[ Page 2239 ]

CONTENTS

Privilege

Resignation from Liberal caucus. Mr. McGeer — 2239

Routine proceedings

Oral Questions

Stocking of Alberta beer by Liquor Administration Branch. Mr. Chabot — 2239

Use of Communications Canada material in schools. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2239

Warning signs on Hope-Princeton highway. Mr. Wallace — 2240

Surrey site for oil refinery. Mr. McClelland — 2240

Subsidizing B.C. medical students to University of Calgary Medical School. Mr. McGeer — 2240

Alleged irregularities on Capilano College construction. Mr. Curtis — 2241

Retail beef price increase. Mrs. Jordan — 2241

Rental value of South Okanagan land project. Hon. R.A. Williams answers — 2241

Domestic price for natural gas. Mr. Gibson — 2242

Operating subsidy for Princess Marguerite. Mr. Morrison — 2242

Privilege

Resignation from Liberal caucus. Mr. L.A. Williams — 2242

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Agriculture estimates

On vote 9.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 2242

Point of order

Appropriateness of motion that the committee rise and report progress. Mr. Phillips — 2242

Mr. Chairman's ruling — 2244

Point of order

Interpretation of standing order 45(3). Mr. McGeer — 2244

Division on Mr. Chairman's ruling — 2247

Point of order

Procedure in Committee of the Whole House. Mr. McGeer — 2249

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Agriculture estimates

Division on motion that the committee rise and report progress — 2250

Point of order

Interpretation of standing order 45(3). Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2251

Point of order

Mr. Chairman's report to Mr. Speaker. Mr. L.A. Williams — 2252

Routine proceedings

Perpetuities Act (Bill 1). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2253

Patients' Estates Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 2). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2254

Division on second reading — 2258

Public Trustee Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 3). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2258

Investment Contracts Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 4). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2261

Administration Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 5). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2261

Co-operative Associations Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 6). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2262

Limitations Act (Bill 8). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2262

Division on second reading — 2266

Farmers' and Women's Institutes Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 7). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Stupich — 2267

Real Estate Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 9). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2268

Securities Amendment Act, 1975 (Bill 20). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2268

MONDAY, MAY 12, 1975

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. D.T. KELLY (Omineca): This is the first time since I've been in the Legislature that I've had the privilege of introducing a class of students from my riding. Today there are 35 students from the secondary school in Fraser Lake, and they're accompanied by their teachers, Mr. Joe and Mrs. Janet Dunham. I would ask the Legislature to give them a very warm welcome.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to welcome the man who represented Vancouver East in this House for 25 years, Mr. Arthur Turner.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, I can tell from the place where my chair is today that you have been reading the press over the weekend.

However, I would like to announce officially to you and to the Members of the Legislature that on Friday last I resigned from the B.C. Liberal caucus and will now be sitting as an independent in our Legislature.

I don't know whether this is a hint from the government side — my placement here behind the Conservative leader (Mr. Wallace). I want to assure him he has nothing to worry about.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): You're not going to join him?

Oral questions.

STOCKING OF ALBERTA BEER
BY LIQUOR ADMINISTRATION BRANCH

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): A question to the Attorney-General. Would the Attorney-General, who is in charge of the liquor administration branch, advise why he refuses to stock in B.C. liquor stores the product of Palliser Breweries of Lethbridge, Alberta?

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, I will take that as notice.

MR. CHABOT: Just a supplementary, as notice. Does the Minister realize the Alberta government, in retaliation against the non-stocking of Palliser Breweries products in British Columbia, is starting to eliminate B.C. wines being stocked in the stores, commencing with the Calona Wines products, and what does the Minister propose to do regarding this retaliation from the Alberta government?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I recognize that there are conversations going on with the Province of Alberta and also the Province of Manitoba with respect to reciprocal listings. That is why I am not particularly anxious to say too much about it at the present time.

MR. CHABOT: The delisting is taking place in Alberta right now.

USE OF COMMUNICATIONS CANADA
MATERIAL IN SCHOOLS

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): To the Minister of Education, Mr. Speaker. Has the Minister received representations from the B.C. School Trustees Association urging an early decision on the request by several school districts that they be permitted to utilize the Communications Canada material in the educational field?

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Yes, I have. We've had a meeting with them and we are trying to facilitate it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, could I ask the Minister whether we can expect, then, some decision within the next three or four weeks on this matter, which has been dragging out now for a great number of months?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, a decision is almost made now. We have agreed that this can be done, and we are just working it out with them.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Could I ask as a final supplementary whether the Minister has investigated the allegations by the former president of the school trustees' association that the Education department officials have threatened to sue the B.C. School Trustees Association for putting forward "false information" on this matter?

MRS. DAILLY: Yes, I have had it investigated and I assured the trustees' association that I would not condone that and in no way would I accept that.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Has the Minister taken any disciplinary action to the members of the Department of Education who threatened the suit?

MRS. DAILLY: I am still investigating it to find out if this actually took place.

[ Page 2240 ]

WARNING SIGNS ON
HOPE-PRINCETON HIGHWAY

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Highways with regard to the verdict of a coroner's jury relating to a traffic death on March 31, 1975, on the Hope-Princeton highway — that highway was badly in need of repair and lacking in warning signs: has the Minister taken immediate action to have that section of the road repaired and the warning signs installed?

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): Is this pertaining to the same subject you mentioned in the question period earlier, Mr. Member?

MR. WALLACE: No. This is a report of an inquest regarding a death that occurred on March 31, 1975.

HON. MR. LEA: I'll take that as notice and report back.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Minister has also had an incident of 200 feet of highway disappearing into Shuswap Lake near Chase. I just wanted to know if his department is really on the job at breakup time to monitor these sections of the highway and try and prevent these serious accidents. I am sure the Minister knows that this was a serious one, that someone died and that the coroner's jury has made a very definite statement that the road was in need of repair and warning signs. I don't understand how you would have to take that as notice.

HON. MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, obviously I am going to have it checked out thoroughly within my department to see whether all precautions that could have been taken were taken. In regard to the slide near Chase, I am also having that looked at, but I am fairly confident that as you look at soil structure throughout the province, and different spring breakups, you cannot prophecy where every slide is going to happen. All you can do is take normal precautions. You can't take precautions against acts of God all the time.

SURREY SITE FOR OIL REFINERY

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Economic Development. A recent letter from the Petroleum Corp. general manager, George Lechner, to Surrey council has asked Surrey council if it has changed its mind in connection with its approval or non-approval of the area as a site for an oil refinery. The letter suggests that if Surrey has changed its mind, Surrey will be allowed to see the environmental impact studies — the preliminary studies. However, if Surrey still opposes the refinery the studies will not be made available to Surrey, which also suggests a difficulty for Surrey: how do they know if they oppose or don't oppose until they see the studies? Is that letter correct?

HON. G.V. LAUK (Minister of Economic Development): With respect, I don't know anything about that letter but I'll take the question as notice.

MR. McCLELLAND: Supplementary. Environment Canada has said that it will take a minimum of two years, probably three years, for them to do an environmental study into the oil refinery on Sumas Mountain. Would the Minister tell us how British Columbia might do an environment study in a matter of months, compared to that information?

HON. MR. LAUK: I don't believe I am answerable for any statements made by a federal bureaucracy, Mr. Speaker. In any event, I haven't had an opportunity to look over their estimations. Further, in any event this is a matter for the B.C. Petroleum Corp. and the Minister in charge of energy resources, the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald).

SUBSIDIZING B.C. MEDICAL STUDENTS TO
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY MEDICAL SCHOOL

MR. McGEER: I can already see the disadvantages of being a backbencher, Mr. Speaker — and I have done my best here to make it easy to see me. I have a question for the Minister of Health: is the Minister considering subsidizing medical students from British Columbia to the University of Calgary Medical School?

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): At the present time there are discussions going on between the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly), my office and the Department of Education in Calgary. We have to know exactly where we are going and what the costs might be, but there are discussions going on at the present time.

MR. McGEER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is it true that the Minister has for some considerable time had on his desk requests from the University of British Columbia Medical School for funds to expand the medical school so students could be taken in right here in British Columbia?

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the requests that are on my desk, which the Member describes, are requests around upgrading clinical facilities for the University of British Columbia. They managed to find

[ Page 2241 ]

their way to my desk a week and a half ago. We certainly have the objective of 160 but that objective isn't going to be met with the present facilities, as the Member knows. As time goes on, those facilities will be upgraded to that extent. That is our policy.

MR. McGEER: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister aware that minutes were tabled at the faculty executive meeting of the school of medicine at UBC and that plans had been sent forward to the Minister in April, 1974?

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure what the Member is talking about. I think he is probably talking about the upgrading of the science facility at UBC, which is something entirely different again. The upgrading of the science facility at UBC is a matter that is being discussed with other departments, including the Department of Education. But that Member, I am sure, realizes that universities are autonomous. They set their priorities.

However, we have had some more recent discussions with the dean and also with the president of UBC; at least, I have. At those discussions we were discussing possible utilization of the health resources fund for these purposes. Mr. Speaker, without the clinical facilities that have to be developed, there isn't much percentage in developing facilities at UBC in too much haste. I really don't think that we're behind on that issue. As I say, getting back to the autonomy of universities, we have to be most careful how we work.

ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES ON
CAPILANO COLLEGE CONSTRUCTION

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): To the Minister of Education. During debate on her estimates May 2, the official opposition brought to her attention a complaint regarding alleged irregular bidding and contract-awarding procedures with respect to a construction project at Capilano College. As I recall, the Minister undertook to report back when she had had an opportunity to investigate. I wonder if the Minister could tell us if there is any substance to the complaint?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I have a report from the chairman of the Capilano College council which I will be pleased to give to you. The essence of it is that they feel that it was handled correctly; but I shall give you the full report.

RETAIL BEEF PRICE INCREASE

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Hon. Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fact that there has been an announced retail beef price increase today, with one store raising the price to 20 cents per pound, another one to 10 cents per pound, with more to come, the implication is that the reason for the price increase is because the producers of cattle in B.C. have suddenly gained a greater return for their product. Would the Minister advise the House what increase has really been recorded to the producer over the last 10 days and if these implications are true?

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge of any increase that the producer has received in the last 10 days. I think that the retailers have never really been concerned about what the producers are getting. They set their price at whatever the market will bring, to my knowledge.

MRS. JORDAN: A supplementary. I just want to make it clear that it is by 10 cents a pound and by 20 cents a pound. But in light of the fact that negotiations are taking place today on income assurance, is the Minister prepared to investigate these implications and make clear to this House exactly what the return has been to the producers over the last 10 days?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the implications have no bearing at all on the income assurance discussions that I know of. As far as the price is concerned, the price is quoted daily in the papers. That information is widely disseminated to the public.

RENTAL VALUE OF SOUTH
OKANAGAN LAND PROJECT

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: Questions in the last week from the Hon. Member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) included one regarding Lot 106 in the South Okanagan land project in the South Okanagan and the rental value of said lands. There was, in fact, an analysis by the lands branch. The appraisal was $150,520 for this site. The rental was valued at $7,526 per annum. It has been on a year-to-year basis for grazing. It has been determined that it has an agricultural value for both alfalfa and vegetable production. On that basis, and with two independent appraisals as well as the lands staff appraisals, the conclusion was that that was a fair market price for that land for that purpose. Regarding Silverstar Mountain, there has been no change in policy to date.

MRS. JORDAN: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if the Minister, referring to his statement on the land in the Myers Flats area, would advise who the other two independent appraisers were and who determined that the land's most economic and

[ Page 2242 ]

highest use was alfalfa. Would the Minister advise whether there was consultation between the lands branch and the grazing division of his department as well as the Department of Agriculture?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: There were numerous farmers in the region interested in the land for purposes other than grazing. On that basis the various advisers within the department deemed it reasonable.

MRS. JORDAN: Were there consultations among the lands branch and the Department of Agriculture and the grazing division on this land?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: I have no idea.

MRS. JORDAN: There were not? I wonder if the Minister would like to confirm that, please.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: I said I have no idea, Mr. Speaker.

DOMESTIC PRICE FOR NATURAL GAS

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): I have a question for the Premier, who I welcome back from his expedition to the mysterious east. I would ask him if he agrees with the policy of the chairman of the B.C. Energy Commission, who announced that domestic prices for natural gas should be raised to full energy equivalent prices, substantially the same as the export price?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I don't recall anyone under the Energy Commission saying that, but this is not government policy. Government policy is to ensure a constant supply first of all to British Columbia consumers at a price a lot better than to the Americans. Unlike the former administration, we think British Columbians deserve a better price for their gas than what we are selling it off for.

OPERATING SUBSIDY
FOR PRINCESS MARGUERITE

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): My question is addressed to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams). Has the provincial government approached the federal government regarding an operating subsidy for the route of the Princess Marguerite between Victoria and Seattle?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: I understand the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) is carrying on discussions with respect to federal aid with respect to these various programmes.

MR. MORRISON: Supplemental. Perhaps he could advise us when the ferry will start and who, in future, we should ask questions to concerning that particular ferry.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: I think the House is fully aware with respect to this specific operation.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, on a matter of privilege, following the written advice I gave you today, I would like to inform the House that on Friday last I tendered my resignation to the Hon. Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson) from the Liberal caucus, and on that day he accepted the same.

Orders of the day.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask leave of the House to move to public bills and orders.

Leave not granted.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
(continued)

On vote 9: Provincial Land Commission, $580,510.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I move the committee rise, report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No, no, no!

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, when the House adjourned on Friday, we were discussing vote 9, provincial Land Commission Act. No business has adjourned in the intervening time, and no business has taken place today. Therefore we should continue with the discussion of vote 9.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the point of order, this is a new sitting; therefore the motion is in order. We now have the motion before the committee. The motion is that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The Hon. Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chairman, this House received clear instructions at the beginning of the session that we would deal with supply until it was completed. We want to continue debating the estimates, as was the direction given to this committee by resolution in this

[ Page 2243 ]

House...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That is not a point of order.

MR. BENNETT: ...that we continue with supply. This reason has been brought up many times by the government during....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Since we are in committee the motion is in order.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): On a point of clarification, Mr. Chairman, the government House Leader (Mrs. Dailly) said "rise and report resolution." I'm not clear exactly what resolution was reached.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Progress.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I would like to clarify something here myself. I called a meeting of the house leaders this morning to discuss with them the possibility of moving into bills this afternoon, and then a meeting would be called by me with the house leaders to discuss the possibility of the estimates going into committee outside the Whole House. The Liberal leader (Mr. D.A. Anderson) and the Conservative leader (Mr. Wallace) appeared at the meeting, along with the representative from the Social Credit Party — the official opposition. The Liberal and Conservative leaders agreed to a meeting to discuss the possibility of going into committee on estimates outside of the Committee of the Whole House. The representative from the official opposition was unable to concur or to give any answer until he met with his leader. We have been awaiting some reply from the Leader of the official Opposition. It has not come before us, and that is why we are ready to proceed in this way.

MR. BENNETT: On the same point of clarification as the House Leader, we have a position that we took in this House in debate last year that we would not agree to the limit of 135 hours. Later this year when asked by the government, when they realized the restrictions and closure techniques they brought in were not meeting the needs of the House, we sent a letter to the Premier saying that we would not accept any limit on the debate of estimates in this House at any time and we were not open to any derivation.

We were not prepared to meet unless the government would agree with the position we took last year — that there be no limit on the people's representatives' right to question the Ministers about departmental spending in the coming year, especially when expenditure has reached a point of over $3 billion. We will not accept any limit on the debate of estimates.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. BENNETT: We will not accept in light of the letter we sent the Premier before, and in light of the position taken last year. I find it unusual that at the last minute before this session was called in today — and I mean the last minute — that the House Leader would send a message through my secretary at 11 o'clock this morning in desperation because their closure techniques have not worked, will not work and will never work in a democracy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): On a point of order. Mr. Chairman, a number of things have been said which deserve comment. The first one is that you are totally out of order for accepting that motion unless you first ask unanimous leave to suspend rule 45 which gives you direct instructions and uses the word "shall." Now I would like to ask for unanimous consent of the House to suspend rule 45 for now and all time because it's a rotten rule. Once you've done that, perhaps we can get on to discussion of....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would rule that this is not necessary and therefore since the motion has been presented, I will put the motion.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Could I ask the Chair....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Could I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether you have read rule 45(3) on page 18 which says: "...the Chairman...shall forthwith..."? The effective word is "shall". If you start accepting motions after the committee is called, you are obviously in violation....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. On the point of order, the standing order does not preclude the committee rising and reporting progress. It's a case of which has priority.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: It precludes you calling any other motion put by any Member of this House...

[ Page 2244 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The committee....

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: ...if you carried out the instructions of rule 45, which is the worst rule in the book.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. There is no point of order. Would the Hon. Member be seated?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: But you're not following the rules: is this not a point of order?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has ruled that the motion is in order. The motion is that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again. You've heard the motion.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): On a point of order. Considering the motion that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, I suggest to you that a precedent has been established in this House in past sessions and in past sittings where it has been ruled by the Speaker of this House that no business has taken place, and that there must be business take place between the time that the committee goes into Committee of Supply and you call a motion to adjourn or rise and report progress. We've had it clearly established that until there is discussion in committee and a vote is debated, business has not taken place in committee. Therefore, the motion that you have accepted — to rise and report progress — is clearly out of order with the rules that we operate under in this House. It has been ruled that way on many occasions before, so it's not a new precedent. Business must take place...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. SMITH: ...between the motion to go into Committee of Supply and the motion to rise and report progress.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. On the point of order, I think the Hon. Member is thinking of a second motion within the same sitting. This is a different sitting and therefore I would rule that the motion is in order, in accordance with the practice of the House in previous years.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, a clarification: on Friday, as I understand, the question was asked on the meaning of the word "forthwith" in rule 45. Regardless of what's transpired this afternoon, and I don't have the Blues to confirm this, but it was my understanding that the explanation was given that "forthwith" meant immediately at the next most convenient moment, but it need not be right at the end of the 45th sitting but would be the first item of business at the following sitting, which is today. I feel, with the greatest of respect, that if rule 45(3) has to mean anything at all, it means that the question now be put on Committee of Supply.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the point of order raised by the Hon. Member for Oak Bay, the Chair would rule that the intent of the standing order is that there would be no more debate on the votes at the end of the 45th sitting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: However, this does not preclude putting a motion that the committee rise and report progress; nor does it mean that the committee has to sit continuously. I would rule that the motion is in order.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, while in committee a point of order was raised that the 45th sitting having ended, a motion that the committee rise and report progress would not be in order until the votes had been put. The Chair ruled that the fact that we had reached the end of the 45th sitting and that we were now in Committee of Supply did not preclude putting a further motion to report progress. My ruling was challenged.

MR. SPEAKER: The question has to be put by the Speaker upon the challenge of the ruling of the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, therefore I can't really deal with points of order because I would presume that to be my first duty.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, just on a point of order on a point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. McGEER: You, sir, gave an interpretation of "forthwith" on Friday last that "forthwith" was not at that moment because it was beyond the normal sitting time of the House, and left the clear implication with me that the only reason for adjourning the House at that point was to give an opportunity for the normal hours to occur, but that we would be going back at the first opportunity to have those votes put forthwith. I would like to have your stand clarified, regardless of the Chairman's misinterpretation.

MR. SPEAKER: I think the Hon. Member knows

[ Page 2245 ]

that my first duty is to ask the House whether it sustains the ruling of the Chair in the Committee of the Whole House. I must proceed with that duty as my primary concern. Any comments that I make later on the matter are really off the rule itself because that is being decided by the House now — on that very question that you have raised. I must put the question now.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I realize that the question must be put, but surely you must understand, as Speaker of the House, that to put the question and to have it ruled acceptable by the majority of the government Members in this House does not decide the most important issue we have before us right now, and that is: if business has taken place where we go into Committee of Supply and immediately rise and report progress.

We have been told before, Mr. Speaker, by yourself that business must take place before you can put the second motion.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I think....

MR. SMITH: A challenge — all that does is sustain...

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out to the Hon. Member that for many years in this House...

MR. SMITH: ...the ruling of the Chair, which may not have been correct.

MR. SPEAKER: ...because of the priority motion, the House Leader — in the terms of that time it was the Hon. W.A.C. Bennett — would put the motion before the House in committee merely to put it and then ask that the committee rise without carrying on any business so that they could get on to other matters of urgency to the House, such as bills.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: I point out that some tender should be made. Of course, I understand that tender was made — the vote of the Committee of the Whole House. This has been the practice for many years, because we have that priority motion every year, and for the last 20 years we've had it. This challenge becomes a judgment of the House on the definition or the question that was decided by the Chair. If the House decides to support the Chair on this matter, it becomes, in effect, a decision of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Of the government.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, on this point, if we vote to sustain the Chair we are obviously voting down your decision of last Friday afternoon when you....

MR. SPEAKER: I think the Hon. Member is taking it further than I did. I merely said that the House has the right to adjourn its business to a subsequent date when it's not in Committee of the Whole House. But when the committee is called, a priority is there that it take up its business...

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Right...

MR. SPEAKER: ...which was set — standing order 45(a).

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: ...priority, and you go to work "forthwith," Mr. Speaker. So I just wanted it perfectly clear.

MR. SPEAKER: It does not mean that the motion to go out of committee is blocked by standing order 45, as I see it. But this will be for this House to determine, not for me. You are now presented with that decision to make.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, as I raised this point at the end of the session last Friday and you gave a decision at that time, may I ask you what instructions or otherwise go from the Chair to the Speaker in terms of interpreting rules? We on the opposition side accepted on Friday your decision as to what the word "forthwith" meant; we accepted your words. We sat quietly there, as you can see from Hansard. We thought that in due course the rules would be followed as you indicated on Friday. Now it appears that your Deputy — the Deputy Speaker as chairman of the committee — has gone off on a tangent of his own which is in complete contradiction with what you told me on Friday.

MR. SPEAKER: I wish the Hon. Member would not try to tell me what I said on Friday when it's clear in Hansard that when we reached the hour of adjournment and were not in Committee of the Whole House, the House had the right, the privilege and the responsibility to adjourn the House on the time set by the standing orders to the following sitting day, which happened to, be Monday, unless otherwise ordered by the House.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: That's right.

MR. SPEAKER: If you are suggesting that the House should go back to committee at 1 o'clock on Friday and spend the weekend on estimates, you are sadly mistaken.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: No, no, no, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 2246 ]

That's just the point that you made then, and we accepted quite happily, that the time had come to 1 o'clock — I'm quoting you here: "...it is after 1 o'clock — the usual motion is that we designate the time of the next sitting as ordered by the House. That would mean that that motion would have to be put now."

We are now back in committee on a separate day, some 72 hours later — a little more than that. In accordance with what you said there on the last page of Hansard it would appear to me that there is no way for a motion to come from any Member of this chamber intervening in rule 45(3) as stated on page 18.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member will have to know that the House is not deciding that matter. Questions of order should be put without debate.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Right.

MR. SPEAKER: I have now the duty, as you know, under standing orders to put the question to the House as a judgment of the House whether or not the committee is powerless to adjourn any time it chooses. If you are saying it is powerless, let the House decide the question.

MR. DA. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I just hope that following the vote you will outline for this chamber the faith that we can put in your statements....

MR. SPEAKER: Order! Hon. Member, I'd be glad to do so, but at the moment....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order! I would like to put the question now.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): On a point of order, we are deciding a very serious motion now and one which, in fact, in my point of view, is the destruction of democracy as we recognize it in this parliament for some considerable time. The challenge which is being put here is a challenge in futility because if one looks at the numbers....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The Hon. Member is making comments rather than dealing with a point of order.

MR. CHABOT: What concerns me is the fact that we are voting on the motion which is before us now.

MR. SPEAKER: It's the duty of the Chair to put it.

MR. CHAB0T: I am extremely concerned. All I am doing is appealing to the Member who asked that the ruling be challenged. I would like to see the Member withdraw it because it's a serious direction in which we are going — a director which frightens me, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound on a point of order, I presume.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, as the Chairman advised you, he has made a ruling, and the consequences of the House supporting his ruling would be obviously that the committee would rise and report progress, as the motion says, and ask leave to sit again. That thrusts us back into the House. If we get back into the House, Mr. Speaker, the government is again faced with the priority order made earlier this session. We can go from the House to committee and from committee back to the House all afternoon as the orders presently stand.

MR. SPEAKER: I think the Hon. Member knows that having gone into committee and having risen, the House is then freed from the priority motion to get on with other business. But the rule is always that where the priority motion was before the House on each day, you start by opening by calling on the committee, and then if the House has other business it wishes to carry on with, the committee would rise on the motion of the House Leader. Now it's up to the House to determine whether or not the Chairman's ruling is in order, and I wish to put the question now.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I certainly am aware of the consequences of the priority motion, but then you have the standing rules of this House, and in particular rule 45A(3), which interferes with your going on, following the priority motion, to something else because it is a mandatory order under the standing rules of this House that we proceed in another way.

MR. SPEAKER: I would submit to the Hon. Member, when he considers the question and reflects upon it, that the priority motion, and any priority motion such as standing order 45A — the one that the Hon. Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson) has referred to — the question of "forthwith” is still subject to the power of the House to order its business in terms of how long a committee sits. The committee is subservient to the whole House. If the House decides to send it back to committee, the committee would have to continue sitting, But it need merely pay respect to the

[ Page 2247 ]

standing order and to the requirement of the priority motion. From there on it can go back to its other business or of the House. Now I would like to put the question and get it over with because that is my primary duty and we really should get on with it.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: I admit what you say is correct — that the committee is subservient to the House — but the point of order, surely, Mr. Speaker, is that the motion which the Chairman received was improperly received and ought not to have been put.

MR. SPEAKER: I think the Hon. Members know that a motion to adjourn or a motion to terminate a committee's business is always in order, providing the Chairman will accept it. The Chairman must accept it.

MR. GIBSON: It's not in order if it conflicts with this new standing order, Mr. Speaker, which it does, and which is more specific.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): On a point of order, it's my understanding that a challenge to the Chairman in committee is not debatable.

MR. SPEAKER: That's right.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I do not understand under what order we are debating this.

MR. SPEAKER: The only reason that points of order have been listened to is to clarify for the Hon. Members what they will be voting on on the question of the Chairman's ruling as a courtesy to all the Members.

MR. WALLACE: If I could just take a moment to explain my motivation, I thought I was challenging this Chairman's interpretation of the word "forthwith" but not challenging the essence of the motion — whether the motion was correct or incorrect. I was simply saying that it seemed to be in complete contradiction to the interpretation of the word "forthwith" which we were given on Friday. I am challenging the Chairman's interpretation of the word "forthwith," not the correctness or otherwise of the House rising from committee to go back into the House. If, by so doing, I've precluded further debate, Mr. Speaker, I would certainly withdraw the challenge to the Chair, if the reason for that challenge has been misunderstood by the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, I think that once that challenge has been given to the House it can't be withdrawn without the unanimous consent of the House. Therefore the question has been called.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where do you get that?

MR. SPEAKER: A motion or any matter of procedure before the House cannot be withdrawn without the consent of the House. It becomes the property of the House. Isn't that true?

All those who agree with his request to withdraw the challenge?

Leave not granted.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): The Premier said no!

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

HON. MR. BARRETT: I think democracy demands some silence when a Member has the floor. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that it's absolutely impossible to ask for leave for something that took place in committee. It's clearly the duty of this House to vote on the motion in front of us.

MR. SPEAKER: Quite right. If we are not in committee for the point of the challenge to the Chair, we meet without a motion as a House for the purpose of dealing with a matter that occurred in committee. We have to decide whether to sustain or reject the ruling of the Chairman.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Agreed.

The Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) said that the challenge was a misunderstanding and that he meant no challenge to the ruling. Surely we should offer him the courtesy of going back into committee.

MR. SPEAKER: We are meeting as a House at the moment. I must put the motion on the question of the challenge.

Mr. Chairman's ruling sustained on the following division:

YEAS — 26

[ Page 2248 ]

NAYS — 17

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

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous leave of the House, under standing order 49, to move a motion.

MR. SPEAKER: Could you give me an indication so the House can know what it is giving leave to?

MR. BENNETT: Yes. I would like to move that the standing orders with respect to Committee of Supply be suspended and the following substituted therefore:

"The proceedings in Committee of Supply shall not be limited unless and until debate has been completed on each estimate by the Members of the Legislative Assembly."

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): You've had four months to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You know we've run out of time.

MRS. JORDAN: More trickery!

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

MR. BENNETT: Did somebody say no, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: What's that?

MR. BENNETT: Did somebody deny leave? Who denied leave?

MR. SPEAKER: I must say I heard a number of notes.

MR. CHABOT: I didn't hear any.

MR. BENNETT: I didn't hear any.

MR. SMITH: I didn't hear any.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: We didn't hear any.

AN HON. MEMBER: Division!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, public bills and orders.

MR. SPEAKER: You can't have a division on that, because if there is even one "no" it is sufficient to deny unanimous leave.

MR. GIBSON: The government House Leader called public bills and orders, but it seems we are still in committee, are we not?

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I thought that they had moved a motion and the motion had been carried.

MR. GIBSON: No. The appeal was carried.

MR. SPEAKER: I see. The point of order was raised while the question of determining the vote.... I understand. I apologize to the House.

Mr. Chairman, will you please return? I sent him off to his seat. I'm sorry about that.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't even know what's going on!

AN HON. MEMBER: Point of order!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I understand that the motion was declared in order. There was a motion before the House. The motion has now been put and carried.

Interjections.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rises.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order! The Hon. Member knows, I am sure, that the House has just decided to question what he is now complaining about, I presume. The Chairman of the committee put the question, and in

[ Page 2249 ]

the middle of putting the question the Hon. Member is crying "Point of order."

[Mr. Speaker resumes his seat.]

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker: the Chairman has gone temporarily blind and deaf. He missed a call for a division, Mr. Speaker. He ignored a point of order which I thought the Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) was making, and I thought it would be very easy to spot that Member. Certainly he could have heard the call for a division had he not leaped out of his seat to report to you.

Mr. Speaker, there was a call for a division, and I insist that we go back to committee and have a division on the matter of adjournment.

Mr. Speaker, I want to further add that I think the Chairman is partly bent.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm afraid I can't deal with the question, because if a call for division is made in the Committee of the Whole House, certainly the House can't deal with that question. All I can do is ask: when shall the committee sit again?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: At the next sitting, Mr. Speaker.

MR. McGEER: (Mike not on.) ...may for a division. This was clearly done, and the Chairman wilfully refused to recognize me when I called for a division.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm afraid I have no knowledge of it as far as the House is concerned. The House doesn't, anyway.

MR. McGEER: What does one do, Mr. Speaker, when one calls for a division and the Chairman refuses to acknowledge it?

MR. SPEAKER: All I can suggest to the Hon. Member is that you move that the committee be reconstituted again. If you don't get that motion supported, then we have to carry on with the other business.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: The House doesn't know of that occurrence; consequently, we have to carry on the next order of business.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, perhaps you would clarify for us what happens in the event that the Chairman of committee refuses to acknowledge a call for a division, wilfully ignores Members who are standing in their places, leaves the Chair, runs to you to report, Sir, and then insists that there was no call for a division. That is wilful trampling on the rights of elected Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I can tell the Hon. Member, and I think he knows as well as I do, that the business of the committee and how it conducts itself is conducted on entirely the same rules in our book insofar as challenging the Chair or divisions are concerned and should be taken up in committee, not in the House. Consequently, the only answer is that when you are in committee you have to deal with it there. I cannot deal with that point here.

MR. McGEER: But, Mr. Speaker, would you advise me to get up from my place and run to the front and tackle the Chairman when he does that? I'm in a more difficult position to do this kind of thing than I was last week.

MR. SPEAKER: I would have thought that he would have been attracted by your rising, I am sure; but we cannot deal with that now. More than that, I think the Hon. Member knows that the conduct of the Chairman in the Committee of the Whole House really can't be canvassed in this fashion in the House.

MR. CHABOT: Point of order. The Members of this House clearly asked the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House for a division. It was clearly recorded. This wasn't recognized when the Chairman resumed his seat. So, Mr. Speaker, in order that we can have an opportunity of having that division, I would like to move that we go back into committee for this division.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The only problem I have at the moment is what amounts to a motion, "When shall the committee sit again?" which I have had to ask the House Leader. She has said: "Next sitting."

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, if there were a division called, it could not have been heard by any Chairman by virtue of the yahooing that was going on in the official opposition. Mr. Speaker, there has been absolutely no reason to this whole question. We should go on with the business of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: I must go on with the business of the House, which is: when shall the committee sit again?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: At the next sitting, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 2250 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Next sitting.

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the division wasn't requested. The Member was rising on a point of order in the second sitting of the Chairman. It was in the original instance that we asked for a division. Then, on a point of the challenge to the ruling of the Chairman, that is where the Chairman left the chair. But a division had been specifically requested. Then, when the Chairman came back, he put the motion without so much as "by your leave," without so much as the opportunity for Members of the opposition to ask for a division, not with so much as a sideways glance in this assembly. The Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) was on his feet.

MR. SPEAKER: I have a suggestion.

MR. CHABOT: We have a Chairman who has no respect for parliamentary procedure.

MR. SPEAKER: Order! The Hon. Member is out of order.

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who do we appeal to in this House if we don't appeal to you?

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rises.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order! Order, please. Would the Hon. Members please remember that you can't canvass the conduct of the Chair or the Chairman in this instance, in this fashion? I am pointing that out. You know the rules in regard to that. But I am making a further suggestion. I will check the Blues. Any Members who objected can check the copies and the tapes with me. If there is any indication of such a division, possibly some method may be reached whereby it can be clarified by a vote.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker resumes his seat.]

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, that is not the way to proceed. What you have clearly invited the Members of the opposition to do is to take physical measures on the Chairman if he is going to ignore Members who are on their feet. If you want to have a civilized House, you are going to have to proceed in a civilized manner. It is quite clear that the government can't govern and direct the House. But when you have the Chairman leaping to his feet and running to you when there are Members of the opposition on their feet, you are clearly inviting them at some future time to tackle the Chairman.

MR, SPEAKER: Order, please. I think you know that I can only go ahead with the business of the House, which is: when shall the committee meet again?

MR. GIBSON: On a point of order. You suggest that we might check the tapes of Hansard or the Blues or something like that. Mr. Speaker, the microphones were shut off. I suggest to you, Sir, that you have the word of an Hon. Member that he was on his feet demanding a division. You have the word of another Hon. Member who is prepared to say that he was on his feet demanding a division. I say with respect to you, Sir, that it is incumbent upon you under your general duty and order to preserve order in this House that you should call a division on that question.

MR. SPEAKER: My difficulty is that we are now in the House. I also have to obey the rules just like anyone else..

MR. McGEER: Better call the Chairman back and give him some instructions.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I ask leave of the House to return to committee to put forward the division.

Leave granted.

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

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 25

[ Page 2251 ]

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

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress and asks leave to sit again, and further reports that divisions took place in committee and asks that these divisions be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Leave granted.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the committee sit again?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Next sitting, Mr. Speaker.

I move the House proceed to public bills and orders. Second reading of Bill 1.

Motion approved.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: On a point of order.

Friday, in very similar circumstances, right after the vote for the committee to rise, I asked you about the wording of rule 45(3) on page 18. I specify on page 18 because there is more than one rule 45(3). It seems to have been thoroughly misnumbered.

In that rule it says:

"At the conclusion of the 45 sittings or the conclusion of the 135 hours contemplated under this standing order, whichever shall last occur, the Chairman of the Committee of Supply shall forthwith put all questions necessary to carry every vote and item of each estimate, such questions not being subject to amendment or debate."

I asked you, Mr. Speaker, on Friday and I ask you again for a definition of "shall forthwith put all questions." I ask you this not to comment on what took place in committee, but simply under the general heading of rule 9 of your duties whereby you're charged with keeping order and directing the House generally.

It appears, Mr. Speaker, that "shall forthwith put all questions" precludes other motions coming from Members on the floor, just as in this rule where it states that "the Chairman shall then report" we cannot have points of order or discussions or motions at that time. In every other rule, the word "shall" indicated that the person charged will carry out the duty indicated. It's obligatory on him.

We have gone into the 46th sitting, we have risen and reported to you, and the requirements of 45(3) have not been filled. I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to accept the question that I put last Friday, which is to ask the unanimous consent of the House to suspend the operations of rule 45. Unless we do that, we are continuing in what I think is a very regrettable error; we are ignoring the wording of the rules of the House and we are doing this without the unanimous consent of the Members. If we continue to do this by majority votes of this government, this entire rule book becomes totally redundant and useless. The whole rules upon which we base our debate....

MR. SPEAKER: I wish the Hon. Member would confine himself to the point of order and not tell us of the dire prospects until we've looked at the question.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, Mr. Speaker....

MR. SPEAKER: I think the House will certainly agree that when the hour of adjournment comes, that is a supervening rule or order of the House at any time that that occurs. I think we can all agree that much. Are you suggesting that the House goes on indefinitely without stop?

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Then your use of the word "forthwith" in the election counting by returning officers doesn't seem to mean that from definitions of that.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, you made that point perfectly clear last Friday.

MR. SPEAKER: I get the point.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The point, however, is this: we have gone back into committee. Although there is an intervening period of some 76, 77 or 78 hours, nevertheless we are back in committee. It was my understanding that the wording of rule 45, which is not a good rule — it's a rule I oppose — states that the Chairman of the Committee of Supply "shall forthwith put all questions necessary to pass all the estimates." This has not been done.

You are charged, Mr. Speaker, with the general overseeing of what takes place in this House and the examination of the rules. You are the final authority we have in terms of interpretation. It appears to me that the time has come for you to take up the question which I put to you on Friday at 1 o'clock and tell us precisely what this rule means. I'm sure the government would be happy to ignore the rule.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I would ask, too, that you take this under advisement. I would appreciate your coming back to the House with a written report as to the....

Interjections.

[ Page 2252 ]

HON. MR. BARRETT: You can't have it done in a recess. I suggest....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I'm suggesting that I think that the matter should be clarified. I think that I would ask that you come back to the House with a written explanation of it. I agree with the Member. But I don't wish that the House continue being obstructed, and I'm sure that that's not the intention of the Members.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: No.

HON. MR. BARRETT: In terms of what the Member is suggesting, I would also support that the Speaker, indeed, take this under advisement and report back to the House exactly the interpretation of it.

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out to the Hon. Members that standing order 62, which has been long standing in the history of parliaments, makes it very clear that when the House is in Committee of the Whole House, a motion for the Chairman to leave the chair shall always be in order and shall take precedence over any other motion and shall not be debatable. This motion, if rejected, cannot be renewed unless some intermediate proceeding has taken place. I realize that there wasn't a motion but....

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: That wasn't the point.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm trying to point out the difficulties that have to be considered by the Chair. It's not a thing that takes a snap five-minute judgment. I think you must realize that there are several things contesting here; one is the right of the Committee of the Whole House to order its own affairs so far as its rising and sitting is concerned; secondly, the powers of the House to determine how long the committee shall sit and rise and whether the only possibility is that the meaning of 45(a) is "forthwith without eating, drinking or sleeping." Surely it doesn't mean that.

Therefore these questions should be canvassed with considerable study and advice from my Clerks. I'd like to do that, take time and report back to the House. In the meantime, perhaps we can get on to other business till that is settled.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, while you're taking this important matter under consideration, may I raise another similar matter which you might wish to address yourself to at the same time?

During the recent few moments, it has been clear that there is an omission in our rules. We have the situation where the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, perhaps acting in error, ignores a call for a division or ignores a Member who is rising on a point of order and then turns and reports to the Speaker. You have indicated that once that has occurred, the House has no power to deal with that matter. It seems to me that when such an event shall occur, the House should be afforded the opportunity when it is brought to the Speaker's attention to address itself to that matter. If that is not the case, Mr. Speaker, then a chairman in error or a chairman who acts other than the impartial way in which the chairman is always expected to act could, in fact, trample upon the rights of the opposition; indeed, he could trample upon the rights of the government. I think that that would be an inappropriate omission from our rules. I think that if you would give consideration to that and advise this House as to what steps we must take to assure ourselves that the rules do not prevent us from bringing forward to you, Sir, an obvious error on the part of the Chairman and rectifying that forthwith....

MR. SPEAKER: I'll take a note of that but I....

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, in rising to ask that the matter be considered, I would like to point out that it is my understanding that when there is a question of the chairman of the Committee of the Whole House not having acted properly or having missed something in the committee, there are two remedies.

One remedy is to ask by the House Leader or the government side, or perhaps even by the Leader of the Opposition, in an honourable fashion, that the rules of the House be suspended to go back to committee — not by motion, but by asking leave. If, however, that is not the course, then the one other time that I recall in this House that the same matter was raised related to the former Hon. Mr. Mathews who was a deputy chairman and who, as I recall, issued the complaint to the point of a substantive motion.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that in that kind of issue there are two approaches: one, through asking leave, not by motion; secondly, if not satisfied, by substantive motion. However, I do agree with the Member that there is a gap and I would ask, too, that you give that serious consideration for the Members of this House.

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out to the Hon. Members that there was a Speaker's decision some years ago which made it clear that there is no right

[ Page 2253 ]

for the Committee of the Whole House to have reached decisions recorded in the House or in the House Journals. It is only done by the unanimous leave of the House, as you know, when we put that request to the House. Therefore, it's not a question of rights that have been established so much as unanimous leave that is respected by all Members. I think it's a good practice that we respect the right of the Committee of the Whole House to record its position — not just for this House but for the people of the country. I'll take both those questions under consideration and report back to the House. May we get on with the business, now?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Second reading of Bill 1, Mr. Speaker.

PERPETUITIES ACT

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I have pleasure in introducing for second reading Bill 1, Perpetuities Act. I wish at once to assure Hon. Members that this is not a bill to perpetuate the life of this government...

AN HON. MEMBER: Thank God for that!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...the people will do that. I have to say that this bill is an Act to protect the unborn widow...

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): What's an unborn widow?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...to give a new lease on life to the fertile octogenarian and to clean up the decision in the Magic gravel pit case.

Having given that explanation, further explanations ought to wait until this bill receives clause-by-clause consideration by Hon. Members in Committee of the Whole House. At that time the opportunity for each of us to take a short law course in the law of perpetuities will be unlimited. I therefore move second reading of Bill 1.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the remarks of the Hon. Attorney-General in introducing this bill for second reading, I am waiting in great suspense to hear what he has to say when we start discussing it clause by clause in committee, because, if I followed his remarks correctly, he didn't say a thing in introducing second reading.

HON. P.F. YOUNG (Minister of Consumer Services): He said it well.

MR. SMITH: Oh yes, I agree, he said it very well. But he really didn't introduce anything in the way of the principle of this bill, and it had very little to do with anything we have before us. However, I do agree with the Hon. Attorney-General that this type of bill can best be discussed in committee stage. There are some clauses on which we would certainly like a more adequate explanation than what we received from the Minister when he introduced it for second reading. But we do believe that the bill can best be discussed in the committee stage when we deal with it clause by clause.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, I am very cheered to see that the proposed legislation is based upon a model Act of the Uniform Law Conference, and that there's a possibility they could perhaps assist the Legislature and the Attorney-General.

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: That's where it comes from — the interpretation of the statute.

This is a branch of an extremely difficult and complicated area of the law. I do feel very strongly that as an aid to this Legislature, the Hon. Attorney-General should file with the Legislature, and all interested Members, copies of the Uniform Law Conference paper dealing with the topic, also the raison d'etre for the legislation because that is not explained in the explanatory note, is not explained by the Attorney-General.

So, in essence, anyone who will either vote for or against this bill will be voting totally in the dark, and I don't think that's the legitimate responsibility of an elected representative.

There are very few practitioners who are aware of this extremely complicated topic. The general public are totally unaware of it. I think there has been one member of the Attorney-General's staff, a member of the Attorney-General's staff of this province for no end of years, who has become considerably expert in this very unique and extremely small field.

I think the Attorney-General would be best serving this Legislature and all Members here if he would kindly furnish some information. I don't think it's enough at this point just to say, "Here's the bill; I don't know what it means. It's bound to mean something for the good of some people, unborn widows," and say, "Okay, we can intelligently make an assessment at this point in time."

MR. WALLACE: I was much encouraged by the comments from the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey because, first of all, I can't understand what the bill's all about and, secondly, our caucus is a little short on lawyers. (Laughter.) I do feel that the language is very technical and the Attorney-General, whose sense of humour is so often very much

[ Page 2254 ]

appreciated on this side of the House, I think today has tended to go just beyond the mark, going from being humourous to being a little...

AN HON. MEMBER: Facetious.

MR. WALLACE: ...well, even more than facetious, perhaps a little conceited towards this House. This is a fairly lengthy and complicated bill. I would like to encourage fertile octogenarians, too — it's good for the medical profession — but I don't see them defined in the bill. I just think, with the greatest of respect, that the Attorney-General owes this House just a little more in general terms for the layman like myself to try and understand this bill and study it further. I would hope we could have that before we have to vote either for or against it on second reading.

MR. GIBSON: As a layman anxious to scuttle off to the library and study the law, I would just ask the Attorney-General, when he closes debate on second reading, if he could be good enough to give us the place where the Magic gravel pit case is reported.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I would like to go into this very deeply on second reading. However, I will take my place very quickly in breathless anticipation of hearing the Hon. Attorney-General explain to us the uncommon law of perpetuities and how it will be changed by this legislation.

MR. MORRISON: I would like the Attorney-General, in closing the debate, to advise, since this is Bill 1 and traditionally Bill 1 dies on the order paper, if he's just having a little fun this afternoon in trying to bring the House back to order, or if he's deadly serious — and I underline that word "deadly."

HON. MR. MACDONALD: In winding up the debate...

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Member winds up the debate.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...on this exciting bill...

MR. SPEAKER: I'm supposed to say that.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...if I can give a little explanation of the law of perpetuities, I will try.

If somebody leaves an estate or a property for other people, to have that vested in them in the future, the courts will strike down such a bequest, or such a trust, if it might vest in somebody who is now unborn.... It has to vest in the life of somebody who's now living, or 21 years thereafter.

The Magic gravel pit case is an example. The father left the gravel pit to grandchildren to develop housing property thereon when the gravel pit was exhausted. But in theory that gravel pit could have perpetually, one pebble at a time, been excavated. So the court, under a very technical and ancient rule of law, struck down the entire gift.

In the case of the fertile octogenarian; everybody knows that he can't have further life or lives in being. Isn't that true...for the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) to agree upon? We all know that octogenarians do not bear children; but as they might be able to bear children, gifts of that kind have been stricken down by the courts.

So what this bill is doing is creating some certainty in a difficult field of law by saying that if the thing can vest within 80 years, no further word. Then the other principle in the bill is to eliminate, or rather to institute, the wait-and-see rule, so that in the Magic gravel pit case the court would say: "Yes, that might vest so far into the future that the court will strike it down, but we're going to wait for the occasion to see whether, in fact, that improbability has occurred." So the court will not immediately strike it down; it will wait and see.

That, basically, is the explanation of this bill which, as the Hon. Member said, has come up through the throes of the uniformity commissioners.

Bill 1, Perpetuities Act, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. L.T. NIMSICK (Minister of Mines): Second reading of Bill 2 intituled Patients' Estates Amendment Act.

PATIENTS' ESTATES
AMENDMENTS ACT

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this bill does add an additional person who can certify that somebody is mentally incapable or physically incapable, for that matter, after a serious accident — somebody in a coma or something of that kind — of protecting their own property. On proper notice to the public trustee, such a designated person, who has to be a medical practitioner, can make an adjudication without, as now is the case, the person either being confined to a provincial mental institution, in which case the director is automatically the trustee of that person's assets, or taking the other road, having to undergo a court application with affidavits and some delay and a great deal of expense when perhaps the estate is a very small one and going to a judge to make that declaration. At the present time, the public trustee has quite a few of these applications per month and he's not a doctor.

[ Page 2255 ]

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: How many?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: About 30 or 40 a month. Most of them are still automatic.

At the same time the bill enlarges the appeal procedure to make it clear that in the three possible cases where a person might be declared incapable of managing his affairs (the first, of course, is because they have entered a provincial mental institution; the second is that they have gone to court and they have been so adjudged by a judge; and the third is if the doctor acts under this provision) the opportunity for appeal of that order is widened and all three cases can be appealed. That appears in section 5 of the Act. Under section 2, section 5, which is the appeal section, is amended so that there is an appeal in any of these three cases.

There are occasions, of course, where an elderly person becomes mentally incompetent and their estate is in danger — sometimes from relatives, sometimes from hucksters or salesmen — and the relatives, with the best will in the world, even though it's a very small estate, must now take a very circuitous and difficult route to protect that estate, but I think we have broadened the appeal provisions.

I move second reading of this bill.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, in speaking to second reading of this bill, I believe we will support the principle of this particular Act, but there are a couple of questions which I'd like the Attorney-General to address his thoughts to before closing second reading of this bill.

The first is the fact that the explanatory notes attached to the bill indicate, at least to me, that the office of the public trustee is overworked — at least, this is the impression that I get from reading the explanation — and that that is one of the reasons you require an appointment of a designated medical examiner under this particular Act. I'd like to ask the Attorney-General what he contemplates in terms of appointments of medical practitioners under this Act. Is it to be one person who will work in harmony with the public trustee, or do you contemplate the appointment of a number of medical practitioners? I would also like to ask the Attorney-General his definition of what constitutes a medical practitioner in the Province of British Columbia. Is there any specific certification that you are looking for other than the approval of their own college of physicians and surgeons?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: A member of that.

MR. SMITH: A member of that particular college, yes.

I hope he will give assurance to the House that this is not a means of building up another bureaucracy outside of the office of the public trustee in terms of medical practitioners who will be appointed by some means to act on behalf of that particular office. It does seem that it's a good idea to have medical advisers or practitioners available to assist the public trustee in dealing with this type of work because much of it is of a nature that a public trustee ordinarily, unless he were a medically qualified and trained man in this particular area, would not be that familiar with.

I think those are the only remarks I would like to make at this time, and I would just like to have the assurance of the Attorney-General as to what he has in mind with respect to the appointment of medical practitioners to serve as part and parcel of this Act — he has already explained how he determines a medical practitioner — and the assurance that it is not to build up another bureaucracy within a bureaucracy.

MR. GARDOM: Just an observation to the Hon. Attorney-General. Under the Patients' Estates Act as it now reads, a person may be certified following a certificate signed by a director of a provincial mental health facility as defined in the Mental Health Act...

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Only if you are in there.

MR. GARDOM: That's right...or by the officer in charge of a psychiatric unit so defined. That is correct. That deals with people who happen to be hospitalized at the point of time. But all of the expertise is within that facility in order to duly inform the director or the officer in charge, so they have a great deal of expertise to come to them.

The other provision under the Act, which is one which I think has worked successfully over the years, is to have it as a requirement that two duly qualified practitioners set forth their opinion and affidavit.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: And to court.

MR. GARDOM: That's right. And what you have substituted here is that the third one is a medical practitioner as designated by yourself. But it is peculiar to me, Mr. Attorney-General, why we are going to have the double standard: it is necessary to have the opinion of two qualified practitioners tested judicially, yet under your proposed amendment here, one single individual, providing that individual is designated by your government, would be in a position to certify or decertify. I fail to see the logic of that. I fail to see the logic of that point.

I notice that you have expanded the right of appeal...and my apologies for interjecting when you were speaking, but I thought you were referring to section 5 of your amendment and you were referring, indeed, to section 5 of the statute. You

[ Page 2256 ]

have amended that to enlarge the right of appeal but I don't really think that is enough. I can't understand why you are proposing this inconsistency. I think there is a valid argument for you to take the position that you can go the route other than a court route via, say, a designated physician. But should it not be via the opinions of two, the same as the court route? In this one, we don't even have the opportunity for the individual or his next of kin to challenge the matter judicially, which one does have in — what will I say — the "independent" certifications. To me, unless I am missing the point, or perhaps unless you have not explained it to us to the extent of the material that you have, it seems to me that you have an inconsistency and an unnecessary inconsistency. It is not improving anything in my view, save and except, perhaps, making an easier route. But in making it an easier route are we not at the same time depriving people of some of the checks and balances that have existed heretofore in the law?

Of course, this can be an extremely serious thing. If we happen to have the situation which can happen...doctors, lawyers, like anyone else in society, can have their unbalanced times. It would certainly be very unfortunate, in my view, if we ever ran into the situation in which we were rubber-stamping people into hospitals under these kinds of circumstances. I am afraid that, with all respect, Mr. Attorney-General, enough thought has not been given to this point.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It has nothing to do with putting them in hospitals.

MR. GARDOM: Well, certifying them. They end up in hospitals.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: They may or may not.

MR. GARDOM: Mr. Attorney-General, your head note reads, "To Certification and Decertification." You are granting that to a single practitioner to make that choice and that decision.

The second point, Mr. Attorney-General, is that I commend the amendment referred to in section 4 of the proposed bill before us today, that the public trustee is to have due notice of all applications to a judge and of every appeal under the Act, but I cannot see a similar protection being extended on these single certification steps.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It's for challenging.

MR. GARDOM: But, Mr. Attorney-General, the reason for you putting in the notice section is to provide notice. Court records are public documents, at least. You are just saying that the court registry shall phone the public trustee or there is a responsibility under your amendment to serve the public trustee. I think that is fine and dandy. I think it is certainly going to increase their workload.

Apropos of the question of the Member from Peace, the workload of the public trustee in the City of Vancouver is certainly very, very onerous indeed. I think something has got to be done there to provide a great deal of assistance. They are doing a first-class job, but they are understaffed and they are certainly not going to have the mechanics to process the procedure that you have encompassed here without some degree of enrichment from your good office.

I would ask you to take a second look at this thing. I think the concept is okay, but I think it should certainly be parallel and similar to the provisions under the statute as they now exist — not one doctor but two.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I think there are few responsibilities that fall upon a physician that can give him or her more deep concern than the power to say, state and commit in writing himself or herself to the opinion that a person is incapable, either physically or mentally, of making decisions, particularly in dealing with their own affairs. You're not in practice very long as a general practitioner before you run into cases where you have the most difficult challenge in trying to determine the validity of the evidence that's been presented to you by relatives. Many times evidence is presented in utter good faith; they are completely genuine in concern for their relatives. Yet as the physician, you often go and talk to the patient who may have relatively clear moments or clear days, and you just find it very difficult to accept the evidence you have had second-hand from friends or relatives.

[Mr. D'Arcy in the chair.]

So first of all, I don't think we can ever run the risk in this House or in legislation of overlooking the tremendous deprivation of individual rights that can result from a physician making a certain statement about the physical or mental capacity of an individual.

The point made by the Second Member for Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) is absolutely right: each doctor has his good days and his bad days and makes mistakes. Therefore, I personally don't feel that it is right to give this much power, even with the best intentions, to one physician.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that if this bill becomes law, the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) will have some considerable difficulty getting the number of volunteers or appointees as physicians, because I know that there is no way that I would be happy as a physician on my own, in certain

[ Page 2257 ]

cases, to be given that much authority to determine whether or not a person is capable of making certain decisions regarding their property or their assets. Time and time again in medical practice I've been very grateful for the legislation which now exists whereby there has to be a fellow practitioner agreeing with the original physician's opinion.

In very specific terms, as the Minister knows, when physicians certify a patient, what happens is not just some bland general statement that they think the patient is mentally disordered. One has to state in fairly specific terms the evidence you have yourself witnessed or elicited from the patient which leads you to believe that this patient is not mentally capable of making responsible decisions.

In conjunction with the reasons I have quoted would give me concern, I am disturbed by the explanatory note which says: "This is intended to relieve some of the load on the Public Trustee who at present deals with many applications a month...."

If I have to be very blunt about it, Mr. Attorney-General, I think it's much more important that individuals don't run the risk of being wrongly certified than that we take sympathy for the physical administrative load of the public trustee. If the explanatory note applied to section 1 is the primary motive for bringing this bill into the House, then I have to say, with the greatest respect, that it is completely unjustified in terms of the risk you are creating in having that much authority placed in the hands of one physician.

We've joked about octogenarians and so on this afternoon but I must say that in practice these days dealing with very elderly persons is more and more a problem facing physicians. It is not by any means always clear-cut as to when a person has lost the capacity to make responsible decisions in light of their arteriosclerosis or other aging processes. If I could just add to that, there have been times when I have decided that certification would be justified, then asked a second opinion. The second physician goes and sees the patient at a time when he or she has one of these brighter moments and comes back to the first physician and says that we can't certify this patent. Yet perhaps 12 hours later or 24 hours later, a re-examination would show a different set of circumstances.

I am very concerned at the suggestion in this bill that one designated physician, with all the good will in the world, is going to make, sooner or later, some very serious mistakes as they affect the rights of certain individuals.

Now if there were some more pressing reason than the administrative load on the public trustee, I might be willing to reconsider. But in light of my own experience, not only in British Columbia but elsewhere, and the very serious approach which physicians take to this very unpleasant responsibility very often, I really have to ask the Attorney-General, as did the Member for Vancouver-Point Grey, to reconsider. Is the risk involved in giving this responsibility to one physician justified if, in fact, it is being done to relieve the administrative load on the public trustee? I think there are better ways to do it.

I am never very happy, in fact I never will be happy, where one physician is given this kind of authority, and I regret that I have to oppose the reading in second reading.

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

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Hon. Members. There are other reasons, of course, that are set out in the explanatory note. If an estate were, say, $1,000, of an elderly person, and they were not confined in a provincial mental institution, then the relatives would have to directly, or through the public trustee, apply to the court, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, in a very complicated and expensive legal proceeding.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, it is expensive. It would use up the $1,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, no.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Come on now!

MR. GARDOM: Oh, where have you been?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I've been around looking at legal bills, and I'm inclined to think that in many cases that kind of an application would run very close to....

MR. GARDOM: About $150.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Oh, well, some people will do that, okay. But an awful lot.... Many times it is more expensive. Even the service charges are very considerable. You've got to serve a number of people. I think it would be more than that, Mr. Member.

I make this other distinction: first, the expense in a small estate; secondly, the delay, which would be — what, 10 days? Possibly. All right. Then I'll come on to the other thing. Secondly the delay — thirdly the suggestion that it should be two doctors.

Unfortunately it is a pretty big province, and one of the things about the public trustee's office is that he is kind of available in the lower mainland. I would say, in answer to the Member for North Peace River (Mr. Smith), that the appointments should be very

[ Page 2258 ]

limited, and they should be psychiatrists. They'd mostly be in the public service, members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, psychiatric training, limited in appointment numbers — but to some extent dispersed through the province, because that's part of the present problem.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Now you ask why it shouldn't be two. But you are talking about two certifying a patient for compulsory admission to a mental institution, and that's not what I'm talking about. We're talking about an order that might preserve, pending a court review if anybody wants it, the patient's estate. Now both of them are an onerous kind of task to put up to a doctor. But protecting the property for a short period, particularly in small estates, without having to go through the whole legal machinery, is something that I am advised by the public trustee can be done with safety, can be watched carefully and the appointments will be very limited in number. But there are occasions when that estate can be bilked, and I think we have all heard about them. You know, there are cases of that kind; so I think we should be able to protect these people as best we can, and this legislation is a proposal in that direction.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Of course there are.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, but I again make the point that when you talk about the two doctors you are talking about the committal proceeding to a mental institution.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Not in this — in the original Act.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, and when they're in there, the director is the custodian of their property. But I'm talking about somebody outside of a provincial mental institution whose property may be in need of protection; and much as that Hon. Member would like to see everything go to court, there are people who should be protected who have neither the means nor the time.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: In some circumstances, to undergo that route. I move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division.

YEAS — 27

NAYS — 17

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

Bill 2, Patients' Estates Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, second reading of Bill 3.

PUBLIC TRUSTEE AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this bill, the Public Trustee Amendment Act, provides that the public trustee can be named in a will as an executor. That's just a minor change, but it's a useful change because there are estates where somebody wants to name a public body, and to go to a trust company is not warranted by the size of the estate. This can now be done.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Okay. Now what's the second point about this bill? And this one is absolutely hilarious.

MR. GARDOM: You missed the other one.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I missed the other one

[ Page 2259 ]

completely.

This one is that the public trustee — he does receive complaints from time to time — can monitor an estate where an infant or a mentally incompetent person is involved. At the present time he has to wait, listen to the complaints and hope the relatives might take the thing into court before it is too late. But if he does receive a complaint of this kind, he should be able to intervene at the earliest possible moment and ask the executor or the trustee or whoever is administering that estate on behalf of an infant or somebody not able to look after their own affairs: "Will you please bring in the books and show us that you are properly administering that estate, that you have secured the necessary bonds, that your bonds are in good shape, and that there is no danger that that estate might be misused?" So, on that basis and with that explanation, I move second reading of the bill.

MR. SMITH: It is perhaps a good thing to allow the public trustee to now be named as an executor of an estate, rather than having it the way it was before.

But the one part of this bill to which I think we take strong exception is this matter of the public trustee monitoring an estate on behalf of an infant or a mentally disordered person, particularly this matter of a mentally disordered person. I think that particular phrase is certainly open to challenge, Mr. Attorney-General, because the phrase "mentally disordered" is not defined. Hence, the government could, I suppose, if they wanted, use this section as a means of directly investigating any kind of trust in British Columbia simply by stating that, in its opinion, a person who may be a beneficiary may be mentally disordered. I hardly think, or at least I would hope that was not the Attorney-General's intent in providing this section. Yet, unless you use some definitive means of setting out the conditions which will apply before someone is considered incompetent or mentally disordered, you certainly leave it open to the suspicion by the public that unilaterally the government could come to that decision and investigate a trust under that guise for whatever reason they themselves might have in mind.

I think the section should be tightened so that the public trustee could only launch such an investigation upon being satisfied of a minimum set of circumstances, and those circumstances should be spelled out within the statute. He should have to show just cause before a judge of the courts, and get an order before he was allowed to use the provisions of this Act to investigate an estate on behalf of a so-called mentally disordered person.

I do believe that you again have allowed yourself too much latitude, or at least too much latitude in this respect to the public trustee acting on behalf of the government in the right of the Crown. It would leave itself open to abuse — if not actually, at least the type of abuse that the public at large suspect may be the result of government action.

I believe that this is the area you should have defined more closely.

I am certainly going to listen with keen interest when the Attorney-General closes second reading on this particular bill.

MR. GARDOM: Nice to see you in the chair this afternoon.

The bill contains two principles, Mr. Speaker. The first is one, as the Hon. Attorney-General has indicated, that enlarges the powers of a public trustee. I think the Hon. Members have got to remember that a public trustee can only act within the legislative powers he is given. This is enlarging his powers and giving him the opportunity, if people so choose, to nominate him in a will, in an agreement or what-have-you, or under a trust so that he can participate. This would be according to the wishes of those people who would be making the trust agreement, or the individual who would be preparing the will. It similarly grants the court somewhat larger powers than it had before to nominate the public trustee under the circumstances mentioned. I think that is a valid measure. It is one that is long overdue.

Dealing with his power to investigate and audit the affairs and dealings of a trust involving infants or people who are mentally disordered, it is a discretionary order. I don't really envisage this as being an extension of the concept of Big Brother, somewhat to the extent of the last speaker. I think this again is a needful protection for individuals who are infants and individuals who are suffering mental disorders — that there can be an independent check and balance of the financial affairs. It could be initiated, I presume, by any interested individual upon approaching the trustee, or the public trustee could initiate it on his own volition — so that doesn't distress me.

However, one thing has distressed me over the years, and that is: what remedy is there for the general public against the incompetence of a public trustee? In order to support this premise, I would indicate to the Hon. Attorney-General a specific instance. This was a public trustee in one of the hinterland offices; the individual in question just did not do his job. He was thoroughly incapable and I gather eventually was dismissed from office. But in the intervening period he took on an estate of a fair amount of dollars. I've forgotten the precise amount; it doesn't make too much difference. He did not choose to effectively administer that estate. The money wasn't wasted, it wasn't taken away, but he just didn't do his job. He sold the assets, he gathered them in and he let them sit in his desk or in a bank account for the better part of a year and a half.

[ Page 2260 ]

During the intervening period, one of the beneficiaries died. As it happened, the beneficiaries in question were individuals who were outside of the jurisdiction of this province. They lived in a foreign country. One of the beneficiaries died. This estate was hit by the tax gatherer — the first estate that the public trustee was administering — and it paid its provincial succession duties. At that point in time it paid its federal estate tax too. So it did everything it was supposed to do as far as the tax gatherer was concerned.

Had the public trustee done his job and at that point transmitted the funds to the beneficiaries, there wouldn't have been a reason for a complaint. But there was. A beneficiary died and then it was adjudicated right through to the federal court of Canada that there had to be a second tax because of the failure, in essence, of this public trustee for the Province of British Columbia to administer. The beneficiaries ended up with I think a $9,000 shortfall. That's just not right.

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: Oh, no. No, not the present trustee. I made that point earlier. I said he was discharged — he's no longer a public trustee. No, no, he's no longer a public trustee. He was discharged, I believe, before your term of office commenced. I may be wrong on that, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that by virtue of the negligence and the non-performance of this public servant, these people have suffered a $9,000 loss and they are essentially without remedy. I think the Act should be beefed up to provide protection for people who have suffered that kind of a wrong. There would have never ever been this double taxation had this man attended to his P's and Q's and done his job. Instead he sat on his oars for a year and a half and people died, then they were faced with double taxation and an extra $9,000-odd. That's just not fair. There is not any provision within existing legislation to provide protection for those kinds of people. Maybe if the Hon. Attorney-General would be prepared to look at it from an order-in-council point of view, I'd be delighted to bring that to the attention of the beneficiary.

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: I say from an order-in-council point of view for assistance, because that would be the only remedy that would be open to them now. It would have to be a discretionary matter on the part of the cabinet.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I join with the two previous speakers in congratulating the Attorney-General on expanding the powers of the public trustee. Such powers have been granted to the public trustee in the Province of Alberta for some years. As a consequence, it has become quite prevalent practice in that jurisdiction for people, when making their wills, to appoint the public trustee in addition to some close friend or member of their family, thereby avoiding what is sometimes a very large expense in appointing some corporate trustee. I'm not criticizing the corporate trustees, but it gives another avenue where some accounting procedures or facilities are available.

However, it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to draw the attention of the Attorney-General to what appears to be a change in the law to which he did not make specific reference in opening this debate. It deals with the first section of the legislation which now appears to give a majority of the beneficiaries of a trust the power to appoint the public trustee to act. That's a situation which does not exist in the law today.

Under the present legislation of this province, the Trustee Act, in the event that the trustee appointed dies or becomes incapable of acting, if the instrument itself provides a method for substituting a trustee, then that must be followed. If there isn't such a method, then the Trustee Act goes on at some length to provide the mechanism by which a new trustee is substituted. But under the first section of this bill — section 2 — it would appear that now the beneficiary — a majority of the beneficiaries — would be able to act in a limited way to appoint the public trustee.

I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily an improper change in the law. But I think it's one that needs to be looked at very carefully, because if you have a number of beneficiaries, all of them of age and all of them capable of acting, it is possible that serious disputes can arise. I'm not sure that the administration of a trust is necessarily best served by the democratic principle so far as the beneficiaries are concerned. Beneficiaries can be in varying degrees and it is possible, on the basis of numbers alone, to interfere seriously with the regulation of the trust. It seems implicit in section 1 that this is now open to beneficiaries to appoint the public trustee. I'd like the Attorney-General to reassure us if that's not the case.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: In looking at the language, in answer to the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound, it would seem to me that this is only if the testator or the settler of a trust originally appointed the public trustee. I don't see it as being an avenue whereby in the case of the death or resignation of a trustee, at that later stage, the public trustee could be substituted for one of the appointed trustees.

Interjection.

[ Page 2261 ]

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I would think the trustee's jurisdiction here originates from the original appointment, under section 8. I'll check that before we get to committee.

The Hon. Member for North Peace River (Mr. Smith) decried the power to investigate here, and admittedly it's not too well defined as to what a mentally disordered person is. It isn't somebody necessarily committed to a provincial mental institution; it isn't somebody necessarily so defined by two doctors. It's somebody in trouble. All the section is doing is giving the public trustee not the power to administer that estate, but to investigate it; to ask them questions; to ask them to produce their books; to order an audit, if necessary. If he's willing to do that — he's not apt to take on many cases just for the heck of it; he's got enough to do — he's done no harm.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I suppose he could, but all he does is investigate the thing. You know, the whole estate is subject to the court anyway. Finally it comes back to court and the accounts are passed, but it's in that intermediate period where somebody is complaining that there's been abuse and, say, the minor or the other person doesn't have a lawyer that's acting for them, and a pretty good case is being made out that that person is being deceived; then the public trustee can ask for information. Basically, that's all the section is saying.

Bill 3, Public Trustee Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. NIMSICK: Second reading of Bill 4.

INVESTMENT CONTRACTS
AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, Bill 4 is another kind of legal bill. I'm inclined to think we're beginning to lose our audience on some of these bills. But it has a kind of an important principle. We have established in this government an appeal tribunal known as the Corporate and Financial Services Commission. We have part-time people on there as well as people who are more fully engaged in governmental work. Under this Act we now make available an appeal to that tribunal. Really, that's all we're doing in the Act. We hope to be, and we will be as we come to the Mortgage Brokers' Act, for example, making that appeal avenue available to the same commission. It's kind of a good thing that people with problems under this Act now have an avenue of appeal.

I think it's working well. They've had quite a few cases. They've given written reasons on occasion, and it's a competent commission.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, they don't have to, I don't think, give written reasons. I'd have to go back to the original Act. I don't think so, but under the Securities Act they've been fairly busy, and they should be busy under some of these other statutes of the Legislature where heretofore people did not have a proper recourse.

Bill 4, Investment Contracts Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. NIMSICK: Second reading of Bill 5.

ADMINISTRATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: In support of this bill, generally speaking, it is correcting some difficulties in wording, which I'll explain in committee if pressed, and it is also providing that in certain cases, namely that of infants and persons who are incapable, the public trustee should receive all the court documents as notice so that he can carefully vet and protect the interests of those people. So it's basically improving the service provisions that are in the present Act in respect to the public trustee having notice and the beneficiaries having notice, although that isn't changed from this Act.

In committee there will be an amendment to the last section of the bill because we think that isn't too well worded at the present time and I think an amendment is on the order paper.

I move second reading.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, there's just one thing within this particular bill that I would like to draw to the attention of the Attorney-General. I presume he's as much aware of it as I am, and that is this matter of sending out notices under this particular section by regular mail. They "must be mailed," as it says in some of these sections.

I wonder if the Attorney-General has given any thought to the idea of all notices going out by registered mail. I think this is particularly important today in the light of the experience that most of us have had in receiving and mailing letters and important documents by regular mail within the past number of months. Quite often the service is less than adequate and there seems to be an increasing ability by the postal department to misplace or lose mail for

[ Page 2262 ]

extended periods of time. As a result of that, it might be proper for the Attorney-General to consider notices under this or anything that has to do with the implementation of these sections of the Act, if he included that the notices must go be registered mail rather than just by mail or regular mail.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I'll be glad to have another look at that, although it will be a sad day for this country if, by saying that something should not be served by regular mail, our mail service has fallen into such disrepute or into such a state of negligence that you can't count in the ordinary way on that kind of a notice being delivered. That would be a sad day. If we've arrived at that point perhaps the answer is not to change this Act but to improve our postal services.

I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Bill 5, Administration Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, second reading of Bill 6.

CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS
AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this little bill, which I think will probably be explained in relation to Bill 7 at more length, perhaps, if Members desire, by the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich), who is not in his place, is complementary to Bill 7 and would allow the farmers' and women's' institutes to become a cooperative. That's the size of it. It is for various reasons, including the superior kind of organization and even tax reasons on behalf of the members of the institute.

I move second reading.

MR. SMITH: I agree with the Attorney-General that it's a little unfortunate that we couldn't have heard the comments of the Minister of Agriculture on Bill 7 before we dealt with Bill 6, really. I realize that it's approval in principle, and the thing that runs through my mind is the question as to who initiated the request for this. Was it members of the Farmers' Institute themselves, or are they having some problem with their own member organizations not keeping their registrations up? Is there some problem in that respect? While I don't oppose the principle of the bill in second reading, I think it would be interesting for all of us to have had an opportunity to listen to the Minister of Agriculture prior to being asked to approve second reading of this bill, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, in closing the debate, I'm sure that will be explained by the Minister of Agriculture that this legislation is at the request of the institute.

Motion approved.

Bill 6, Co-operative Associations Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. NIMSICK: Second reading of Bill 8.

LIMITATIONS ACT

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, The Limitations Act is to introduce a measure of....

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, that is the Minister of Agriculture.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We are discussing Bill 8.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. Bill 8, Mr. Speaker, is an attempt which has gone on for a long period of time to introduce some simplicity into the general law of limitations. At the present time it is a wilderness of differing times and conditions under which somebody can assert their rights in court. We have cut through the thickets with basically a two-year limitation period.

Now you need some exceptions even to that. If Hon. Members have done their homework and they have read the report of the Law Reform Commission of British Columbia of 1974 (and I'm sure they have, Mr. Speaker) they will find that the question of transition the question of some exceptions, becomes something that has to receive attention. So even this bill isn't all that small.

I might say I am prepared, on this bill, to listen to particular sections so that it may be that in committee we will take another look at them. I have lots of representations, for example, from municipalities in relation to applying the two-year limitation upon suits against municipalities. I have been kind of receptive to the representations that have been made because there can be a difficulty in reassembling the evidence after a period of time without any notice to the municipalities. We are looking at a possible solution to that kind of a problem.

Then, in the case of fraudulent breaches of trust, of course, you enter into an entirely different field,

[ Page 2263 ]

where somebody is deliberately pulling the wool over somebody else's eyes in order to induce them not to take action within two years, or hiding the situation from them. There, obviously, the two years is not adequate. So there are exceptions, but generally it will be welcomed as, on-the-whole, a simple, understandable rule.

As I say, it is subject to listening by particular sections, although I don't suppose they are totally in order in the debate on principle. I would be glad to hear about them with a view to possible amendments.

I move second reading.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): The Hon. Attorney-General, in introducing this bill for second reading, has touched on one point which I do wish to raise. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that when we are dealing with legislation, which is essentially the province of those who have been legally trained, then we laymen step in with a little fear and trepidation. Nonetheless, I hope that the Minister will do more than listen to the municipalities with respect to the impact that Bill 8, as presently written and presented to this House, will have on local government.

If I may cite what I believe to be an accurate and very straightforward example, we have a man or woman named Jones proceeding along the street, stumbling on a broken curb, suffering some injuries, and deciding that really the municipality or regional district is at fault. Under the existing legislation, it was necessary for this person named Jones to take certain action within a certain length of time. If it carries as presently drawn, then this person has a much longer time in which to notify the municipality or the regional district — the area of local government concerned — that in fact he or she did stumble on the sidewalk and suffer painful injuries which resulted in treatments for a sore back and so on for a number of months. In the meantime, as the Attorney-General must realize, in the specific which I cite for you the municipality in the course of normal maintenance may well have come along and repaired the curb, the sidewalk, the pothole, whatever. So the evidence has disappeared.

I can't make it any more straightforward than that, again, speaking as a layman, but as one who has some knowledge of the problems associated with local government and frivolous actions which are occasionally taken against local government. If that one example is in here, there may be many, many more.

I took the liberty of referring this to a well-known and, I consider, very knowledgeable, municipal solicitor in British Columbia. He does agree that the section — and I realize we are discussing the bill in principle — of the bill which directly changes sections of the Municipal Act will, to quote him, "very seriously interfere with the protection presently afforded to municipalities and which they have enjoyed for many years."

Section 738 of the Municipal Act, Mr. Speaker, provides that all actions against a municipality for the unlawful doing of anything purporting to have been done by such municipality under powers conferred by an Act of the Legislature must be commenced within six months after the cause of the action first arose, and that all other actions against a municipality shall be commenced within one year after the cause of such action.

Section 739 of the Municipal Act provides that a municipality is in no case liable for damages until notice in writing setting forth the time, the place and the manner in which such damage was sustained is given to the municipality within two months after the date on which the damage was sustained. That section also provides that the want or insufficiency of the notice is not a bar to the maintenance of an action if, in the opinion of the court, there is reasonable excuse for such want or insufficiency.

Now in these instances, in the example which I set out for the Attorney-General, perhaps two months is fair, or some other relatively short period. But I do urge upon the Attorney-General and those who advise him in this matter to very carefully examine the impact on local government and, hopefully, to amend the bill in committee stage in order that we can avoid the very serious impediment in the reasonable operation of a municipality or regional district in dealing with individuals who rightly or not rightly claim to have encountered some difficulty as a result of an oversight of carelessness on the part of a municipality.

I can't speak to the balance of the bill with any great assistance to those learned gentlemen in here who carry law degrees, but I do point out this particular problem, and emphasize again the need for very careful study of this in the local government context.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. GARDOM: I'm very happy to see that this Attorney-General has taken it upon himself to give consideration to reform in this rather difficult and complicated area. I'm somewhat cheered to see that it's come in nine years since it was first raised in this House. I have a degree of personal experience on that point because I remember I raised it first in this House, way back in 1966. We had a plethora of limitation periods; the law was quite uncertain and there was certainly a necessity for an improvement.

As I must mention in taking a look at this statute, Mr. Speaker, that there is something wrong with our process here today. It's this: this covers such a multitude of matters — it talks about injury to people, defamation, trespass, false imprisonment,

[ Page 2264 ]

malicious prosecution. It refers to no end of statutes: the Privacy Act; the Families' Compensation Act; the Bankruptcy Act (Canada) — just to name a few — the Patients' Estates Act; the hydro power authority Act; the limitations under the Labour Relations Act; drainage, diking and development statutes; Industrial Transportation Act; the Laws Declaratory Act; the Railway Act; the Official Guardian Act; the Minimum Wage Act. It pretty well encompasses the bulk of all of the statutory authorities that we have here.

Now this, in my view, is a bill that requires examination of the minutest detail. I do not think that a Committee of the Whole House is the correct form to do that. This is, I think, an area where we could certainly have legislative reform in this province, and a bill such as this should move to an independent committee of the House and be thoroughly examined there. I don't think....

Interjection.

MR. GARDOM: Well, he's referring to the report of the Law Reform Commission.

It should move to an independent committee of the House where it can receive more detailed consideration and certainly more detailed analysis.

I also feel that in view of the fact that the bill is highly complicated and has introduced a number of measures that are somewhat unknown or extremely obscure insofar as the common law is concerned — the confirmation of causes of action, the running of time, the postponements of running of time set forth under the bill — I think the Attorney-General would best serve the people of this province to get this bill into second reading, just let it sit there, and not bring it up until....

HON. MR. MACDONALD: After the election?

MR. GARDOM: Well, if we're going to have an election before you bring that up, I welcome that, so would the people of this province, Mr. Attorney-General. I can tell you one thing, Mr. Attorney-General, they are solid in one aspect — that the NDP will be going out, and you can bet your bottom dollar on that. Seventy-five per cent of the people of this province are not going to go ahead and have their desires and their interests subverted by the minority, and make no mistake of that. So the Hon. Attorney-General would be best serving all of the citizens of this province if he hoisted this bill and let it sit for a period of time — we've had statutes not as complicated as this remain on the books for the better part of nine years — and let more people in the community have an opportunity to consider the measure and come back with valid assessments. I don't think that we will be able, this session, with the Members we have here, to thoroughly analyze this bill and come up with something that would be a successful result.

It is a lawyer's dream, this bill. In fact, it is more of a lawyer's nightmare, as my friend from Victoria has mentioned. It's far more of a lawyer's nightmare and it has introduced a number of uncertainties under the common law and under existing statutory limitation provisions in legislation of this province; it has introduced a number of new matters and a number of contradictions to that which was formerly understood. So, from that viewpoint, I would most seriously request the Attorney-General hoist this bill and not let it proceed any further this session.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): I also approach this bill with some grave concern. The Attorney-General spoke of the present law of limitations as being a wilderness, and there is no question that he is right. It has been allowed to deteriorate into that condition by successive statutory amendments, some interference by judges and lawyers, until the public, who have some rights, are confused on this whole question of limitations. You have successive statutes such as the one mentioned by the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) which gives special rights to municipalities; you have limitations for dentists, limitations for doctors, limitations for engineers, and on and on and on.

But, Mr. Speaker, while I welcome any action on the part of the government to clean up this mess, I am afraid what we have here is that we've got rid of the wilderness and instead, we have now got moors with quicksand and fog mixed up with swamps, snapping alligators and crocodiles. This bill is a worse mess than the present state of the law.

MR. GARDOM: Hear, hear.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: It really is. Now I know the Attorney-General says this and he's quickly thumbing through the report of the Law Reform Commission to get some responses, and he will find them in that report. The problem is that this question has been considered and studied from every possible point of view by lawyers. They wrote that report and you'll see in the report that every province in Canada is involved in a study of the limitation problem by lawyers.

I think that the Member for Saanich (Mr. Curtis) was wrong. He said that he only wanted to speak on that one little narrow part about municipalities and not involve himself with the other intricacies of this bill because he wasn't learned in the law. I think that the limitation problem should be looked at by people who are not lawyers at all, people who would look at it with good, common sense and say: "What is it we

[ Page 2265 ]

have to do?" As the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) says, this is a lawyer's dream Lawyers are going to be able to get richer than eve; before advising on questions of limitation.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, no.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Now the Attorney-General says: "Oh, no, that's not the case." But let me say to you, Mr. Speaker, that in this legislation we have two-year limitations, we have four-year limitations, we have 10-year limitations, we have cases where there are no limitations at all. We also have a situation where the commencement of a two-year, a four-year, or a 10-year limitation can be postponed indefinitely on the happening of certain events. If you look at those events, you will find it depends upon whether an individual goes and gets the proper advice or not. Therefore, the question is going to come up: did that person go and get proper advice and was that advice right? Was that advice right?

Mr. Speaker, it has always seemed to me that this matter of limitations has been viewed much too seriously by lawyers. If you want to have a two-year limitation in particular circumstances, a four-year limitation in others, and a 10-year, limitation in others, say so. Take clear, simple periods of time and then all you have to say is that the limitation begins to run when the person who has a legal right and is seeking a remedy first learns that the right has been breached, or has reasonable grounds upon which to suspect that his rights have been breached and that he has some remedy in the law.

If it's a question as to whether that person has closed his eyes and blinded himself as to when his remedy came to his attention, let that be an issue in the proceedings. When you go before the judge and if the defendant wishes to say to the judge that the plaintiff became aware of this set of circumstances six years ago and hasn't taken any action until today, the judge can consider whether there has been improper delay or whether the circumstances really did bring the remedy to the attention of the plaintiff, and then proceed with the case. If the judge finds that the plaintiff has ignored what was clearly there for him to see, then the thing's all over. The limitation period has had effect. I know there are certain other procedural matters with regard to counter-claims and sell-offs, but they can be adjusted in the rules of court.

Instead of that, we are going through this extremely complicated piece of legislation setting up limitation periods, then setting up exceptions to those limitation periods and exceptions to the exceptions.

This doesn't improve the present state of the law and certainly doesn't help the public know any better what its rights are. They are still going to be under some question as to whether they have to move in two years or four years or 10 years. This bill will do nothing to remedy that situation. The two years could pass and a person could say: "Well, I didn't know that the Legislature had passed this Limitations Act in 1975." Then they will say: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse — you're out of luck."

Then on the question of the postponement.... I don't want to go in to the specific section. I'll do that later, and it's one that the Attorney-General must look at — the question of the power to postpone, depending upon whether a person has taken some kind of advice. How would anyone know whether that person has taken that advice or not? I think, Mr. Speaker, that the learned members of the Law Reform Commission have done their work properly. There is no question of that. You read their report and it is beautiful to read. All their recommendations make good sense to a lawyer — but they don't make good sense to the people who have a right and try to pursue that right and obtain their remedy in the courts of this province. That is what we should be looking at.

I suggest that the Attorney-General have a second reading, if he wants. I think that he could understand what I am saying to him if he would just take this bill to a group of six or 12 members of the general public and sit down and explain to them the problem and them explain to them what his solution is. I am sure those dozen people would say to him: "Mr. Attorney-General, you are not helping us one bit; you are only confusing a confused situation." I think it is time that we took this particular legalism out of the hands of lawyers and got something which was clear and simple and commonsense. Then everybody would know: if I have got an injury, if I have been defrauded, if my property has been stolen, or any other similar right comes on, from the moment I first learn about it I have got six years in which to pursue my remedy. What is simpler than that?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Don't you upset the Member for Saanich and the Islands. You may be in the same party one day.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: What's wrong with six years? I don't happen to agree with the Member for Saanich and the Islands with regard to municipalities.

So the evidence has disappeared. That always is the problem in any kind of a legal action — the production of evidence. It affects the doctors and the dentists in the same way. Maybe that's too long. Four years. Once you learn of your right, once you learn that you have been damaged by some person, is it so difficult in this day and age to bring your lawsuit in four years? I don't think so. Two years may be even long enough, but let's say four years — for everybody. What's wrong with that? If you have been defrauded

[ Page 2266 ]

by some trustee, what is wrong with bringing your action within four years from the time it comes to your attention that you have been defrauded? And no longer. What do you have to have 20 years for? It seems to me that in this day and age, when we talk about the problems of delays in the courts and justice delayed being justice denied, if you delay bringing the action, then perhaps justice is denied the other way. Think about it, Mr. Attorney-General.

I am not in favour of this bill. I just think it confounds the law and hurts the people the law is intended to serve.

MR. MORRISON: I concur with the former speakers that this bill does not simplify the situation. We appreciate the fact that it is complicated at the moment, but surely there must be some way that the general public can be served so that they can understand what they are getting into. I am curious. Is the Attorney-General perhaps preparing for his own future? I would guess that he is probably going to be the only man who will be able to explain what this bill is all about. Maybe when his employment here is no longer needed, he will have created a further niche for himself.

AN HON. MEMBER: Next summer?

MR. MORRISON: I do suggest that this bill should be, if not hoisted, at least taken into some committee where the general public can have some input and try to understand it. It is just far too complicated now for anyone but lawyers. I assure you that they are going to have a field day with this.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the Speaker?

MR. MORRISON: Yes, even the Speaker might have difficulty with this.

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

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, when the German philosopher Hegel lay dying on his deathbed...

AN HON. MEMBER: What else would he be doing on a deathbed?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...he turned to his faithful disciple and he said to him: "Of all the world, only you, my faithful disciple, have understood my philosophy — and even you don't understand it."

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you admitting you don't understand?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: So I don't think I'm carving out a niche to go into law practice. I may be called upon by public demand to carry on in the office.

I can't agree with the Hon. Member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams), who says that we haven't simplified things. Admittedly, it's a difficult proposition, but look at the schedule of the Act. We brought things together in one charter, at least. Look where they're scattered at the present time, with every kind of limitation period. We've made it basically a two-year rule. For the vast numbers of the public affected by this kind of a law, that's all that they will every run into.

I think it's an advance. It's something that's being considered by law reform commissions right across this country. They have had a lot of public input. It's being considered by the uniformity commissioners as well. If we would continually accept the suggestions of the opposition that we defer these things, we might defer them too late. We might defer them too long. Another government might drop the whole idea and leave this back where it is — in a terrible state of confusion under all these statutory provisions.

I move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 28

NAYS — 17

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

Bill 8, Limitations Act, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Second reading of Bill 7,

[ Page 2267 ]

Mr. Speaker.

FARMERS' AND WOMEN'S INSTITUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, over the years farmers' and women's institutes have developed generally into nothing more than social organizations. Some of them have small halls that they operate, and they run fall fairs around the country. But there are a few farmers' institutes that have been very active in a business way.

One in particular in the Fraser Valley area, the Otter Farmers' Institute, is extremely active and very successful in the business sense, working really as a cooperative rather than in the general sense of farmers' institutes. To make it possible for it to function legally as a cooperative, this particular amendment to the Farmers' and Women's Institute Act would make it possible for that particular farmers' institute to raise funds by issuing shares, would make it legal for it to pay out patronage refunds and would also make it possible for it to amalgamate with a cooperative if it chose to do so.

In this particular instance, the Otter Farmers' Institute and the Surrey Co-op have been talking about the possibility of a merger. At the present time, as they are incorporated under different Acts, it seems to be legally impossible for them to so merge. This change, along with the changes that I believe the House has already considered in the second reading of the Co-operative Act, would make it possible for the two types of organization to actually merge legally. I move second reading of Bill 7.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Speaker, we understand that this bill has been requested by the institutes themselves. In light of that, we would certainly fully support it. It has interested me for a long time, really why institutes haven't been instrumental in expanding their role. They have served a most useful function, a very productive and positive function, in the life of British Columbia for a good many years. But also, like so many other things, one sees changes coming about.

I think the institutes, both farmers' and women's, see that they want to expand their role. Some of it, of course, will be in the area of direct involvement with young people and with the community but also in an area which will be more helpful to producers themselves and may well be more helpful to the women's institutes themselves. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that once this Act is in effect, as I understand it, institutes could band together for bulk buying of fertilizer and barbed wire and possibly even could get together and bring in farm equipment from other jurisdictions. There are all kinds of joint efforts that they can do together which would be of benefit to their members.

The Minister mentioned that an amalgamation would be possible with the cooperatives. I would ask him in closing the debate if the government banking system that is to emerge through the cooperative associations and the co-op societies would extend itself to the institutes as well under this Act. In other words, providing the banking Act authorizes co-ops to become involved in the banking business, would it overlap to include possible amalgamations under this Act?

There may be one or two comments that we wish to make, Mr. Speaker, on the clause-by-clause discussion.

MR. GARDOM: I just took a quick look at the statute and I would assume that under the statute a woman could belong to the farmers' group, and that a women farmer could belong to the women's institute, but a man couldn't. I just wonder if this is a sexist plot or have we got women's lib running wild in a statute that has not come to the attention of some of the great reformers on your side, Hon. Minister. Perhaps you could give some indication to the House of the respective duties and responsibilities of each of these organizations and interest.

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

HON. MR. STUPICH: Well, Mr. Speaker, if there are any sexist overtones in this legislation, I hadn't considered them up to this point, but I will look into that matter.

As far as relating this particular bill to a possible financing bill that may be coming in, I imagine that if such legislation is forthcoming it will be by message, and I would rather wait until after we see that legislation before asking how this might fit in with it.

I move second reading of Bill 7.

Motion approved.

Bill 7, Farmers' and Women's Institutes Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Second reading of Bill 9.

REAL ESTATE AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this is strictly a housecleaning bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Spic-and-span!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: The explanatory notes

[ Page 2268 ]

amply describe its contents. It deals with prospectuses and their requirements on the sale of subdivision lots, strata titles or cooperative units. These amendments have been suggested by members of the bar and other learned persons, and I move second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Attorney-General closes the debate. (Laughter.) He opens and closes it.

Motion approved.

Bill 9, Real Estate Amendment Act, 1975, read a second time and referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Second reading of Bill 20.

SECURITIES AMENDMENT ACT, 1975

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this bill allows some reform in the procedure before the corporate and financial services commission in that it allows the chairman to designate members of that committee to sit. It adds, as a ground for rescission, misstatement in a material statement of facts or misrepresentation in such a statement as well as, of course, the existing law which allows for that in the case of a prospectus.

It makes insider trading in the shares of a company a criminal offence and prescribes the penalty. In that respect it is very new, and I don't want to get into a debate with that Hon. Member about some of the companies he brings up under this bill, because I don't think he would be in order, although I like those speeches and I always look forward to hearing them again.

Finally, the bill provides that the rules and regulations of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, as they may be changed from time to time, are subject to the approval of the superintendent of brokers. So the exchange can't make up its rules by itself, but the public interest as represented by the government is there to either approve or disapprove rule changes from time to time.

I move second reading.

MR. SMITH: The Attorney-General, in addressing himself to second reading of this bill, referred to insider trading and said that this bill was very new in concept. I agree with him. I think that perhaps it is the only jurisdiction in Canada which has or is about to enact such legislation with the potential of a jail term for offences which can be determined as insider trading.

While we are on the matter of insiders, I think it would be interesting to look at the dictionary to see what it says about that. It says it's a person who is in a position of power or has access to confidential information. In that respect, Mr. Attorney-General, I suggest to you that this bill doesn't go far enough. It doesn't go far enough.

MR. PHILLIPS: Right on!

MR. SMITH: Now given that the policy of the government today is to make those who are guilty of using insider information for their personal advantage now accountable before the law, I think that we should apply that rule to all people and all associations and all companies and all directors of companies who may be in a position of using insider information to their own advantage.

Let's not exclude, for instance, Mr. Attorney-General, Crown corporations. After all, you have people in the public civil service and you also have people mainly who are not in the public civil service but who are there by appointment, who have great access to information.

Should we not look at the situation in that respect as well? What about cabinet Ministers, civil servants, executive assistants, executive assistants to executive assistants, and special consultants ad infinitum who have access to confidential information, the knowledge of which can put them in the position of making a personal financial gain — quite often now at the expense of the taxpayers of this province.

Let's not just discriminate on the basis of some businesses in the Province of British Columbia. Let's extend the phrase "insider" to include those people who are directors and senior officers in Crown corporations and those people who, through their appointments as senior executives and directors, have access to the type of information we are talking about when you suggest that you wish to see people with insider information at their disposal prosecuted and come before the law. Let's make everybody accountable before the law.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Including recruits to your party?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney-General has taken a couple of tentative steps to cure abuses in the stock exchange that have been going on for some time. He's in it up to his toe nails now. A far cry, I might add, from the days when he made these brave speeches in opposition.

Certainly since my call for an inquiry into practices in the stock exchange, which the Attorney-General summarily rejected, I have been flooded with examples of the kinds of abuses that have been going on, that can in no way be corrected by the legislation that the Attorney-General has introduced. I know it, the Attorney-General knows it,

[ Page 2269 ]

and his Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit knows it. For this reason, the Attorney-General is falling far short of the high standards he set for himself when he was in opposition, and is continuing to let down the average investor in this province.

I want to continue to reiterate my conviction that confidence in British Columbia depends upon the soundness of its financial institutions and the integrity of its stock exchange. When I make these remarks it should in no way be construed that I'm a socialist or about to attempt to undermine...

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Please don't. No, no.

MR. McGEER: ...the kinds of things that the Attorney-General has stood for, and which have been interpreted as attacks on the financial and business community.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: We have to draw the line somewhere.

MR. McGEER: Specifically, I'm disappointed that the Attorney-General made no effort to close the loophole with regard to takeovers by which national brokerage firms in concert with the stock exchanges can, in effect, manipulate the price of stock free from the market and free from the scrutiny of his securities superintendent. The Attorney-General knows this.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, I don't. You will have to explain that.

MR. McGEER: Well, let me explain then. Under our Securities Act there is a provision for exempt takeovers. These takeovers are exempt if the facilities of the stock exchange are used. The facilities of the stock exchange are not something that you and I have any control over. The only people who have control over the facilities of the stock exchange are the members of the stock exchange — the national brokerage houses. They control the stock exchange — not the Attorney-General, not the Securities Commission, but the national brokerage houses. They have no accountability to the general public; they've said so themselves. Therefore, if a national brokerage firm sees some advantage to itself by persuading the other members to suspend trading in a stock while they enter into a private deal that may be beneficial to some but harmful to others, there's nothing in law to prevent that.

We've had in Canada a number of scandalous examples of this, led by one national brokerage house in particular, Wood Gundy which is the expert in this kind of thing — and the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange had been the ones principally used. Mind you, the Vancouver Stock Exchange rolls over dead, whenever the Toronto Stock Exchange gives an order, so we can effectively say that the Vancouver Stock Exchange is controlled by the Toronto Stock Exchange.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: What case are you referring to? What takeover?

MR. McGEER: Well, there have been three of them. I am not going to go into the details of the three because they have all received plenty of publicity. The point that I want to make is that the Vancouver Stock Exchange should be one which stands up to this national situation. It should stand up to it. The only way to do that is for the Attorney-General to change the laws here in British Columbia. It would bring an end to the practice nationally, there is no question about it. That is one of the things that is missing from this particular Act.

I see no way either, Mr. Speaker, that we can avoid, through this bill, the kinds of stock manipulations that were described in some detail in the Attorney-General's own report that was released. I am not sure that the whole story was told in that report. This is why I think an investigation is overdue which would give an opportunity for all investors, large and small, to step forward and tell their story. Then we can begin to get at the kinds of rules that really need to be written in order to build confidence in our exchange and in our financial institutions. It is very clear to me that the legislation we now have on our books would be radically changed for the better.

While I intend to support this legislation and think that it is an improvement over what we now have, it is not a very great improvement, and the Attorney-General has certainly been a disappointment to me in the way he has tacked something of which he was so critical when he was in opposition.

MR. WALLACE: As a person who has nothing to do with the stock market, I feel that my knowledge is limited to many of the undesirable reports one reads about the experience of others in the stock market. But, as a Member of this House, I have certainly read the excellent CLEU report, and it gives several pages to outlining the kind of fraud that is prevalent in this province. I just think that even if I read one sentence from the report.... It says:

"Priority is given to the area of stock fraud because it appears to be a major problem in British Columbia, and the incompleteness of the other areas of stock fraud reflects the paucity of information available."

Further on, the report states that:

"The law enforcement agencies have estimated that approximately 20 to 30 per cent of the mines and local junior industrial stocks listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange are

[ Page 2270 ]

manipulated."

Twenty to thirty per cent! It goes on to say:

"Many of them have been created solely for this purpose. In other words, the directors and promoters of such companies are not interested in developing a viable business of mining, but merely in using it as a vehicle for defrauding the public."

That is a direct quote from the CLEU report.

As I say, I personally have no interest in the stock market, no involvement in it. I don't play the market and have no intention of getting involved, because it seems to me if you are at all objective in watching the experience of others, there are more losers than there are winners. Because of some of the situations that come to light, despite the apparent capacity of powerful people to keep some of these matters from the public gaze, it seems to me that it just isn't worth the risk involved to play the market. But it is very obvious, on the other hand, that many people do and that 20 to 30 per cent of the mines and junior industrial stocks listed are manipulated.

I think we must realize that this information is coming from the Attorney-General's own work. I think he is to be commended for setting up the CLEU unit, even though they lock individuals in their offices at times. I am not suggesting that I was prying into some mysterious, underhanded stock manipulation on Cadboro Bay Road, but the fact is that the CLEU unit has taken to describing not only that this amount of fraud is in existence, but it goes on through two or three pages to outline the mechanics of a stock fraud and takes another three or four columns also to describe the involvement of major criminals in the market.

With all that evidence, I would have to think that perhaps this bill does not, indeed, go far enough, even although it is an initial step in the right direction. But, if the situation is as bad as the CLEU unit is prepared to publicize in its first detailed report, then I wonder if the Minister wouldn't consider an in-depth public investigation, as the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) has suggested, so that many people who would be willing to contribute towards the complete cleansing of this whole system might be given that opportunity to detail some of their experiences and perhaps to point out a lot of the paucity of information that the report mentions; in other words, to remedy that lack of information through the vehicle of some form of public inquiry. I would like to make it very plain, as the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey did, that I personally don't know of specific people who I believe are manipulating stock or are committing fraud, but I have to be impressed that with the short time in which CLEU has been existence it can come up with such a definite, specific statement that it is a major problem in British Columbia and that 20 to 30 per cent of junior industrial stocks are manipulated. That to me is sort of equivalent to somebody telling me there's the chance of a typhoid outbreak just because there's some evidence there are carriers in the community. This whole business of stock fraud and drug addiction and so on just persists because there are some individuals who spread their disease in the province — diseases of various kinds.

This is a social-financial disease, if you want to call it that, where people put their money into investments believing that they have some protection through legislation which controls the stock market. Yet here we have the government admitting that to a very large extent the protection that is supposedly afforded does not exist and that apparently some people are getting away with crimes even though their general existence is known but there seems to be a lack of specific evidence to pin it down.

It would seem to me that under these circumstances, some form of inquiry would provide and deal with the lack of information that your own report points out. One would wonder whether the fine of not more than $2,000 with the possibility of a year in jail is adequate when you think of some of the large sums of money that are being fraudulently obtained by the people concerned in this kind of situation. So I would certainly support the direction in which the Attorney-General is moving, but I wonder, in the light of his own report, whether he is going far enough.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, the most important single purpose of this bill is to add some teeth to the insider trading section of the Securities Act, but unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this bill makes no provision for the special circumstances where the insider or the manipulator of stock prices may be the government itself.

The definition one finds in the Companies Act of insider of a corporation is "any director or senior officer of the corporation, any person who beneficially owns, directly or indirectly, shares of the corporation carrying more than 10 per cent of the voting rights," and so on, of the corporation itself, and other complicated connections. But nowhere does this definition or this Act which we have in front of us contemplate the possibility that the real insider — the person with the genuine power to manipulate — may not be an officer of the corporation or may not be any large shareholder; it may be no less than the government. It is clear that the powers of the government with respect to many businesses in this province run far beyond the simple power of the ownership of stock. It has been proven quite conclusively, for example, that this government has the power, if it wishes, to manipulate the price of the share of any public company in the forest or mining sectors of this province because the regulation

[ Page 2271 ]

is sufficiently tight that they could that. They could affect the stock by their regulatory powers.

Mr. Speaker, in this House on April 16 there was an answer tabled which set forth the details of the purchases of B.C. Telephone stock by the government between September 1, 1972, and the date of the question, which I think was February 18, 1975, and the actual purchases, of shares running between August 1, 1973, and, October 11, 1974. I want to raise the question and I certainly want an answer from the Attorney-General as to whether this government did not, perhaps unintentionally manipulate the price of B.C. Telephone shares before it purchased them. In so doing that, let us remember who owns B.C. Telephone.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: You're not under this bill at all.

MR. GIBSON: I am talking about insider trading, Mr. Attorney-General.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: But you're kind of out of order.

MR. GIBSON: I don't think so. I want to ask you who owns B.C. Telephone. Half of it is owned directly or indirectly by a large U.S. corporation. Of the 18 million shares, however, the other half — about 9 million shares — are in the hands of the public. Something like roughly a million shares are in the hands of the Government of British Columbia. At the time of this report, of course, the number of shares given was 200,000. There has since been a five-for-one split. But the number of shares that I will talk about and the prices I will talk about for the balance of this talk relate to the old shares before the split.

So some of it is in the hands of the Province of British Columbia and some of it's in the hands of the public. Generally speaking they are people needing and requiring reasonably secure investments, which utilities are supposed to be — traditional widows' and orphans' investment, pension funds, people of that kind — generally speaking, ordinary people who need security of capital or institutions investing on behalf of ordinary people who need security of capital, Mr. Speaker. Every dollar that the price of this company declines or rises either costs them or gains them $9 million collectively — $1 million to the Government of the Province of British Columbia alone.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that this Act should provide that the insider provision should apply to the government whenever it owns any share of a company, particularly a company with the regulatory activities that the government can effect.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's under federal regulatory powers.

MR. GIBSON: Oh, the Attorney-General says indeed that our regulatory activity can't affect them. He found that out just after the election, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to go through a little bit of history here. Here's the Attorney-General being quoted in The Vancouver Sun, October 7, 1972, not very long after he election, when it was the declared purpose of his government to take over B.C. Telephone. "Federal and provincial laws," says the report, "are being carefully studied on ways and means of taking over he B.C. Telephone Co." And the Attorney-General aid: "It's kind of demeaning to B.C. that our telephone system should be a little branch of a big foreign corporation." I agree with that, Mr. Attorney-General. It's stock manipulation by the government that I'm talking about.

The article goes on: "Would shareholders be fairly compensated for such a takeover? 'Definitely. We believe in fair compensation for shareholders.'" Now that was October of 1972.

Here's October 13 of 1972 in the Victoria Daily Colonist.

"Any lingering doubts about whether or not the NDP government would take over the B.C. Telephone Co. are now gone. Premier Barrett said Thursday that the public company whose financial control rests in the U.S. would definitely be taken over."

Then a little bit later, October 20. Headline here: "A-G Tones Down Takeover Talk." They were starting to backpedal a little bit at that point, Mr. Speaker, having studied the constitutional objections to the programme they wanted to set forward on.

There seemed to be little further — at least little further that I could find — in the way of public statements until the following March, March of 1973, by which time it may be that the government had devised a different strategy for the takeover of the telephone company and sought to do it in the cheapest possible way. The cheapest possible way is to buy the company when its shares are at a low level.

So what happened, Mr. Chairman? We started to see a number of statements.

Here's a story by Nick Hills, Southam News Service, March 13, 1973, suggesting that the then Minister of Industrial Development, Alex Macdonald — the Minister will appreciate this quote —

"considered to be the most erudite and reasonable man in the cabinet, has come up with legislation that would enable the government to take over businesses by purchasing the majority of shares. This may be how the NDP is intending to swallow up the B.C. Telephone Co."

So we see for the first time the purchase route

[ Page 2272 ]

coming forward.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): Poor old B.C. Tel.

MR. GIBSON: The Member down there says: "Poor old B.C. Tel." He doesn't tell us, Mr. Speaker, that the only shares that the government's buying aren't the foreign shares. I approve of that! Won't the government buy those shares? No. They're buying the shares of....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I don't think the purpose of second reading on the Securities Amendment Act is to discuss B.C. Tel. There are two problems involved that I think we should consider. If the Hon. Member is doing this as an example of how it applies to the general principle of the bill, then of course it may be in order. But it isn't merely the purpose of discussing what may be a federally regulated company.

MR. GIBSON: No, I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. What I'm suggesting is that this is a case example where I have been able to follow through — from published date, including the CTC rate hearing in October, 1974, and particularly with the helpful return published in the House on April 16 — the pattern of the government's purchases.

MR. SPEAKER: The second point that is pertinent to any debate on it is: does this apply to the government under the proposal in the bill — the principle of the bill?

MR. GIBSON: What I'm suggesting, Mr. Speaker, is that the principle of the bill, which regulates insider trading, should be broadened to recognize the fact that the government, by virtue of its economic powers, is an insider at a much lower level of share ownership than is the ordinary investor in stocks.

MR. SPEAKER: But it's very difficult to restrict debate to the principle of a bill. Most of the debate is dedicated to things that are not in the bill at all. Therefore, one has to draw a line as to how much debate should properly take place on matters that are not in the bill. Therefore, I have to caution the Member to try to restrict his remarks to an example, as I said, of a situation. But to make it the main burden of his speech, it seems to me, is going beyond the principle set out in the bill itself.

MR. GIBSON: I will try not to make it a burdensome speech, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that advice. I will be finished with this example quite shortly.

MR. SPEAKER: I will be glad to show you examples in May if you doubt that that is the situation.

MR. GIBSON: I have no question about your Honour's ruling. As I say, I am putting this forward as an example of why the government ought to be considered as an insider in a different kind of way than ordinary insiders, as contemplated in this legislation.

As I say — was it a campaign or was it not? I don't know. But this is the next example of what happened.

If you remember the case, Mr. Speaker, it was reported in the newspapers of May 4 — when the Premier went into the B.C. Telephone office up in Courtenay, got on the line and said: "Hello, I may be your new boss." That was well reported all over the province.

MR. BENNETT: He phoned collect.

MR. GIBSON: He phoned collect — that's right.

So, we are now up to May, and the clippings continue. Here is the Premier quoted on May 26: "We are not interested in nationalizing any company in B.C. except that great company, B.C. Telephone." Then he went on "Front Page Challenge" on this, among other things, on June 17.

On June 22, he said: "B.C. Tel is still going to be taken over by the government." And then what happened, Mr. Speaker? The share purchases of B.C. Tel started on August I of that year. The purchases started at a time when the price of the stock had been driven down from around $62 at the time the government was elected, well above book value, down to just a little over $50 at the time of the start of the purchases — well below book value.

I suggest that the price of that stock had been driven down by a group that was becoming the most important insider in the company, namely, the government of British Columbia.

Those purchases continued in the face of relative silence by the government in their statements about the company, continued in very significant amounts up until December and into 1974. Throughout that time the stock remained at a level between the $50 and $52 range up until the end of March, at which time there were again some significant purchases by the government which appeared to have temporarily driven the stock up. Then purchases effectively ended around that time except at the time of the rights offering in the fall.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the question I raise here is based on the fact that since the coming into power of this government, and on the basis of statements of this government about a particular company in the private sector, the share prices of that company have been driven down. I think there is no question about

[ Page 2273 ]

that whatsoever, if you look at the charts and you look at the dates that particular actions are taken. I ask the Attorney-General to recognize that, and I ask him to recognize that when you are talking about cleaning house on insiders, you have got to start by making sure that your own house is clean first.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No problem.

MR. GIBSON: This is the kind of thing that looks like it could be a pattern. It is the kind of thing the government has been accused of in the natural resource industry. It is the kind of thing that the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) said in his famous policy presented to, I think it was, the 1970 NDP convention. It said that it would be wrong to take over companies in the resource sector while they were making those high profits. You would have to tax them out of the profits first. It was the same kind of philosophy where you have to drive down prices before the government takeover.

So I ask the Attorney-General if he would not agree that the definition of "insider" must be expanded to specifically include that the government is the most sensitive insider of all in the Province of British Columbia, and that any transactions in any share must be scrupulously and immediately reported — not just many months later in return to a question in the House, but the kind of disclosure that would be required on most of the stock exchanges in North America when someone with the position to benefit and control the price of shares moved to do that kind of thing.

Mr. Speaker, it could be that what happened with the price of B.C. Telephone shares over the last couple of years is not connected with the statements of the government, but I don't think so. It could be that the statements of the government were not co-ordinated with the purchase of the shares. That could be. But whether that is a fact or not, the first fact is undoubtedly there, that the actions of the government affect the price of the shares unintentionally or intentionally, and therefore the government is a particularly sensitive and important element in the disclosure process.

I'd further ask the Attorney-General to remember in answering that question that I'm not asking this in respect of the foreign owner of that company. I think that property rights should be protected. I'm not speaking against the foreign owner of that company either. I am asking him to pay particular attention to the people whose shares he is buying — not that foreign owner's shares, but rather the shares of the widows and orphans, the pension funds, the people who have put some money aside in what they thought was a secure investment for a rainy day, and have seen in this time of inflation their secure investment go down while the book value of their secure investment, and therefore the money they had in it, goes up. I'd ask the Attorney-General to recognize that this is something that should be changed in the securities law of this province, and that the government, as an entity, should be particularly and closely controlled.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with very much with the previous speaker, but I'd like to carry the argument a little bit closer, maybe closer to the Attorney-General's heart.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where's that?

MR. PHILLIPS: He controls the corporation of British Columbia known as the B.C. Petroleum Corp., which is a Crown corporation and which by one little act, one decree, without coming back to this Legislature, can send the price of Westcoast Transmission shares soaring or send them in a declining position. I'm not sure just why the government is holding shares of Westcoast Transmission when they own the British Columbia Petroleum Corp. I'm not just sure why the B.C. Petroleum Corp. and the government allowed the guaranteed rate of return to be raised from 9.5 to 10 per cent. Probably the highest return of any major pipeline in Canada.

I have to ask: is it because the government owns shares in Westcoast Transmission?

The Attorney-General is busy and doesn't seem to be listening too much, but I'm also going to ask him to tell me there's no sweetheart deal between Westcoast Transmission, B.C. Petroleum Corp. and the government.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. We could have a lovely debate about all of these things, but we are dealing with a definition of insider trading in the Securities Act which simply does not apply to those situations. It's talking about individuals who make a private, personal profit on shares as a result of their inside knowledge. It is not applying to the case of where a government has regulatory powers, or a government purchases shares which is in the open. The Hon. Member admits that the present Act does not embrace these things as insider trading.

MR. GIBSON: It should.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Okay, but you're out of order to discuss it now, as much as we love these debates. I think, within the rules of the House, if we're going to debate all government activity and federal government activity under this section, which is really only a penalty section for insider trading as

[ Page 2274 ]

defined in the Act, then we're not addressing ourselves to the principle that's contained in this bill.

Interjections.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, the reason I'm bringing up Westcoast Transmission is that I believe that the Government of British Columbia could be considered an insider in Westcoast Transmission. That's the reason I bring it up.

Interjections.

MR. PHILLIPS: It's very relevant to this debate because what I'm saying is that the government does own shares in Westcoast Transmission. I'm also saying that at the same time they have the power to manipulate because of the regulatory axe they hold through the British Columbia Petroleum Corp., and through the regulations that the government holds.

They can manipulate and they can have the price of Westcoast Transmission shares go up to make the government look good as investor, of if they wish to buy more shares they can also cause the price of those shares to decline through manipulations through the B.C. Petroleum Corp. So what I'm saying is that in essence and in actual fact the Government of British Columbus is an insider in Westcoast Transmission. This is the type of conflict of interests that we have talked about in this House before.

Interjections.

MR. PHILLIPS: Well now, every time we start talking about something that affects the Attorney-General and his department, he wants to draw the red herring across and talk about some other jurisdiction. We're talking about British Columbia here and today.

You know, when we start talking about closure rules you want to bring in every jurisdiction in Canada, and it has no bearing on it because every jurisdiction in Canada doesn't have the same sized budget. Every jurisdiction in Canada hasn't increased the cost of running the government by 241 per cent in two and a half years. Every jurisdiction in Canada hasn't put their fingers into every area of private business and municipal life in the Province of British Columbia. We're talking about British Columbia here and today. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker.

There are other areas. All we have to do is refer to Can-Cel, another situation where the government is the majority shareholder. By acts of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) through the Timber Products Stabilization Act, this government can cause a sharp rise in the price of Can-Cel shares. They can, forever and a day, regardless of the market, see that Can-Cel comes out with a tremendous profit to make the socialist government look good, because of the power in the cabinet.

As a matter of fact, I'm not sure that some of this didn't happen last year — we don't know. All of the facts have not been bared; we haven't had ample opportunity to discuss that Minister's estimates in this Legislature. Here the Attorney-General is bringing in an act to make everything look good and talking about insider trading while, in fact, Mr. Speaker, this government probably will contravene this Act more than any other individual or company in British Columbia and go off scot-free. This is another prime example of the government setting up standards for everybody else in this province and skirting their very legislation themselves — doing exactly as they please.

Mr. Speaker, I asked before. You talk about insider trading — manipulation. What plans does the government have with regard to the gas industry in British Columbia? Now they're going into the drilling field and the same thing could happen. This government will buy into some minor drilling company and could put out a report that a well comes in out of all proportion to the value of the gas find or the oil find. People who own those shares without having any insider information could make a windfall profit, and the government would be the biggest winner of all because they would probably hold more shares than any individual. I say again that it is the government themselves who must adhere to this insider trading Act that they're bringing in. It's the government which has the greatest possibility, because of their position, to contravene the very Act that they're bringing in.

You've heard these warnings in these hallowed halls before, that as soon as the government went into buying shares and being co-partners in business, this is the type of criticism that they have left themselves open to. I want the Attorney-General to assure the House that he's going to bring in further legislation — conflict-of-interest legislation.

With Can-Cel, if you wanted to depress the shares of some lumber company that you wanted to buy into, you can do it. The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) can do it through the Timber Products Stabilization Act — it's very simple — and you will be having a conflict of interest because your rules and your regulations, under the awesome power that you have taken unto the cabinet, can manipulate the shares of practically any company in British Columbia, send them in a downward trend, and then move in and buy them out.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: John Turner could do it with his budget, too.

[ Page 2275 ]

MR. PHILLIPS: Well, certainly it could be done with the budget, but pretty soon.... Once the budget is out, the ground rules are.... No, you can do this at any time you wish. If you want to move in on a company, by exercising some of the powers which you have you can depress the market for that particular commodity, you can run down the price of the shares in a particular company, or number of companies, and then you can move in and strike, buy up the shares, change the rules again with the power you have, and send the shares up to make you look good — like it's a good investment — as the Member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) was alluding to just a few moments ago in the price of B.C. Tel shares.

This, Mr. Speaker, worries me a great deal because, although the government only holds shares in numerous companies now, if they keep on with the present trend they will hold shares in more companies, and pretty soon they will have a complete conflict of interest in practically every industry in British Columbia. So I just am very concerned about this. I would like to know what kind of a deal the Attorney-General has through his B.C. Petroleum Corp. with Westcoast Transmission, because although the Premier of this province condemned the profits being made by Westcoast Transmission in previous years, they made more profit last year than they've ever made in the history of the company.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: Good management.

MR. PHILLIPS: The Member for Kamloops says "good management." I would suggest that they had good management before, and it was the good management before that was responsible for the making of the profit before. But the government moves in and that same company that the Premier — and I have heard him on numerous occasions — condemned as ripping off the taxpayers of British Columbia, taking out the natural resources, ripping off the natural resources, made more money last year under a socialist government than it has ever had before.

Was it, as I say, a sweetheart deal? Were the regulations set by the B.C. Petroleum Corp. to allow Westcoast to make more money so that the price of the shares owned by the government would go up so that the Premier could say: "Oh, it's a good investment"? You know, we can't have it both ways. That's why the government today has in British Columbia a conflict of interest.

MR. CHABOT: Political shenanigans.

MR. PHILLIPS: Could be political shenanigans, Mr. Member for Columbia River. I'm not accusing them of political shenanigans.

MR. CHABOT: I am.

MR. PHILLIPS: But they do have a conflict of interest and they are the biggest inside trader in the stock market in British Columbia today. They are the biggest inside trader.

We have witnessed, Mr. Speaker, where the government went out and possibly made a statement about the possible purchase of Dunhill Development Ltd. And what happened? The government didn't own any shares in it but they were going to buy it. In this case they didn't deflate the value; they inflated the value.

We've had the case, which is under investigation now, of possible stock manipulation and inside trading in Can-Cel. It's been under investigation for over 12 months now. So how are you going to make this legislation functional if you can't find out what's been going on before. How are you going to prosecute?

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): It's pretty dirty under that rug!

MR. PHILLIPS: You offered to do an inquiry into the insider trading of Can-Cel over 12 months ago and no report yet. How are you going to make this piece of legislation function?

MR. FRASER: Clean up under that rug!

MR. PHILLIPS: How are you going to make it function if it's going to take that long? Some of those people who cleaned up on Can-Cel and lived in Toronto could be gone to Jamaica by now. How are you going to make it functional if it takes that long to do an investigation? Or is this, Mr. Speaker, just another front, another piece of legislation to make the Attorney-General look good?

MR. CHABOT: Like he's cleaning up his act.

MR. PHILLIPS: Is it a patchwork piece of legislation?

Mr. Phillips moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

MR. McGEER: Could the House Leader, Mr. Speaker, give the independents some indication of what the business of the House will be tomorrow?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: If I can find the independents tomorrow I will inform them tomorrow morning.

MR. McGEER: It's essential that we get some

[ Page 2276 ]

indication of this government's intentions with regard to business. This is normal courtesy.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I will inform you in the morning.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.