[ Page 309 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Budget debate (continued)

Mr. Wallace — 309

British Columbia Deficit Repayment Act, 1975-76 (Bill 3) . Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe — 314

Mr. Stupich — 314

The House met at 8 p.m.

Orders of the day.

ON THE BUDGET
(continued debate)

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): It is now 8 o'clock and I didn't really want to go to the symphony early tonight. It's all just a dream.

When I closed my remarks at 6 o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the whole question of the accuracy of estimates and the fairness of taxation. I was really quite impressed at the time by the statement of the Premier when he addressed the people of British Columbia on television. That actually happened on the evening when I was in Ottawa at the national leadership convention for our party, but I subsequently read the statement by the Premier which appeared before the financial facts of the Clarkson, Gordon report.

On page 2 the Premier is quoted as saying: "The financial review discloses an alarming trend. More and more government revenues are coming from taxes collected from people." I notice the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) nodding in agreement.

The clear conclusion one might draw from that, Mr. Speaker, at the time, was that this first budget of the Social Credit government might perhaps change the general direction in the collection of revenue by perhaps having more from. our natural resources or from other directions, but less directly out of the individual pocket of the individual taxpayer.

But, Mr. Speaker, this budget makes the situation worse. If we look at the way in which the tax dollar is collected in this budget we're now studying, in 1975-76 out of every 100 cents collected, personal income tax was accounted for by 20 cents; and in this new budget it will be 23 cents, and sales tax in 1975-76 accounted for 15 cents out of the dollar collected, and in this new budget the sales tax will provide 20 cents out of each dollar collected.

That seems to be an unusual contradiction to the tone of the preface to the Clarkson, Gordon report which the Premier discussed on his television appearance some weeks ago.

Actually I would agree with the Premier's original statement, that we should attempt to derive as much revenue surely from our resources and from areas other than the individual person seeing part of their income or part of their spending dollar taken up either by sales tax or some other form of taxation.

I also made the point earlier on, and feel it worth repeating very quickly, that the budget seems to lack any real definition of the initiatives to industry and business to expand and, by expanding, to provide new jobs, and by providing new jobs, increase the tax base.

One of the important elements which has been discussed in the throne debate and again in this debate, of course, is inflation. When I talked earlier on about 4.5 per cent in real growth in the economy, it's also clear that perhaps we can expect a bogus 10 per cent increase which is related purely to inflation.

On page 15 of the budget speech the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) mentions that the government will seek "an agreement whereby the federal Anti-Inflation Board will review pricing decisions for Crown agencies." I just wonder once more if, in this debate, perhaps the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) will report to the House as to whether or not ICBC will be one of the Crown agencies subjected to that review by the Anti-Inflation Board, and whether or not he or any of the cabinet have had recent discussions with either Mr. Pepin or officials of the federal government as to the exact situation regarding such problems as ICBC.

Mr. Speaker, on that point of having the Anti-Inflation Board review pricing decisions of Crown agencies, it seems to me that the throne speech mentioned that our provincial government would also be setting up an agency to which Crown corporations would have to attend prior to an increase in prices.

While I'm totally behind this government in an attempt to reduce its size and to reduce agencies, corporations and commissions of one kind or another, I wonder if, in response to my comment, one of the ministers could tell us if this provincial agency isn't just an expansion of government, if in fact it is the government's intention to submit all these proposed increases to the federal Anti-Inflation Board. In other words, I am asking: are we doing something twice over when, in point of fact, once would be quite adequate?

I just want to mention very briefly our reaction to expenditure proposals. The increased expenditure on Health, Education and Human Resources is projected to be $339 million. I want to support and approve of the fact that this government has allocated the major single increase of expenditure to Health.

Now I know, Mr. Speaker, that I am often looked upon in this sorry vale of tears that we call politics as being a one-issue man and all I think about is health. I don't really feel that's a very fair appraisal of my attempts in this House. Nevertheless, it seems to me that if you look at the total community, if our individual citizens don't have health, they have nothing. Many of the other goals we seek in this House — to have better highways, better homes or better this or better that — really amounts to very little if you don't have your health.

[ Deputy Speaker in the chair.]

[ Page 310 ]

I don't think that the point can be over-emphasized: not only from the individual self-interest point of view of having your health, but your employability, your productivity, your contribution to society as a whole is proportionately diminished as your health is impaired.

I don't think that modern government should look upon health expenditures as some unavoidable, terrible burden which somehow they have to finance out of ever-increasing revenues. I think it has a positive end in itself if we promote health; namely that we have more individuals producing more and needing less help from the state and, in fact, in a most productive and long-term way, perhaps making fewer demands on the largesse of government which, as we all know, has to be derived from taxation in the first place. So I think the government is making a very wise move in allocating the major increase in expenditure in the direction of health.

I would like to commend the government in the other direction in trying to reduce its own size. The figures between 1972 and 1975 are rather staggering — that the government payroll increased by 28 per cent to almost 40,000 employees. This is one area where I think the former government made serious misjudgments and should, indeed, bear the blame for many of the financial consequences of these misjudgments.

Not only did we have a large increase in the size of the payroll, but certainly there were, some very substantial fringe benefits and salary increases, some of which may have been justified in this popular phrase, "catch-up". But certainly, in the overall picture of the budget in relation to the government payroll, I have to conclude that a very rapid and sizeable increase in expenditure was incurred in that direction.

For example, Mr. Speaker — and I am part of that group that benefits through the optional health benefits plan — the government of the day decided that government employees, MLAs and others should have access to the optional health benefits plan without paying a premium. It just seems to me, and I'll come to this in a moment when I talk a little bit about hospitals, that while the basic insurance principle is sound and none of us should be subjected to what used to be called catastrophic hospital bills, nevertheless, the human nature being what it is, it is always a sound principle that the individual, when he or she receives some particular benefit, should be made aware of the cost of that benefit and should be involved in paying at least a small part of the total cost at the time the benefit is received.

If that sounds old-fashioned and Presbyterian, I have no apology to offer. I happen to think that the pendulum on many of these programmes has swung much too far. I've said many times in this House that when I came to Canada in 1957 this was the cry — that people were being financially ruined for the rest of their lives because of hospital and health care bills, and that was wrong.

In 1958 the government introduced the first cost-sharing programme to prevent individual citizens, through no fault of their own, being ruined financially because of a long illness. All I am saying now is that I think there is a very real risk in Canada, not just in British Columbia, that the pendulum has swung too far and that the individual citizen wants it both ways. They want the government to raise the revenue to such a level that all these health and hospital costs will be paid out of general revenue. I wasn't a bit amused by Mr. Broadbent's interference in our affairs when he professed to be flabbergasted. I gather from some of his comments that he really didn't know very much about the local scene in British Columbia, any more than I would if I went to Quebec or somewhere to comment about their medicare.

But what I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that there is a general principle that I think must not be lost sight of. When human beings receive any particular largesse or gifts or benefit to which they have not visibly contributed, at least in part, there is a devaluation in the mind of the individual as to what that service is worth and how it's being financed. When we as MLAs derive the access to the optional health benefits plan, and don't pay a nickel towards it in premiums, I just happen to think that runs a real danger that each of us, first of all, doesn't appreciate the cost of that plan and, secondly, perhaps, takes it for granted — and perhaps even over-uses it. This is another area in the whole question of the financing of health services which has been debated in great detail in the federal House on the Bill C-68, I think it is.

So I just say that the former government, I think, went overboard in many of the benefits made available to the government employees, and now, as the present budget shows, we are faced with certain financial commitments which are high and out of proportion to the value if that money was spent in other directions.

Again I raise the word priority. I think that the government's good intention of removing property tax from homeowners over 65 is essentially a sound idea, but again, Mr. Speaker, money doesn't grow on trees. We have debated at some length some of the penalties that are involved for low-income groups by the increase in sales tax — and I said earlier this afternoon that I don't believe that increase in sales tax was necessary. If we look at some of the compensating mechanisms, I just do not believe in the blanket approach to some of these programmes such as the removal of property tax on the basis of age, rather than on the basis of the individual financial status of the homeowner.

I don't think we can run in opposite directions at

[ Page 311 ]

once. If we want to help certain people between the ages of 55 and 59...and I agree that we should where there is need, and that programme has been articulated very clearly as being related to the demonstration of need. I think if you look at the proposals for homeowners over 65, there are many homeowners who need that reduction very little. Some need it very much. But I don't like this blanket approach that, on the basis of age, everyone over 65 should have a certain reduction of property tax.

I think if an assets test, as is the case in the GAIN programme...if there's any validity and logic in that, then there is equal logic in determining whether everybody over 65, regardless of wealth, should also have a tax advantage.

On education, Mr. Speaker, I must confess that at this present time I can't find enough specific information as to how local school districts are to be affected by the proposed 9.4 per cent increase in financing the public schools. I have sought advice from these most intimately involved in school districts in this area, and School District 61, and they are not prepared to...at least I don't think they are in a position to analyse precisely what that 9.4 per cent increase may or may not mean. But I think there is some real fear that we are faced with a choice of raising another 10 per cent of the education dollar through local municipal taxation, or reverting to more pupils per class and perhaps a limited range of educational services from a more restricted spectrum of teachers.

I am sorry that the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is not in the House, because there is one question, and it might have a simple answer....

I just cannot find in the budget and in the estimates the $25 million for the expansion of UBC medical school. It was my understanding that if we put up $25 million we would find matching funds from the federal government as long as we carried this out before 1978. I just can't find the B.C. $25 million in the budget — it isn't mentioned — and I can't find it in our book of estimates. It will be interesting if later in the debate perhaps the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) could expand on that.

The question of hospital costs and patient contribution is a very important element in this budget. I hope I'll be pardoned, Mr. Speaker, if I just reminisce for a moment as to the days when I was a member of the Social Credit Party. I remember the numerous discussions I had with the then Premier (Hon. W.A.C. Bennett) for whom I had, and still have a great deal of respect and admiration. But whenever we talked about patient contribution, he always came back right away condemning me because I wanted to "tax the sick", and that was the phrase. I indulged a little bit in smiling at the Premier on Friday last when he sat across on the other side of the House and listened to the Minister of Finance announcing the increase in the patient contribution for acute care from $1 to $4. This isn't any kind of smart aleck, "I told you so" position that I'm taking. I'm just simply saying that I think this is an area where, regardless of the government in power, we have to look squarely in the face of some financial facts in relation to hospitalization costs.

The public has to accept one of two things: we have to raise more money for hospitals, or we have to accept the restriction of the spectrum of care and service which we all have come to more or less accept as our right. The daily cost of hospital care in the larger metropolitan hospitals is now somewhere around $125 a day. The cost of constructing acute hospitals in the metropolitan areas now comes close to $100,000 per bed. So we needn't kid ourselves when we talk in this House about hospital financing. The challenge is not to argue about the inevitable costs, but to try and find in an intelligent way a just and equitable distribution of how these costs should be met.

With regard to the acute-care bed per diem proposal by this government, I feel that it makes sense either to increase it in conjunction with rising costs or get rid of it altogether. The $1 a day as such, when the total cost of the daily service is $125, is just a bookkeeping nuisance which adds overhead and little else to the real financing of hospital costs. So I feel that by and large the $4 per day charge is riot unreasonable and, at the same time, I acknowledge the comments made by the Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) this afternoon that there may be cases where some people are not in for the average of 8.5 days; certainly some individuals after motor vehicle accidents are in hospital for months. If they've lost their job, or had a reduction of income during the months they're in hospital, there should be some very distinct considerations for that kind of case.

At the same time, in increasing the extended-care rates to $7 a day, I agree again with the Liberal leader that there may be cases that merit exemption — in the case of a spouse where the husband or wife is in extended care and where perhaps the elderly husband has additional expenses in trying to live in his own home with ancillary help to make this possible. So I don't think, again, that we should look upon this as any blanket $4 and $7 charge. I think that the regulations should be tailored to take into account some of these exceptions to the general rule.

I would like to raise one specific point with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland), or perhaps he can at least take this matter as notice, Mr. Speaker, that prior to this proposal in the budget it was decided by the Department of Human Resources in May of last year — and perhaps I should be directing this question to the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) — but once again this is a matter for both departments really. In May of last

[ Page 312 ]

year, because of the fact that the extended-care charge was $1 a day, certain patients who qualified for Mincome were not granted Mincome. Perhaps I should just quickly read parts of the letter, which is very understandable and makes a lot of sense:

"It is our understanding that you are now in an extended-care facility. As you know, the cost of providing this care is borne by the provincial government at a charge of only $1 per day to you.

"In the interest of being fair to all senior citizens of British Columbia, I must inform you that the government cannot continue your Mincome benefits since the government is already paying for your care through direct payment of your hospital costs.

"The Mincome programme was introduced to ensure that all senior citizens would be provided with an adequate income to meet their daily living needs. Since the government pays for your basic needs in the extended-care programme, it is felt that your need for Mincome benefits is not as critical as for those senior citizens who must meet the monthly costs of food and rent. The enclosed cheque...." et cetera, cetera.

What it is saying, in effect, is that the patient in this case is living at a total cost of $30 a month, and under Mincome would receive perhaps $265 or thereabouts. I realize that that was a reasonable approach back in May of last year, but I would want some very clear assurance before I support the $7 proposal in the budget that, in effect, if Mincome recipients will subsequently be paying $7 a day, which is $210 a month, they will now receive the full Mincome benefit.

I have already had inquiries from constituents who point out that if such patients, as the person to whom this letter was addressed, do not receive Mincome, their $7 a day charge would use up their total monthly revenue with no comfort money, or perhaps $2 or $3 at the most.

One of the reasons I feel that the $7 charge is reasonable, with the exemptions I have suggested, is that if the Mincome patient is receiving $265 a month, to pay $210 for the total care and have $55 a month for the other bits and pieces of their support.... I don't think that's unreasonable when you look at the elderly couple still trying to live in their own home and pay taxes and food and all the other expenses. But I do hope that the minister or someone in the debate will make it very plain that the $7-a-day charge for extended care will mean that all persons who qualify for Mincome will, in fact, receive Mincome.

A big disappointment of the budget, Mr. Speaker, in the area of hospitals must, of course, be the lack of mention regarding intermediate care. Here again it isn't just a question of some very abstruse or poorly publicized element in the total spectrum of care. We have been talking about intermediate care for years and years and years. It makes no sense, regardless of the human element, in trying to help the patient, which is important enough. But even if we just overlook that for the moment, it makes no economic sense to ignore the whole issue of intermediate care.

I don't wish to go into great detail at this time, Mr. Speaker, because we'll be dealing with it in the estimates of the Minister of Health. But the problem we have right now is that we have very expensive acute-care hospitals at, as I say, a daily cost of perhaps $125. Many of these expensive services are occupied by persons who need a lesser level of care but who literally have nowhere else to go. This doesn't just apply....

The member for Skeena (Mr. Shelford) is looking across. I know that this issue I am discussing doesn't just apply to the metropolitan area; it applies to every part of this province. It just makes sound financial sense that we should provide the care that a patient needs, but it should be no more and no less than the patient needs. We should not be looking after elderly citizens who really need a fair amount of nursing care, and trying to cope with it in a rest home. Nor should we have persons in the Royal Jubilee or Victoria General Hospitals at $125 a day when what they really need is something costing perhaps $30 a day.

I know and the Minister of Health knows, and I guess just about everybody in this House knows, that one of the big obstacles has been federal cost-sharing, that acute- and extended-care hospitals are covered, at least approximately 50 per cent, by federal funding, and that intermediate care has been left out of all federal planning.

Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, the province has that obligation to the persons and the patients who need that kind of care. I submit that it still makes a lot of economic sense, regardless of Ottawa's intransigent or stubborn attitude. It still makes a great deal of sense that we should provide the total spectrum of care for our elderly citizens and make sure that they receive what they need, but certainly that we spend neither any great deal more or great deal less in providing the service they need.

I notice the estimates provide for an increase in funding for home care, from $5,290,000 to $6,714,000, and that increase of 26 per cent, I think, is evidence of a very good step in the right direction in trying to de-emphasize the importance of the acute-care hospital in a modern society. The old-fashioned idea that a person is either well enough to be at home or sick enough to be in the hospital is just as out of date as many of the other old myths that we hear in the field of medicine. Between the home and the acute hospital are two or three other levels of care which

[ Page 313 ]

will well meet, in a very adequate way, the needs of the patient and yet result in a much more judicious and economic use of the health dollar in the Ottawa health-care field.

I just want quickly, Mr. Speaker, to quote an example that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) made me aware of: a lady wanted to have her baby at home; she didn't want to go into the hospital. So she got in touch with her physician who agreed to deliver the baby at home, thinking, of course, that the home-care programme would be available. But the incredible bureaucracy of the situation is that you only qualify for home-care nursing if you've come out of the hospital. There's no provision for you being treated at home until you've been in and out of the hospital.

Now that's not the minister's fault; it's nobody's fault. It was a step in the slow, tedious direction of de-emphasizing hospital care when there are alternatives. At any rate, it points up the real need for this government to provide financial incentives, and various other initiatives, to de-emphasize the acute-care hospital in the total spectrum of services. There are many other ways in which the patient can receive perfectly adequate care and attention but need not necessarily be admitted to one of these very expensive institutions.

I just wanted to leave one further question, which the minister might answer. Again from the Clarkson, Gordon report, on page 17: joint-service programmes costs shared by the federal government. I notice that hospital insurance payments, as of March 31, 1976, were $55 million less than was anticipated. I would be interested to know whether this was bad arithmetic or whether the federal government has already changed the ground rules unilaterally, as they're trying to do, in regard to pre-agreed cost-sharing formulae. I just can't understand how, in a situation where our hospital costs have continued to escalate, that the federal share of the joint-service programme could be $55 million less than anticipated. That's about 20 per cent of the sum projected.

To the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) I would like to quote also page 17 of the Clarkson, Gordon report where Canada Assistance Plan money was expected to be $207 million, and it now appears as though it will only be $180 million. I think it would be very useful, again, to help us understand this budget if we knew the answer to these two questions, because right there, Mr. Speaker, is $84.6 million less than was expected from just two ingredients in cost-sharing programmes.

We've already talked about $100 million that we're not getting from our forest revenue. Here's $84.6 million that we're not getting from the federal government. I think that when we're dealing with sums of money of this size we should all try and have as much understanding and accurate information as to why this big gap.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I just want to go back to the general theme of the budget and ask about a particular quotation from the budget, on page 29, where there has been great reference to the importance of balancing the budget. It says as follows:

"Without this sound financial position" — that's relating to the previous statements that we must have a balanced budget — "the ability of the provincial guarantee to provide the lowest cost, long-term financing for these essential public requirements is in jeopardy."

Now that's quite a serious statement. It implies that the credit rating of British Columbia is in jeopardy, that if we go to borrow money, the absence of a balanced budget — or, alternatively, the presence of some kind of deficit — places our borrowing capacity in jeopardy. And as far as I can determine from my research, Mr. Speaker...and I'm quoting Moody's Municipal Government Manual, Vol. II, 1976: "The credit rating in British Columbia is unchanged at double A."

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I hope the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) is listening to this because it's a very serious point I'm raising, that a claim is made in the budget as part of the argument to justify a balanced budget, that if in fact we don't balance the budget our capacity or our potential to get into long-term borrowing, presumably for Hydro and other expenditures, is in jeopardy. That is the phrase the Minister of Finance uses: "...is in jeopardy."

Now the information I've got from Moody's is that British Columbia still has a double A rating, which hasn't changed for several years, and that, in fact, if you look at the rest of Canada the only province that is rated higher than British Columbia is Ontario with a triple A. British Columbia is a double A, Alberta is a double A, Manitoba and New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan are A, and one or two of the other provinces in the Maritimes have a lower rating.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to belabour the issue, but I just think that we should have response from the government later in this debate as to what exactly was meant by that rather serious statement in the budget that our long-term credit rating is in jeopardy.

If I may, just in a few moments, Mr. Speaker, sum up my feelings about the budget. I think there are many good things in the budget, I like the government's attempt to reduce its own size. I like the housing initiatives. I like the GAIN programme, which is the Guaranteed Available Income for Need. I like the idea of quarterly financial statements. I like the safe driver incentive programme, and I like the

[ Page 314 ]

elective priority that, if expenditures are to increase, one of the best ways to allocate that expenditure in the widest way is in the field of health.

The parts of the budget which I regret are those which, in my opinion, as I pointed out this afternoon, seem to underestimate revenue, particularly in the area of personal income tax, given a real increase in economic growth of around 4 to 4.5 per cent. I think that it would have been quite reasonable to assume that the income tax revenue would be higher, and that we might have avoided the 2 per cent increase in sales tax, which is not only inflationary but is certainly unfairly harsh on low- and middle-income groups.

On that basis I think that the budget lacks a sense of balance and moderation, and that there is an over-reaction to the undesirable aspects of a deficit. No one, by choice, would ever want to budget for a deficit, but I am trying to look at all the different facets of the budget and how it's put together. I feel that the 2 per cent increase in sales tax was unnecessary, that income tax revenue will be much higher than projected, by perhaps $100 million, and that the other $100 million that will be derived from sales tax could have been, in terms of a $3.6 billion budget, a moderate deficit to be worked out of the budget in the succeeding year.

I don't really believe that it is either fair to the low-income earner or in the long run in the interest of the economy to try to straighten out this whole situation in one single budget.

The last point I would make is that the real hope for the economic future for British Columbia is not to find the least painful way of taking more money from the taxpayers. The real challenge to politicians in this province, and in any modern province, is to find the appropriate incentives and stimulus to industry and to our resource economy, to try to derive, as the Premier himself had said on television, a greater fraction of the required revenue from resources and a smaller corresponding fraction from the individual.

On behalf of Hon. Mr. Davis, Hon. Mr. McClelland moves adjournment of the debate.

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): I move we proceed to public bills and orders.

Motion approved.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Second reading of Bill 3, Mr. Speaker.

BRITISH COLUMBIA DEFICIT
REPAYMENT ACT, 1975-1976

HON. E.M. WOLFE (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, Bill 3, British Columbia Deficit Repayment Act, 1975-1976, is now fairly well known to the members of this House, and I think it is fair to say that you could classify this as a non-controversial bill, one which will, I suspect, reach unanimous approval.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): It's a political bill.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Well, aren't they all, Mr. Member?

Now to reiterate, the purpose of this bill is to authorize the Minister of Finance to borrow up to $400 million to make good the anticipated deficit for the 1975-76 fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members are by now well aware of the financial problems we have been discussing in recent days and which face our new government as a result of the operations which preceded us. Considerable publicity has been given to the findings of the Clarkson, Gordon report, a report by an independent firm of chartered accountants. The item of the report which concerns us in this bill is the projected deficit to the province of $541 million for the fiscal year now drawing to a close.

With cash reserves at April 1, 1975, of $143.7 million, the cash shortfall for the province for the current year is estimated to be about $400 million. This is the basis for the amount of authorization required in the bill.

The previous Social Credit government brought the province to a position where sinking funds' provision fully covered the debt outstanding. It then, by Act of the Legislature at the 1960 session, cancelled all borrowing authority of the province. The only exception to this was a borrowing for expenditures within the fiscal year, and such borrowing had to be repaid by the end of that fiscal year. Thus, Mr. Speaker and hon. members, you can readily see the dilemma of the Minister of Finance: on the one hand he is faced with a $400 million deficit or cash shortfall, and on the other hand he was faced with having no borrowing authority.

Obviously, this situation must be quickly corrected. So the purpose of this bill, therefore, is to provide the government with authority to borrow funds to cover the 1975-76 deficit. The authority for this purpose is limited to $400 million, and it is intended to borrow only funds as are absolutely necessary and to use the internal funds available to the province wherever possible rather than utilize the world capital markets.

Mr. Speaker, with those few remarks related to the British Columbia Deficit Repayment Act, 1975-1976, I am happy to move second reading. Thank you.

MR. D.D. STUPICH (Nanaimo): Mr. Speaker, now that we have the explanation of the Minister of

[ Page 315 ]

Finance, is the government prepared to accept an adjournment?

Mr. Stupich moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 8:53 p.m.