Schoen?

Ms. Sanford: Tsitika-Schoen is an issue which I hope we will get to under other estimates. If you could wait, Mr. Member for Columbia River, we certainly will be happy to discuss Tsitika-Schoen as well.

Mr. Chabot: Why don't you send the Minister copies of those letters?

Ms. Sanford: The particular proposal about which I would like to inform the House this afternoon is a study which has been undertaken by the Department of Agriculture and by the farmers in the Courtenay area to install an irrigation system in the Courtenay-Comox area in order to provide additional production for the farmers in the area.

[ Page 1059 ]

This system, which is under discussion and under study at the moment, could eventually cover as much as 3,500 acres. Believe me, the farmers in the area are excited about the possibilities because they could more than double their production with the installation of an irrigation system of this type. It is my understanding that government money to provide for such a system would be up to as much as 75 per cent of the cost of the system. Perhaps the Minister could correct me on that if I am wrong.

The farmers, who had been interested in this irrigation system for some years, had formed themselves into an association which they called the Headquarters Road Irrigation District and had intended to try to provide irrigation for just a small number of acres and for just a few farmers in the area. However, when they met with the Minister just over a year ago, he suggested to them that they should think bigger and try to include an even larger area for irrigation in the Comox Valley. As a result, the Headquarters Road Irrigation District has recently gone to the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona in order to discuss with them the possibilities of working together in order to ensure that this system is installed. Because the project was really too big for just a few farmers in that irrigation district, the regional board has indicated an interest, and if the regional board does get involved we may see as many as 3,500 acres come under irrigation in the Comox Valley.

I see no reason why the project can't go ahead if the Headquarters Road Irrigation District gets the support of that regional district.

If they can more than double their production in the Comox Valley, the farmers are also considering the possibility of secondary processing of the food products in the area. Some of the farmers recalled to me — or remembered and related to me — that in the '30s there was once a cannery in the area, but, ironically, that cannery had to close down because there simply was not enough water. Because there was no irrigation at that time, a dry season meant that not enough vegetables were produced in order to keep the cannery in business, That cannery later became a meat processing plant, they tell me, and then eventually closed.

Here we have an opportunity to make the area very productive again and then to get into the much-needed secondary industry for the Comox Valley. You may recognize that at the moment the residents of Comox and Courtenay are very heavily dependent on the air base which is located there, and if we can get the irrigation, get more farmers producing, bring more land into production, and go into canneries as well, we will be doing a good service for the people of the whole area.

The farmland in that area is beautiful farmland. Much of it is class 1 land, and I think with the co-operation of the regional board, the Department of Agriculture, and the farmers of the area, I anticipate that it will become a major producer of agricultural products in the province.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. L.A. Williams (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Chairman, one of the items of expenditure under vote 4 is the expenses of the food council, and I want to raise this matter with the Hon, Minister, particularly in view of the letter which was circulated to all Members of this Legislature from the Consumers' Association of Canada announcing their resignation from the food council, I am rather shocked at the tone that is exhibited by this letter. As I read part of it, the president of the Consumers' Association of Canada uses words such as these:

"At various meetings, we have both been harassed on a personal level rather than on the relevant issues under discussion. However, our major concern was related to the lack of action and direction of the council."

Later on in the letter, the president says:

"We seriously questioned the impartiality of the chairman, Associate Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Maurie King. Incidents involved two biased press releases, breaking a tie-vote on an issue directly related to his department, and influencing from the chair by leading the council in its business."

The letter goes on to say:

"It appeared evident to us that the food council was often asked to rubber stamp ideas originally initiated by the Department of Agriculture."

Mrs. Brown goes on to say:

"We were very disappointed at a meeting that took the position that as consumer representatives we were deliberately 'causing confrontations.' "

Mr. Chairman, I think that the Minister must answer this committee on the serious charges that are implicit in this letter from Mrs. Brown, particularly when one considers the background which led to the establishment of this food council.

The Select Standing Committee on Agriculture met in the year 1970 to deal with matters relating to all aspects of food production, processing and marketing in the Province of British Columbia. They concluded in that year, in their report tabled in this Legislature, that there had been insufficient time available to deal with the matters and insufficient publicity given to the various groups and organizations within the province who would be interested in the matters which were then before the committee for consideration. As a consequence, in the following year, 1971, the committee was again

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given directions by this House to deal with aspects of the production and distribution of food in British Columbia.

The Hon. Minister of Education, (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) the Deputy Premier of this province, and others now on the government side worked diligently with the government of the day to produce a report. It is interesting that the committee recommended in 1971 that there be appropriate amendments to the Department of Agriculture Act to rename the department and broaden its responsibilities as the Department of Food and Agriculture, with power to administer all of the laws of the province with respect to production, processing, distribution and marketing of food.

Also, Mr. Chairman, it was recommended that under the authority of the Minister there be established an agency known as the British Columbia Food Council, which would be empowered to study, investigate, report, advise and recommend action with respect to all questions raised in the production and marketing of food, and that such food council be comprised of representatives from the Department of Food and Agriculture, producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, consumers and labour, with power to establish advisory committees.

It was the belief of the committee at that time, and they were unanimous in this report, that the Department of Agriculture had to broaden its scope to concern itself not only with the narrow problems that faced agriculture, as it had heretofore been known in this province, but to concern itself more with the aspect which is of greatest importance to the people of British Columbia — namely, how we produce our food, how we market our food and the concern that the consumer has with respect to all these activities in the private and public sector and the role of government in regulating those activities.

It was with some delight that members of the agricultural committee who served in 1970, 1971 and since found that the government had seen fit to establish the food council, and it was hoped at that time that representatives from all of these various segments of our society who were concerned with the production, marketing and distribution of food would be fully involved, through the council, in what should have been an expanded role for the Department of Agriculture.

We have had in debates in this House over the past year serious questions raised as to the extent to which the concerns of consumers are being reflected in many of the programmes carried on by this government, under this Minister. Now we have the clearest indication again that the interest of the consumer is being ignored — indeed, in this particular case, that the representatives of the consumers are being ignored in the work of this food council. This is most unfortunate, Mr. Chairman. At this particular time, when the government is doing apparently everything within its power to assist the producer segment, apparently nothing is being done so far as the marketing and distribution is concerned — leaving the consumer again, as has been the case with marketing boards, in some serious doubt as to whether the best interests of the consumer are being ignored as well.

To suggest, as this letter does, partiality on the part of the Associate Deputy Minister is a most serious charge, and one which I don't think that this Minister can treat lightly. I'm sure he does not.

But it would seem to me that the food council concept, recommended by the committee and adopted by the government, is being frustrated in the fulfillment of the role that the council should be able to perform in this province by the actions of members of the department and by some lack of concern on the part of the Minister in the fulfillment of what is the real purpose of the Department of Agriculture in British Columbia.

It is all very well to be concerned about the needs of the farmers. I don't think there is anybody on any side of this House who has not expressed concern about the situation in which the primary producer finds himself. Certainly none of the opposition Members have spoken other than in support of activities which would ensure that the primary producer has his economic situation improved. But all the time we have expressed to the Minister the central theme that in the final analysis it is the consumer of food products whose interest must likewise be the concern of this department.

We find in these days of ever-increasing prices that our citizens at all levels — not only our senior citizens and those on fixed incomes, but those people whose families are engaged daily in gainful activities — are experiencing extreme difficulty in paying the food bills. It is a problem which is not unique to British Columbia alone, and I wouldn't suggest that it is. But it is a matter which must be given most serious consideration by government. There is one department which has this responsibility, and that is the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, am I offending against your rules in dealing with this matter? There really is an item here that says....

Mr. Chairman: The Hon. Member is skating on the borderline of violating the rules. I'll just draw to his attention what I am concerned about. In May, 17th edition, page 739: "... nor can the actions of those high public servants ... can only be criticized on a substantive motion." That is, they cannot be debated in the estimates. Now I would ask the Hon. Member just to be aware of this.

Mr. L.A. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[ Page 1061 ]

I clearly don't want to offend against any of your rulings, and I'm not raising any criticism against the Associate Deputy Minister. It has been done by somebody else and done in the most public fashion. The effect of it, Mr. Chairman, is what concerns me. The effect of it is to denigrate the position of that senior civil servant and to affect the functioning of the food council. That is what is my concern.

If I may continue, Mr. Chairman, not only in the matter of the cost of food must we be concerned in this province, great though that problem may be. I think we must also be concerned as to the extent to which our citizens are being nutritionally served by the foods which are available to them in the stores of this province. This is a subject which should have been the responsibility of the food council to concern itself with in the marketing and the distribution segments — how nutritious the foods are that are offered in our stores. How nutritious are the foods that are offered in our schools to our young people who, for reasons over which they have no control, must eat their lunches at school?

To what extent does the Department of Agriculture carry on liaison work with the Department of Health on this most important aspect? Again, this is something which the food council would properly concern itself with.

When we find that Mrs. Brown suggests that the food council was merely to rubber stamp ideas originally initiated by the Department of Agriculture, it would suggest that the food council is perhaps being inhibited in the fullest performance of the responsibilities that that council should carry out.

I'm sure the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) would support me when I say that there is — dealing with this nutritional matter for a moment further, Mr. Chairman — strong evidence that many of the foods that are available in many of our schools — and if not in the schools, those that are offered to the children as fashion foods in confectionery stores, in local stores where the young children spend their money — are largely junk. They consist principally of sugar, which, in itself, has been suggested by some to be almost a poisonous substance when taken in the quantities that are presently being used in North America today.

I don't wish to belabour the matter any more. I want to hear from the Minister as to precisely what role he sees for the food council, and to advise this committee whether or not the representative of the Consumers' Association of Canada is justified in the startling statements that she makes in offering the resignation of her organization as a member of the food council.

I would also like the Minister to indicate to what extent in the planning programme carried on by his department he is prepared to take into account matters such as those properly coming before the food council: nutrition of food, distribution of food and the marketing of food. We may do as much for the primary producer as we wish, but if the department's responsibility ends there, then as far as the public of British Columbia is concerned the department is not doing its job.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister Of Agriculture): The first point raised by the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) referred to the B.C. Federation of Agriculture brief and the argument in there that there are too many people who are receiving social assistance or welfare payments who should be out working for it. I know that that is a very popular feeling in the community, but I think in spite of the fact that the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) quoted figures when he was speaking, I believe during the budget debate, to the effect that the proportion of the population receiving that kind of payment has actually gone down in the two and a half years since he has had charge of that portfolio, this information is largely ignored in the community at large and there is this feeling abroad that there are too many people who are not working for what they are getting.

I don't doubt that there are some people in the community who would rather not work at hard physical labour. Certainly, while there are some very physically demanding jobs in industry in general, agriculture is very demanding. Almost every position that you can think of in agriculture is demanding physically. I am quite prepared to go along with the idea that people who have the physical ability to work should be working. If they prefer not to and prefer to exist some other way, well, that's fine, but there should be opportunities for them. However, I am not prepared to really get behind any programme that would shift to agriculture the responsibility of employing these people — lawyers, maybe, but not farmers.

Certainly, farmers in general have tried to open their doors to people who are willing to work. Some seasonal jobs in particular have gone begging. They haven't been able to get enough workers to do the work on the farms. Unfortunately, while there are people like this moving around the country who are existing by some means or other, when it comes to working on farms — the kind of work that is involved in a dairy farm, for example, where they start very early and finish very late, or in fruit picking, where it is very demanding during the harvesting season and there are seasons when it isn't — to ask farmers to provide the employment opportunities for people who don't really want to work is not a responsibility I intend to undertake.

With respect to the shortages of sawdust and shavings, it is true that there has been a depressed market in the logging industry, but it's not a matter

[ Page 1062 ]

of selling sawdust and shavings, it's the sales of lumber that have hit that industry. Strangely enough, when the logging industry goes down and the demand for the lumber falls off, we find that instead of having more of these by-products for farming, the actual quantity of sawdust and shavings available decreases, of course, and beyond that the industry itself is using a higher proportion of these formerly waste products in the manufacture of pulp and also for energy production. So the supplies of sawdust and shavings have actually been curtailed during this period, making it all that much more difficult for agriculture to get access to its usual supply. Beyond that, the price has gone up markedly and this is another problem.

The Department of Agriculture has set up a committee and co-operated with the Forest Service, with industry and with farm organizations to try to bring together areas where there are some supplies available and making them available to the farmers who need them. It has been a talking programme — trying to get the co-operation of industry — which has met with some measure of success, but not as much as we would have liked to have seen.

With reference to livestock on B.C. ferries, it has been a problem from time to time and when the problem arises it has been dealt with. The most recent instance that I know of was the movement of broilers from the mainland to Vancouver Island. It was so bad, from the point of view of B.C. Ferries, that they said they would simply cease moving these broilers, and the industry was in a bit of a panic for a time. They took it up with the Department of Agriculture, and I took it up with the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) and we were able to not so much impose new rules on the people transporting the broilers but insist on the old rules being followed. I think there has been better observance of those rules and to the best of my knowledge there hasn't been anything recently on this question of transporting livestock on B.C. ferries.

I know there are still problems about getting them in on time to avoid the waiting periods. There are many people who have to wait to travel across the gulf between here and the mainland, both ways, and it's very unfortunate when livestock are involved, but sometimes necessary in these waiting periods. We've done as much as we can in that, I think. We'll continue to keep making representations when specific instances of problems are brought to the attention of the Department of Agriculture.

Highways on farmland within the agricultural land reserves. I have a copy of the letter that the Hon. Member for Oak Bay referred to. I think in the Department of Highways we have a situation where the Minister (Hon. Mr. Lea) himself is extremely co-operative. He is a great supporter of the agricultural land reserve policy himself, but it hasn't worked its way down through the various levels in his department.

When a need for a road comes to mind at the local level, I think it's generally the local engineers, if you like, who look at the problem from a straight engineering point of view, as used to be the way to do that. It was, up until two years ago. If you have to build a road, you look for the best place to build a road without any consideration of anything else. While the Minister and I have other considerations in mind now, and while to a great degree the whole community has other considerations, nevertheless, the technicians who are planning the roads still look for the best way from strictly a road-building point of view.

I would suspect that when it is drawn to the attention of those higher up in the department what damage the road you have in mind would do to a significantly important agricultural area, then some other way of satisfying the transportation problem in that area will be looked for.

The Hon. Member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) brought up the question of the Comox irrigation proposal. As she said in her remarks, I did make a point of visiting the area about one year ago and I was shown the 3,500 acres that they hope to irrigate. I understand they have been working on it for some years. As she said in her remarks, I did suggest to them that they widen their vision. Instead of looking at just 3,500 acres, they should be looking at 6,000. It is excellent land, but it's land that, again, at this time of year particularly, although not today — at least not the last time I was outside.... It's easy to forget that we live in a semi-arid area. To get any kind of significant agricultural production on the east coast of Vancouver Island, you need irrigation. You have to have the water when you need the water, rather than in the wintertime when we get more than enough.

There are some 6,000 acres of excellent land in that area that could be brought into good production if irrigation was available. We have discussed it in the department with people from the Comox Valley. They did make a proposal based on the 3,500, and I asked them to take it back and look at it again and to consider the 6,000 acres. They are now looking at both proposals and trying to find out locally what measure of support they might expect from the farmers in that area. On the basis of support from the local individuals, who will still be called upon to put up 25 per cent of the funds, we will decide the size of that irrigation project.

I wouldn't want to build up the Member's hopes or the hopes in the minds of some of the producers in that area when it comes to processing. I appreciate that there were many small processing plants in many parts of the province that operated for a while, and operated successfully. For one reason or another they

[ Page 1063 ]

were closed down one after the other. But in the meantime, since those plants have been closed down, we find that processing plants have changed quite considerably. Processes have changed; plants have become much larger. It is a labour-intensive industry to start with and, to be successful, they have to modernize and have plants of a size that would need much more even than the 6,000 acres that are available in that area. I'm not denying that there couldn't be some processing of some products, but I wouldn't look for us getting back to the days when there was local processing of most vegetables that were being produced in many areas of the province.

The Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) asked questions about the Advisory Food Council. He was shocked at some of the words in the letter. I'll say I was disappointed rather than shocked. I was disappointed, for example, to read in that letter that they had come to me with several requests, none of which had been answered positively.

I recall the first time I met with the B.C. Food Council. There was one representative on it at the time from the CAC (Consumer's Association of Canada). I was met then with the request that this particular representative felt rather lonely, that she was the only one representing consumers, in spite of that fact that, as I looked around the room, I felt that all the members there were consumers. She felt that she was the only one who was there to represent consumers, and said that on occasion you couldn't even get the seconder for a motion to have the right to discuss a motion. She would like to have another representative from the CAC on the food council. The request was hardly made before it was granted. That's No. 1.

Then there was a second request — and I can't say for certain now that the request first came from that particular CAC representative, but it was certainly supported by that particular member of the Advisory Food Council. That was a clause that was in the aims and objectives or the guidelines for the Advisory Food Council, guidelines that were established by the previous administration although it never established the food council itself. Included in these guidelines was a statement to the effect that the Advisory Food Council could look into such matters as were referred to it by the Minister. They said that they felt this rather hampered things that they might want to do.

They had to sit back and wait for me to suggest projects for them. I asked them how they would like a change. They said they would like to have the right to initiate these investigations on their own. I said: "Okay, let's debate that." And it was done. Just as quickly as the request was made the request was granted.

They had some complaints about the chairman. I don't accept for one moment any of the criticisms about the way the chairman conducted the sittings of the Advisory Food Council; nevertheless, they felt that the chairman should not be someone as close to me as the Associate Deputy Minister of Agriculture. I was only too pleased to react positively to that request since I had already made up my mind that his other work as Associate Deputy Minister of Agriculture was much too important for him to be giving as much time to the Advisory Food Council as he was. I had already determined that it should be someone else in this department giving this liaison, and I was going to ask them to have a new chairman at their new meeting, So I was quite happy to respond positively to that request as well.

I chaired the next annual meeting myself and suggested that they name from among their number — and that they do it at their next meeting when there would be a few more new members of the food council there — a chairman from among that group. So I reacted positively to that request as well.

I think, when it comes right down to it, Mr. Chairman, the only criticism in that letter that perhaps I should deal with at all is the one where the chairman cast the deciding vote against a motion that there be an investigation of one particular marketing board. Of course, the fact that he had to cast the deciding vote shows that the motion itself had failed. The proponents of that motion had failed to convince the majority of the members of the council that this particular investigation should go ahead. The motion had failed right there without his casting the deciding vote.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Well, exactly. Nevertheless, the motion had failed. They had moved and seconded the motion and had it discussed and had failed to get any progress on that motion. The motion had failed right there without the chairman casting the deciding vote. But they complained to me about this as well. So I suggested to them that if I were involved in that discussion, I would not have supported the motion. I couldn't see that that particular narrow investigation they were proposing in their motion would really do anything about the cost of food for the consumer in the Province of British Columbia. They were proposing that there be an investigation of the policies of one particular marketing board.

I suggested to them that perhaps if they were wanting to look at the total picture of the cost of eggs even, if they were going to conduct an investigation or even hire someone, hire some research, and find out just exactly why eggs cost 91 cents a dozen, as they did at that time, then such an investigation might — I couldn't speak for the board or the council — gain much more support from the council than a very narrow investigation of the

[ Page 1064 ]

actions of one particular marketing board and perhaps even just certain aspects of that particular marketing board's operation. Nevertheless, they chose not to promote that. Having failed to get the support for one particular move, they apparently were.... I was going to say they were not interested, but that may not be fair. But for whatever reasons they had, they chose not to follow the suggestion I had offered, for what it was worth, that they do a total investigation of one food product to find out why it cost as much as it did. As far as the things they might be looking into, the cost of food.... Well, that's something that the Advisory Food Council can take into consideration.

My own feeling on that would be that we have the Food Prices Review Board in Ottawa, which I believe will last until the end of this calendar year. I think that once they have completed their work, it may well be that the Advisory Food Council would want to carry on with that kind of investigation provincially. I don't know.

They asked for the right to bring up their own ideas, to proceed with them. I gave them that right. If the Advisory Food Council wants to follow some kind of programme like that, I would be quite interested in helping them and supporting them.

As far as food nutrition is concerned, I think the best thing we can do, from the point of view of the quality of the food offered to consumers in the Province of British Columbia, is to do everything we can to see that we grow more food in the Province of British Columbia, to grow it where we have some control of the kind of methods that are used in producing and processing that food — some control, for example, over insecticides. There is a great deal of concern over insecticides, herbicides that are used. When the products are grown here in the Province of British Columbia, we know what is happening; we know the conditions under which they are being grown. We have some control. We have some control over the processing plants in the Province of British Columbia. We don't have any control over what is happening to that food in other areas. We control, for example, the processing of mushrooms in B.C. We don't really know anything about the processing of mushrooms in Taiwan. So I suggest — and this is the direction in which we've been going — that we, wherever possible, promote the production, processing and consumption of B.C. foods.

The Department of Health — I think that it is just repeating to say that there has been this royal commission inquiry. Interim reports have been presented. I believe the final report is expected any day. I think perhaps that that royal commission report, when it comes in, will point out new directions that we can point toward with respect to protecting the health of our citizens, with respect to producing nutritious food in the province.

Mr. H.A. Curtis (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Chairman, to the Minister a couple of points which I trust you will find acceptable under this vote. If not, I'll pick them up later.

Firstly, it must have been embarrassing and annoying — more annoying, I would think — to the Minister of Agriculture in his continuing efforts to speak on behalf of the people who produce food in British Columbia — grow it, or in the case of livestock or dairies — to read a story as I did in The Daily Colonist for January 23 of this year.

It's a brief story: "Most Farms Big Business — IWA Chief." This is a Canadian Press story from Vancouver:

"'It's time to throw away the crying towel for Canadian farmers,' says Vancouver and District Labour Council president, Sid Thompson. Speaking in support of a resolution to curb inflation and unemployment, Thompson told council delegates that most farming now is nothing but business'-

Then there's a quote:

" 'I suspect the bulk of food is produced by big business, and 70 per cent of the nation's farmers deserve no help or sympathy from anyone.' As for the smaller farmers, Thompson said, 'Consumers can't continue to be held up for ransom on food prices to keep a few small farmers in business.' He said: 'There are no small farmers involved in ranching in B.C. and Alberta. All those spreads are run by big business.' "

I can't help thinking, Mr. Chairman, as I read that and as I read it again today, that that wasn't my impression in travelling with the agriculture committee of this Legislature some months ago, meeting a number of small farmers, family operations, and I know the Minister has spoken about encouraging the family farm operation in British Columbia. It's an essential part of the total agricultural picture in B.C., and it's most unfortunate that someone who should be well informed, but obviously is not on this subject — Mr. Thompson — would be quoted and would have such very strong views about farming as it is practised in B.C., Alberta and elsewhere.

The other point, Mr. Chairman, I am sure will be of concern to the Minister as well — and I preface any remarks by making it clear that this is not to be misconstrued as a statement against our beloved family pet, man's best friend, the family dog — but my files, and I'm sure the files of other Members of this House, show an increasingly long list of stories with respect to dogs attacking domestic animals, attacking wild animals, deer and so on, and in some very unfortunate instances, attacking young people. There's a story from Mission: "Dogs Maul Three-year-old." This was January 27 of this year in

[ Page 1065 ]

The Vancouver Sun. The child was finally reported in satisfactory condition after being found in a neighbour's yard with her clothes torn off. Police said two German shepherd-type dogs, believed to be the attackers, were rounded up and will be held in quarantine for two weeks pending rabies tests.

"Dog Packs Killing Hundreds of Deer." This is the Victoria Times from March 20 of this year. "The Town of Sidney Ready to Tackle the Dog Problem," February 12, 1975 in The Daily Colonist. "Saanich Draws Bead on Marauding Dogs." This is December 4 in the Victoria Times. "A committee of council is going to write Agriculture Minister Stupich requesting Saanich be given power to enforce the new domestic animal Act, now only applicable in unorganized areas." I wonder if the Minister, in fact, received that letter.

"Mother Sees Recovery of Girl Mauled By Dogs." That was another story in The Province, just a number of weeks ago. Then the final newspaper article I'll refer to in this connection is from The Vancouver Sun, February 7: "Dogs Bite 1.8 Million." This is an estimate by the American Medical Association. "Dogs probably bite 1.8 million Americans a year. The dog, as man's best friend, is not always truthful." It says: "600,000 Americans are badly bitten each year, and minor bites perhaps triple that figure. The family dog may be dangerous to your health," it added.

The Domestic Animal Protection Act....

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I would just point out to the Hon. Member that I think the matter he is discussing would be better discussed under vote 6, however....

Mr. Curtis: If you wish. I'm very nearly through.

Mr. Chairman: Would the Hon. Member, if it's going to be short, just finish? I think the Hon. Minister would handle it at this point.

Mr. Curtis: Yes, I'm very nearly through. The Domestic Animal Protection Act was assented to on November 7, 1973. I see behind the Minister of Agriculture the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Radford).

An Hon. Member: He's gritting his teeth, too.

Mr. Curtis: I'm not sure just what that Minister is doing when this subject is discussed, but it must be admitted that the subject is of concern to an increasingly large proportion of our population, not only to those people who involved in raising livestock, but to those people who live in isolated areas as well as in our suburban communities.

I would be very happy, whether under this vote or a subsequent vote, if the Minister would tell the committee and reassure the people of British Columbia that some definite action is being taken with respect to this very serious problem, and one which I fear, unless strong action is taken, is going to become even more serious and lead to some very tragic individual instances.

Mr. Wallace: Mr. Chairman, I had meant to comment on the food council issue too, and I think that in light of remarks by the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams), and the answers from the Minister, we won't take too many minutes to enlarge on the subject a little bit.

I think that the Minister is perhaps all too readily overlooking the fact that the citizens in British Columbia are concerned, not only that producers should get a fair return for their money and their efforts and their labour, but that the pendulum is probably swinging to the degree that now the consumer is perhaps unable to let his voice be heard with effect at the level where the action is and where the decisions are made.

With the greatest of respect I have to differ with the Minister who said he looked around the room and he got the impression that we're all consumers, because I'd like to read out who the members of the food council are, in addition to the two consumers.

There's the president of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, the president of the B.C. Fruit Growers Association, the manager of Intercontinental Packers Ltd., there's the Western Food Processors Assoc. manager, Pacific Produce Co. Ltd., and Canadian Safeways Ltd. vice-president. If I was a consumer on a committee like that, trying to cope with the expertise, the business experience, and the particular direction from which these individuals would surely be arguing on such a food council committee, I would consider the ordinary citizen and consumer heavily overridden in debate simply because, while they may be consumers inasmuch as we all also breathe and our hearts all beat, I think that the Minister was really stretching things a little bit when he suggested that all the members on the council are consumers, and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Lotzkar were really no different from the others.

I think the point was well made back in January when Mrs. Lotzkar, who is the other lady from the consumers' association, made the statement very clear. She said: "We feel it's overweighed towards the producers and away from the consumers, " While I think that the Minister has acknowledged the complaint that they made about the chairman being very close to the Minister, they felt, and stated on January 9 that the chairman must, by his position, tend to favour the producers rather than the consumers. As our legal friend from West

[ Page 1066 ]

Vancouver–Howe Sound remarked, if there are two consumers and eight or nine producers, they really have to put on some argument to get even a tie in a situation like that. Again, I would have to question....

An Hon. Member: They wouldn't win a vote in here. (Laughter.)

Mr. Wallace: It's even more magnificent for the opposition to win a vote in here. (Laughter.)

The Minister put a very unique kind of interpretation on a tie vote, and I think for the Minister to suggest that because the vote was 4-4 or 5-5, that it had already failed, really is stretching the whole basic concept of the democratic system and the whole question of being for or against the issue. It seems to me that the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound, and perhaps the Member for Oak Bay, are failing to get the message through to the Minister that consumers are concerned that although this government has quite correctly enhanced the lot of the farmer, and goodness knows the budget says that: $15 million up to $60 million....

While some of that $60 million we're going to ask a little bit about in a minute, I think basically the kind of farm assurance programmes and credit programmes, and so on, were overdue and they're farsighted in their attempt to give the farmer a fair deal. I don't think anybody's quibbling about that, least of all the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis). We always know that when we speak favourably about farm support we'll always get his applause in the background.

Interjection.

Mr. Wallace: There he goes, regular as the tide.

The kind of comments these ladies make, I think the Minister perhaps has tended to brush aside rather lightly and it does again come back to the concept of the role of this kind of body and the role of marketing boards in the whole picture. These ladies also made the point — and this is a direct quote: "Everything always seems to come back to these marketing boards."

Mrs. Brown said: "The boards have so much power over so many segments of the industry that they are involved in nearly all the problems which the council discusses." She said that the consumers would like the council to be a much more "open" — and that's the exact word she used — organization, and have it listen more to consumers and tell the consumers more about its activities.

At that time, in January, they were very concerned about the new superboard. As the Minister will know, there is a letter somewhere — I can't just lay my hands on a copy, but the Minister will know the letter — where they're asking that the full number of 10 members be appointed to the superboard, and that there be adequate representation on the superboard by the consumers. The Minister's response at that time was that there would be representation.

Of course, we now know that on February 14 the superboard was announced, with five members, not 10. The name of the consumer was well chosen — Mrs. Wallace (no relation, I might say) — but Mrs. Barbara Wallace of Ladysmith is described as the "former assistant-manager of consumer relation divisions to B.C. Hydro." With such a complex, involved and detailed matter as food production and processing and marketing, where the consumer was to be involved, it seemed a little puzzling to me that if there was to be an expert the person chosen should be experienced in B.C. Hydro. I would think the whole question of explaining to the consumer the use of electricity is a vastly different subject from explaining the price of canned peas, or whatever.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister's attitude to the food council has been rather unfortunate. The kind of headlines we got in the newspapers, when this issue erupted, was this kind of thing: "Stupich Threatens Food Council." In other words he said: "If you don't like it, you can lump it; and if you don't sit down and do what you're told, I'm going to disband the food council." That's exactly the phraseology that he used. The Vancouver Sun on January 23 stated: "Agriculture Minister Dave Stupich said Wednesday that he will disband the B.C. Food Council if its members continue scrapping, rather than co-operating." Although this council was delegated to investigate food production and try to come up with suggestions regarding needed legislation, and to express the view of the consumers to the producers, it seems to me that when two consumers who are heavily outnumbered by people representing production make the kind of statements they've made, it's rather unfortunate that the Minister says: "Well, if you don't do it the way I want you to do it we'll just disband the food council."

So I feel, Mr. Chairman, that maybe the Minister should reconsider his attitude on this matter and tell us whether, in fact, on reconsideration, some of these points we're making are more valid than he gave us to understand when he answered the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams).

There are just one or two other points under this vote that I would like to just quickly touch upon. The Minister mentioned at the end of his comments, also in response to the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound, that our greatest aim should be to produce and process and market and sell as many food products as possible in British Columbia — our own food products. I wanted to ask to what

[ Page 1067 ]

degree the Minister is discussing with the beef industry the question of any way of making feed grains available in British Columbia at a competitive price which would no longer leave the cattle producer with the only option to send his cattle and calves to Alberta, or whatever, in the wintertime.

I discussed this as recently as yesterday, in Kamloops, with farmers in that area and one of the questions I was asked was: "Would it not be possible for government, through some support programme, to make grain available at the same price as pertains in, let us say, Alberta, with the incentive that the cattle should remain in British Columbia and that by raising larger numbers it would become feasible to have our own packing plants in British Columbia, which would, in turn, create more jobs?" This would in fact be another example of the general philosophy which the Minister just talked about, a minute ago — that we should do all we can to have a complete industry, whether it happens to be, as he quoted mushrooms or, as I am quoting, beef cattle.

It seems to me, and I've read a little bit, that the beef producers are not really keen on subsidies as such. I could be wrong on that, but the last press release from B.C. cattlemen suggests that they're not very keen on subsidies, although they're debating the whole question of the farm income assurance programme and an entry into it. But if it is simply a matter of feed grain being available at competitive prices, this would seem to me to make a lot of sense. Maybe the Minister would care to comment on, first of all, whether he thinks it's a good idea, and whether, in fact, he has been asked by the industry to consider the prospect.

Finally, on this whole question of policy and planning, we have read quite a bit lately about the concern over grazing, the wise use of grazing lands and the whole question of farmers who are raising stock who want longer grazing leases or rentals rather than the one-, two- or three-year arrangements that pertain. I was very interested at the end of last year to read the report by Dr. Hudson, Dr. Brink and Dr. Kitts who issued a report, which I am sure the Minister is well aware of.

One of the major thrusts of that report was that a major obstacle to good land management is intense rivalry between the different departments of government. Those are the words used: "... intense rivalry between different government agencies for the limited resources of land and budget allocations." The other report which was brought out a little later by Alastair McLean stated also that there is a greater need for integration of efforts among departments but particularly in terms of incentives to farmers to raise stock. It would make a lot more sense if the lease ran over a longer period of time. Dr. McLean suggests 10 years, according to the report I read.

There's a great deal of concern and puzzlement among consumers again on the whole question of beef prices. It seems to me that just six months ago the prices for beef were going through the roof and within a few months we suddenly find now that we are in an overproduction situation. I wonder if the Minister could give us some answers as to the present situation and policy planning for the beef industry. Under the vote dealing with farm income support he might choose to deal with issues of wise use of grazing lands and the whole question of how long leases should run. As recently as yesterday I was told by farmers that this is a far more important issue than the Minister seems to realize. Maybe, that being the case, he could give us some answers today that would encourage farmers to accept that the Minister is aware of the importance of this length of lease and whether or not he is willing to increase it.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: I was disappointed in the correspondence from Sid Thompson. I suppose I was disappointed for another reason as well, and that was that he sent me a letter and issued it to the press at the same time. I thought that at least he could have waited until I had an opportunity to reply before releasing both to the press. The reply never did make the papers. He responded to my reply and then I responded to his response, and that has been the end of it so far. I think, to some degree, he showed his lack of knowledge of the agricultural industry in the province. Perhaps that more than anything else.

I think that B.C., from the point of view of the lack of vertical integration in the agricultural industry, is the best jurisdiction in the whole of the North American continent. There is less vertical integration here than anywhere else, not just because we are better in B.C. but simply that we have limited areas of good agricultural land available, scattered over a very large province, and with many types of agricultural practice. The opportunities for vertical integration just aren't there so it just doesn't exist in B.C. I suppose in my response to his response I dealt adequately with his questions. He hasn't felt called upon to reply or to issue any more public statements.

Dogs. Vote 6 — because there may be others who want to get in on the dog question.

The food council. I don't think I can add much more to what I have already said, other than to say that the two representatives of the B.C. branch of the CAC, in saying that they were going to resign in that letter.... The part of the letter that no one has commented on yet — and I think I will — is that they said they felt they could serve the interests of their community best by withdrawing from the food council to be in a position where they could make representations to the food council or to the provincial marketing board. While I am disappointed to lose them as members of the Advisory Food Council, I am encouraged that they are going to

[ Page 1068 ]

continue doing what they think is the best effort they can to at least examine the cost of food, if not bring about any reduction.

The cattle industry and the idea of getting feed grains at a special price. It would have to be a special price rather than a reasonable one because feed grain marketing in the country has been changed so that B.C. farmers can go now, if they like, to Alberta and buy feed grains at off-board prices and make off-board arrangements to acquire feed grains. It doesn't mean that the price is any lower though, and that's the problem as far as expanding the agriculture industry in the province. The only way we can get the price down would be to subsidize it, subsidize freight or some such thing. We are looking at alternatives rather than that, although for a number of years and in 1974 we have continued the practice of a freight subsidy for feed grain coming out of the Creston Valley.

I think a better way of looking at the cattle industry in the province is the proposal that we have discussed at some length with the cattle industry itself, and that is the idea of providing a facility for a feedlot operating in the interior of the province that will provide another market for animals that are being fed, will give the sellers of that type of livestock an opportunity to sell in another market, and perhaps will encourage the development of other feedlots in the province, and will provide livestock for the packing plants that do exist in the province.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: How many are there in total? Well, Intercontinental, of course, is a large one. Apart from that, there are federally inspected slaughterhouses in many parts of the province. In the valley the Dawson Creek one, I think, is federally inspected now.

Mr. P.L. McGeer (Vancouver-Point Grey): Why did Canada Packers quit?

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Why did they quit? There isn't the volume of livestock in the province right now to keep even one packing plant, such as Intercontinental's, going at the capacity at which it should be working in order to operate economically. Intercontinental has....

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Yes, they are moving both ways. They're moving both ways. Hogs are coming in here from Alberta and being killed in the valley. Beef are moving both ways, but generally the beef go before they are sent to the marketplace. But Intercontinental isn't getting a sufficient supply. This is one of the reasons that we want to encourage the development of feedlots operating in the province so that there will be enough livestock to keep Intercontinental going in the province.

Grazing. I don't admit that there is intense rivalry for limited resources. I think it would be more appropriate to say that we now recognize our resources are limited. It has been a gradual awareness over the years. Before that we had so much forest land, so much open land, so much land of all kinds in the province that we couldn't contemplate the day when there wouldn't be enough of everything.

We now realize that there are finite limits to all kinds of land and lands in total, and we have to make the maximum use of the land for all purposes. Agriculture has always been willing to co-operate with other resource users to get the optimum multiple use of our land resource, and we want to continue doing that. We sometimes find that other resource users are not quite that ready to share land with agriculture, but we are, so far, willing to share it with them.

Mr. Wallace: What about length of tenure?

Hon. Mr. Stupich: There have been two types of tenure in the past — long-term leases and the permit, the annual permit. The report that came down recommended rather than that that there be the 10-year leasing. Now that report is being released in the form of a report and it is being examined by the industry, by the government departments involved, and there will be some government policy coming out of that report.

Mr. D.M. Phillips (South Peace River): Just a couple of quick questions before we leave this planning.

It concerns me, Mr. Chairman, when I think of actually how much planning we are doing, how much research is being done in the field of agriculture to make better use of the literally millions of acres of land that exists in the northern part of our province.

I have had some discussions and correspondence with the Minister on research which was being done by the federal Department of Agriculture at Beaver Lodge with regard to growing vegetables and other crops in the north. I understand Ottawa is supplying an ever-decreasing amount of money to research. The Minister knows as well as I do that, for instance, in the Fort Nelson area alone, by a federal government survey, there is over one million acres of arable land that can grow vegetables up there but there has to be more research done.

When we are talking about, particularly, the emphasis then over the last three years on the decreasing amount of land which is available and which at the present time is growing what we

[ Page 1069 ]

consider in British Columbia to be a weed, in the form of aspen and poplar trees. It could be used for production of foodstuffs. It concerns me, Mr. Chairman. I don't think sufficient research is being carried out to utilize those millions of acres of land.

Certainly, with the British Columbia Railway now running into the Fort Nelson area, transportation wouldn't be that great a problem. I would like to see more emphasis, either working with the federal government or, if we have to do it ourselves, more emphasis put on research so that that available land could be put to production. I'm sure the Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder) has land in his area that could be cleared and put to agricultural production. But we are so concerned on one hand about our diminishing amount of agricultural land, where we are buying up millions of acres in the province, hundreds of thousands of acres....

Interjection.

Mr. Phillips: Well, I'll get to that under the Land Commission, yes. But there has been a great deal of emphasis put on the preservation of farmland, and here we have a situation where, on the other hand, there are well over a million acres of land that could be used in food production. All we need is more research.

There is one other area I would like to ask the Minister about, and it could be classified probably as economic development, but that is a method or a plant to extract bee venom. Now I've had some correspondence with the Minister on that.

Here is a substance which at the present time every fall in British Columbia goes to waste. Bee venom is very expensive. It is used in drugs. These bees, particularly in the northern part of the province, have to be killed off every winter, and that venom is not extracted.

As I say, I've had correspondence with the Minister. I wonder if he would make any comment as to any forward planning, because it's a rare substance. It could be a very profitable organization, but it needs a little push from the Department of Agriculture.

You're talking about subsidizing grain for the cattle industry in the interior only from the Creston Valley. Why not reinstate your feed grain subsidization policy from the Peace River area? We have the British Columbia Railway. There was a feed grain subsidization policy at one time which allowed the cattle industry to buy grain from the Peace River area. The freight rate was subsidized. I suppose that when you do that you run into a problem where those in the cattle industry in the Peace River area feel that they're being discriminated against because they have to pay. They don't get any subsidies for the movement of their feed. So it has to be worked out so that everybody is treated equally.

But certainly because of the fact that we own the railroad, even though it's losing money, we should be doing some research into this area. Maybe the Minister would comment.

[Mr. G.H. Anderson in the chair.]

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, I would like to echo the Member's concern about the federal government's attitude towards research. It has been backing away from research in the province — I think in all provinces, for that matter.

I suppose that there are many reasons for less research being done. It costs a lot more to do research because, for one thing, salaries have gone up; the cost of everything going into research has gone up. I believe at Agassiz the man in charge of research is Dr. Miltmore. As he put it so eloquently on one occasion, all of the easy things have been done, so it costs a good deal more now to achieve anything in the way of results in research. All of the easy things have been done.

The federal government has been cutting down on the amount being spent. We're rather reluctant to move in to fill the void because that might encourage them to cut down even faster. We tried rather to discuss with them particular projects that should be followed by the federal government in pursuing research either in B.C. or in the neighbouring province that we would benefit from. We've had some co-operation from that.

We're doing something, perhaps, that's a little bit different — for B.C. at least. It has been proposed in the past but it never met with the support of the administration of the day. We are doing something a little different to try to bring the two departments closer by moving some of our staff physically on to federal government research stations to try to get more in the way of liaison in work that's being done.

We're working more closely with the university. Each year the amount going to the university for research has been increased. I would like to see it continue to increase and increase at a faster rate.

You talked about the aspens. There has been one experiment, for example, that might be of some interest to you. That is the hydrolyzed sawdust one that was started, actually, by a private researcher some two years ago, financed in part by the Department of Agriculture — using hydrolyzed sawdust. His results were interesting enough that they are now being furthered by work underway at UBC, again partially financed by my department. It has also been picked up by the federal Department of Agriculture at Tranquille. They're doing further research on it. So some work along those lines is going on.

I would like to see a lot more research being

[ Page 1070 ]

conducted. I would like to see the federal government moving back in at the level they were previously. We'll continue making representations along those lines.

Mr. Wallace: Mr. Chairman, just quickly on that point of staff, I would like the Minister to give us some detailed explanation of the staff increases. I notice that the Deputy Minister's staff is up by two people, with an increase of almost $100,000. The salaries go from $ 137,000 to $291,000, an increase of over 100 per cent. Earlier on, when we debated the Minister of Finance's estimates, we touched on this issue as it would relate almost to every department as we went through the estimate debates. While the Minister's office itself seemed fairly much in keeping with inflationary costs that we could anticipate, this for the Deputy Minister's office shows some substantial increase in costs, such as the ones I've pointed out.

While I often hear that citizens in this province are concerned about too many people receiving welfare when they could work, the other subject that I hear talked about most often is on the expenses of the government's administration itself. I recognize that the large increase in this budget is related to farm income support programmes. Nevertheless, I would say that the Deputy Minister's staff is reputed to be increased by two here, but, as I say, it's an increase of almost $100,000. The salaries generally show a very substantial increase. Could the Minister tell us who the people are who are involved in the increase of four in staff and what their average salary is?

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, I'm tempted to say that the average salary can be calculated by dividing 13 into 291. Actually, it's an increase of four, from nine up to 13. Just look at the totals.

As far as who they are, included in that increase of four are two research economists. One of these has already been on staff but has been assigned to specific programmes. He is now being assigned to the Deputy Minister's office for general research work in the existing programmes or into new programmes. So there are two research economists in that increase of four.

There has been another transfer from the former office of the markets commissioner to the Deputy Minister's office. The remaining member would be, I suppose, another steno to serve the research economists.

Now as to the salary levels, I think it was explained by the Minister of Finance when his estimates were being discussed that there are actually two years of increases included in these figures. The estimates for 1974-75 were based on the actual amounts being paid in 1973 because those were the only salary figures available when the 1974-75 estimates were being prepared. In those days the practice was to base estimates on the actual salary being paid at the time the estimates were being calculated. So the figures on the left, then, for 1974-75 are the 1973 salary levels. The figures on the right for the 1975-76 estimates are what we provide for salaries for this fiscal period. It includes salary levels still being negotiated, and that is why I'm not sure this explanation all came out. It's rather difficult to give precise figures because the negotiations have still not been completed for the 1975 calendar period. Of course, 1976 has not even started. I can't give you precise salary figures attached to individuals in there. I simply say that these are the global figures within which we have to include our personnel.

Mr. P.L. McGeer (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Chairman, just very briefly on this matter of research funds being spent by the provincial government in the matter of agriculture. I've not checked into the amounts of money being spent by other provinces in the field of agriculture across Canada but I would suspect that they are considerably in excess of what this provincial government would spend if the figures for research in this area are comparable to other areas of provincial interest.

I quite agree with what the Minister says with regard to the federal government's attitude toward research. It doesn't matter whether it's in the natural sciences, in the life sciences or in agriculture, the federal government is copping out in the area of scientific endeavour.

By the same token, however, provinces that are developing increasing capability to further scientific effort are not making the kind of financial commitments that they should. I think probably in terms of capability to support research, British Columbia historically is the worst example in Canada. Provinces like Ontario and Quebec and Alberta have been particularly forward-looking in the endeavours they have made in research generally spanning all fields of scientific endeavour. British Columbia has fallen behind.

I would like to think that the Minister might make an appeal for support. After all, Mr. Chairman, his budget has gone up something like fourfold this year. Is fourfold right, Mr. Minister? Sixty million dollars. Of course, we really don't know what you're going to spend. We know what you asked for; we know the numbers in the book. But since your government took office, there hasn't been very much relationship between the numbers in the book and the amounts of money that actually have been spent.

Interjection.

Mr. McGeer: I'll look at your department more carefully. (Laughter.) But, in general, Mr. Minister,

[ Page 1071 ]

you would have to agree with me about Human Resources.

The Minister sits on Treasury Board, Mr. Chairman, so that his financial interest extends beyond the narrow confines of his own department. The generality of my remarks....

Mr. Chairman: We are on the Deputy's office, Mr. Member, not the Department of Human Resources as yet.

Mr. McGeer: We can't wait to get there (laughter) but we don't want to hurry past this point in our anxiety, Mr. Chairman. The Minister has got a big interest — $60 million from $15 million. That should give him a little bit of slack. Therefore, this would be a time to make that long-term commitment to science. It would be appropriate to have the first Ministry to be discussed stand up and make such a declaration, even if it were limited to matching the efforts of other provinces across Canada. I certainly want to associate myself with the remarks of the Minister on how badly the federal government is doing in the area of research. But, after that, we part company because he's just as guilty.

Mr. D.E. Smith (North Peace River): Mr. Chairman, a few remarks I'd like to address to the Minister in this vote.

A short time ago, the Minister entered into a discussion with the Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) concerning research and planning in the Department of Agriculture. The Member for South Peace River referred to the Fort Nelson area and 1, too, would like to refer to that particular area of the province and the fact that the ARDA surveys show that there is in the neighbourhood of a million acres of arable land in the Fort Nelson plains area.

We know as a matter of fact that certain vegetable crops grow well in the river valleys up there far better than in many other areas of the province. At one time, Mr. Minister, there was a plan underway, through the Department of Agriculture, to establish an experimental farm in the Fort Nelson area. I think that was a good plan then and it is even a better plan now when you take into consideration the potential for expansion in northern British Columbia. But it would seem to me that the onus is on the Department of Agriculture to do something tangible and useful in that respect so that when people who may be potential farmers wish to relocate, for whatever purpose, the Department of Agriculture will be able to provide them with accurate information on the potential of growing vegetable crops in the Fort Nelson area, on the potential of other types of crops that could be grown there, the potential market for them, and just what would be the reasonable expectation of success for any farming endeavour in that area.

I am sorry that for some reason or other the intent of establishing an experimental farm in that area got the sideways shuffle. It got lost. Here we are spending millions of dollars on farm support programmes in the province, which is commendable, when we could be at least looking at the potential up there.

The other thing to which I would like to draw attention, in that respect particularly, is that the cost of clearing land has gone up appreciably in the last five years. In most of the lands that I am familiar with in the Fort Nelson plains area that would be suitable for potential farms, there is a heavy growth of poplar and aspen. But this is not going to be as great a problem very soon as it was in the past, because Tacoma Lumber are spending approximately $3 million on the construction of a plant designed mainly to use the hardwoods of the Fort Nelson area in production of plywood, along with dimensional lumber. They think they can do it successfully. It would seem to me that that would be at least a potential market for all of the commercial timber that would be removed from any suitable plot of land developed by the Department of Agriculture.

The people within your department, Mr. Minister, had several locations picked out within easy access of Fort Nelson, in areas that they felt would be reasonable to expect at least a good try and an experiment on a justified basis. It is not fair to suggest to a few people up there that they should bear the whole load themselves of doing all the experimentation for the Department of Agriculture and the people in the Province of British Columbia when a little bit of assistance on a controlled basis would certainly be a big help. If you would go in and develop an experimental farm (and it shouldn't be a small farm of 10 or 15 or 20 or 50 acres, but at least 1,000 acres in size) and develop it on Crown land, which would really cost you nothing, you could probably recapture from the sale of the timber on that land, a fair amount of the actual costs. This should be documented, too, so that people going into that area would be able to know what they could expect in net dollars of expense for the development of farmland.

The potential is there to a limited market, Mr. Minister. The market, in my opinion, would be mostly north — to the Yukon, to Alaska, and to the North West Territories. They need foodstuffs. They certainly need potatoes and carrots and onions and cabbages, and that type of truck garden can be grown to as good a degree as anywhere in the Province of British Columbia. Then we can expand from that perhaps into limited cattle production for specified markets up there and beyond.

I think you did a great disservice to the agricultural industry and the potential of that particular part of the province by discontinuing the

[ Page 1072 ]

plan, or at least delaying the plan to develop an experimental farm in the Fort Nelson area.

The Member for South Peace River also commented on the subsidy that was involved for the transport of feed grains to the other parts of the province from the Peace River. I think it should be reinstated. Certainly there is a market for grain today.

If you are really concerned about the people in British Columbia, probably in the Cariboo, in the Kootenay area or wherever, establishing a feeder cattle market, then you're going to have to get grain to them at a reasonable price. This is one way in which that could be done. I would like to hear the Minister's comment, particularly on those two areas: the one of the experimental farm in the Fort Nelson area and the other about the reinstatement of the subsidy that was involved for a number of years for the transportation of feed grain from the Peace River to other parts of British Columbia.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Well, he's gone, Mr. Chairman, but the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) raised the question of the actual amount being spent on research in the fiscal period 1972-3 — that's when we took office. The amount provided for research was $50,000. In the next fiscal period it went up to $65,000, which was an increase, although not all that much. In 1974-75 it was increased to $125,000, with an additional $25,000 being made available from DATE (Demonstration of Agricultural Technology and Economics) funds. So from $50,000 in 1972-73 it went up to actually $125,000 spent in 1974-75.

In the current fiscal period the amount for university research is $125,000. We're hoping again, by agreeing on programmes under the DATE programme with the university, that we will be able to at least match last year's expenses.

I'm sorry, last year was $100,000 to the university plus $25,000 from DATE for a total of $125,000. This year it's $125,000 initially and, we hope, another $25,000 from DATE to increase it again. So the actual provision of $125,000, with the expectation of more, compares very favourably, I think, with the $50,000 that was the habit some three years previously.

Agriculture at Fort Nelson. This research programme which you were talking about was being promoted and pushed by a member of the Department of Agriculture staff who was director of production services at the time. I think four years ago he had time to work on that programme and to push it quite actively. Since then he has been promoted to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and just hasn't had the time to work on that particular project. It's still very much in his mind that something could be done usefully in that direction, but so far he hasn't had much opportunity to do more than think about it and plan it.

Feed grains. I have some reservation about doing anything that will increase feed grain production or grain production in the Peace River area. The record of crop failures, I suppose, is unequalled anywhere else. That's one of the problems — the fact that they harvest so much of their crop in the spring after it has been under snow for a long winter, as a rule. I would rather encourage livestock production in the Peace River and consume the grain that is produced in those areas. I would rather continue the programme of encouraging people to switch to forage production. The alfalfa-pelleting mill is an example of encouragement in that direction. Possibly, again, I would encourage in specific areas, because of the isolation of the Peace River area, the production of seeds rather than feed grain. Those are the directions in which I prefer to move.

Mr. Smith: Mr. Minister, this matter of the production of forage grains and alfalfa and certified seeds is great. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's a rotation crop, as the Minister well knows. Anything that is put into alfalfa production this year will be taken out three or four years down the road and ploughed under. The legumes in the soil will produce tremendous feed grain crops, at that point, of either oats, barley or wheat. It's an interlocking programme. Anyone who looks at their total assembled land for potential forage production looks on it on the basis of rotating the crop every three to four years. So we're still going to have a large production of wheat, oats and barley in the Peace River country even though we do the utmost in the production of alfalfa and some of the other forage grains and specialized seeds.

It doesn't follow that we should detract from the production of forage seeds or that we should detract from the production of barley, wheat or oats. It's part and parcel of the rotation system that the farmers will have to use in any long-term plan for agricultural production in the Peace, as well as any other part of the province.

To suggest to the farmer that he should set his sights on a complete change of pace and a different direction as far as his production is concerned isn't correct. He could do it for a period of two or three years, and then he's going to rotate. He has to do that, the same as you do with the production of grass seed where you have to plough down the fields and rotate. It's something that you have to take into consideration in any farming economy that's going to be viable in the future of our country.

Mr. L.A. Williams: Mr. Chairman, under the planning concept of the department, I must commend the Minister for the manner in which he has reorganized the department and broken down its

[ Page 1073 ]

several services. I wonder if the Minister would be good enough to indicate to the committee exactly where we're going in agriculture in British Columbia, from a planning point of view.

Let's take a couple of starting points and see what the Minister might have to fill in by way of answers.

First of all, it is suggested that perhaps in five years, certainly in less than 10, the food sources available to British Columbia from the State of California will be gone. All the fresh fruit and vegetables that we currently import from the State of California will no longer be available to us and we will perhaps be supplied by other producing areas of this continent. That's number one.

Secondly, I think the Province of British Columbia currently is self-sufficient in fluid milk. We are self-sufficient in eggs; we are self-sufficient in apples; and, from time to time, I think we achieve self-sufficiency in our poultry products. But other than these I think the Province of British Columbia, with its producer segment in agriculture, is not able to feed the people of British Columbia.

The Minister said, in response to matters raised with him by the Hon. Member for Comox (Ms. Sanford), that there was on the eastern side of Vancouver Island a very serious problem with regard to irrigation. He also pointed out to that Hon. Member that there had been vast changes in the processing industry and he could not assure her, or the farmers in her area, that there could be a processing industry reinstituted on the eastern slopes of Vancouver Island.

He indicated that the same situation would face other areas of this province. Now if that's to be the case, and since we certainly are only a one-crop-a-year kind of province, I would like to have the Minister of Agriculture tell the committee, based upon the studies made by his department, what's going to happen in five, 10 or 15 years so far as the ability of British Columbia to sustain itself with food. What are we going to do for fresh vegetables? What are we going to do for potatoes? We don't produce enough potatoes now to serve our total needs. The small-fruit berry industry is gone — disappeared.

Mr. P.C. Rolston (Dewdney): Except for the Fraser valley.

Mr. L.A. Williams: But it's fast disappearing from the Fraser Valley, I can tell you. If it's not gone from the Fraser Valley now, Mr. Member, just hold your breath for a few minutes and it'll be gone because the costs of carrying on that aspect of agriculture competitively is making it virtually impossible for those farmers to sustain themselves.

Mr. Rolston: Will you get them the market for raspberries?

Mr. L.A. Williams: This is exactly the question that I am posing to the Minister. What kind of planning are we doing in the Department of Agriculture so that the producer segment is going to be able to supply us with what we need? Because a certain Member for Dewdney would like to continue to enjoy raspberries and so would all of his constituents. But we can't have a processing plant to service those needs up near Comox in order to utilize whatever the production might be from farms in that area of British Columbia, and I wonder just where we are going.

We have a budget for this total department which has increased from $15 million to $60 million. I hope we spend it all. But when I look at the activities as far as the policy and planning branch and the expenditures associated with it, I seriously wonder what direction the department is taking.

I think it is time that we began to look very seriously at this particular problem. The Minister has admitted — and I don't think there is anybody in this House who has any doubt any longer — that we are a province with very limited amounts of arable land — less than 5 per cent. We are also a province where the areas of arable land are dispersed widely throughout the entire length and breadth of the province from the North Peace to the southeasterly corner, to the east coast of Vancouver Island.

That 5 per cent arable land is dispersed. The productivity of that area will need to be harnessed very carefully if we are to make the maximum use of our arable land, if we are to be able to plan the production that will take place, if we are able to process and thereby preserve that one crop a year that we have in order that we can produce as closely as we can the needs of this province and, as the Minister said, be able to encourage the people in British Columbia to buy B.C. products and thereby ensure ourselves that somehow or other we're going to have agricultural products that are produced without the use of insecticides, herbicides, vice-versa, and all the other things that he is concerned about that we can't control from other jurisdictions.

Really it comes down to this, Mr. Chairman: what can the Minister of Agriculture tell us is going to help the farmer in the constituency of the Hon. Member for Comox (Ms. Sanford)? I happen to know some young people who are farming in that constituency. They have decided to try farming. They think it would be the proper way of life. They've raised the money and they've gone deeply into debt because they want to become part of the agricultural community. What am I to tell the young people, and what is the Member for Comox going to tell them, about their future in farming in the Comox Valley? Simple as that. What can the Minister offer by way of some encouragement to these people that they're going to be able to survive and prosper and make a

[ Page 1074 ]

contribution to the needs of British Columbia five years from now, 10 years from now and on?

The Minister, as I've said, has a lot more money to spend. But if you look closely at what he's doing, the major portion of the money is going for subsidized programmes. We are paying the milk producers, we're paying the apple producers, we're paying a little bit to some hog producers and some tomato producers, I think, and we're apparently on the verge of a major contribution to people who are in the livestock industry. Beef will be the biggest farm insurance programme that this government has yet tackled.

But outside of those four areas, what are we going to do for that farmer who's in the Comox Valley who's producing root crops, who's prepared to grow peas and beans and things of that nature which are in demand today and will be in increasing demand in the future? What planning is going on for them? How are they going to be able to assure themselves of a viable future and keep that farm in production as part of the agricultural economic advance in this province? I think they're entitled to hear from the Minister. I think the Minister would perhaps have responded under his salary vote if he'd had the opportunity.

We talk about the shortage of natural gas in this province, that maybe in 25 or 30 years we're going to run out. We talk about the diminishing supplies of petroleum products. We talk about the crisis in housing, the crisis in energy. But I'll tell you, Mr. Chairman, nothing's going to be a crisis like the crisis that hits us when our imported supplies of food are either not available or are only available at prices that we don't want to afford, and we have to look to our own domestic production to be the major sources of food in British Columbia.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: I don't know whether we're finished with the Peace River or not. I'll simply say this: if you had alfalfa growing on a three- to five-year crop and plant not wheat, not oats, but short-season barley, then the emphasis will again be on promoting forage production in the Peace River area, promoting livestock industry development in the Peace River area, rather than on trying to encourage them to produce feed grains that are going to be consumed elsewhere. That is the direction I prefer to go with respect to Peace River agriculture.

First, where this province is going in research planning: it's already been pointed out, I think, that one of these research people mentioned in salaries here has been moved from the specific work to this office, and the other has not yet been hired. However, I could talk a little bit about planning. I could talk a little bit, for example, about the concerns that he has expressed that we will be running short of food in the province. I do recall when that was first being forecast, some 10 years ago, that it was....

People were surprised to give any consideration to the idea that one day we would be short of food in the Province of British Columbia. Gradually people became aware of this and, of course, the Legislature had a lot of time to discuss that very question some two years ago.

Everything that I can recall about my participation in the great land debate, and the participation of the whole government party in that debate, I recall with pride and pleasure. I'm not sure that the Member who is now expressing some concern about the future of the food supply in the Province of British Columbia can look back on his participation in that land debate with equal pride and pleasure.

I know of one occasion when he spoke publicly — I believe at a meeting in Ladner — attacking the idea of preserving agricultural land in the province. I'm pleased that he has come to the point of recognizing the need to save that land, and, of course, it is not the end of it to simply save the land.

There are a few areas of self-sufficiency. There are a few products in which we produce enough, and there are others where we are increasing production. He didn't mention potatoes, for example, and if he's going by last year's figures, well then we weren't. That is, the year before last we weren't producing enough potatoes in the province. But this year, for the first time, we will be producing potatoes for export and the production will be increasing, as a result of government policy, because the one area where we have substantially increased potato production in the province is in the Creston area. As a direct result of the policy of the government, the Farm Products Industry Improvement Act, the involvement with Swan Valley produced something like 20,000 tons of potatoes in new production in that area.

The Comox Valley, while it doesn't lend itself to the sort of processing industry that was there previously, nevertheless, that area currently is producing a surplus of potatoes, surplus to local demand, and could produce more. But really the potential for the Comox Valley is livestock production, primarily dairy production, and to increase that rather than to increase vegetables for processing. So that's the direction to go there.

Other vegetables — leafy vegetables for example that are being produced — in season we do produce enough of them. We can increase our production substantially and have plans to do so in co-operation with the farmers, for example. In the southeast Marine Drive area, the Lower Mainland Farmers' Co-operative Association, we are currently investigating the possibility of assisting them to construct a plant that will enable them to handle the produce more efficiently, will make more land available to them, and hopefully increase the production of that kind of crop so that we will be

[ Page 1075 ]

able to supply not only the lower mainland market, but the western provinces, apart from B.C.

So there are plans for increasing food production in the province. They started with saving the land itself so that when we needed that land for food production it would be available — a programme that was supported by everybody on the government side and opposed by everybody on the opposition side, but nevertheless was the beginning of planning for agriculture and food production in the Province of British Columbia.

Mr. A.V. Fraser (Cariboo): First of all I don't know whether this is the right area to take this up, but I want to say a few things about the beef complex for the Kamloops area. Is this the right vote to take it up in, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: Vote 6.

Mr. Fraser: Well, under the Deputy Minister's planning, and so on, I think that this is something that obviously the government is planning. It has hired a firm of consultants and they have reported. The original intent, I believe, was to find a cattle complex in the Kamloops-Cache Creek area for the marketing of 50,000 head of cattle. The report was made by Resource Consultants Ltd., and I understand the industry itself thinks the idea is far too large. Where the government are looking at 50,000 head, and a $3 million complex in the Kamloops area, the industry thinks that is far too large and should be around 5,000.

What I would like to say is that while I realize there are good reasons, Mr. Chairman, for it to be in the Kamloops area, also I think there are good reasons why it shouldn't be in that area because that's a large area of population now — around 60,000 people. They have lots of congestion there already.

This consultant report also says that they can find land for this complex. Well, there is lots of land available for a complex like this, probably not as attractive as Kamloops, but if they look further west of Kamloops towards Cache Creek, or even up in the Bonaparte Valley north of Cache Creek, they will find that there is very good agricultural land available.

Then you have the problem of transportation. Although that general area is on Highway 97 and near the No. 1 Trans-Canada Highway, there is a problem with railroads. Although they are not far away, the mainland railroads as well as the BCR, if the connection was made which is proposed to be made with the BCR, the CP and CN, then I think we would have this complex in a better area than the immediate built-up area of Kamloops which has been proposed.

Nobody seems to know now where this complex is at. As I say, the consultants have made their report. The industry has made comments about it, but I'd like to, through you, Mr. Chairman, ask the Minister just where the government is with the planning. Have they dropped the total idea, or just what is going on at the present time?

Mr. Wallace: Mr. Chairman, we've touched earlier on with several of the speakers about the whole question of planning and production and the fact that there is going to be a shortage in the future, and so on. It seems to me all down through history man always seems to be the most pessimistic outlook at his own capacity to look after his basic needs.

I first of all would just like to say that the Minister's comment that every Member of the opposition opposed the preservation of farmland is very much a travesty of the facts if one cares to read the debate on Bill 42. The parties on this side of the House opposed the method and the inefficiency and some of the principles involved by this government in attempting to preserve farmland, but I am sure that just about every single Member of the opposition prefaced his comments with the fact that we believe in the principle of the preservation of farmland.

An Hon. Member: You wanted it both ways.

Mr. Wallace: It's not a question of having it both ways, Mr. Minister. It's a question of expressing a logical point of view in supporting a principle, but not agreeing to go along with the mechanics by which the principle is to be implemented.

Under the vote under the Land Commission I'm sure that we'll get back to many of these points, but I don't think the Minister's statement should go unchallenged. Certainly it goes very much challenged from this position in the House. We favour the preservation of farmland, but we don't like the way the government went about doing it. The fact that the government modified and amended the bill to the degree that it did only proved that the opposition had a very valid point of view in that long and tortuous and very heated debate.

To return to the subject, and to talk about this whole question of food production and our capacity to meet our need and look to a day ahead which might be rather gloomy when we can't meet our needs, as a consumer and a layman I would just like to ask about the production of butter, for example. I have some figures here that from April 1, 1974, to December 31, 1974, we imported over 41 million pounds of butter from Finland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.A. at prices varying from 49 cents a pound up to 61 cents a pound. To revert to the Minister's earlier comment this afternoon that we should attempt in this province to the maximum possible degree to produce our own agricultural products and process them and distribute them and be less dependent on outside sources, I wonder if the

[ Page 1076 ]

Minister could enlighten the House and the public of British Columbia, for example, on that one specific example of butter. I presume it could apply to many other products.

He talked about importing mushrooms from Taiwan. I suppose you could import a whole range of other products from different countries. But it seems to me this conflicts with the Minister's earlier statement of a general philosophy that the challenge to agriculture and the general direction which the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) was seeking — namely, maximum efficient production of our own food products within our own boundaries at the best price to the consumer, and, if necessary, with income support to the producer.

I just happen to have these figures on butter. I have some figures also on pork products, and although we discussed earlier on that there is now a net surplus of beef in British Columbia, the farmers in Kamloops told me yesterday that the cow-calf operator at the present time is losing $100 per calf. This particular farmer just sold calves last week. When he compared the cost of feeding these calves up to this point in time with the price he received in selling them, he is losing $100 per calf.

It seems to me that this whole matter of food production in British Columbia seems to have some incredible ups and downs which I would have thought at least to some degree would have been predictable. The more I think of agriculture, the more I think of the number of times we've discussed the forest industry in this province and talked about the cyclical nature of the forest industry. Maybe there is a cyclical nature for the production of beef cattle in this province or in any province.

There does seem to me to be something of a contradiction that our general philosophy is to preserve farmland and achieve the maximum production and processing and distribution of products, and yet you turn around and in regard to many commodities we find that we are importing very large amounts. I just wonder if the Minister can tell us to what degree we are moving in the direction of self-sustenance. Presumably, if the food situation in the world is as precarious as it is often reputed to be, perhaps the day will come when we cannot depend on these outside sources for imports even if we want them. That is another question.

Is that the Minister's concept — that we're preserving farmland now against a rainy day when we cannot even import the products, such as butter, even if we want to? Is that the matter?

Of course, later on we'll be debating the bill about world food production — and aid to other countries, but it seems that we're not clearly following a consistent path. If we are, and if I'm wrong, is it based on the fact that at the present time we have to provide farm income support programmes to keep the industry alive because some day we'll be very glad to have their products at no matter what the cost of production? But at the present time, on two areas here — in relation to beef in an example I've quoted, and butter — it seems to me that we're saying one thing and doing another. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that suggestion.

Mr. J.R. Chabot (Columbia River): Mr. Chairman, just a few brief questions to the Minister. I have difficulty in finding just where some of these questions belong — under which vote.

The one question has to do with the farm-vacation programme. I was wondering if the Minister could tell me how many people participated in the farm-vacation programme in 1974, what has been the cost of promotion of the farm-vacation programme, and what is the ratio of cost of the promotion between the department and those farmers who are offering this service to the citizens who feel the pressures of the city and want to go to the wilderness from time to time.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

Question number two deals with a resolution passed by the Windermere District Farmers' Institute at the farmers' institute district convention. It says:

"This association goes on record as strongly recommending that the Contagious Disease Act, as it applies to the compensation paid for condemned animals, be brought more in line with present day values of cattle."

I had some correspondence with the Minister on this some time ago, and there is a tendency towards the raising of exotic cattle in the constituency I represent. Their value is considerably higher than the ordinary range cattle value. In fact, one of the Charolais bulls from one of the ranches in my constituency had a value placed on it of $500,000. The ranch sold half of it at $250,000 and got the balance of the proceeds through the artificial insemination station.

I was wondering if the Minister is giving some thought to assisting these ranches that do experience some contagious diseases, such as brucellosis that hit this very ranch, the Birchfield ranch at Brisco, which has this very valuable bull worth $500,000.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I would just draw to the attention of the Hon. Member the fact that I think the matters that he is discussing are contained in vote 8 rather than vote 4.

Mr. Chabot: All of the matters? The farm holiday, Mr. Chairman, is that under vote 8?

Mr. Chairman: Yes.

[ Page 1077 ]

Mr. Chabot: And this one here dealing with contagious diseases? And range management — that's my last question — is that vote 8 as well?

Mr. Chairman: Vote 6.

Mr. Chabot: Vote 6. Well, I'll certainly defer, Mr. Chairman, and wait for that vote.

Mr. Smith: Mr. Chairman, just one question to the Minister of Agriculture on this vote before we pass it, and that's in regard to the vote which covers assistance and grants to fairs, exhibitions and agricultural societies. I know that there are different classifications of fairs throughout the province. I was wondering if the Minister has ever given any consideration to a new formula with respect to the allocation of grants. The amount of money is not large, but it's $300,000 spread out between the different organizations in the province. I know there must be demands for greater funds than the Minister has available.

It does seem to me that there should be some relationship between the amount of money available to the organizations and the service that they're performing, the number of years that they've been in existence, and perhaps on the basis of the farming community that they service. I was wondering if the Minister has given any thought to rethinking the whole matter of the allocation of the funds that are available for grants to fairs and agricultural exhibitions within the province.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, I've made notes of a lot of the comments that were made and we'll discuss them under other votes.

With respect to the grants to fairs, I have asked the staff — I've had discussions with them — I have asked them to come up with some ideas for a new programme for this. I'm just not satisfied that the old one meets the needs of today's problems. So I have asked for a review of that and some recommendations for a new programme.

Vote 4 approved.

On vote 5: general administration, $1,104,648.

Mr. Wallace: Here again the total vote in vote 5 has increased by 120 per cent. When you look through this vote, it perhaps epitomizes the kind of concern that we have on this side of the House for the increasing escalating costs of government administration in every department. I just don't think it's enough to say, well, if you are putting out more money for farm income assurance programmes, you have to have more administration. One would accept that as a general principle, but we have here an increase of 11 staff.

On that point of staff and administration, Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister, in giving us his reply, could explain the particular format in which the figures are placed on our estimate page. The way the estimates in Agriculture are defined is different from the other departments. I know this isn't the first year this has been done, but I wonder why we have one particularly difficult format to follow, compared with many of the other departments.

Earlier on this afternoon, for example, I asked the Minister about the breakdown on some of the highly paid staff. He mentioned a research economist but admitted that he can't really delineate in this format just exactly who is what and who the staff are and what they're doing and what their salaries are. I just ask the question: what's the point of having a debate on estimates with an overall increase of 28 per cent in the total budget when we can't pin down who the extra staff are and what they're doing and what they're being paid? What's concerning the taxpayer in British Columbia right now is this government spending very large sums of money on its own internal administration. We are here to try and find out just exactly how the money is being spent, who the staff are, what their particular level of employment is, whether they're in a purely secretarial or a stenographic capacity, or in what category they're employed.

If we look at vote 5, the total vote goes from $485,000 to $1.1 million, which is a great deal more than double. If you take some of the individual items, we notice that office expense is going from $26,000 to $100,000; office equipment from $30,000 to $69,000. Then we have two new items that weren't even in the budget last year: moving and recruiting expense, $30,000; and staff training, $10,000. We find that motor vehicles and accessories were $50,000 last year and $100,000 this year. Salaries and wages under temporary and seasonal staff from $21,500 to $73,800. These items, Mr. Chairman, are very substantial increases. If it were just this department, one could probably relate it to the increased involvement of this department in these income assurance programmes.

Interjection.

Mr. Wallace: The Member for Vancouver-Little Mountain (Mr. Cummings) says yes. But the trouble there, Mr. Member, is that this same kind of administrative cost increase is in every department of government, right through this whole book of estimates. By the time we get to the end, I'm sure you'll be bored to tears hearing me say the same thing over and over again. But I'll tell you right now, I am going to say it over and over again. If there's a major concern in the minds of people in this province

[ Page 1078 ]

right now, it's not only about some of the philosophies of this government but the way this government is spending the taxpayers' money. When we look at the breakdown, I think one can be fairly accurate in saying that general administration in just about every department, including Agriculture and this vote 5 we're now debating, has more than doubled.

Interjection.

Mr. Wallace: And, of course, here we get the typical bureaucratic answer from the back benches that the programmes have doubled. I think this is Parkinson's law. I don't think that because you treat twice as many patients in a hospital you need twice as many doctors. Don't be ridiculous.

Mr. R.T. Cummings (Vancouver-Little Mountain): You tell the doctors that.

Mr. Wallace: The fact is this: at least if you're providing more health care, they're not administrators; they're not people sitting around pushing paper on the end of a pen.

In all these departmental estimates we're debating, general administration in every single one of them seems to have, if not the greatest increase in staff, a very substantial increase. The record will show that salary costs, office expenses, office equipment and moving expenses and so on in all these different departments, as we go through them, have a very substantial percentage increase. Now if the Minister can prove to me that this results in a better deal for the farmer and a better price for the consumer, then that would make a lot of sense. But why it has to be that so much of the increase in each department comes under the heading of general administration leaves me with a very serious concern that we're putting a lot of people into jobs which give them salaries and increases the cost to the taxpayer, but what does it produce in terms of a cheaper or better product, or some solid evidence that productivity in that particular department is enhanced?

Again, to talk specifically about this vote, we had 38 staff last year and we are going to have 49 this year, and I assume that the Minister can't specifically tell us what these new 11 people will be doing and in what way their jobs will or will not result in a better product or a cheaper product or a better deal for the farmer. I think it's ridiculous to say that because the farm income assurance programme is producing twice as much money you need twice as many people to administer it. That to me is just comparing two quantities that don't relate one to the other.

Every programme requires administration; we know that. But I think to suggest, because there are six groups in the programme instead of three or two or what-have-you, that you simply multiply the number of administrators or administrative staff or personnel is ridiculous. If that's what the backbenchers of this government think, they had better smarten up. I'm telling them that everywhere you go in this province that's exactly what the voters are wondering. Where are all these civil servants being worked? Which departments are they in? What are they doing productively? How much is it costing? If this government hasn't got that message, they had better get out and around the province after the session and they'll soon find out. I am sure that as we go through each department this repetitive question will come up.

Mr. Chabot: Where were they in the Easter break?

Mr. Wallace: Oh, I don't know where they were in the Easter break, Mr. Chairman, but I got around this province and went to some of the agricultural parts of this province. The farmers are satisfied; I am not questioning that at all. In fact, when one reads the briefs from the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, I think maybe the last page should be framed and put up in the Minister's office, because I can't ever remember any group in society pouring this kind of praise on to a Minister of the Crown. I don't know who wrote the script, but I suggest that during the few years I have been around here I have never noticed a Minister receive this kind of praise. And a great deal of it is due; I am not disputing that.

All I am saying is that we are here in the opposition to listen to what people tell us all around the province, and they are telling me one or two very basic things. One was the point I mentioned about unemployed persons who could be put to work on the farms. The second point — perhaps No. 1, really — is concern about a greatly increased force of civil servants whose productivity is highly questionable and who are costing a great deal of money to the taxpayer. When we come to debate these departments individually, I do think that we are entitled to know who exactly these 11 additional staff are, what their jobs are, what the end result of their efforts will be in terms of productivity and what they are being paid. I don't think that's anything less than we are entitled to know in this House as opposition Members.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: The Member for Oak Bay has asked questions about who the additional staff are. There are two additional bodies in the publications branch, four additional in accounts and five additional stenos for field offices — making a total of 11. So the staff in this vote has gone up by 11.

The Hon. Member said that under this form of accounting he is not able to determine how much any

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one person is actually being paid. I could tell him about any one of those people, or all 11 of them if he likes, exactly what their salary is today. But the point I tried to make earlier was that I can't tell him what it is going to be when the new salary rates are negotiated for 1975 — not for any one of those people. This total for salaries will, we hope, cover the total salaries. But they are still to be negotiated. So I can't tell you what it's going to be for any one of those, although I can tell you what any one of them is today. And you will find that same problem in every department because in every department the figure we are dealing with this year is the figure the Minister has to operate that particular department or that branch or that vote.

Now with respect to two items you mentioned in particular, moving and recruiting expense is a new item in the votes. It's new because the collective agreement calls for something to be paid on account of new employees hired or moved around. We are obliged to pay them something for moving and recruiting expense. So it is a new item; it is new in the budget. Staff training is a new programme. They are identified as new items in the estimates so that you will have that additional information in front of you and so that we will have it to guide us as we go through the year.

Mr. Wallace: I appreciate part of what the Minister said, but I guess we are getting....

Hon. Mr. Stupich: I am sorry. If I could, Mr. Chairman, there was something else I had in mind that I would like to add to that, because you did raise as well the question of the totals. Again, I am trying to impress upon people that this year it is a true estimate of our expenditures — in all departments, not just agriculture.

For example, office expense, where we have been following an old formula....

For example, office expense, where we have been following an old formula.... Each year, grudgingly, Treasury (little Treasury and then big Treasury) would allow some small, nominal increase in an item like office expense. And each year, because of the rate at which what is called office expense has gone up, there would be an overrun in that particular code — maybe not in the vote, but in the code.

If I could just give you the picture at the end of January, take temporary assistance, for example, where $5,500 had been estimated because that has always been the figure that was estimated — and was always short. By the end of January we had actually spent, in that one code, $63,000 instead of $5,500.

In professional services, $10,000 was estimated; $16,600 was spent. This is not something that happened last year. It's been happening year after year. It goes back even 10 years, where in particular items much more money was required than was provided, but because in total the Department of Agriculture was able to live not only within its budget, but very well within its budget, very much under what was budgeted, it didn't really matter. The same thing happened in other departments, I'm sure.

For office expense, for which we provided $27,000 and knew it wasn't going to be enough, but knew we could make the total fit, by the end of January we had actually spent $150,000.

This year the figures before you are the realistic estimates of what we expect to spend. For that reason, general administration, where we know from past experience and from what we're planning this year that we are going to need $1.1 million, we are providing $1.1 million, rather than putting in $485,000 with a 10 per cent increase, if you like. The figures before you are based on experience and on our plans for the year ahead.

Mr. Wallace: Mr. Chairman, I just want some clarification on some of the answers the Minister gave. He talked about moving expenses. This is a new item. Presumably, a new item in the contract is being negotiated.

Hon. Mr. Strachan: It's been negotiated.

Mr. Wallace: Well, if it's been negotiated, that makes my question a little simpler. Could the Minister tell us who qualifies for moving expenses and under what circumstances? I presume this is in the nature of a fringe benefit, such that when a person moves from Dawson Creek to Cranbrook, or whatever, the government undertakes to pay some of the expenses.

Here again, there are a lot of people employed in this province. When they have to move, they don't get a nickel from their employer to help pay from their moving expenses. The taxpayers of this province take this position, as I do, that I want to know who is getting what. If this is a new item and a new expenditure of the taxpayers' money, I would be very interested to know how it is decided how far up the pecking order you have to be to get your moving expenses paid and recruiting expense. I am very interested in that title — "recruiting expense." Who are we recruiting, and how will that be done? That is all included in the $30,000.

The other element that I suppose the Minister cannot answer, although the First Admiral of the Ferry Fleet (Hon. Mr. Strachan) interjected a minute ago that it's been negotiated.... In other words, am I to understand that that elusive percentage figure, salary increase, which the Minister of Finance managed to waffle around and not reveal, is going to go right through our budget debate, and that every time I get up and ask a Minister about salaries in the

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department, they are going to say: "Well, we can't reveal that sort of general percentage increase which has not been finalized."? This is the answer I got from the Minister of Finance. Now we are into Agriculture. As we go through each department and I question government salaries in that department for administration, am I to get the same answer all the time, Mr. Chairman, that, "Well, really, we don't want to disturb the negotiations that the Provincial Secretary is having, and we can't tell you what sort of ballpark percentage it is that we are allowing"? The figure in this case is $614,000, but in each department it will vary. I would really like to try and get this straight because I think this is the same answer I got from the Minister of Finance when I asked the same question a couple of weeks ago, that it has not been decided what the final salary increase will be, and that therefore it is very difficult to come up with a precise figure as to the total cost of salaries.

Would it be fair to ask this Minister, Mr. Chairman, at what point in our deliberations in this session of the Legislature are we likely to be able accurately to criticize these figures or approve of them or disapprove if we are always going to be told that until these very crucial salary negotiations are completed, you don't know and we don't know, and nobody is really going to know exactly what these costs will be? It is creating havoc throughout the whole economic sector of our province.

Numerous other workers, non-government employees, are picking and choosing many of the vague figures which have been thrown around as some kind of guidelines for their own wage demands. We all know, living in this greater Victoria area, about the present strike of the municipal workers, who look around and listen and hear, accurately or inaccurately, some of the figures that government is reputed to be in the process of negotiating. This whole thing seems to be taking a long time. Some of the figures that are being thrown around, perhaps not responsibly, but to get a lot of publicity, are leading to a great deal of unrest in communities.

As I say, everywhere I go in the province, this is what I hear from the ordinary guy in the street. He says to me: "That government in Victoria sure knows how to pay high salaries and spend the taxpayers' money." I think we are here to try and find out what the increases in number of staff are and what the kinds of percentage increases are which these figures represent.

If we put a new staff aside for a moment — and it goes from 38 to 49 — we in the opposition have no way of knowing what sort of percentage increase is being allocated to the 38 staff who were on the payroll last year. These are some of the hard, solid, financial facts that I think we in the opposition should be getting from the government.

If you tell me, Mr. Minister, that you can't reveal these figures, then I presume I'll just have to settle for that. But I know that just about anybody who pays their $1 of tax in this province right now wants to have some idea of what kind of average percentage increase of income salary is represented in these rather large ballpark figures that we are talking about in rather general terms. Maybe you can't give us that breakdown, Mr. Minister, but I make it very clear that if there is one fact that is uppermost in the minds of just about anybody you talk to in this province, it's government expenditure — big government.

Interjection.

Mr. Wallace: It's no better at the Ottawa level, I agree with you, but let's not compare ourselves to the worst. Let's look at our own backyard and see what we should be doing provincially. The feeling around is that not only is the government spending these large sums of money, giving very substantial increases, but they are being rather secretive about revealing what the average citizen thinks should be public knowledge.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, as far as moving and recruiting expenses are concerned, as the Member admitted hearing, this has been negotiated to the extent that agreements have been reached with government employees. Moving expenses are now part of the negotiated agreement. That doesn't mean that it's a new programme to the degree that it was never paid before. Moving expense was previously paid, it was part of government policy, and still is. If a staff member is moved with the province from one area to another, it usually involves promotion of some kind. When something like that happens, then the government pays, and used to pay, the moving expense. It used to buried in travel. Travel was a big item previously. Now we've taken it out of there and identified this part of it as moving and recruiting expenses.

Recruiting expenses used to be buried in travel. Recruiting used to mean, and still means, that perhaps one member of my department would travel to interview applicants for a position. He might travel to other provinces or they might be brought here. This would all be part of travel, instead of properly identifying it as moving and recruiting expenses.

With respect to the agreements which are being negotiated this year and the negotiations that are currently going on, I suggest those questions should be asked of the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall).

I will just say this: it was by agreement between the....

Mr. G.F. Gibson (North Vancouver-Capilano): Negotiations have been completed.

[ Page 1081 ]

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Negotiations have not been completed.

Mr. Gibson: They were completed today.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Have they today? Well, I'm behind the times. In this case I would say that the Provincial Secretary would be the one to answer those questions. But not even the Provincial Secretary could tell you or me or the Chairman or the Hon. Member for Oak Bay what is going to be negotiated for 1976. We can't give you those answers. We can as Ministers go to Treasury and bring in what we feel is the estimate of what it is going to cost us to run that this year, and we have to live within those figures. It may mean that we will slow down our recruiting programme, but we will be watching that figure very closely.

Mr. Phillips: In most of the other votes there is an area for salary contingencies. Yet you don't seem to have a vote for salary contingencies. Are you not going to pass on the raise to the employees in the Department of Agriculture? Where is your salary contingency? If you look at the Attorney-General's.... Well, yes, I'll tell you. He has a sum of $13,107,898.

Hon. A.B. MacDonald (Attorney-General): That's not enough!

Mr. Phillips: Most of the departments have salary contingencies, but you don't.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, we hope that eventually the whole government service can get to this form of reporting to the House in estimates and that every Minister will be able to calculate closely enough to put it into estimate form what he is actually going to require for his salaries in every vote.

Some Hon. Members: Oh, oh!

Vote 5 approved.

On vote 6, production and marketing programmes, $4,413,655.

Mr. Chabot: Just a few words about grazing. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Peterson) attended the farmers' institute, district "I" convention in Fairmont Hot Springs on May 10, 1973. He was very eloquent and he spoke in glowing terms of what was going to take place inside the department regarding grazing in the East Kootenays. He held up high hopes for the farmers in the area when he had this to say:

"To look after the ranchers, the Department of Agriculture will increase its activity in studying grazing resources, as there is a world shortage of beef protein. The grazing resources outlook for beef production is on a new plateau.

"As a part of its efforts to improve grazing technology, Mr. Peterson said that the Department of Agriculture is planning a pilot project in the East Kootenays under ARDA. This project would attempt to increase the output of grazing land by using new technology and range management. Increased output would enhance the East Kootenays both grazing and wildlife."

Well, certainly. I've been advocating for some considerable time that there's a need for range improvement in the East Kootenays in order to make the agricultural community more viable and in order to enhance the wildlife aspect in the East Kootenays as well. I certainly believe that both are compatible in the East Kootenays. I think we've had sufficient study and examination of the problems to come up with a solution. Yet there is no solution. It's all right. There are serious problems.

The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) waves. He's unconcerned about the agricultural problems confronting the people in the East Kootenays and probably unconcerned about the agricultural problems in other parts of the province. But I'll tell you that the farmers' institute up in that part of the province are very concerned about what's happening. They had high hopes that the statements of the Deputy on May 10, 1973, would have done something for the plight that they're facing today.

Hon. Mr. Lea: What did you do when you were in the cabinet?

Mr. Chabot: Because of the low price on beef it has been necessary.... These are small farmers I'm talking about. I'm not talking about ranches such as the Gang Ranch; I'm talking about small ranches in my area. Carrying over 500 or 600 calves is very important to them.

I received a letter from the Ta Ta Creek Farmers Institute and Stock Growers Association which expressed extreme concern with the fact that because of economic conditions they were forced to carry over 500 to 600 calves. Now they find themselves in the position that they can't put them on the range.

Even though they were promised increased range availability a couple of years ago a 10 per cent increase, in fact, of the Ta Ta Creek range — it never materialized. They find now that they've lost 3,600 range units and they're asking for a carry over of 500 to 600 calves until the market in the fall of 1975, which would involve the use of 2,400 units. They find that the government is unwilling to listen to the

[ Page 1082 ]

plight of these little farmers in the Ta Ta Creek area. I'm wondering what the Minister can do.

It's all right for the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Radford) to go to the East Kootenays to have his picture taken feeding elk hay, purchased at excessive prices, I'm sure. But that doesn't resolve farm problems the ranchers are facing in the East Kootenays at this time. It's all right, sure. Does the Minister of Recreation and Conservation consider elk more important than beef?

Interjections.

Mr. Chabot: I maintain that with proper management — which we haven't seen from that department over there — both wildlife and farming can live and both can expand in the East Kootenays.

Interjection.

Mr. Chabot: No, I don't want it both ways. I want some action that will enhance grazing for both. Certainly there's room for both to survive in the East Kootenays. I'm sure the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Nimsick) who's moving his lips... uh, who is reading the newspaper right now (laughter), is concerned too. I'm sure he's concerned, too, with the plight of the small ranchers in his constituency and that he'll speak out as well to make sure that they'll have some range to carry over those calves that they were unable to market economically last fall.

It's all right for the Minister of Recreation to buy some local ranches and buy out the grazing land, but still it's a detriment to the ranchers. I don't think that should be done, and I wonder what kind of programmes.... We know that there have been tremendous studies on range management. But we're not concerned with studies; we're concerned with action. I wonder what kind of action we can expect from the Department of Agriculture to improve ranging for the ranchers of the East Kootenays.

Mr. G.B. Gardom (Vancouver-Point Grey): I'd like to ask the Minister a few questions and make a few comments about the compulsory marketing system in the province and its performance, and, I'd say, the very demanding need and requirements of the general public to have the right to a proper expression of their own sentiment and opinion as to the need, if there is any, for the continued existence of these organizations.

I think we can all agree that the province was built and became what it was through the very dedicated and hard work engendered by the spirit of a lot of very rugged individuals. People certainly lived by the sweat of their brow and earned the right to returns from their labours and enjoyed those rewards. It wasn't an easy struggle but it was won. Nowhere along the line was that struggle either motivated or assisted by the legions of bureaucrats such as exist today, I suppose that at least one can take comfort from the fact that the struggle at least wasn't hampered by them. Had we the same political structure then as we do now have, the battle probably would never have been won. But it was, and I think we can thank our intrepid pioneers for the fantastic amount of effort they put into winning that battle. They came and they saw and they settled and they cultivated, and our society very much started to flourish. Rights and responsibilities came hand in hand. They achieved a great deal of liberties.

But the liberties they were able to achieve in this field are diminishing and eroding day by day under a regime such as we have here, where the prime direction seems to be not with increasing production for the betterment of the wherewithal of society, but more with the regulation and distributing of the series of diminishing returns from the private sector — and, of course, all the while facilitating their own political ends. But the intent and the obvious design of those who do preside over here is to manipulate the economy and to transfer more and more from the private sector to the public — and perhaps along the line inebriate the civil service with power, to canonize the bureaucracy, and all to the end of encouraging their own political perpetuation.

But this province, Mr. Chairman, and this agriculture would never have got started at all under the confining guidelines and strictures that exist today in socialistic B.C. Nowhere in the free world, or what little there is left of the free world, has there been such dictatory, regulatory and restrictive controls and procedures such as one finds in the producing and marketing of food in the Province of British Columbia.

The marketing boards, Mr. Chairman, were Depression-created; they were Depression-oriented and Depression-conceived. True, there were very, very serious difficulties in the Thirties, but one has to ask the question: is there a need to perpetuate and compound a Depression mechanism in 1975? And is that perhaps not carrying this Depression syndrome much, much too far? Then there was no doubt that the crisis of the times and economic meddling produced some short-term conceptions and, no doubt, some short-term benefits. But I'd say that no practical, long-term solutions have resulted; but, indeed, long-term problems have come about.

When these powers were granted in this province, Mr. Chairman, they were, in essence, wartime measures. They regulated this industry and all the people in it from soil to saucepan. The government's response — this government's response — to the earlier acceptance of powers entered into by a series of governments in this province, was to exceed them

[ Page 1083 ]

- and even more so last year, when they spawned the superboard, which is the ultimate, I suppose, in socialistic control of the producing and marketing of products. They gave it pretty well carte blanche authority to exercise unparalleled powers of the state over products of the land and the sea and the lake and the forest — in fact, over all of the producers and over all of the marketers in B.C. They have injunctive processes and they have expropriative processes, all without any fair opportunities of redress or fair or democratic checks or balances. We've talked quite a bit about Orwellian things to come. I say: no way! It certainly arrived last year in this particular field.

I very strongly suggest, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister that it is the interest and the desire, and the enunciated and the articulated interest and desire, of the majority of the people in this province to phase out these non-productive nonentities that are called marketing boards. We have to ask the question — and the people in this province are asking these questions: has a marketing board ever produced a better potato or a finer apple or a more satisfactory glass of milk or a juicier steak, shall we say, or a plumper chicken or fresher eggs? The answer has got to be: no way.

Has a marketing board ever prevented the destruction and the waste of foodstuffs while people are hungry? There's no way that that's happened either. Have they ever really produced an exciting or a dramatic, innovative concept for foodstuffs or for the packaging of foodstuffs? Really, no way. They're a control mechanism, purely and simply.

Have they ever produced better values and greater choice for the consumer? The public say to that: no way — the same way. But have they been able to cut down, too, on the enormous — which we've heard about this afternoon from a number of speakers — cost of distribution? And have they ever really been able to narrow that tremendous gap between the return received by the producer and the exorbitant prices that are paid by the consumer? No way!

Are they truly, Mr. Chairman, to the Hon. Minister, giving producers the option and the democratic choice, which they should have in a democratic society, of how they sell their produce? Can they sell it to the fresh produce market of their own choice? Can they sell to the export market of their own choice or to storage for later distribution or for cannery sales or, for that matter, to local farmers' markets or fruit-stand sales? Do they have those choices? Do they have those democratic options? They do not. There's not a freedom of choice to sell, even through this government-sponsored — perhaps government-manipulated would be a better word — agency or to the open market. Do the consumers have such a choice themselves to purchase? They don't.

One has got to ask the question also: is the existing grading system truly servicing consumers? Or is it really removing from the market no end of fruit, or vegetables, of chickens, or other natural products which the consumer would be delighted to buy? And how much of that is rotting or ending up on the, dump or being ploughed under?

The public does not feel — and they've posed this question — that the consumer is getting a good deal now. Nor do they feel that the producer is getting a good deal now.

Most of the general public consider that most sectors are being ripped off and they are being hamstrung by these board-created artificial manipulations of the whole natural product.

Well, somebody must prosper from the mechanism. The distributors, who could be considered the lagos in the plot, certainly are people who prosper — there is no question about that. And there is no question that the regulators on the boards prosper. Talk about tenure and continuity of service — Mr. Chairman, to the Hon. Minister, does the general public ever hear of a board being shut down or closed out if they do a putrid job, let alone even a bad job? No way. They continue on and continue on — once a sinecure always a sinecure. They have become political instruments almost unto themselves, and perpetuation certainly seems to be one of their primary objects, if not their primary object.

If they are so very almighty beneficial, as a number of people in here think... I tend to think I am expressing very much of a minority opinion here, but if they are so almighty good as so many people think they are, and certainly as far as this government thinks they are, why not give the public the right to make their own assessment and put something like that to a plebiscite? I certainly dare you and I dare the boards to do just that. But that's not going to happen. If you don't have the appetite to do that, which you certainly aren't going to have, why not appoint a fully independent royal commission to completely tour the province from stem to gudgeon with the widest powers of reference to hear from every sector — the producers, the consumers and the distributors alike — and determine if, in this period of time in which we are living and contemplated, say, over the next 25-year period, these marketing boards should continue to stay the way they are, incapable of responding to public criticism, or should be removed entirely, or should, perhaps, become a voluntary, as opposed to a compulsory, component in our society?

Many people have considered today that the rights of the consumers and the producers alike are both being exploited beyond endurance by this system and the perpetuation of this system. It's been perpetuated and it is continuing, unfortunately, without challenge. Indeed, is that not tantamount to nothing less than a provincial disgrace? The public bears the

[ Page 1084 ]

brunt of the stupidities and the excesses of the whole marketing system; yet the public is denied proper rights to make a selective assessment or indicate a choice. Mr. Chairman, I feel the public should have the right to make that choice.

Mr. D.E. Lewis (Shuswap): I am indeed pleased to take part in this debate, following up the city farmers. I think the statement made by the last Member in regard to the fact that marketing boards should be done away with is really uncalled for unless he is prepared to see the lawyers suffer the same fate. I do think that marketing boards need changes. When I ran in the 1972 election I ran on a very strong campaign that I was opposed to the way they were presently operated....

Mr. Chabot: For yourself.

Mr. Lewis: I'm sorry, I am not like you — I have interests other than self-interest.

Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I campaigned for changes in the marketing system and was assured by the party that I ran for before accepting the nomination and before being elected that these changes would be forthcoming.

Mr. Gardom: What are you going to run on next time?

Mr. Lewis: I would like to say at the present time that I am not happy with what is happening with regard to resolution of the problems in marketing boards and, in particular, in regard to CEMA, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency.

Mr. Phillips: You said more than a mouthful there, I'll tell you.

Mr. Lewis: I have to say quite openly that I feel that the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency is a disaster. I put CEMA in the same category as the Socreds — they're a disaster and they should go. I don't think that CEMA has been beneficial to B.C. or the farmers or the producers.

Mr. Gardom: How much a dozen does it cost you?

Mr. Lewis: At the time that CEMA was being considered and implemented in this province I expressed my concern to the Minister that there were many things that should be considered before it was implemented. Many of the producers in the province were opposed to being put into the CEMA package when it happened and they are finding at this time that they are suffering and that most of the consumers in the province are suffering through the implementation of CEMA.

CEMA, in my opinion, has been a federal/provincial disaster. It's one that I think has to be straightened out, the bungling that has taken place in CEMA has caused many millions of eggs in this province to go to waste.

The producers in British Columbia have lost their allocation of quota which was allocated to them under the B.C. Egg Marketing Board when it was originally set up in 1967. They're having it gradually dwindled away by the overproduction of producers in Ontario and in the eastern parts of Canada.

The B.C. Egg Marketing Board was set up in 1967 because of the disastrous marketing conditions that existed in the province at that time, where there was an overproduction of the product which flowed from B.C. into Alberta, reaching as far back as Ontario. At that time B.C. saw the problems and had requested from the past government that some form of marketing legislation be implemented to see that this was corrected. It was corrected, but it hasn't been without trouble within its own organization, because there have been considerable problems regionally within the B.C. Egg Marketing Board as well. These problems haven't been rectified either, as we will witness from what's happening up north where one producer is at the present time facing court action for the collection of $140,000 in levies.

Regardless of this fact, B.C. did implement a form of regulated production within this province. They operated under this regulated production for a period of five years before any other province implemented any quota system whatsoever. Ontario during this same period of time continued to produce eggs, trying to get the lion's share of the market, knowing that a CEMA plan was going to come into being in Canada. They produced any number of eggs, not being able to sell them, dumping them on the American market many times, and sometimes dumping them to the west as well.

Mr. L.A. Williams: Are you in favour of that?

Mr. Lewis: No, I'm not in favour of that.

In 1972 Ontario had 38 per cent of the Canadian market. At the present time they have 43 per cent of the Canadian market. So they continue to grow and to put eggs on the market, not regulating themselves. Now we are told that Ontario is going to get a large share of the market in Canada regardless of whether they have sales for that product or not.

In 1972, Judge Ross, who had done a report into egg production in Ontario, indicated at that time that 43 per cent of the production within Ontario was integrated — integrated into large companies. Without farmer control, the feed companies, large egg grading stations, and even going into firms such as Labatt's

[ Page 1085 ]

Breweries.... This is the type of organization that is going to get a lion's share of the production in Canada.

Mr. Wallace: Pickled eggs if they go into Labatt's.

Mr. Lewis: B.C. will be the one that will suffer on account of this because they will have to take a reduction in their production when they had already been actively engaged in a form of regulated marketing for seven years.

Throughout the years Manitoba had a traditional market in Ontario and northern Ontario. Ontario moved many of their eggs into Quebec. But since CEMA has been set up, they've said: "We're going to change all this. There's going to have to be a sharing by all provinces." B.C. had to take a reduction at that time, dropping from the quota which they were allocated by the B.C. Egg Marketing Board in 1967, from 37,000 cases, a drop down to 34,207 cases when CEMA was implemented.

You have to remember that B.C. had already regulated their market to a great extent during this seven years, and now they were told that they had to take a reduction. In this reduction, they were told that they would also have to include all unregulated eggs within the province, which means all producers in the province with less than 200 birds didn't have to file for the amount of production. Hatching eggs weren't included in the original allocation. They told B.C.: "Now you will include this in your allocation," so they took a further reduction in that area.

Now I understand that there's an agreement reached between the provincial Ministers in Ottawa saying that B.C. must again reduce its allocated amount of production from 34,207 to 30,400, a 10.9 per cent decrease. At the present time there are many producers in this province that are near bankruptcy. They've paid many, many dollars into the system to try and get regulated marketing in the province, and that regulated marketing isn't materializing.

We're also told that the agreement reached in Ottawa says that if B.C. producers don't reduce their quota from the 34,207 to 30,400, that for every dozen eggs they produce from those birds in that 4,000 case limit, they'll have to pay 50 cents a dozen penalty.

Well, failing this, they also say that if you don't want to take this criteria, then we say you either have to remove your birds from the farm and kill the birds, which would be a substantial number on 4,030 dozen cases of eggs a week or pay $1 a month for every one of those birds in a fine to the federal authorities.

Now I would like to see this same type of ruling applied to unions in this country and see what sort of chaos and revolution would break out in B.C. and in Canada. If they were told that they had to go into a
national system where they had no say about it and then were dictated the terms under which they would operate, I'm telling you, there would be an outcry all the way across this country.

Mr. Wallace: You said it.

Mr. Lewis: I'd like to give you an idea of the type of people who are represented on this Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the involvement that they have in other facets of industry.

Newfoundland has a member on the CEMA board who is a straight producer — one of the few — and he has 10,000 birds in production.

The Member representing New Brunswick on CEMA is a hatchery man and a wholesaler, and he has 20,000 birds. Mind you, when he's in these other businesses he isn't depending on egg production as a way of making his living.

Nova Scotia. He's also an egg wholesaler and a large vegetable grower. He has 15,000 birds in production.

Prince Edward Island. The Member from there is a producer, a marketer, and he has 10,000 birds.

Quebec. The Member there is a producer. He's in the taxicab business and he's also a large hog producer, so you can see that his main interest isn't egg production and he isn't too concerned about what comes out of that.

Ontario. He's a producer, a retail-wholesaler, and he has 50,000 birds. One of the directors on the Ontario board has a 2,800-case-per-week quota. This is a 30-dozen case. There is one producer at least in Ontario with 250,000 birds. Yet we're told when there's a reduction to take place across Canada, it must take place with every producer on the same percentage. A man who is producing 50 cases of eggs would have to reduce on the 10.9 per cent and the 250,000-bird operator in Quebec would reduce by the same 10 per cent.

We then move on to Manitoba where the member on the board is a producer, a grain grower. He is also established in the egg retail-wholesale business. He only has 10,000 birds.

Saskatchewan. A producer and a large grain grower. He's also in the egg retail-wholesale business and he has 10,000 birds.

Alberta. A producer-wholesaler with 20,000 birds.

B.C. Is one of the only two members on the board who is strictly a producer.

These members are representing producers all across Canada but yet they have many other interests besides the production of eggs.

Mr. Gibson: How many birds does the B.C. man have?

Mr. Lewis: Fifteen thousand.

[ Page 1086 ]

We also have the manager of the CEMA organization, who is a past marketer for Steinberg's. I question where his allegiance lies when it comes to looking after producers in Canada and in B.C. I also question where his allegiance would lie in regard to seeing that B.C. is protected in getting its fair share of marketing and a fair share of opportunity to grow with the industry. B.C.'s population has been increasing throughout the past at double the rate of any province in Canada, yet we're told under the CEMA Act that B.C. will grow on a percentage basis the same as all other provinces. So gradually, as populations grow and the trend continues in B.C. population increases, farmers in B.C. will be gradually supplying a smaller percentage of the Canadian market.

You know, it's ironic that this same situation that we're going through now with CEMA is the same situation which the interior went through with the B.C. Egg Marketing Board when it was established. The B.C. Egg Marketing Board assured the interior that they would grow with the consumption in their areas. Yet the board backed off and said: "No way. It will have to be on a province-wide basis." Now the same type of thing is happening with the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, and the interior will be hit twice under this same type of stipulation.

From talking to the producers in the last week, I would say that the producers in British Columbia will not accept this reduction. The federal agency and the provinces, if they wish, are going to have to take action against these producers. Some of the producers I've talked to said: "I'll go to jail first." I don't blame them.

Mr. Chabot: Are you one of them?

Mr. Lewis: Right at the present time, B.C. producers are paying 1.5 cents a dozen into CEMA to help regulate egg marketing in Canada. One-third of the operation of the B.C. Egg Marketing Board is tied up with the operation of CEMA, so much of the cost to the B.C. Egg Marketing Board is also being channeled into the CEMA operation.

Last year producers paid to CEMA $498,000 to regulate marketing in Canada, only to find out that it operated to the detriment of the B.C. producer and the amount that they would be allocated in the future. I'll tell you how much I paid, as a single farmer, into marketing board levies last year, which I say should have either gone to the farmer if he wasn't making enough, or gone to the consumer. My farm paid $7,000 last year in levies to marketing boards. I am what you would call a medium-sized farmer in comparison to many of the other farms throughout the province and throughout Canada.

B.C. has lost traditional markets to CEMA and to other provinces through implementation. We can take a look at the Kootenays, where at the present time one of the large producers up there is shipping eggs to the Fraser Valley because the Super-Valu stores in that area refuse to accept his product. Instead they are buying eggs that are dumped in from Manitoba, eggs which I say are questionable in their quality, and could be at the detriment of the consumers in that area.

Mr. Fraser: NDP eggs.

Mr. Wallace: Rotten eggs from Manitoba.

Mr. Lewis: The same type of thing is happening in the northern part of the province and through the Okanagan area as well. Because producers in these areas can't produce to meet the market, we find that eggs are imported into the area. Some of the wholesalers are going out and bringing in truckloads; carloads of eggs are coming in. For the first time, there has been a disease problem throughout the area. I blame it on the movement of eggs that are coming in from one station to the other. I am not saying that this disease problem came from Manitoba, but I am saying that it came from outside of the Okanagan area.

I would like to congratulate Safeway and Woodward's in regard to their public reaction to egg producers in the province. They have patronized B.C. producers and do supply their stores with the B.C. product. But Kelly Douglas and Super-Valu are in a different bag. Kelly Douglas went as far as to ship their empty cartons back to Manitoba last summer. These cartons were marked "Produced in B.C. — fresh eggs." Those cartons were filled with Manitoba eggs and brought back and put on the B.C. market.

If the present CEMA system is allowed to continue, I can see nothing but chaos in the province. There has been fighting among producers in this province for a number of years now, and now it is going to be spreading all across Canada. I would like to urge the Minister of Agriculture to take a very close look at this CEMA agreement. If it is not signed and B.C. is in a position where they have to sign it before it becomes effective, I ask that he refuse to put his signature on that agreement.

I also ask that the Minister take steps to see that B.C. producers are withdrawn from CEMA as soon as possible. I say this in the interest of consumers in the province as well as producers. Unless this happens, we'll face chaos in the next few months.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: Mr. Chairman, there are a number of points I would like to discuss at some length, particularly the last one, but I perhaps will just deal with it briefly now and then deal with it in more detail when I next have my opportunity to appear before the House with my estimates. I'm not

[ Page 1087 ]

just exactly sure when that will be.

There is a meeting in Ottawa tomorrow to discuss CEMA and agricultural income assurance. I intend to be at that meeting. I will not be in the House tomorrow; I will be in Ottawa tomorrow and the next day. I would like to talk about marketing boards and the egg marketing board in particular, and I would like to talk about CEMA. I will be much better informed on it after I come back from Ottawa and will be here Thursday. But I am not sure what we will be doing here on Thursday. With that remark, I would like to assure the House that no agreement has been signed. There have been discussions and there will be more discussions taking place in Ottawa tomorrow.

There were a couple of other questions which were asked that I can answer very quickly. The Hon. Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) asked about the beef industry survey and the size of the feedlot. He quoted a figure of 50,000, which did not come from my department. Somebody did ask whether it might be that large some day, and it might be, but certainly the planning now is not that it will be 50,000. It's more like 5,000, more the figure that you mentioned is what is in mind, at least initially. What can happen one day, who can tell, but initially it's 5,000.

You suggested that that is not the best area. It is the area where most of the sales take place. It is the area selected by the industry itself as the one most appropriate for that kind of development. The department staff, meeting with the industry representatives, have agreed that that would be the case.

The beef you were talking about... and I have forgotten in what context now. But if I could just.... The Hon. Member for Vancouver-Point Grey isn't here either. I'll leave that.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Stupich: No, he was talking about marketing boards, and I'd like him to be here to hear some of the answers.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports resolution and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly: Mr. Speaker, for the information of the House, the Minister of Agriculture has informed you that he will be away until Thursday, so we will proceed tomorrow with the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms. Young), who will return to the House tomorrow, and, following that, the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk).

Hon. Mr. Lorimer files an answer to question 81. (See appendix.)

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.

APPENDIX

81 Mr. Curtis asked the Hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs the following questions:

With respect to the amalgamations in the following British Columbia municipalities, (a) Kelowna, (b) Kamloops, (c) Prince George, and (d) Nanaimo —

1. Were special financial grants extended to each of the amalgamated municipalities stated above?
2. If the answer to No. 1 is yes, what were the amounts of each grant authorized to the municipalities mentioned above, by individual municipality?
3. Has any portion of each grant been paid?
4. If the answer to No. 3 is yes, what is the amount which has been paid to each municipality concerned and for what designated purpose in each case?
5. Are any further grants committed but not yet paid to each of the municipalities concerned?
6. If the answer to No. 6 is yes, what is the amount of each grant and the purpose for which it is to be used by the recipient municipality?

The Hon. J. G. Lorimer replied as follows:

1. "Yes.
2. " Kelowna, $4,315,000; Kamloops, $5,515,000; Prince George, $5,174,684;

   [ Page 1088 ]

   APPENDIX

   Nanaimo, $4,698,953; and in addition in each case an ongoing streets and roads program and an ongoing policing assistance program as follows:

   "Kelowna and Kamloops — Major streets, roads, and bridge construction program and a streets and roads maintenance program together with a policing assistance program under which the Province assumes full responsibility for streets and roads maintenance and for policing in the formerly non-municipal areas of these two municipalities for a period of three years, followed by an ongoing joint Provincial/municipal streets and roads maintenance program and a policing assistance program based on an urban/rural division of the municipality for sharing purposes.

   "Prince George and Nanaimo — A streets and roads maintenance program together with a policing assistance program under which the Province assumes full responsibility for these services in the formerly non-municipal areas of the municipality for a period of five years.

3. "Yes."
4. "Kelowna — $1,000,000, fire protection assistance; $271,000, adjustment of per capita grant, retroactively to January 1, 1973; $29,000, tax transfer; $193,249, public works; $15,000, grant to defray expenses of advisory committee on restructuring; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Kamloops — $200,000, waterworks assistance; $247,000, adjustment of per capita grant, retroactively to January 1, 1973; $53,000, tax transfer; $15,000, grant to defray expenses of advisory committee on restructuring; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Prince George — $600,000, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Nanaimo — $600,000, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

5. " Yes."
6. " Kelowna-$ 2,806,751, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Kamloops-$ 5,000,000, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Prince George-$4,574,685, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above.

   "Nanaimo-$4,098,953, restructure grant; together with the ongoing streets and roads program and the ongoing policing assistance program referred to above."