CONTENTS

Committee of Supply: Department of the Attorney-General estimates On vote 21., Mr. Smith — 2611

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2611

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2612

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2612

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2613

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2613

Mr. Wallace — 2613

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2615

Mr. Wallace — 2616

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2617

Mr. Phillips — 2617

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2618

Mr. Rolston — 2618

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2620

Mr. Bennett — 2620

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2621

Mr. Bennett — 2621

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2621

Mr. Gibson — 2621

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2622

Mr. L.A. Williams — 2622

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2623

Mr. L.A. Williams — 2623

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2624

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2624

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2624

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2625

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2625

Mr. McClelland — 2625

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2625

Mr. McClelland — 2625

Mr. Smith — 2626

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2626

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2626

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2626

Mr. Bennett — 2626

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2626

On vote 23. Mr. Smith — 2627

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2627

Mr. Smith — 2627

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2628

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2628

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 2628

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 2629

MONDAY, MAY 26, 1975

The House met at 10 a.m.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT
OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

(continued)

On vote 21; correction services, $27,501,093 — continued.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): I thought that the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), who has complained so vociferously about not having an opportunity to discuss his estimates, would be up on his feet making an opening remark or two, seeing that we have had to pass a number of other votes without debate, and perhaps give us an explanation of all the great things his department has been doing. We are now on correction services, vote 21. Perhaps we could have just 10 seconds of silence for about the other $15 million worth of votes that passed without debate before we proceed to vote 21. I'd like to I'd like to question the Attorney-General briefly on his plans for the phasing out of correctional institutes in British Columbia and replacing them with other forms of detention. If we follow the press clippings correctly and the Attorney-General's suggestions, he's certainly going to phase out Haney Correctional Institute and a number of others. The Attorney-General has talked about a number of forestry camps or this type of correctional institution that will replace Haney and other facilities at the present time.

I am particularly interested in the purchase by the Department of Public Works, on behalf of the Attorney-General, of a former motel-hotel complex in northwestern British Columbia in the town of Terrace, the Blue Gables Hotel. It was previously known as that. I'd like to ask the Attorney-General what plans he has for that particular facility which was purchased for his department at a cost of $195,000. Is it to be turned into a minimum correctional institution or something of that nature?

I would like to know if the Attorney General before making this decision, met with the members of the chamber of commerce and the council in the town of Terrace to solicit their advice and recommendations with respect to the proximity of this particular institution to the downtown area. What type of security will be enforced in such an institution? Will it be an advantage to the people in that town to have that type of an institution almost within the business precinct, close to many of the major stores and business complexes, particularly if the type of person to be incarcerated or at least held in this institution has a past history of theft, vandalism or whatever?

I would like to ask the Attorney-General what means he used to determine the advisability or otherwise of placing such an institution in such a location. I've had a number of conversations with people who live in that particular community, and while they don't disagree on the idea of some sort of an institution in that location or at least in the general location...

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Do you want me to answer now?

MR. SMITH: In a minute.

...they certainly are concerned about the fact that this particular facility or former hotel that you purchased is very close not only to the residential but to the business section of the town. Perhaps you are placing temptation in the path of the people who would be held in such an institution for whatever reason. In so doing, you would foist upon the people of that community an additional hazard that they don't now have to contend with.

I would hope that the Attorney-General would give us some indication of the direction in which he proposes to proceed in this whole matter of correctional institutions. If he is to get up an institution with very minimum security and control, is it really a good thing to put those institutions immediately adjacent to the areas where people who are inclined to public mischief would have far greater opportunity to indulge in it than otherwise?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the Member is right. The purchase at Terrace of the Blue Gables was for the purpose of a community correctional centre. There was quite a bit of discussion. We have justice councils to advise, headed in this case by Dave Smith, whose main area is Prince Rupert, but that's part of his wider jurisdiction. So we do have people with whom we can consult. We have to be a little careful in terms of protecting the taxpayer's dollar. We must not advertise too much in advance that we are looking to purchase a particular property. We got a good price on this property.

The people are minimum security, that's true, because they will continue to do educational release work, continuing their education. They will be doing work release — you know, going ahead with normal productive work. We do have people incarcerated who have been traditionally in the corrections system and who respond to this kind of a programme. It should be centred in a community, it should be near to work, it should be near to the educational opportunities and it should be there for the people of that area so they are not carted off to Prince George.

[ Page 2612 ]

This is a satellite of the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre. But we don't want to cart people off to Prince George and increase the expense of our correctional system very substantially when we have heavy incarceration for those who can be readapted to a peaceful life in the community. They will be minimum-security people. We have had no incidents, but we will, you know. I don't think we have had any bad incidents with respect to our CCC programmes at the present time. They are working well.

MR. SMITH: What programmes, did you say?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: CCC — community correctional centres. They have been going well and, you know, we have to watch and monitor it. I am hopeful that we will be able to proceed with the one in Terrace and that it will be as successful as the others.

MR. SMITH: Then there'll be a segregation of the type of people you hold in a community institution such as the one at Terrace, as compared to a forestry camp or somewhere which is quite far removed from the temptations you find in a city or a smaller community.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Right.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister a quick word about the Elizabeth Fry and John Howard societies and the amount of support they will be getting under this particular vote if, indeed, it is this vote and not the next one. I understand that the Elizabeth Fry Society in particular had a halfway house planned for Vancouver and that these plans have had to be shelved and there is a total of only 22-bed accommodation for halfway purposes in the whole City of Vancouver. The Minister knows better than I do that the ratio of female prisoners to male has shot up from 25 males to one female. It is now something like eight male prisoners to every one female. The ratio may simply be a reflection of the coming equality of the sexes; I am not sure. But it does mean that in this particular area of care and detention of females and the subsequent attempts to bring them back into society through halfway houses and other facilities, the previous facilities and the previous institutions are simply not able to handle this enormous increase in the workload.

I wonder whether the Minister could indicate what steps will be taken, whether it will be possible to have that halfway house in Vancouver reinstituted. It was planned and it had to be cancelled. So I wonder if he could assure us that this particular aspect of correctional service — namely, the increasing number of females who are in our prison system — is being dealt with in some more imaginative way.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: The approved figures do come out of this vote for the Elizabeth Fry Society, which was formerly under the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall). He was very kind enough to give me this granting function out of my budget, and I want to express my thanks to the Provincial Secretary. There is no question that they are doing very good work. In Vancouver we have granted $12,000; in Kamloops, $19,000; in Kelowna, $19,000. I was very glad also to see that the Elizabeth Fry Society received a large grant from the Donner Foundation to carry on research work.

You mentioned women who do require some confinement — custody, I should say. We have worked out with the federal government transfer arrangements where we have been able to take some of the women of British Columbia, who would otherwise go to Kingston — even though they are federal, over-two-year sentence cases — and take them into our provincial system. In turn, the feds look after some of the people we have. So those transfer arrangements, while they only amount to 30 or 40 people, are going ahead.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Just to follow from that, it does seem that $12,000 for the whole City of Vancouver, which I understand was the figure given to me, seems a pittance. After all, Vancouver is half the province, and probably more than half the province in terms of crime. When you realize the important work that is being done in that period immediately following the time in jail, when they are trying to re-establish themselves in the community, the services of the Elizabeth Fry are tremendously important. I understand, of course, that there are other services but I do feel that the Attorney-General's statement is inadequate. We cannot rely on the Donner Foundation — which is, I believe, mostly American in funding originally; it is the Donner Foundation of Canada, but the money, I believe, originally came from the States — to handle a social problem in British Columbia. Were the Premier in the room I'm sure he would be terribly upset, knowing his attitude toward voluntary organizations doing the work that should perhaps be assisted at least by the government.

I appreciate the fact that you have just taken this over from the Provincial Secretary. I welcome that. I think that is a good step and that this should be in this area under this particular vote. But I must remain quite unconvinced that $12,000 to assist a very worthwhile organization in Vancouver is adequate.

I see that the Attorney-General is nodding his head.

[ Page 2613 ]

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I have just given what I know of that has been granted to date. We have this vote but I have no doubt that there are other applications within the department. I can't say now what they will be granted.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I thank the Attorney-General for that and I thank him for his obvious concern and feeling that $12,000 is quite inadequate. He obviously has indicated this to us. I trust he will find out in other votes how much money there is and make sure that more is granted. Nineteen thousand dollars for Kamloops and $12,000 for Vancouver are figures which seem a little disproportionate.

A final point, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to endorse the Attorney-General's efforts to merge the federal and provincial systems. The distinction between federal and provincial correctional institutions seems quite absurd. I wish him well in the work that he is doing along that line; I think that is a positive step. I fully endorse what I have heard him say in public.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I don't want to hold my estimates but I might just add that we also purchase beds through the Elizabeth Fry. I think it is $12.50 a day. So there is further money going in.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): It is very interesting that out of the money spent by the Attorney-General's department, 32.5 per cent is spent on corrections — pretty close to one-third. And 83 per cent of the income brought in from his department is derived from the sale of liquor. I wonder if we can consider how these two items are related one to the other. We certainly know that the abuse of liquor has a great deal to do with people ending up within the justice system.

I wonder if the Attorney-General would care to make any estimate as to how that 32.5 per cent is likely to increase, or hopefully decrease, I suppose, when we have a unified correctional system in conjunction with the federal authorities.

I wonder if the Minister could perhaps give us a little more information than appeared in the news media over the weekend about the meeting with the federal Solicitor-General (Hon. Mr. Allmand). I understand that there is a confrontation situation where this province suggests that we should be paying less for RCMP policing and Mr. Warren Allmand suggests that we should be paying more.

From that question of financial disagreement, I suppose one can quite rightly ask to what degree the Attorney-General feels we should be acquiring the 1,700 police, the figure that was stated some weeks ago as the number that is really required to efficiently implement law and order in this province.

It seems to me that there are few aspects of this Minister's responsibilities that cause more concern these days than law and order, as it is so frequently described — or perhaps the lack of law and order. The corrections system is surely the point at which this Minister is responsible at least for trying to rehabilitate the people who have come within the criminal justice system.

As the Member for North Peace River (Mr. Smith) stated, it is rather unfortunate that certain of the Minister's votes have already passed. It is very difficult to relate to some of the topics that I would like to discuss which have already been passed and which would have been more appropriately discussed under the Minister's salary vote.

Nevertheless, this whole area of law and order, and particularly the problems of trying to cope with the juvenile, are subjects that are brought to our attention in the mail every week, it seems, from people writing to their MLAs expressing serious concern about the problems with juveniles. I wonder if the Minister could tell us whether that was discussed in any detail with Mr. Warren Allmand. I understand he has committed himself to a new juvenile delinquency Act — a federal Act — and I suppose it would be presumptuous that we should be told what the basic thrust of the new Act will be.

I can tell the Minister, if it's of any interest to him, what the thrust of a lot of the people in this province would be. It would be to get the parents back in the picture and make them responsible for the correction of their daughters' transgressions. It's been a very clear theme that's come through in a great deal of the reporting of incidents, particularly from the lower mainland, that frequently when a juvenile is picked up, the police go to the home and find neither parent anywhere in sight. The concern is expressed that even when the juvenile comes within the criminal system there seems to be minimal parental involvement, and certainly a sad lack of responsibility placed on the shoulders of the parents once the young juvenile is in trouble.

As I say, we can't presume to know what Mr. Warren Allmand has prepared for his new juvenile Act, but if the function of this opposition in this House has any value, let me say that our party certainly feels that there's a sad deterioration, not only in the behaviour of a small segment of the juvenile population but there's a serious lack of responsibility on the part of the parents. We feel that either financial penalties or some other kind of penalty which very clearly involves the parents should be used as a very basic approach in trying to deal with what is admittedly a small percentage of the total juvenile population.

But then, as far as that goes, the problems in the adult population are always caused by a small percentage as well. This is rather too easy an out for

[ Page 2614 ]

many people to say: "Well, it's only a small number of juveniles who cause the problems." Well, that's the same too. After all, if you want to extend that argument far enough, it's really only a few people who get murdered every year. But that creates 100 murderers, or it did last year, with an increase in the murder rate last year of 32.5 per cent over the previous year. We had 100 murders in B.C. last year.

So if the people try to soften the approach to the juvenile delinquency problem by giving us this very superficial argument, "Well, it's only a few kids that are involved," I think that that's just really avoiding the basic issue. You can extend that argument to the ridiculous in this whole matter of saying that a small proportion of the total population is involved. I don't know whether the Minister's in a position to give us some encouraging information or comment about the whole problem of juvenile delinquency and the whole question of the new Act, which I presume was discussed at the meeting last Friday.

One of the areas on which I want to commend the Minister is that he has pursued his promise to close down Wilkinson Road jail, which we've talked about for several years from this side of the House. Anybody who has taken the trouble to go through Wilkinson Road jail will know that the closure was long overdue. The whole direction of the Minister's policy in corrections is to provide a variety of different types of institutional care, with emphasis on rehabilitation. I would like to talk just for a moment on that, although the other interesting think, which unfortunately we can't discuss because of the way ~estimates have been debated this year, is the annual report.

I was fascinated to read that this is the first annual report of the Department of the Attorney-General. I think the Deputy Attorney-General's little introduction early in the report, with the black edging — I don't know quite what the significance was of the black edge round the long paragraph, whether this had any significance or whether it was just to make it stand out — was very interesting. There never has been any annual report, although section 5 of the Attorney-General's Act first appeared in 1899. I suppose it's like closing down Wilkinson Road jail; it's better late than never. We've been waiting since 1899 for an annual report and we've finally got one, and it's an excellent one.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Thank you.

MR. WALLACE: I want to say that I hope it continues to appear in subsequent years.

It's also very significant in that report that it's pointed out that the Attorney-General never used to be a member of the cabinet. The role of Attorney-General was so important in its independent aspect that the Attorney-General had to be completely neutral and remember that he was representing justice as much as representing the government of which he is a part. The Attorney-General is nodding his head in agreement.

I'm sure that in particular he read page 9 of the report, pointing out that the role of the Attorney-General is so distinct from that of any other member of the cabinet. I'm sure that the Attorney-General would like to realize his unique position beside his cabinet brethren.

It says that he's not only the head of a department and obliged to advance the interests of the department among his cabinet colleagues in caucus and in the Legislature, but he must also be able to advise government and provide legal opinions irrespective of the political implications and independent of the political consequences that might flow there from, either to his department or to the government generally. I think that's one very exciting paragraph in the whole report, Mr. Chairman. I'm very grateful that you've allowed me to indulge in that little comment.

We'll get back to corrections now. I did just want to say a little bit about rehabilitation. I'm really impressed by the fact that if we're going anywhere at all in the whole field of corrections, if we're not emphasizing rehabilitation, we might as well all quit.

Time and time again, one comes across examples of individual people caught up in the system. Some of them, admittedly, are repeaters, but we must never give up on the concept that because so many people finish up in jail for the second or third time, they are a lost cause. That's a feeling I find all too prevalent among the general population.

The specific kind of situation I'd like to refer to is the programme which is being carried on through the William Head jail under the title Con-arts. It is a cooperative concept whereby inmates in the institution become involved in producing goods — manufacturing, carpentry work, painting, needlework — whatever it might be. They have a small store in downtown Victoria to sell these goods.

The creative aspect of what they're doing while they're in William Head is itself, I think, the kind of positive, creative and intelligent way to involve inmates if you've any hope of keeping their basic creative spirit alive and with some kind of interest in the outside world. As so often is the case, this particular concept is just about to founder and probably go right out of business for lack of money. I've spent I don't know how many hours during the last week trying to find out just what on earth is going on in relation to that particular concept.

I have' no wish to be unfair to the Attorney-General because basically this comes under the Canadian Penitentiary Service of the federal government. But the fact of the matter is that this concept is being encouraged at the federal level, and

[ Page 2615 ]

the provincial government has already put up substantial financing for the only other such project in the whole of Canada — that is in Agassiz. The concept of Agassiz is specifically designed to try and help the native Indian inmate at Agassiz. At the moment, I understand, this Attorney-General's department has put up $12,000, and $8,000 has been made available from the First Citizen's Fund, and $4,000 from the Department of Indian Affairs. That's the only other such cooperative rehabilitative programme in Canada, and they're very eager to see these programmes survive and flourish.

But the situation at the William Head programme is very different because it was initiated under very unsatisfactory financial circumstances, namely this familiar LIP grant route — for lack of a better word. The more I hear about LIP, OFY, LEAP and, goodness knows, so many other titles for programmes, the more I feel that the whole situation needs a complete review.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: As the Member behind me says, it's all federal. But the other thing is, for the information of this House and for everybody else, there's not a nickel left in any of these federal programmes, as of today. There is absolutely no cohesion or co-ordination of that kind of funding. So what happens is that a programme such as Con-arts, with so much potential for positive results, gets going and then there's no more money available. In this particular instance, they never did get the money from the LIP grant that was suggested in the first place.

Now we're scrounging around for what is a relatively small sum of money through these various sections of the divisions of Canada Manpower. On Friday I finally was able to get at least a very clear statement from Ottawa that there's just no money under any of these subdivisions of Canada Manpower funding, so this rehabilitation programme from the William Head jail, which has the store on Yates Street in Victoria, is unable to survive. As it happens, on the understanding that federal money was to be available, the inmates borrowed $5,000. So not only is the programme in bad shape, but also there is. the question of a $5,000 loan involved, and the note comes due on June 10.

Now it seems to me, as I said at the start, that if we don't really emphasize rehabilitation.... The hope when someone leaves jail is that it is the last time they'll leave jail, and that whenever you do for them from there on will give them potential to have a job, sustain an income and stay away from crime, but you can't just do that the day they walk out the door of the jail. You need to be working, making all the efforts possible while the person is in there. This is why this particular programme serves that essential purpose, and as far as I can tell to this point in time, it has been successful. I understand the Agassiz example is also proving very encouraging.

I would wonder if the Minister is in any position to look at this Con-art situation on an urgent basis in the hope that perhaps we can get some provincial funding, such as has been made available at Agassiz.

The last point I wanted to raise was related more specifically under this vote to one or two of the items of expense, Mr. Chairman. I notice, for example, that despite the fact that we have inflation and rising costs, I'm very puzzled to know how medical services could diminish in any budget these days. It was $210,000 last year and it's expected to be $200,000 this year, and medical supplies are reduced from $57,000 to $50,000. I just find that very puzzling. Under psychiatric services, which I would assume is one of the most important types of medical service which should be available in our jails, the item shows no expenditure for the coming year. I presume this must be included for psychiatric services last year and there's nothing at all this year.

Talking again, just quickly, about the concept of rehabilitation, I notice that last year farm operations was scheduled to spend $300,000; in the coming year the figure listed is $200,000. Once again, I would hope that this in no way signifies any reduction in the effort being made to rehabilitate through farm operations or work camps, or forest camps, all the kinds of concepts which the Minister has talked about many times — getting the prisoners out from within four walls and getting them involved in productive work, either on the farm, in the forests, or somewhere that seems to offer a more likely chance of final rehabilitation, I wonder if the Minister can say why the $300,000 figure is reduced to $200,000.

Perhaps last, but by no means least, is the very last item in this vote — under 047, special projects — $1.9 million, whereas last year the figure was $50,000. So I have to assume there's something exciting going on there. I would wonder if the Minister would discuss that. Perhaps out of that $1.9 million, does he think maybe that Con-arts could get just a teeny-weeny little bit of that $1.9 million? We're not talking in terms of large sums of money for the rehabilitation programme and the cooperative at William Head, so out of $1.925 million, I wonder if the Minister could find a few thousand, perhaps, for the programme that I think has proved itself and is really just getting off the ground. It would be a real tragedy if it fell apart right now for lack of funding.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, that's another example of the fact that the federal government goes into projects like that with LIP grants, then they pull out and then we have to consider it. Even though it's a federal penitentiary

[ Page 2616 ]

and it isn't directly in our bailiwick, we do meet with the feds on a joint regional committee. We are increasing a kind of cooperation, so the kind of thing that you've raised can be discussed there. We have our own programme for prison arts, sometimes through outside bodies, for our provincial system. But I don't think there's anything I can do directly about the William Head thing itself because that is a federal institution.

MR. WALLACE: So is Agassiz, and you are giving them money.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. Well, I think there is joint expenditure of money for that.

You mentioned the Native cooperative Association. They produce special furniture. We contributed $12,000. I think there was a federal contribution there, too. They span the range of both federal and provincial institutions.

The medical estimate is down because psychiatric services are under the medical plan, and our jail population is down from 2,000 to 1,800, even though, as everybody knows, the crime rate has been up. We have sorted out those who are not dangerous to society. They are on minimum security or they are in the community. It is kind of pleasing to me that, in the case of Oakalla, I think the population today is around 600 or 700 people. When I came into office in what was maybe an easier age two years ago, it was around 1,000 or 1,100 — really bursting. Wilkinson, of course, is down to just some remand cases.

On the other subjects brought up by the Hon. Member, I have to wear two hats. That is rather difficult in my department. You are right; in terms of the administration of my duties as Attorney-General, I have to be impartial, non-political, listen carefully...

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Impossible!

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...but I've also got another hat that I can wear as a politician. I have to be careful not to confuse the two and wear them at different times.

MR. WALLACE: Which one are you wearing today?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I've got a little bit of both on there because it is so early in the morning, and I could get going very easily.

In the conversations with Warren Allmand, in terms of the new juvenile delinquency Act, I don't want to make a major speech on what is happening to society today and what is particularly happening in the field of juveniles. I think I have to go somewhere on Wednesday and give a speech. I haven't got any other topic in my mind, so this might very well be it. I am very concerned about the kind of disrespect — let's not say for laws, but disrespect for the rights of the other person in society — which you see in the schoolrooms, which might just be sassing the teacher or worse conduct. Of course it is what our age is coping with, no question about it. We see it in all kinds of groups in society who do not accept the law when it applies to them but get very indignant when laws are being broken by other people for their purposes. What has to apply to one has to apply to all. I am very concerned about this and in terms of the new Act and parental responsibility, if it can be done by law.... It is very hard to change the social habits and control and discipline of family by law; law can only do so much. But in the new juvenile delinquents Act we have to look at those possibilities too, including parental responsibility and accountability in some cases.

In the case of liquor, that is where an awful lot of our crime comes from. Maybe the murderers came mostly from the drug scene, but a lot of the population of our institutions is as a result of alcoholism. That is why we have under separate programmes...although we cooperate with the Alcohol and Drug Commission, particularly in developing the impaired drivers retraining programmes, and we have about 17 or 19 of those going in the province at the present time. I think they are successful. Instead of just being sentenced to a fine or imprisonment for impaired driving, you have got to take a course and see the consequences of your action. I think those are successful.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, no. That is not well-established. There is the one at Salmon Arm, eh? When we came into office two years ago, I think that is the only one that was really .... There may have been some other cases around the province, but we have had under Ian Waddell a real go at developing these things in an orderly way so the judges, in sentencing, have an alternative kind of a sentence in addition to the ordinary sanctions. I want to continue the development of those courses.

MR. WALLACE: Just a quick point that I had forgotten to ask. In the meeting with Warren Allmand, could the Minister say whether the consequences of amendments to the bill or format were discussed, the whole question of the fact that with good intentions it was thought that people should not be in jail because they couldn't raise bail, but on the other hand the consequences of amendments which resulted in people not appearing in court and disrupting the court schedule and

[ Page 2617 ]

causing a tremendous amount of difficulty? Was this discussed with the Solicitor-General?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, no, that comes under the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Otto Lang. But we are doing two things at the present time in my department. We have our bail-supervision programme, which is new. I think I described it earlier — something between you are incarcerated or you are not. There's a middle area now, and we think it's working well. We are the first in Canada with bail supervision.

The other thing we are doing is a very careful tracking and research project of those who are released on bail — what has been the success of their release pending trial, what has been the failure, and what kind of people don't show. Really, we have to look person by person to know what we are talking about, and we will have that kind of research information available even though it is a federal Act, so we are making our contribution.

MR. PHILLIPS: The Attorney-General said that he wasn't going to make a major speech with regard to correction institutions, what is happening and where we are going.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Would you like it now? I'd be glad to....

MR. PHILLIPS: Well, yes, because I would like to know....

HON. MR. MACDONALD: At 10 o'clock in the morning?

MR. PHILLIPS: I would like to know exactly where we are going because I think it is very important. In my travels throughout the province, this seems to be one of the areas of grave concern to the citizens of British Columbia, and we would like to know where we are going. After all, the Attorney-General or the government — I don't know whether it was the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) or the Attorney-General — did take an about-swing when they took over the government and took a softer approach, which I am not condemning. I am not condemning it; maybe this was the right way to go. But it is proven that it hasn't been the right way to go because now we are taking a second look.

I recall, not too long ago, that the Premier, who is an ex-social worker, and the Minister of Human Resources said that we were not going to have these institutions where we put people and where we put juveniles and keep them there. They were going to do away with them. Now Justice Berger comes out and says: "Well, there are a few whom we have got to keep in there to protect them for themselves."

I have correspondence and calls where a juvenile will break into a place of business, then the next day he is out in the hands of the probation officer, and lo and behold, the next night he goes right back and does the same thing. If you have a business that is getting broken into....

For instance, I have letters here from the public library commission where thousands of dollars of damage was done and the young fellow was back out on parole again. I'm afraid, Mr. Chairman, that we are getting into the position where the law is going to be far easier on you if you shoot your neighbour than if you shoot your neighbour's dog.

A case in point: I was interested to note an article in the Vancouver Province, March 14, where three men, who harassed two coyotes with snowmobiles while participating in a course that included humane trapping methods, have been fined a total of $1,000 in provincial court.

Now I just have to wonder, if these had been juvenile delinquents who had broken in and done thousands of dollars worth of damage to one of their neighbours, what would they have been fined. What would have been the result in today's society? So, as I say, where are we heading? These three gentlemen were harassing coyotes, and the three of them were fined a total of $ 1,000.

I think the law was very stern on these particular people in relation — now I am not saying stern as an isolated case — but in relation to the other attitude we seem to have towards offenders. So, in heaven's name, don't go out and harass any wild animals because you are going to be nailed, and you are going to be nailed but good. But you can go ahead and break and enter, steal, do malicious damage, and if you are a juvenile you seem to get off scot-free to the point, Mr. Chairman, where the mayor of Duncan was wanting to lay criminal charges against Human Resources Minister Norman Levi after an incident in which juveniles from Nanaimo's Island Youth Centre terrorized Duncan Saturday night.

I think this is very, very timely and I would hate to see us skip over it. I would like to know where we are going. It is of great concern. As the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) pointed out, our crime rate is going up. I think the Attorney-General has taken a hard stand against drug pushers and abusers — not necessarily users — but certainly those people who have been pushing drugs in British Columbia. I think the prosecutions have been fairly stern the last few years.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: We're trying.

MR. PHILLIPS: I appreciate that fact, but there is this other area, Mr. Chairman.

[ Page 2618 ]

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I know.

MR. PHILLIPS: I would like the Attorney-General to tell us where he is at, where he thinks we are going. Are you going to reverse your soft stand advocated by the Minister of Human Resources, and indeed, the Premier, because the experiment hasn't worked?

It's like Dr. Spock. Dr. Spock came out and he said: "If your kid wants self-expression, let him write on the wall." Then some mother found out that this just didn't work because they didn't only write on the wall, they sometimes carved on the wall.

It's an experiment — has it worked? Has it not worked? Just where are we going? When society gets to the point where, as I say, the law is harsher on you if you shoot your neighbour's dog than if you actually shoot your neighbour, then I think we should take a real good look and find out where we're going. Although the Attorney-General maybe doesn't want to make a lengthy speech on it, I think the people of British Columbia would like to know, and I would appreciate knowing just exactly where we are going.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: The Hon. Member has raised a very important subject, and whether it is under this vote or not, I don't mind giving a reply. My predecessor in office, the Hon. Leslie Peterson, through the Family Relations Act — and I think we all generally applauded in the Legislature — provided for that sentence where the juvenile would be made a ward of the Children's Aid Society. In most cases that has worked well, but not completely.

As I say, we are in rather a more difficult age, and it's amazing how quickly these times change. The result is that we commissioned the Berger commission, and if the Hon. Member will look at the fourth report which has been accepted by the government, he will see the kind of concern that commission had for this particular problem. They didn't want to go wholly punitive and they didn't want to go wholly permissive. The wholly punitive thing has its built-in dangers, too, particularly in the field of kind of manufacturing children into criminals who might not otherwise be criminals at all.

In addition to proceeding with those recommendations, the government has already, of course, quite a few young people in the corrections branch, under the votes we are discussing now. They go there in two ways: sometimes the judge raises those who are under age to adult court, and that's not a very satisfactory way but sometimes it has to happen: the other way is that, increasingly, there are some youngsters who, as a condition of probation, are made to go to one of our camps. At the present time, in Senta Creek there are 12 young people, either juveniles or young adults. At Porteau Camp on Howe Sound, we have quite a few juveniles there, some of them over age and some of them under — that's a weekend programme except in the summer when it goes full-time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are these sort of outreach programmes?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. And Boulder Bay — that's a tough, outdoor wilderness experience where people are almost free to leave if they want to. But when they go without ticket-of-leave, they have about 15 miles of very rough mountain terrain to pass to make their way to the Haney area. We figure that mostly those who can accomplish that kind of an adventurous outdoor experience are probably cured at that point. (Laughter.) Maybe that's the answer — if they fight their way back, they're all right, because that's not easy.

There are quite a few young people now in the forestry camps of the corrections branch. But we still have the major problem, and as Mr. Justice Berger says in his report, there should be assessment centres in local communities so that the police don't have to take a young person and throw him into the adult lockup. This happens now or the police say that they can't put him in the adult lockout and he goes free — one or the other. These centres would be a sort of a place for assessment and cooling off for a youngster who's been acting up so that when he appears in court 10 days or two weeks later — not a long period — he's settled down and he's had a chance to think through his own situation. So we should, in a very informal way, develop some of those community assessment centres as recommended in the report.

MR. P.C. ROLSTON (Dewdney): Mr. Chairman, I will never learn how to pronounce the name of the Russian novelist, Dostoevsky, but he did tell us many, many decades ago that what's really happening in prisons really is a reflection of the community. As I understand it, and my experience in corrections is that if we really mean business, if we really mean to do some correcting and some therapy, that degree of concern, or seriousness, will surely reflect how serious we are about the outside straight society.

For instance, the 80 young fellows who are still in Haney Correctional — if we really want them to be corrected and really live as confident and firm people, we will be determined to spend money, but also see that it is well spent and meaningfully spent in our corrections system.

I really compliment the Attorney-General, who is three years ahead of his five-year plan when he announced that by the end of July the Haney Correctional, which I suppose is one of the larger employers in Maple Ridge, will be phased down and phased right out.

As I understand it, when you made that

[ Page 2619 ]

announcement there were about 146 men in that institution; now I gather somewhere around 78 or something like that. It would be instructive, Mr. Attorney-General, just to tell us how that relates to the camps. Is the unused capacity in the camps now pretty well used as you start to move some of those people into Boulder Bay, Pine Ridge, Stave Lake? I don't know about Porteau Bay and some of these other places. What kind of unused capacity is there still there? Will there be another wilderness camp? I hear very good feedback on the wilderness camp. You just spoke briefly about Boulder Bay.

It might interest the people in the House: I understand that a couple of fellows tried to leave Boulder Bay. After about 10 miles through incredibly rocky terrain, you probably enter on what we call the Stave Lake road, the road along the west side of Stave Lake. It's pretty easy to apprehend a person coming out of that area, and, of course, they were. It must have been frustrating after 10 miles of terribly difficult terrain. These fellows got out several years ago and were picked up walking along that road.

It would be interesting to know in ballpark figures what the cost of the Boulder Bay operation per person is compared to staying in the big concrete building, the Haney Correctional Centre, which we'll be phasing out by the end of July. That would be somewhat instructive.

It also would be helpful, Mr. Chairman, just to hear, for instance, what the count is. The count on February 3 was 1,784 people sentenced and unsentenced in the province. What is the count right now? Where is the main...? You mentioned, for instance, that you don't think Oakalla is more than about 700. Where is the concentration?

It would be, I think, helpful, too, as we talk about this money, which is not going just to jails, as I understand.... The $27.5 million is also going to the probation service and to the community corrections programme. It would be helpful just to know how many people are in the actual staffing of jails, which I understood was 1,200 people in the old days. I gather that staffing is going down as, presumably, the count is going down. How many are going into the probation service?

The Hon. Attorney-General will probably continue to hear me cry for the need for more probation workers. There are 250 doing the work of looking after at least 10,000, if not 12,000, people on probation. That complement has got to increase. I really appreciate the fact that he says that the probation service is now being run by case management by private agencies. I think that's helpful. But that still is a cost to us. You could probably tell us how many actual bodies, whether they're private or whether they're people working directly for the public, are doing the probation service.

Also, it would still be useful, as politicians talking about your estimates, to know just what, is the cost. The cost used to be $400 for probation. What does it now cost in this particular estimate or fiscal year for a year's cost of probation for a person? That would be very instructive, I think, to this particular House.

Mr. Chairman, talking about juveniles, Mr. Berger told us a whole bunch of things about juveniles, which, again, I assume is under this vote — the custody of juveniles, the custody of children. It was very instructive for me to realize just the number of reasons that might be causing juvenile delinquency: family problems, a lack of limits, a lack of real direction by parents — gee, I think we just have to hammer on that one — the lack of proper models for juveniles to follow, the tremendous mobility of families.

I think the House realizes that, I guess, at least one in four are moving every year. We've been told that even more than a single family that's one of the most damaging things on a child — the mobility, the movement of people. Of course, the poverty, overcrowding in housing, unemployment, cultural adjustment, the pressure of other kids on these children, the fact that....

I think that when I was with the Attorney-General in Haney about a month ago, we heard still some pretty frightening stories of the number of foster parents. We heard the incredible story of a child in Maple Ridge who had 18 foster parents, Imagine the pressure! Imagine what that could mean as part of the cause for juvenile delinquency. Of course, emotional problems, alcohol and drug problems, probably some physical disabilities, sometimes end out in some kind of deviant behaviour and going against the law.

Again, I think the Attorney-General, the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke), the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) and the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) are trying to detect physical and other emotional disabilities very early in their life, which will prevent these people from ever going to a place like Haney Correctional, or Boulder Bay or whatever. Of course, a low IQ and also learning disabilities.... These are a whole bunch of reasons that often end out in some kind of delinquent behaviour.

I make that emphasis, Mr. Chairman, because what I want to ask about right now is the whole business of regional remands for juveniles. Quite frankly, I don't care if it is under the Attorney-General or under the Minister of Human Resources; even though if it is under this Attorney-General it might not mean much sharing from Ottawa on transfer payments.

Having just mentioned some of the causal factors of juvenile delinquency which could lead to crime, my point in bringing this up is the need, as Mr. Berger said, for some kind of assessment facility. By George, this is complicated stuff and I'm sure not competent,

[ Page 2620 ]

even with some professional training, to really see some of the causal factors in these young people. So I ask the questions: How long do you see the juveniles in some kind of facility? What are some of the criteria for being admitted to a short-term juvenile facility? What are some of the processes for referral for admission to this facility? Can you give the House an idea of what some of the diagnostic setups might look like, especially with regard to their relationship with other private agencies?

I think the people in the communities, especially the people on justice development councils in Maple Ridge and Mission, want to know what the kind of discharge process is. Once they are there for 30, 40, 50 or maybe 60 days, how are they going to be discharged, to whom, and what kind of relationship will there be with the other services such as Human Resources, possibly corrections — though we hope that won't be true — mental health, police, school boards, the whole works?

When we are talking about the estimates for this current fiscal year, where presumably there will be expenditures on regional remanding — you've said that Victoria and Vancouver will be the first places but probably the Fraser Valley and others are upcoming — there is the whole question of staffing. Mr. Attorney-General, it seems that corrections, by the very nature of the job, is at times a very anxiety-prone business, even neurotic at times. It is a very difficult job to be in where you are constantly supervising kids who are really creating tensions both in the jail and in the community.

That brings up, Mr. Chairman, the need for staff training. By George, you just can't go on.... When you are winding down Haney Correctional and kids are going to other places — we are talking about community facilities in Chilliwack and Marpole and wherever — surely that means there has to be more money spent. I would like to know just how much money in what vote is going to be spent in upgrading staff. It seems that you just can't use the same people without a lot of money and a lot of time spent.

It might interest you that some of the professional people at the federal Matsqui institution work a 37-hour week and spend a great deal of that in just upgrading themselves in training. I think we need to hear that because you just won't move from one pretty static system under the previous administration to now quite a fluid community-based system without a tremendous amount of staff upgrading.

A final comment with that is that I believe the whole business of staff complaints is much better. I gather that John Ecksted did some work originally on staff relations which, when I became an MLA, were gosh-awful. There seemed to be a lot of anxiety. It is partly the type of job but also the whole business of upgrading staff relations and training.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, we do take staff training very seriously. It is under code 031 in vote 15 which the House very graciously passed some days ago, thereby making it impossible for me to make a speech on vote 15.

In terms of the criteria for admission to possible assessment centres, the Berger report discusses this in some depth. We are talking about pre-trial, very short term, strictly under the supervision of the judge. Nobody goes into an assessment centre unless the judge, after receiving the reports from the counsellors, the prosecutor and so forth, decides that that would be worthwhile. We also have a provision that has been recommended to us that the advocates immediately are notified for that region of any youngster who has been confined, and they arrange to see that young person immediately.

Our camp population is bulging a little bit in the lower mainland. For example, Boulder Bay is now 55 people. Up north it isn't so bad. Of the total number in the system — as I said, 1,826 is the exact figure as of a short time ago — I guess this isn't broken down in terms of who are in the camps because the camps vary, but 427 of the 1,826 are awaiting trial, 186 are on temporary absence in one form or another, and of our camps down in the lower mainland we have a pretty full complement, as I said.

So we are looking to expand the Stave Lake camp and we may reopen Lakeview, which is at the middle of Vancouver Island, not too far from Campbell River.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Yes, Mr. Chairman, just a few more questions on the assessment centres because the Attorney-General has been discussing it. He announced the other day that he would be naming a director. I'd like to question whether that director has yet been appointed or whether he can make an announcement.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, I can't announce it.

MR. BENNETT: Although you mention that some facilities may be put into Victoria or Vancouver right away, when you place these assessment centres in other communities, will you be discussing with the local communities the location and the type of centre? Will the facilities be related to local problems? I think the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) mentioned staffing, but will there be security or will there be some form of rehabilitation offered within those assessment centres? Will they be more than just holding facilities?

The programme so far hasn't been defined that we can understand, yet a lot of the communities that write us are concerned about this growing juvenile delinquency problem and vandalism. Of course, we

[ Page 2621 ]

know that in the last few years juvenile court judges have had no opportunity but to put their juveniles out on probation or into homes, and have no way to take them off the streets.

I watched a programme while I was out of the House last week for various reasons. On television I saw a mother on "Front Page Challenge" concerned about an incident that involved a juvenile. While it involved gun control, I think the real problem was juvenile delinquency.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Was it Mrs. Burtinshaw?

MR. BENNETT: Yes.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Oh, she was on there?

MR. BENNETT: Yes. But the main problem was juvenile delinquency.

If they are to have these assessment centres or holding centres, the communities would like more definition and they want to know whether they'll be involved in full discussion on how the facilities will operate, and particularly as to what will be the definition of a hard-core offender, and what type of security. Will there be different types of security within The centres for various juveniles? They want to know about local rehabilitation within these centres.

Perhaps you could just elaborate.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, they are very short-term kind of facilities under the supervision of the court. Primarily the young person is in there for two reasons. First, he's dangerous to be running around, and you don't put anybody in unless that's the first criterion. Secondly, he's there for assessment for a very short period of time until pre-trial. So beyond saying that it's for assessment purposes, I don't think we would think of further programmes in what are essentially very small, informal holding units pre-trial.

In the terms of consulting with the communities, the answer is yes. We have the machinery through our justice councils, and I would expect that the justice councils would increasingly, as we have this kind of a programme, consider swinging their efforts into an examination of the most suitable facilities, the most informal facilities, one acceptable to the community, one that will not entail a large expense of public money. Possibly from the justice councils we'll be able to get some of the leadership material to actively work in this programme. So we do have the justice councils not only as eyes and ears out in the various communities to consult but I would hope that they will increasingly move into a more executive role as we have new challenges such as the one you have been discussing. We have some very good people who are in those justice councils.

Was there something I missed?

MR. BENNETT: Rehabilitation.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, really, not in an assessment centre. That might be for two days. I don't think we would put in educational and other programmes into an assessment centre which is basically a cooling-off place. Basically, the young person can be assessed so that when the judge conducts the trial he will know what kind of facility, if a facility is needed, that young person needs, or whether the youngster should be sent back to his parents or possibly even a wilderness camp or a group home or something. Most of the facilities will still be under the Department of Human Resources. I would think that for the vast bulk of the young people who get into trouble there's no need for locks or keys, but for some there is.

MR. BENNETT: Well, then, these centres or these facilities won't be expanded for use primarily other than holding before they go to court. What about the problem of no facilities after juveniles have been convicted? They couldn't be an extension for those...?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, I wouldn't think that the assessment centre would be. I think then we'd go on to, as I say, the whole range of services offered by the Department of Human Resources and, to a very limited extent, the services we offer in wilderness camps and that kind of thing. Community correctional centres.

MR. BENNETT: You're not going to expand that?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I think we have to expand our forestry camp centres. I mentioned, I think, that we're now planning expansion of Stave Lake, and I think we will perhaps have to increase that. Certainly that's a far better setting than putting somebody into jail as such, particularly a young person.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Chairman, one of the measures the government introduced last year to try and keep people out of correction institutions was the measure whereby people would not be put in jail for the non-payment of fines. I would ask the Attorney-General just very briefly if he would comment on the disturbing report in this morning's newspaper that, in fact, this system is somewhat breaking down and that its enforcement is proving difficult, We may, in the long run, be led to the position where we're going to have to use the correction institutions again to enforce this kind of

[ Page 2622 ]

feeling.

Other news reports, I understand, would say that the value of unpaid fines is in fact much higher than the $150,000 suggested by Alderman Boyce.

HON. MR. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Well, I appreciate short questions, but that one was so short it caught me aback. But that's right; you got right to the heart of something that we're now monitoring, of course. We're gathering statistics. You have to bear in mind that when you put the person in jail who can't pay, you don't get the fine either. We estimated that this was costing the taxpayers throughout the province about $3 million a year — that is, the cost of keeping those who are in jail simply because they couldn't pay a fine.

You must also bear in mind that the judge still has full discretion. He can still at the time of that offence fine or incarcerate. He can't do both together. If he then says that he's sentencing you to a fine and that fine is not paid, there can't be an automatic default; but then the person concerned can be brought back into court. Now we've established an — I think we call it an enforcement officer, don't we? I think it's called an enforcement officer. We've had to establish, as this programme proceeds, one officer who's responsible for going after the fines that should be paid — where the person is deliberately evading or can't pay, and won't. That programme has been underway in the last month and a half, after we've been gathering the relevant statistics.

So the programme is experimental in the sense that we still have to monitor it, gather statistics. I don't think the fine loss is nearly as great as was anticipated because, as I say, if you put that person into jail, you don't get the fine anyway. So those figures have to be looked at with great care.

MR. GIBSON: Well, how much a day is it to keep a person in jail?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, it depends. It's now at Haney Correctional, because the population is down and the staff ratio is away up...but the last year or so we figure it's about $40 a day. In a forestry camp it's about half that. In probation, of course, the costs just disappear. They are so miniscule compared with incarceration. What are they — 5 per cent of the costs of incarceration if somebody's out on probation. So it varies from very high to very low, You might say that an average is $25 a day. I think we took that to work out our figures of who was in jail because they couldn't pay the fine — for that reason only. We figured the whole province was losing about $3 million a year.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Chairman, I trust I don't misunderstand the Attorney-General in his recent remarks. If we're saving all this money by not putting people in jail, then I suppose what we could do is to shut up the jails altogether, and we'd save all this money that we're talking about. I'm sure that's not his intention.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Is that the proposal of your party?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: No, I just asked if that was your intention. That's what you were suggesting, that somehow or other the change you made last year was saving a lot of money. If money is what we're to save, then we can do it quite easily. I'm sure you don't mean that.

HON. MR, MACDONALD: No.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Attorney-General would advise the committee whether or not he's in a position to give any assessment of the direction that correction services are now taking in British Columbia. If it's too soon, then I'm sure the Attorney-General will say. What concerns me is that we're dealing at this moment with a vote of $27.5 million for correction services, and the extent to which the Attorney-General believes that the expenditure of this money is producing the desirable results. I assume that the intention is to rehabilitate people who are capable of rehabilitation and make some assessment of those who are not, and to make some appropriate actions to ensure that those who cannot be rehabilitated and brought back as useful members of the community are somehow or other categorized and treated a different way. I'd like to know whether the community is going to face this problem on a continuing basis, or do you see the direction that correction services are taking as one which is going to result in a diminishing demand upon society?

In all the moneys that we are making available to the Attorney-General, a fantastic amount is expended because of the criminal activities of people in our society. It is growing every year, in all the votes. We have got $12.6 million for courts, the majority of which are involved with criminal prosecutions; $4.6 million for prosecution services; $8.2 million for sheriffs' services; $20 million for police; and now $27 million for corrections. I wonder if the Attorney-General is able to indicate to us whether or not what he is doing is going to be a continuing part of our responsibility at increasing costs. If it is, then it seems to me that corrections services should be given some greater priority than is presently the case.

As I say, the votes we are dealing with, or have dealt with in the past, provide $20 million for police, but that is only a very small part of the total policing costs we have in this province. The chairman of the

[ Page 2623 ]

police commission advised me that the policing costs in the province are currently about $120 million a year. Over the next three years it is forecast to increase to $180 million, and that is without any capital expenditure for buildings or equipment involved in that aspect of society's responsibility.

With this growing feeling in our communities about what our juveniles are doing, people are more and more disturbed about criminal activities, yet we are spending more and more money for police, more and more money for courts. Now we are increasing the budget for the corrections services by $8 million this year. I would like to know whether or not there is any monitoring going on. Is what we are doing effective or are we just creating another facility or group of facilities in the community whereby we are taking people and treating them in a way which may be more humane?

It is all very well to say, Mr. Attorney-General, that it is better to take some of these people and put them in a camp or some other facility than to lock them up. It is certainly better for them, but after all, is it better for the community? Is it the obligation of the community, somehow or other, to keep a criminal in some better kind of facility? If you want, you might as well put him in the Empress or the Hyatt Regency or something. I am sure that would be very acceptable to the criminal — better than even a forestry camp — unless you can satisfy us that putting him in these other institutions is going to have some other benefit than merely keeping him in a facility which is convenient and attractive to him.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, part of the problem with the budget, of course, is better working conditions for staff. We have a union agreement in the correctional services which is added, I think, in 19 hours per year per man to each of the people in there, and which we have to pay for — better breaks in terms of holidays, coffee breaks — things which they deserve, things of that kind which you might call fringes. There you have the wage increase to bring their salaries up to comparable levels in the private community. So a lot of our increase of $8 million in the vote is related to staff. Some of it is related to the increasing costs of supplies.

Then, of course, we have made the big new venture into grant funding. We go to something like the Prince George Activators Society and ask them to run a project — people who participate in that project will not be in the jail system as such. We like to contract these things out where we can — to the Sally Ann or societies that are reliable. So even though our population went down, as I say, in a difficult period — down to 1,826 as of May 5 — our costs have gone up. We need staff because we are expanding the community correctional centres and other things.

It depends upon the age and what is going to happen in terms of respect for rules of conduct, but I would hope to be optimistic on that question. I think the pendulum has gone as far as it can go, surely, in terms of disrespect for the other fellow. I don't think it is going to go any further. I think there is going to be a swing back to where people will say that if I continually, and for my own interest, take selfish advantage of my rights or break the law, sooner or later I am going to be living in a society which won't be very happy for me and my family, and what I do to the other fellow will ultimately catch up with me. I think that a new kind of respect for the other fellow has got to apply through the whole range of society.

It is not just kids with mindless vandalism. Sure, it is large corporations, and it is trade unions who think that possibly to go on an illegal walkout, an illegal strike or an illegal slowdown is a legitimate bargaining tool, but they're just signaling a message to other people in society: "If they can do that, why can't IT' Road blockades and things like that seem to flow from this general disrespect for rules.

Now, if that continues, if the pendulum in terms of disrespect for your neighbour continues in our society the way it has been swinging in the last few years, then we're going to have a much larger budget in the correctional services, regardless of the efforts of these people. But if the pendulum swings back to some sense of social responsibility, people will ask themselves, "Who is my neighbour after all, and how is he going to be affected by what is happening here?" — they begin to get that kind of respect for rules back in their head and understand that rules are necessary n a civilized society or there is a quick descent into barbarism and anarchy.

You know, that quick descent can be a lot quicker than you think. You can reach a certain point of no return. This has happened in some of the great cities in the world, where having gone that far it is almost impossible to recall that kind of mutual respect and cooperation with which citizens should live in society.

So the pendulum goes on swinging. This is going to be a big vote, whoever the Minister is. But I think it is time it will swing back in the other direction, and that people will recognize that "hurting my neighbour is fine, hurting the public is fine, except that I'm also the public, my family is the public, sooner or later that kind of thing is going to catch up to me."

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I compliment the Attorney-General on a fine statement of philosophy. But the question I asked him was: is his department monitoring what we are doing in correction services, and can he advise the committee whether the direction in which he is moving is accomplishing anything in the line of what he has just said? It is all very well to say that we have to have more respect for

[ Page 2624 ]

our neighbour.

It is all very well to say that he thinks that the pendulum has gone as far as it is going to go. The Attorney-General well knows that in other jurisdictions in North America and Canada the pendulum has gone a lot farther than it has so far in our community, where people don't go out at night, where governments have been obliged to take the strongest possible action to stop the use of weapons, including some actions that no one in this House would like to see taken. I'm talking about searches of persons and places without warrants, and all those extreme moves that have to be taken by a government which finally faces up to the fact that they are not going to allow the criminal element to take control of society.

Now we're perhaps in a middle stage, maybe at a midway house. I would like to know whether spending the kind of money that we are doing here and providing more staff and better facilities for the staff and better wages and working conditions for the staff...that the correction service direction upon which we are embarked is showing signs of being the right way. If this correction service is the wrong way, it seems to me that we are only encouraging a person who is not prepared to take a responsible role in society to continue that irresponsibility, and we will have to perhaps look for more stringent measures in order to control those people and to ensure that they don't act in a way which will bring them into the clutches of the law and offend against their fellow citizens.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I think I didn't answer that when I spoke earlier. I got kind of carried away on something else.

We've established a planning and research section. We're monitoring very closely what is happening. That's why we have been able to reduce the population in the larger brick-and-mortar institutions because person by person we've gone through them and asked ourselves the question: "Is this person so dangerous to his fellows or dangerous at all to his fellows so that he requires that kind of massive custody?" And that's the real test, isn't it?

There are all kinds of alternatives to incarceration that should be used, provided that person is not going to commit another offence when he is out there, or hurt society or his community. Then the sanctions, just the publicity, just the community alternative, just the fine, just the attendance at a community correctional centre — all of these things work against repetition of the conduct. But if he is dangerous, then we have to know about it.

So we are monitoring very closely, and doing it almost on a person-by-person basis, as we did with all those out on bail, to find out who has been denied bail, who should be on bail and hasn't had it, who should not be out on bail and has. We're doing it almost individual by individual, and for the first time, I think, under Dr. Hank Matheson and Pauline Morrison, and the other people in our research and planning, we are beginning to find out whether our directions are sound or not.

When we find that they are not sound, we will change, but at the moment we are quite satisfied that the five-year plan on which we are embarked is something that should be carried on with. But if research shows us otherwise we will change our mind, and make no apologies about it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: For a moment on that research aspect. The Minister mentioned a five-year plan on research. Can he give us some more detail on what interim reports he's had and things of that nature?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, let me see if I can sum up the kinds of work that are now actively under investigation. It all began when I became Attorney-General and Dr. Matheson with Mr. Schultz. Who was the third one?

AN HON. MEMBER: Jack Macdonald.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Jack Macdonald. They brought in the examination of the prison system, which went to many pages but was very valuable. But since that time we are concentrated on specifics. For example, they are partly under CLEU and they are partly under the research and planning units and the personnel kind of overlap.

At the present time we are doing the bail thing person by person, and we are also doing the trail tracking which is very important. If someone is charged with, say, drug trafficking in hard stuff, and their trail is delayed either by the lawyer or by the court or the congestion of the system for months and months and they are incarcerated in the meantime, then, obviously, that trail has to be brought up and given priority. So trial tracking and delay is something of very great concern to us. I guess we are just monitoring the community correctional centres and other things of that kind. I haven't the list of the particular research projects at the present time in front of me. Those are the ones that stand out.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I thank the Attorney-General. I was interested in Dr. Matheson. We have had discussion in this House before on his role and what he has been doing. It's many, many months ago, maybe years ago now. I wonder if the Attorney-General could give some general commitment to the House, though, to keep us generally informed of this five-year programme of examination of the effectiveness....

[ Page 2625 ]

HON. MR. MACDONALD: The five-year plan is really institutional phase-out and change. It has nothing to do with research as such.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, I quite agree with him that the last thing we would want is to apply measures which are inappropriately harsh or counter-productive, as I believe many of these harsher measures are. I believe that we should indeed continue with the policy that he has outlined and we should continue to use a little compassion in the application of the law and also in an attempt to have correction rather than simply punishment. But I do believe it is important, as perhaps the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) has indicated, for the public to know the success or relative success or lack of success of the course of action we are presently on. It's too simple to ask simply for harsh measures. Harsh measures are generally found to be, simply, counter productive and destructive of not just the individuals concerned but also the safety of society.

I feel, however, that the programme which the Attorney-General has put forward, which I am sure all Members of this House could appreciate, is not being adequately made public and we are not adequately informed of the success or otherwise of these programmes and the comparison with other jurisdictions. I believe it is quite tragic that we have in British Columbia very simplistic debates in this Legislature as well as, of course, in the press and elsewhere on the treat-'em-tough versus let-'em-go points of view, both of which are probably dead wrong. It is an area where many measures will have to be considered and where a variety of approaches will have to be examined. We are faced with trends which are of major social importance. We have seen the development of even vigilante groups in British Columbia in the last year — or at least talk of them — which I think is a tragic situation.

I believe the Attorney-General's department could and should be criticized for not, in fact, informing the public adequately and informing the Members of this House adequately on the success or relative success of the course of action we are following here as compared with other jurisdictions.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: ...that kind of suggestion because when you have the kind of problems we have, I think we should be as open as possible.

We are now studying, for example, the rate of recidivism, which is a big word meaning that never before have we really known how often these people repeat after what experience. How can we tell if our community correctional centres are working unless we know whether the same thing has repeated itself. I don't think that's my information when it comes in; I think it belongs to the public.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Right.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Briefly, just to follow up on a question that was asked earlier by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) regarding the role that the local communities play in the establishment of these community correctional centres and other aspects of justice in the community. The Attorney-General replied that the justice councils would be making sure that the community was involved. But I think the question really was whether or not the governing authorities in the community were being involved — local councils, local school boards. My experience to date has been that those people, the elected representatives in the community, are often not even aware that a justice council is being set up in the community; the school boards aren't aware that a justice council is being set up in the community.

While it's admirable, I guess, that the province takes over all of the court facilities and all of the ancillary facilities to deal with the courts. It's not so admirable that the local community by way of its elected representatives gets cut out of the process — I'm just afraid that that seems to be happening. I wonder whether or not the Attorney-General can assure us that not only will that small group of people involved with the justice councils be aware of what's happening, but also the elected officials will know what's going on in their community and be part of what's going on in their communities.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, and so they should. Maybe in terms of expanding a programme we've got a little ahead of ourselves at times. But, for example, when I was in Prince Rupert, there we had the joint meetings with justice council, our prosecutors and so forth — and the judges insofar as the matter was non-political. So we certainly have to consult the local representatives.

When you're looking for any kind of public facility — I might as well be frank — there are problems. Communities are apt to reject just about anything: a home for retarded children, a psychiatric forensic clinic. People are a little bit afraid of these things. So when we make an approach to a community, we don't necessarily look for newspaper headlines immediately. That could affect the value of the property. But where possible, we should consult and we should improve what we've done to date in that field.

MR. McCLELLAND: If the local elected officials on both the school board and the council were in at the beginning, even when that justice council was

[ Page 2626 ]

being formed, I think some of the problems you're running into may not be as much of a problem. They may want to accept them much more readily if they know what's happening.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, just a couple of questions to the Attorney-General concerning specific votes under 21. On page 44, vote 032, provision last year for $2,000 for psychiatric services is now discontinued and there's no allocation of funds for that. Also, 035, training academy, for which there are apparently no funds available. The $56,000 of 044....

HON. MR. MACDONALD: You're going pretty quickly.

MR. SMITH: Pardon me?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: You're going pretty quickly.

MR. SMITH: Yes, okay. The first vote was 032 — $2,000 for psychiatric services. It would seem to me that unless provision is made somewhere else....

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It's under B.C. Medical Plan — they still visit.

MR. SMITH: Right. Okay, let's get down then to the next vote  — 035, training academy. Why was that phased out?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's under, I think, vote 15 on manpower development and training.

MR. SMITH: It's just a transfer from one spot to the other? Does that same apply to vote 045 — the licence plate shop which now does not appear any more under this vote?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's 044 — licence plate....

MR. SMITH: Yes, but there was $56,000 approved last year as estimates for this vote and this year nothing. Has it been transferred to another vote?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I've been rated on that one; it's gone to the Minister of Transport (Hon. Mr. Strachan) — the expenditure for the licence plates. We're still doing the work but that Minister's paying the amount. I can't lose them all.

MR. SMITH: Some of the people who were involved in producing the licence plates are still wards of your department but the actual vote is transferred somewhere else.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Maybe a final question to the Minister. It deals with the very last line of the vote. Grants for special projects have gone from $50,000 to virtually $2 million. Undoubtedly there's some good reason; I wonder whether the Attorney-General will quickly indicate what it might be.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: This is our move to decentralize. For example, community residential centres that we're developing come out of this vote and a lot of their costs — $271,000. We have $144,000 in fee-for-service, contracts with the Salvation Army and other people to run projects. We have in the adult programmes $144,000; juvenile programmes, $402,000. What it is really doing is pulling under this vote many things that were directly done in the corrections service before — putting them on contract.

MR. BENNETT: We turned earlier to a question brought up by the Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson) about the unpaid fines. I didn't understand whether the Attorney-General said there was no provision, or that he wasn't considering a provision as one of the alternatives that a sentence in lieu of unpaid fines wasn't one of the possibilities. In fact, it didn't have to be used all the time or any time but it was there as a deterrent for those who would abuse and not pay their fines.

I appreciate that the Attorney-General suggested that they are looking at alternatives and that you can't earn money to pay fines when you're in jail. But will this be part of one of the penalties or one of the alternatives?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: It remains a sanction that if you don't pay the fine, you can be brought back before the judge. That's why we have an enforcement officer. You can still go to jail in British Columbia for not paying a fine.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: But only after another hearing before the judge, not automatically because you haven't got it in your pocket. Then after that judge is satisfied that this person can pay but is deliberately not working, is deliberately evading, has been giving false answers about his assets, then that person goes to jail for non-payment of a fine. That is the office of the enforcement officer, and part of the programme, to look at the fines that should be paid but are not being paid, and to bring that person back into court.

[ Page 2627 ]

MR. BENNETT: Further than that — has this happened? Has this alternative that the Attorney-General suggested happened? Have people been brought back for not paying fines?

HON. MR. MACDONALD I would think so. I don't want to mention cases — I'm just going in terms of recollection. It seems to me that the enforcement officer was named about two or three months ago, and operational May 1. His name is Newson — Lorne Newson.

MR. BENNETT: Has he instigated any proceedings of this nature yet?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I can't answer that.

Vote 21 approved.

Vote 22: British Columbia parole board, $111,240 — approved.

On vote 23: corporate and financial services division, $3,050,840.

MR. SMITH: I can see that the Hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) is very confused this morning. He wants to conduct business from a place in the House other than where he should be recognized, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Do you want my job?

MR. SMITH: I think, Mr. Attorney-General, that he is after your job from the looks of things.

Under this vote there are a couple of items I would like to raise. Perhaps the Attorney-General would comment on them, if I can find them here.

The first thing that I would like to ask the Attorney-General about is the matter of the licensing of stockbrokers in the Province of British Columbia, and whether the Attorney-General intends any type of training programme for those people who apply for licensing as stockbrokers in the province. It has been suggested to me by some of the members of the stockbrokers' association and profession that they would be most interested in seeing a programme of instruction and training similar, for instance, to the type of examination programme that must be completed by people in the real estate business prior to the time they are licensed by the Province of British Columbia. They feel that it would be helpful....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could I have your attention for just a minute, Mr. Member? I wonder if I can ask the other Members to keep their meetings down so that we don't have too many meetings interfering one with the other.

MR. SMITH: There is a school of thought in the brokerage firms, one held by many people, where they would like to see a programme similar to that presently enforced for the licensing of real estate agents, whereby someone who wished to enter into that business would have to write a programme. They would be interested in cooperating with the Attorney-General in respect to bringing such a programme for the province.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I will take the suggestion under advisement. At the moment it is private training. You have the Investment Dealers Association which conducts courses. We do not make that kind of course mandatory in terms of licensing brokers. I guess we have inherited the brokers historically, pretty well; there they are.

We will consider it. If they want some retraining maybe we will.... Well, we are closing Haney Correctional — maybe turn it into a university. Perhaps they could go there. No, they wouldn't like that. But some other form of training, this is what you are suggesting.

MR. SMITH: Right.

One other point I would like to bring before the Minister at this time is the matter of the licensing of people who represent life insurance companies in the Province of British Columbia. At the present time a person is licensed as a life underwriter through the auspices of one specific company. They are only allowed to represent that one particular insurer in the Province of — British Columbia. In other jurisdictions governments have seen fit to allow multiple representation by one insurance agent simply by applying. They have to go through a specific set of circumstances, but they can apply to represent more than one life insurance company, particularly in specific instances.

I would think that we should investigate this particular situation because of the fact that many people who are career underwriters in the insurance business find that when handling a specific case or a specific insurance requirement, a better proposition for the insured can be obtained from a company other than the one that they are licensed for.

Now, the ordinary process today is that you have to go through a very long procedure of getting a letter from your company to act on the basis of a broker and broker the case through another company. It seems to me that there should be consideration given, particularly today, when the licensing of an insurance agent is held fairly close. They have to have a certain amount of training and they have to maintain a pretty strict code of ethics within their business in order to retain their licence. It wouldn't be time now

[ Page 2628 ]

to expand the provisions as other provinces have done. It is a minor amendment, really, to the Insurance Act, which would allow an agent to represent more than one company.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: At the insistence of the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke), we have been looking into that particular problem, because the Minister of Health before he become a politician was in the life insurance business, and he tells me it is wrong that you should only have to represent one company. So there may be changes in that.

MR. SMITH: Particularly when you are bargaining for a client for different types of coverage.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. I want to look at this business of term, and whole life, and when you can't convert from one to the other without infringing the life insurance Act, so I am glad you have made these suggestions. They are very much in my mind.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Chairman, our time is getting on. I will ask just one brief question, or at least register one brief complaint, and that is previously it was possible for Members of the Legislature and others to go to the registrar of companies and obtain information regarding not only the directors of the company, but also the shareholders.

I would like to point out to the Attorney-General first that you can find few people in this province more helpful and efficient and friendly and useful as the civil servants who work it. They have been enormously helpful to every MLA who has ever asked their assistance, and I'm sure to every member of the public as well.

Let me congratulate them, and say it is in no way a reflection on them that as a result of this government's change in the law in some weird effort to apparently streamline or change the procedure, it is now extremely difficult to get the lists of shareholders. Shareholders' lists are no longer held by the registrar of companies. They are held at the head office of the company concerned, and while there are legal requirements that these offices remain open, I believe, two hours a day, nevertheless in any case of dispute or difficulty, which obviously occurs with the vast numbers of companies that we have in B.C., these offices are often closed.

So take, for example, the case of getting a list of directors. We go to the civil servants, and they are most helpful. Previously we could go there and look at the shareholders' list, make notes, and it would be most helpful.

Now let me give you the example of the Casa Loma development. To get a list of shareholders you have to go to the head office of the company concerned, which in that specific instance turned out to be the office of a lawyer, and it turned out that the office had been closed down and the telephone cut off.

Now, what can you do? What can your officials do? It's a great problem. I will refer to not only legislators, but in that particular instance I got phone calls from a journalist in Vancouver who said: "What do you know about the shareholders? I can't find out anything because the office is locked." And I said I didn't know anything either. So we went down to see the civil servants. They tried to be most helpful but they were unable to be helpful because they didn't have that information.

So it seems to me we are in an area here that when a company gets into difficulty, when you want to get information on shareholders, whether it be myself, whether it be your own officials, whether it be a member of the press or anything else, when a company gets into difficulty it is too simple to lock the door and there is no information public about the shareholders. Sure it is a violation of the law, but then you have all the lengthy and troublesome procedures.

If the Attorney-General wants to answer this in the next two minutes I will yield to him.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, we are watching this. The objective is better information and better access by the public to the information, but we have to watch it.

Now under the old system this company would be a year and a half behind in filing their returns with the registrar. We had 30,000 companies that were behind time — infractions. We could go after those companies one by one with a little army of people. Instead of that we have provided that your records office must be in the province and must be accessible, and it must be open at certain times.

In the vast majority of cases the reports are all good. People can go into the records, whether it is in the two hours or not, and it is fine. Now if you tell me that a company is not making its records available to search, and by that I mean up-to-date records — not the kinds of things that used to be filed at least a year late, maybe a year and a half late, even legally with the registrar — then I want to take action. I would be very glad to, because I consider that to be a breach of the law on the part of any company.

The other problem with the lists is simply personnel, as I say, to chase down those who don't file their returns on time and get into default. The other problem is storage. You know MacMillan Bloedel's shareholders must be very voluminous — almost as many as Can-Cel. (Laughter.) If we have to store, you know, if we have to baby-sit that information which comes over once a year, it's quite

[ Page 2629 ]

a big job for government to look after that. Provided the Act is working and that the interested member of the public can go right into the office and see the up-to-date information of those particular companies, which they are entitled to do under the Act....

So in the meantime we are looking at it. We have to monitor these things, but at the moment I think we're getting more up-to-date, accurate information by the interested member being able to see the actual records as they're compiled from day to day in the records office. But where some company is inhibiting access to these records, I want to hear about it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, Mr. Minister, I can certainly agree with your objective. We all want to see this objective of efficiency and to make sure that the information is readily available. But let me tell you that in some of the cases, of course, which are of most interest — because they have to be companies in difficulty of one sort or another — the information is not being made available. Therefore, on the strength of your clear, unequivocal statement that you'll go after them right away with your people and make sure that the information does become available, I guess we'll let the matter rest.

Mr. Chairman, I hear someone yelling: "Time!" I move that the committee rise, report progress....

MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't think any motion is required. We're all functioning under an order of the House.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I'll make the motion anyway.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports resolution.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12 p.m.