[ Page 1951 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Constitution Amendment Act, 1976 (Bill 15)

Introduction and first reading. Hon. Mrs. McCarthy — 1952

Committee of Supply: Department of Health estimates.

On vote 86.

Mr.Cocke — 1952

Mr. Macdonald — 1955

Hon. Mr. McClelland — 1957

Mr. Cocke — 1959

Mr. Wallace — 1964

Hon. Mr. McClelland — 1968

Mr. Wallace — 1970

Mr. King — 1971

Hon. Mr. McClelland — 1973

Auditor General Act (Bill 45)

Introduction and first reading. Hon. Mr. Wolfe — 1973

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. L.B. KAHL (Esquimalt): Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is a group of students from Esquimalt Senior Secondary. They are accompanied by Linda Petch, Christy Luke and Andrew Reeves, their teachers. I would like the House to bid them welcome.

HON. T.M. WATERLAND (Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources): Mr. Speaker, at 11 o'clock this morning we will be joined by a group of grade 10 social studies students from Hope Secondary School, and they will be accompanied by their teacher, Mrs. Koopman. I ask the House to join me in welcoming them.

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, in the House today are the students who are graduate students of the first legislative intern programme in our province. They complete their term of service this week and they are with us today on their graduation day just prior to leaving for Ottawa where they will be one week in Ottawa observing the legislative process in the House of Commons.

I would like to tell you about these interns. These are 10 young university graduates who are interested in the political and legislative process. They commenced their training in January. Briefings by various government departments were arranged by my department, and in that regard I would like to thank Mr. Semmens of our department who has done such a tremendous job of co-ordinating this programme.

The programme was arranged to provide the interns with the idea of the responsibilities and method of operation of all of the departments. Following the briefing and indoctrination period, the interns were individually assigned to a number of departments to work in those departments on projects which would give them a better and a clearer understanding of government business.

When the assembly began sitting on March 17, the interns were assigned to each of the caucuses of the political parties represented in the assembly and, in addition, one intern was assigned to your office, Mr. Speaker. While in the caucuses, the interns were employed on constituency and legislative research. We have all been most impressed with the interest and enthusiasm displayed by the interns themselves and by the most positive comments received from all who had dealings with them.

I would like to pay tribute, too, this morning to Dr. Walter Young whose responsibility, leadership and expertise the interns have shared. They have benefited greatly from his programme.

We are very fortunate indeed to have had 10 such bright young people sharing with us and some of the members of the House their first legislative experience. I'm sure that both for the MLAs who are here for the first time and for these interns who have had this opportunity for the first time, it has been an inspiration for them. I know it has been a very great inspiration for us, Mr. Speaker, and I ask the House to bid them a very fond farewell to this experience and hope that they will return and benefit all the rest of their lives from the experience they have shared with us.

MR. W.S. KING (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to associate the official opposition with the remarks of the Provincial Secretary with respect to the interns from the University of Victoria. Three of those young people were assigned to work with the New Democratic Party caucus and certainly we enjoyed having them with us. We found them to be sensitive to the function of government and the system of politics that we work under. They were most helpful, and I certainly hope that they benefited from the experience with our caucus as well.

I want to also express my appreciation to Dr. Walter Young for taking the initiative in terms of developing this programme and to congratulate the government on initiating the programme. I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I hope the government considers very seriously continuing this programme on an equal basis to this year, if not an extended one, because I think that kind of practical experience in the everyday affairs of our province and in the practical method in which government operates is invaluable in terms of their education along the lines of political science.

I certainly want to thank everyone involved.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, the Provincial Secretary made a very gracious statement in which I join along with that of the Leader of the Opposition as well. I would like to extend my own personal and professional tribute to this group of parliamentary interns. Like, I suppose, other party leaders I had an opportunity for a joint meeting with all of them and was very impressed.

As a one-person caucus I perhaps have the right to mention one person by name and that's a particular word about Mr. Eric Burkle who was an intern with our group. He was extremely hard-working, bright and helpful, as were they all, and I hope that a lot like this group come back next year.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I

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would have no hesitation in expressing my strong support of this initiative which was taken by Dr. Walter Young. I also would hope I'm not intruding on any privilege by naming Miss Leanne Berry, who was attached to that powerful political force in the province which is the Progressive Conservative caucus. Without being too flippant I would say that Leanne took part in meetings every day in a very active way and contributed in a very mature and, to me, inspiring way, because of the recollections of how little education we at that age received in parts of the United Kingdom, for example.

I think the programme has worked very well. I was just a little perturbed by the Provincial Secretary's use of the word "indoctrination" in describing the discussions that were held. I'm sure she didn't mean it in the least desirable way, as sometimes applies in politics. But I do feel that this programme merits the support of all of us and I congratulate the government, as the Leader of the Opposition did, in supporting this programme in the way they've done. I also hope that it will be continued in the years ahead. With the greatest feeling of warmth I do wish the interns the very best of luck in their visit to Ottawa and in their continuing careers, whether they involve politics or not.

Introduction of bills.

CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1976

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Constitution Amendment Act, 1976.

Bill 15 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

(continued)

On vote 86: minister's office, $101,052 - continued.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Chairman, we began this vote last night — vote 86, discussing the Minister of Health's (Hon. Mr. McClelland's) responsibilities. One of the things we talked about last night was the far-ranging responsibilities of the Minister of Health. It is a ministry that really takes care of some of the most basic needs of the people in British Columbia, a ministry that other jurisdictions look at with a good deal of envy, and a ministry that those people across the border — certainly I've had contact with many of them in the United States — particularly look at with envy.

We have, for instance, in the United States a federal ministry of health, education and welfare. Of course, they're called a secretariat down in the United States, but it just indicates how much more attention we pay in this jurisdiction to the health and welfare of the people in our province and, for that matter, in our country.

We're delighted that over the past our particular party has added a great deal of depth to the health provision for the people in our country. Many of you will recall that in the past there were great fights over medicare. As a matter of fact as recently as in the mid '60s there was a discussion that grew into an argument, and an argument that was so great that ultimately it ended up in a doctors' strike in the province of Saskatchewan. That strike will never occur again because now their doctors recognize the importance of provision of health care to all people on as equitable a basis as is possible.

Mr. Chairman, we have to look very carefully at the people and particularly the person who is most responsible for health care delivery in our province. I indicated last night that we had felt to begin with that the Health department would not require too much discussion in the early sessions of this new parliament. Given an opportunity to produce, the Minister of Health could very well be spared a lot of in-depth discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I did indicate some sorrow in that the minister did decide to make some rather grave changes very early on in his ministry that I think could very well hamper the delivery system, particularly with respect to education.

Mr. Chairman, something else occurred — something that I think most of us view with alarm. I'd like to take you back to a mid-April question period. I believe it was April 15, on a Thursday. I may be wrong on the dates, because I don't have the particular date or Hansard before me, but I recall very well asking a question with respect to moneys that were given to various hospitals, particularly lower mainland and island hospitals, that seemed to be somewhat more than should be indicated necessary at the end of the fiscal period. At that time we were asked to wait for the answer to the question — which would also indicate to me that it was prior to the 15th — until the minister could more thoroughly check his facts.

Mr. Chairman, I don't particularly want to deal today in any great depth with whether or not certain moneys were paid that should have been paid — I think that was pretty well made clear. I could argue, I think, on some of the basis for moneys being paid at

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the end of the year, and I know perfectly well that when I was Minister of Health those kinds of payments were made to hospitals in order to even up the budget so that moneys due in the last fiscal period would not be charged in the next fiscal period.

We thought that an inordinate amount had been put into that area and we were concerned about it. So, Mr. Chairman, I asked the question and the minister checked. The minister checked carefully and, to my profound regret and amazement, the answer was given and then gratuitously, beyond giving the answer, the minister publicly admonished a public servant.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I believe that was a savage blow to our system. I believe that using a public servant to take that kind of heat has no place in our system. The British parliamentary system is one that I think gives us an opportunity each to take our responsibility where that responsibility is made clear. How can we expect a public service with loyalty? How can we expect a public service that can become in any way at all avant garde, in any way at all become imaginative in their interpretation of what they feel is necessary to perform their duty? Mr. Chairman, it's my view that no minister of the Crown has the right to drag a public official through the kind of political mire that a publicly elected person has to, by the very nature of his work, expect. Each of us who runs for political office knows full well that in doing so we have to take the heat from time to time, and, as our responsibilities grow....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: That's right. And as our responsibilities grow, Mr. Chairman, as we take further responsibilities, and particularly ministerial responsibilities, then that kind of responsibility indicates very clearly that we are the ones who should be taking the criticism, the public criticism, that is our due, whether or not we are directly involved. I suggest that we cannot have an effective public service if public servants are looking over their shoulders at all times, concerned about every move they make, everything they do, for fear their reputation can be impaired, not just for now but for always.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is a most serious matter — a most serious matter indeed. I don't think that any public official at any level — and I am talking in terms of appointed public officials — I don't believe that it's our right as parliamentarians, as ministers, to let our officials take the heat. In accepting the appointment, we accept everything that goes along with that responsibility and that appointment, and that is to accept directly and gracefully our due in that respect.

I believe that what occurred as a result of the answer to that question was something that, had the minister even thought about it carefully, he would have come to a far, far different decision. Nobody has named this unnamed person. Nobody has named this public servant, and I hope that never occurs, but Mr. Chairman, everybody knows that a serious demotion took place as a result of this particular situation. The reason they know is because it was made public. I suggest half a minister would have corrected the mistake he made immediately, but such is not the case.

I'm dealing with something that I think we should all deal with seriously over the next few months. I think that B.C. has oftentimes had a name for being just a little bit bush-league in its way of doing business.

I want to suggest to you that from time to time during the last parliament the then-opposition reflected a great deal upon certain public servants. I felt at that time that that was untoward, and I feel today, as government, that it is even more untoward to reflect upon public servants in this jurisdiction.

Mr. Chairman, if this kind of activity keeps up — and I suggest that I sure hope it doesn't — it reflects a government that regards people as tools, not individuals with character, not individuals with rights, and particularly the right to public respect. That, Mr. Chairman, is most important.

The one most important aspect of this thing that everyone should recognize clearly is that public servants cannot, will not, defend themselves. They have not the vehicle to defend themselves; they have not the way to defend themselves, and certainly their entire job-training, their direction, has always taught them that one cannot defend himself.

So I suggest that attacks on public servants, no matter what public servant, should not occur in this way. I'm not suggesting for one second that administrative decisions should not be made around deportment, around ability, around just doing one's job. Some people can't handle particular jobs. I'm certainly not reflecting on this particular case; certainly nobody is asking that that be hampered, but to wash it in public is just far too much.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that what occurred showed a lack of dignity; it showed a lack of courage. I admonish the minister to think carefully upon what he did. I admonish his colleagues to think very carefully about their responsibility to the people in this province who elected them. I say that this is no way to conduct the business. Mr. Chairman, if you can't take the heat, you'll quit. You thought I was going to say that if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes!

MR. COCKE: Poor old Truman has been quoted

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so many times on that I felt that this time I would let him go.

Mr. Chairman, seriously, we must be.... I suggest to you that any of you in the back bench who are looking very optimistically toward those front benches, take this matter seriously. Anybody who sits there and laughs about a situation as serious as this doesn't expect the respect that this side of the House can afford from time to time to those members.

Mr. Chairman, I just hope that what has occurred won't be repeated. I hope that we'll all take a lesson from what has occurred here in the last while. As opposition, to some extent they got away with this kind of activity, but in no way should we expect this kind of activity from government members.

Now, Mr. Chairman, last night I discussed for a very brief moment or two the medical-centre concept. I suggested that if you want orderly development and delivery of health care, if you want orderly development of health training, then the last thing you want is to see a situation where groups are pitted against one another. So in order to provide an opportunity for all of the groups in this province that were interested or involved in those two processes, we put together an organization called the B.C. Medical Centre.

I went over a few of the names of the people who spent thousands and thousands upon thousands of voluntary hours. I talked about the past-chairman of the medical centre, Jack Christensen, who, incidentally — and probably the minister didn't know — is no card-carrying member of the New Democratic Party. He is the president of Tahsis Co., and he was past-chairman of VGH.

Jack Christensen spent many, many, many, many hours working toward the goal that we had set, a goal, Mr. Chairman, that we were told by the top brains in medical care in Canada was to provide an opportunity to bring B.C. back into the fold in this country. B.C., unfortunately, had been a jurisdiction that was so far behind the rest of Canada that we didn't even look good compared to Newfoundland. Newfoundland had a better basis for their health training.

So, Mr. Chairman, there were people like Christensen; Dr. Bates, the dean of medicine; Bruce Buchanan; Joe Corsby; George Donaldson, a CA; Gordon Draeseke, chairman of the Council of Forest Industries at the time; Julia Levy, PhD, who is a researcher for cancer at UBC; Walter Ross, a trade union person at one time and now a business person; Sheila Thompson, PhD, at Douglas College; J. Ronald Longstaffe, a prominent businessman and also a major shareholder in one of the larger forest industries; Dr. Kenneth Hill, past president of the B.C. Medical Association; Dr. Peter Ransford, the chairman of the emergency health service; and Donovan Miller.

Mr. Chairman, these people gave of their time, much more than could be expected by any citizen in this province and I was proud of the work that they did. That work was to see to it that B.C. was put on the map as far as putting its act together and co-ordinating the activities of all the major hospitals and the UBC in Vancouver. The medical centre wasn't just a bunch of people. It included the Vancouver General Hospital, it included St. Paul's Hospital, it included the G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre, it included the UBC and its hospitals, it included cancer and children's and many other activities. But you know what it afforded? It afforded them to work together instead of apart.

So what did this board do? They put together a group of top-notch hospital planners. I predict that in this province you're going to have real difficulty finding top-notch hospital planners to do a job such as they did, because we are now looked upon with a very jaundiced eye by those people who have any kind of information as to what occurred at the stroke of a pen.

They also put together a group of senior administrators and they also put together a group of first-class committees to research the needs of the province, and then they put together first-class groups of people to implement. The education committee was a good example, headed up by the former dean of medicine at UBC. I think what we have to do is think like that former dean of medicine, Dr. Jack McCreary — and he always emphasized that health training was the top priority, not just medical training.

We've heard the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) in here talk in terms of medical training. That's all he can think about. But, you know, when you train doctors you must train rehabilitation medicine people. You must train nurses. You must train other paraprofessionals. And you should train them all together. They should be all part of the same concept, so it's not a case of UBC alone and it's not a case of UBC making all the decisions with respect to health training. No, Mr. Chairman, it is not. What it is is a way to produce the needed health workers in our province, and we have been an absolute failure in this regard in the province of British Columbia, a failure to the extent that we've been left behind by every other jurisdiction, pretty well, in this country.

So, Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that in doing what that minister did, there is no way that we can replace the people or the expertise that have gone down at the stroke of a pen — or upon an election or upon placing in charge Mr. Allan Kelly. I suggest that there's only one of two reasons that I can see for this having occurred. One is the old system. If you don't want anything to happen, you divide and conquer. That old divide and conquer way produced what I

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would suggest to be the most antiquated teaching and tertiary facilities that can be found, and we've suffered and we're destined under this coalition government to remain there.

Just think of some of the details. What about the children's pediatric centre that was announced sometime after the announcement with respect to the medical centre being rent asunder? Well, I suggest to you that what occurred was a result of that announcement, after it was very clear that that hospital could have been underway now. But what occurred as a result of the minister's decision was as follows: we're back to the days of Charles Dickens. We're back to the days of Charles Dickens, and let me tell you why.

I pick up The Vancouver Sun of April 27, and what do I find in the headlines? "Hospital Gifts Needed."

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): Humbug! Humbug!

MR. COCKE: Humbug? Yes, do you know where I got this, Mr. Chairman?

"'Large private donations will be required or the $30 million children's hospital will be a glorified tonsil department,' the chairman of the hospital planning committee said Monday. 'The hospital to be built on the Shaughnessey Hospital site will have unlimited requirements for research and diagnostic equipment which will not be paid for by the government,' Geoffrey Tullidge told the annual meeting of the Health Centre for Children Society."

Who is Geoffrey Tullidge, Mr. Chairman? He is closely involved in this whole question. Geoffrey Tullidge is the chairman of the children's hospital. He is the president of the Children's Hospital on East 59th. He was also appointed by the provincial government to head the committee drafting recommendations for the new children's facility. So it is not, Mr. Chairman, as if Mr. Tullidge doesn't know some of his facts. I suggest to you we are back in the days of Charles Dickens.

If we have to depend in this jurisdiction, in order to get a children's facility, on private donations, then, Mr. Chairman, the whole thing has just gone right out the window. The whole delivery system is back many, many years. I am sorry about it, Mr. Chairman. I really am.

I suggest to you that the hospital should not be a pediatric hospital on its own. The minister, when he was announcing it, said he had been informed by people in medical service that there was no need to have those two hospitals combined — that is, the maternal and a child-care centre. Let me suggest to you that the course the minister has chosen is by far the most expensive course that one could ever imagine. The duplication of facilities, the duplication of equipment that will be required under these circumstances, is absolutely scandalous, Mr. Chairman — absolutely scandalous! Why would you want to divide the pediatric and maternal, which incidentally could have been underway now? High-risk maternity and pediatric care are absolutely hand-in-hand requirements. Everybody who is informed, with few exceptions, suggests that those two activities should certainly be combined right within the same institution. I can give you documentation after documentation.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Yes, we certainly can, Mr. Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams). I suggest to you that were you in any other position, a person with your intelligence certainly would not have chosen the route that has been chosen here before us. The need in this province has been so great for 25 years, but what has the minister done? He has, by the very nature of his decision, said that there will have to be pediatric facilities for high-risk newborns at the VGH — that is, equipment and facilities at the VGH — also at the new children's hospital and also at Grace if, in fact, that is what they are going to do with Grace Hospital. Mr. Chairman, it can be combined and it is much, much cheaper.

I'll certainly get into as many more of the aspects of this as I can later in this debate. Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the present plan calls for a duplication of equipment the like of which can only be described as an insult to the intelligence of the people in this province. I would hope that the minister will very quickly change his course in this matter.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouer East): Mr. Chairman, I just want to say a few words following what was said by the member for New Westminster, because I recall very distinctly the Minister of Health's answer in this House at the time when he said a terrible mistake had been made and money was paid out — I think it was $7 million to hospitals — before March 31. "I have had to be very severe with somebody in my department. I have had to admonish that person. I have had to," I understand, "cut the salary by one-third" — I think from $30,000 to $20,000.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: No, you didn't say that, but I understand that has happened. Mr. Minister, through the Chair, I suggest you have broken one of the first principles of cabinet government in that the minister is responsible and should not duck and dodge behind a civil servant for the mistakes in his department or the mistakes of government.

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Now two things are possible. A mistake was made by a senior civil servant in your department. Now if that were the case, that's option No. 1. If that were the case, it's very clear that the minister is responsible. This is a responsibility that he can share with nobody else. This is from the Hansard Society: "Members of the cabinet are collectively responsible for the omissions as well as the commissions of their colleagues, no less than being individually responsible for every action which is done by them or by any of their civil servants."

That's not the way.... The minister nods his head. Ivor Jennings and cabinet government...you came into this House and made a sacrificial goat of a senior civil servant, and gave yourself out as "Mr Virtuous."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I don't know whether it's a headline or not; I'm not concerned with that. But I say that that's what you did, Mr. Minister; you did accept that you are responsible for what happens in your department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm speaking particularly to the Chair, but I hope the minister's listening to what I say to the Chair.

MR. KEMPF: Absolutely the Point Grey socialist.

MR. MACDONALD: Was that a car dealer, or what was that down there?

This is from Ivor Jennings: "...the minister being responsible for everything done in his department." In Herbert Morrison's book on government and parliament, at page 321:

"Even if he has no real personal responsibility whatever, the minister is still held responsible. He will no doubt criticize whoever is responsible in the department in mild terms if it is a small mistake, and in strong terms if it is a bad one. But publicly he must accept responsibility as if the act were his own."

That's what you've not done, Mr. Minister. You did not deal with it when you came into this House.

I'm saying what I'm saying at this time on the basis that the senior civil servant whose salary was cut, who was publicly admonished, and whose identity has to be known to everybody throughout your department, throughout the civil service, and to many people around Victoria, whether we hide the name or not, this person has been publicly admonished.

I'm being kind in what I've said in the first part of my remarks because I've assumed that the senior civil servant made a mistake. Yet everybody in this House and everybody in the civil service in a senior position in British Columbia knew perfectly well that up to March 31,1976, this government was asking, through the civil service, that money be shovelled out in this and that direction to pile up the debt of 1975-76.

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health): Nonsense!

MR. MACDONALD: I knew it; everybody here knew that that was happening and that the direction was coming through the Department of Finance. Your senior civil servant whose salary you have cut, whom you have publicly admonished and made yourself "Mr. Virtue" in the process, that man was carrying out the implicit wishes of the Social Credit government of British Columbia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please. Order!

MR. MACDONALD: And yet you.... What's the point of order, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Member, I ask you the second time: please address the Chair. Just so that it's clear as to what that means, to address the Chair means that you do not address your speech directly to any person in the House, that you address it to the Chair. "You" becomes "him," and "you" becomes "he." The member has been in this House long enough to know that.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, then I want to tell you about the conduct of a certain Minister of Health. I want this conversation to be between the two of us. I'm going to refer to what he's done. I hope he listens in; I'm not afraid of eavesdroppers. (Laughter.)

What I'm just saying to sum it up is that there's no question here that when the minister got up as "Mr. Virtue" and offered up this senior civil servant as a sacrificial goat to be slaughtered to cleanse his own position in this matter of funnelling out money to departments of government, to agencies of the Crown, in any old way in which they could spend it prior to March 31 in order to blame the NDP and make the bottom-line guys happy, when he did that he broke one of the first principles of government, which is that the department acts as a unit; it acts as a team. The minister is responsible as if the act were his own, and he has no right coming in here.... Even though a mistake was made, the act is his own and he should apologize for it to the House. He wouldn't do that.

In addition to that, I say that senior civil servant

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was simply carrying out the well-known policies within the public service of this government up to March 31. He was doing in the Health department exactly what happened in education when the university presidents, to their astonishment, had the manna of $7.5 million drop down, and they said:

"Whooh, what government is this that gives us what we don't even ask for?"

The hospitals got the same thing. We all knew the buzz was through the public service: "Any agency need any money? Now's the time to get it. It's coming out of here like water. Ask now. After April 1 it's a different matter."

So I say this minister should have been up front. He ducked and dodged his own responsibility by admonishing one of his own civil servants. I say that's bad for morale in the public service. I say it's bad for the principle of ministerial accountability in Canada's government.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Well, Mr. Chairman, the only member left from Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) is being as irresponsible as we expected he would be, and if anyone is dragging a public servant's name through the mire, it's that only member left for Vancouver-East and his friend from New Westminster (Mr. Cocke.)

I accepted full responsibility for every action that was taken. I still accept that responsibility and I have no apologies to make for being part of an open government. I have no apologies to make, Mr. Chairman, to those members for accepting the responsibility to the public to ensure that our public service operates efficiently and effectively at all times.

What you're doing today, and what that member, Mr. Chairman, is doing today — I accept your admonishment in advance — what those members are doing is dragging up an issue again which is going to, I suppose, result in that public servant being named publicly because of your actions.

MR. MACDONALD: Not your spanking, but our actions.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Because of your actions, that's correct.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I have no apologies to make and I would act in exactly the same way again.

AN HON. MEMBER: He should apologize.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Those members, Mr. Chairman, should apologize for the actions that they've taken in this House today.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: In accepting the appointment, we accept the heat that the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) talked about, and we have no apologies for accepting that heat, but neither have I any apologies for taking a firm and responsible stand in the direction of the department in which I've been placed in charge.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: Duck the responsibility, that's what you're doing. What kind of a minister is that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, we know the manner in which the former government operated when they took no responsibility for their offices but gave all of that responsibility to former newspaper people, to former radio hotliners, to executive assistants with no experience whatsoever. I wonder whatever happened to John Mika, who ran the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia while the minister ducked his responsibility, who ran the Transport and Communications department while the minister ducked his responsibility. We don't operate that way. We take the responsibility and we're in charge of our departments.

MR. COCKE: Then why don't you do it? Why did you let somebody take a dive for you?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The Minister of Health has the floor.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I would like to deal with a few of the issues — there weren't many — but there were a couple of issues raised, certainly not by the only member left from Vancouver-East (Mr. Macdonald), but by the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke).

He talked about nothing happening. I'm sure we'll get into this in more detail as the estimates go on, but there is a children's hospital being built. If you'll recall, Mr. Chairman, the comments of the noted pediatrician in the Vancouver area, probably the most noted pediatrician in this area, Dr. Sidney Israels, when it was announced that the children's hospital was going to be built after 40 years of waiting, and certainly after waiting through the previous administration's years when nothing happened, Mr.

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Chairman, his reaction was that he's delighted. I'm happy about that and so are the medical profession in Vancouver and all of British Columbia because we are going to have a children's hospital.

We're going to have a new Grace Hospital. We're going to have an expanded cancer facility. Nothing happened. The member said the children's hospital could have been started now under the plans being formulated by the former government. Mr. Chairman, all that was happening was that plans were being formulated, committees were being held, meetings were being held, architects were meeting with architects.

We made total payments, Mr. Chairman, through the British Columbia Medical Centre, to one architectural firm of $1.6 million and we were paying that architect $50,000 a month and we never erected one brick in a children's hospital anywhere. The children's hospital is going to be started this year under this administration. You talk to Dr. Sidney Israels if you don't think he's delighted and he's delighted, Mr. Chairman.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Morsels! Mr. Chairman, I don't have any apologies to make about volunteers being involved in the children's hospital project.

Mr. Chairman, as a result of meetings that we had with the Variety Club of British Columbia, following the recent very successful telethon in which every part of British Columbia was involved in a most heartening and meaningful way, it was decided that Variety Club wanted to get involved in an ongoing way in providing services for children, because that's what service clubs are all about.

I know that no one on that side of the House, Mr. Chairman, understands either service or volunteerism. The people who are involved in Children's Hospital understand volunteerism. Some of the members in this House who served as MLAs for that community know better than I about Children's Hospital. But for years Children's Hospital was the recipient of many, many trusts and grants from wills and other kinds of trust benefits that came to that hospital, and for some strange reason approximately three and a half years ago those funds dried up. I wonder why. It was simply because there was a change of government — a change to a government whose attitude toward volunteerism was....

MR. COCKE: Nonsense!

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: That's right — nonsense. Its attitude was nonsense.

Those funds dried up. Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Chairman, those funds will start flowing into Children's Hospital again and they will be put to good use by the people involved in Children's Hospital. I have no apologies to make for accepting volunteerism as a way of life and a desirable way of life in this province in which we live.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I want to deal briefly with the British Columbia Medical Centre. Yes, the decision was made that we would not continue with the British Columbia Medical Centre. I agree with the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), Mr. Chairman, that there were some very good people who served on the board of the British Columbia Medical Centre, and particularly the chairman, Mr. Jack Christensen, who found himself with a task that he was unable to fulfil, in my opinion, because he was led down the garden path by the previous government, which kept cutting out the rug from under those people at BCMC.

In his own heart, I think the former Health minister also would admit, if he was completely honest with us, that the BCMC wasn't working. He knew it and he had to keep cutting back and had to keep pulling things away from the board of the British Columbia Medical Centre. That's too bad, because those people were dedicated. They had a purpose but the purpose was taken away from them — not by this government but by the previous government, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, all of those people were told well in advance that the British Columbia Medical Centre was going to be no longer.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: The member makes a good point, Mr. Chairman — no one has yet been fired on television by this government.

I would like to pay tribute to Mr. Christensen and that board of directors, some of whom are still serving on the board and are serving as the interim board for Shaughnessy Hospital.

Those hospitals which were member facilities of the British Columbia Medical Centre, Mr. Chairman, didn't disappear in a puff of smoke — they're still there and they still operate. When the concept of the British Columbia Medical Centre was formulated, one of its principal responsibilities was, as the member for New Westminster pointed out, to co-ordinate the planning of hospital and education facilities for the member institutions. It was thought, and I think that the people who developed the concept probably thought they were doing the right thing at that time, that the planning process for each of the hospitals could be streamlined in a saving of both time and money. That was the concept, but that wasn't the

[ Page 1959 ]

experience. The experience proved that this arrangement was not successful. Instead of streamlining the situation, the British Columbia Medical Centre did, if anything, make the planning process more difficult by the introduction of a fourth body.

The centre, in its beginnings, may have given the impression that it was to plan exemplary facilities. What it did, in effect, was to create the demand for very expensive units — expenses which were far beyond the capacity of this province to meet. That former minister, Mr. Chairman, recognized that and that's the reason that the board of the British Columbia Medical Centre was frustrated in its efforts to do the job that it thought it had a mandate for but for which that mandate was removed.

The role of the British Columbia Medical Centre came under question by the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District, by the University of B.C., by the Universities Council and by the very hospital societies which the BCMC was supposed to bring together. It didn't bring them together, Mr. Chairman. It drove them apart. The fundamental question then that evolved when this government took office was: could these functions of the British Columbia Medical Centre be performed by existing agencies without the use of this special organization? It was a decision that was made by myself and, again, I make no apologies for accepting that responsibility. But it was decided that the planning and construction of special facilities could be carried out much more successfully in joint cooperation by the regional hospital district and the province.

The senior staff of the British Columbia Medical Centre were also prepared to agree that BCMC was not a satisfactory agency through which to make and implement plans for health education.

MR. COCKE: You are absolutely out of your tree.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

Interjections.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: The B.C. Medical Centre did make some contributions but it was concluded that the return on the considerable expenditure required to finance this organization did not justify its continuance. Those contributions that it did make will be kept and will be utilized in future health-care planning in this province.

After giving considerable thought, Mr. Chairman, to all of the variables, the decision we reached was the only logical alternative.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I know the minister was under duress in making the decision that he made. I know that the minister feels guilty about having wasted $5 million to $6 million of the taxpayers' money.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I didn't waste it. You wasted it.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): You wasted it.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: You wasted $5 million. It's down the drain, Mr. Chairman.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Just let me deal with one or two of the concepts,

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) gets nervous, Mr. Chairman, and I don't blame him, because it is scandalous. Those are the same people in the coalition who went around waving flags and screaming that the previous government wasted money.

MR. R.L. LOEWEN (Burnaby-Edmonds): A billion dollars.

MR. COCKE: When we see waste....

Oh, nonsense! Go back to Texas where you got your money.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, order, please! The member for New Westminster has the floor.

MR. COCKE: I'd just like to deal for a moment or two with the child and maternal concept. I'd like to deal with a letter that everybody who has anything to do with this certainly has received by now. This is some information that I think everybody should read carefully from nurses who were involved in this whole question of child and maternal care. I'll direct your attention to something that they said. This is for men and women alike:

"A great need has existed for 25 years to update the maternity and children's hospital facilities in B.C., presently by far the worst in Canada. However, no one could agree where, how or when this should be done.

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"The B.C. Medical Centre was established and it made the decision to build a maternal child-care hospital on the Shaughnessy site of Oak Street, land purchased from the federal government for $1. In spite of the opposition from the citizens around Shaughnessy area and Mr. Kelly, a member of GVRD, a great plan evolved with the cooperation of the leading pediatricians, obstetricians and other specialists concerned with all aspects of maternity and child-care research."

Mr. Chairman, what was discussed there was a concept....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Yes, I'll agree. When I was Minister of Health we said that the B.C. Medical Centre board presented a plan that was far too rich and so we cut that plan back, but even in the cut-back plan you had the co-ordination of effort of these two very important services. You had two diamond-shaped buildings, one for maternity and one for pediatrics, right there as part of the same facility.

Mr. Chairman, we would have been proud of having this facility, and it would have been started by now. It would have been started by now, Mr. Chairman, and there's no question in my mind, providing city hall in Vancouver went along with it. That is, they just gave us the right to start building.

This was going to be probably the best or the most modern concept in North America, and the Minister of Health says: "Yes, I proudly did my duty." His proudly "did his duty" was to waste millions of dollars. He talked about $1.6 million of architectural plans, $1.6 million of architectural plans that were wasted, put on the shelf.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Wasted! Put on the shelf, Mr. Chairman. Are you going ahead with that courthouse or not? We're not going to build a 95-storey building like your predecessor wanted.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, let me go on. Let me describe a meeting that took place....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, may I suggest to the committee that in committee there is no restriction on the number of times you can speak, but you must speak while you are standing. I hear a number of questions being asked, and I suggest that you await your turn. The Chair will gladly recognize you and you can speak.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to, with the help of this information, describe a meeting that took place between the hon. Minister of Health and a group of people interested in the child- and maternal-care facility.

The background of the meeting was that the people I am describing met on February 6 and 7,1976. They were a consumers' committee. They held a seminar and, as a result of the seminar on the maternal health workshop, these were the highlights:

(1) The need for an umbrella group of health-care oriented consumer groups to represent them in the planning and operation of health care.

(2) That a mandate should be sought by this umbrella group for these consumer groups to represent them before all bodies concerned with health care.

The workshop supported the child and maternal unit at the B.C. Medical Centre on the Shaughnessy site because it brings the standard of health-care delivery for women and children in the province up to a standard enjoyed by the rest of Canada. And there was concern that they must now wait for some time to come. The integration of maternity and pediatric facilities is absolutely essential for the optimum care of both mother and child.

So, Mr. Chairman, this group then met with the hon. Minister of Health, and what was the outcome of that meeting? There were six people, including this writer's person; a brief was presented by Marie Clark, and what did the brief outline? The pressing need seen for child and maternal facilities, and it went on to outline why the need.

It showed support for the proposed child and maternal health-care unit. It talked about time-cost factors in the support of the B.C. Medical Centre concept. Mr. Chairman, after listening to this brief, the minister began by saying.... I think this is important: after listening to a very long and very well-laid-out brief, the minister began by saying that he'd had it with people complaining about the quality of care they received from medical professionals in this province. That's not what they were even talking about! They were not talking about the care that they were receiving from medical professionals.

"What was distressing to us was that at no time had we made any criticism of medical care, publicly or privately. We were concerned with the poor facilities and lack of research space, and afraid that recent graduates of top researchers would not come to B.C. We were also afraid that the good ones that we had would leave." And why shouldn't they go where more would be made of their skills?

The minister said that letters he had received from mothers so far say that they don't want big maternity hospitals. Who's suggesting a big maternity hospital in the first place? What they want is home births. Mr. Chairman, home births! "We pointed out that the

[ Page 1961 ]

proposed child and maternal health unit was small, not big, and wanted to know what back-up services these letters had asked for." None, apparently. None.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I think it's a disgrace that this matter has been just overlooked, brushed aside. The minister talked about Sid Israels. I've talked to Sid Israels by the hour — Dr. Israels, a very prestigious pediatrician in the province. I suggest to you that Sid Israels is at a point in time where he'll accept anything, providing we have at least something in this province in the way of a child-care unit. But you don't need a child-care unit alone. Anybody with any expertise at all will tell you that that's the most costly way to go. It's going to present duplication.

What the minister is saying, in effect, is that we are going to have to have the sophisticated maternal care at VGH, a large maternal hospital at Grace and a pediatric centre likely on the Shaughnessy site. Each of those centres is going to have to be provided with facilities that, I suggest, will be duplication after duplication.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you the minister has wasted millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money that has been spent on planning by the very best people in this province, people that he now will be scratching for, trying to hire, because that minister is working by the seat of his pants. He doesn't know where this unit is going to go. He suggests now that it might even go to Shaugnessy. But, Mr. Chairman, he has chosen the wrong course.

The third question about the whole medical centre I'd like to talk about, just for a second, is the UBC facility. Many are saying, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) should now watch his other ear. The Minister of Health had no say — there's no question about that. He had no say in the new facility that's to go ahead at UBC. He wasn't even permitted to make the announcement. He wasn't permitted to make the announcement of that hospital!

AN HON. MEMBER: Ho hum!

MR. COCKE: Ho hum! I'd say "ho hum" too, if I were a backbencher looking for a job. Mr. Chairman, he's probably on the way out, the back bench say; otherwise he would have been permitted to make that announcement. But he didn't. He did not make the announcement; the Minister of Education made the announcement.

He announced the hospital that is dubbed the family-practice unit. That is the biggest bunk I've ever heard of! If that minister will now turn around and talk to his officials, I predict that once you've taken off the few beds that they have out at UBC, in the family-practice unit they have there, you will have a net increase of 16 beds, family practice, on the campus. If you are to adopt the plan you said you were going to adopt — that's a plan calling for 2,500 square feet per bed — it's going to be the most monstrous, expensive, ridiculous operation one could ever imagine.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. COCKE: To build it, $60 million and another $30 million to equip it — $90 million wasted at UBC. It's a wastrel government that we have now — $90 million wasted. I'd like the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) to argue with that one — 2,500 feet per bed; and you add it up. That's $60 million right there, for anybody who knows hospital construction costs, and to equip it another $30 million — $90 million just to satisfy the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) who's been going on this high flyer for some many years.

What will it cost to operate? I predict that it will cost the public of British Columbia a monstrous sum to operate that new concept. You know what I predict ? It'll cost $21.9 million per year to operate these 240 beds that you're building out there that isn't accessible to the people in Vancouver — only accessible to the students at UBC who are not sick.

And what have you got when you get there? You have no hotels. So therefore it'll be an in-bed kind of an operation. The people that come down from all over this province for diagnostic workups, where will they stay? I suggest that they can't stay on the campus. There's no place for them to stay. So therefore they'll have to be accepted as in-patients for sophisticated diagnostic workups. What good will this do the students at UBC?

I suggest to you that the facilities that are in downtown Vancouver right now, if improved, and the facilities that were being created at the Shaughnessy site — I am talking in terms of all of them in cooperation — would have given you everything that you need.

I suggest that when I received, along with every other MLA in this House, a letter from the alumni association that was in favour of this facility, I just said to myself: who has been giving them guidance? That doesn't reflect a 70,000-person concept out there — the 70,000 graduates of UBC. That reflects the opinion of a few people in the ivory tower. I think it's shocking, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to say that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. King) sent the following letter back — and I'll put it on the record.

"We are interested in the position you took in your letter of April 9 regarding your support of the new proposed university acute-care hospital, as well as support for the increase in health sciences available at UBC. We see the two issues as quite separate. Naturally the increase in basic science facilities at the

[ Page 1962 ]

university is entirely up to the allocations committee at UBC. We agree that there is a good case for increasing those facilities and certainly hope they will go ahead.

"On the other hand, the basis for building a new hospital facility there is to us very difficult to understand. There is no question that the other Vancouver facilities will suffer because of this decision, and taking hospitals away from doctors and patients doesn't seem to us to be very well-thought-out direction at all.

"We certainly can understand the enthusiasm of your association for the hospital site. However, we believe that the choice of the UBC is ill-advised and will not serve the overall needs of the lower mainland citizens in the most desirable way."

Mr. Chairman, it's so obvious that they're on the wrong course. All of the things that we're doing out there are only to satisfy promises made, and those promises, in the long run, are promises that will provide nothing but waste.

I want to take your attention back to a statement made by Rafe Mair, the Minister of Consumer Services. Mair cited something about a $100 million overrun in the Human Resources department, which was explained as a clerical error, and said that the Social Credit government will probably not even make a $1,000 error in its financing. We've seen many errors already, but, Mr. Chairman, this monstrous error, creating a hospital at UBC that will not serve the people of this province, will only serve the elitist kind of activities that we've seen. It's a waste of operating costs that is monstrous, and I suggest to you, so the officials know what I'm basing this on, I'm saying that $250 per bed will be the operating cost of that facility by the time it's created. It's easy to see that $21.9 million per year will be the operating cost of that facility. The size of it, the structure — everything else — is a waste, and it just brings me back to what that Minister of Consumer Services said originally: "There will be no waste." This is wanton waste, just to satisfy the needs of the member for Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) who is now Minister of Education, minister in charge of ICBC and all of those other activities.

Mr. Chairman, I want to bring to your attention a letter that I received from Stuart Keate, publisher of The Vancouver Sun. He asked that I appear on a panel on April 7 at 2 p.m. in the boardroom of The Vancouver Sun.

Along with me were invited the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer), the Minister of Health and others. This was to defend the whole situation of the B.C. Medical Centre and the UBC campus hospital and all. I agreed to go on that panel. At the last minute I was told that the thing had been called off because neither of the government officials would go on that panel. Shame, Mr. Chairman! They had all sorts of time; they were notified, as I was, on March 24. They had all sorts of time to make any kind of changes in plans necessary to provide that they were there on April 7 at 2 p.m. They were afraid to face the music. I am surprised that the minister is in the House today discussing his estimates.

Mr. Chairman, that letter and the reply to that letter indicate to me that there was no way that they were going to go and make any kind of a defence to that situation.

Mr. Chairman, let me bring to your attention another letter that I received. This is a letter to Dr. H. L. Murphy, who was director of education planning. This was written by an Alice Baumgart, a graduate fellow who is now finishing her PhD at the University of Toronto. Do you know what she said to Dr. Murphy in The Vancouver Sun, March 3, 1976?

"I wish to convey my deep concern about the recent action of your government in doing away with the B.C. Medical Centre. I am particularly distressed by the demise of the education planning division. This division was beginning to play a vital role in bringing some order out of chaos which now characterizes education for health manpower. Moreover, it was doing this in a manner which was one of the most innovative in North America. The educational planning division may, indeed, serve as a model for many other jurisdictions.

"Isn't it a shame that we're going to have to take our innovative ideas elsewhere? As a former British Columbia resident who is actively involved in inter-professional education in the health sciences, I can only consider the government's stance as myopic and simple-minded. It is my fervent hope that your government will at least recognize appropriately the useful and novel work of the education planning division of the B.C. Medical Centre and not let their considerable efforts come to naught."

Mr. Chairman, I understand that someone wishes to be recognized. I will yield.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Members, some distinguished guests will be arriving in the chamber very shortly. Perhaps we could just retain our seats and wait quietly till they approach the chamber.

HON. W.R. BENNETT (Premier): Mr. Chairman and Hon. Members, I would like to welcome to this chamber a distinguished visitor from the state of Israel. His Excellency Chaim Zadok moved to Israel from his native Poland in 1935 and has been a fighter for freedom in the war of independence, Deputy Attorney-General of Israel from 1949 to 1952, a lecturer in commercial law at the Tel Aviv Law

[ Page 1963 ]

School from 1952 to 1961, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of Development from 1965 to 1966 and now Minister of Justice since March, 1974. He arrived in Victoria earlier this morning and leaves again this afternoon. At some future date I hope he will be able to spend more time with us here in Victoria and British Columbia.

Accompanying His Excellency is Simuel Ounot, Consul-General of Israel. Also accompanying the minister is Mrs. Zadok. I wish the House to welcome His Excellency, the Consul-General and Mrs. Zadok. I wish them welcome and shalom.

MR. N. LEVI (Vancouver-Burrard): Nyem meod lekobel otchem Anachnu rozteen, me mephlagah shalanu NDP, lagid sholam aleichem ve toda rabar.

For the benefit of Hansard I'd like to welcome our guests again on behalf of the New Democratic Party. We are mindful of the long social democratic conditions of your country, and we're extremely pleased that you're here.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Chairman, I join all members of the House in our expression of the warmest welcome to His Excellency, his lady and the consul, and extend highest regards to you and your great country. While I cannot equal the second member for Burrard (Mr. Levi), may I say: Shalom u braha.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Chairman, as a landed immigrant Scot I also cannot emulate my friend from Vancouver, but I would say that we in the Conservative Party extend a very warm welcome to you.

We are well aware of your problems in a turbulent world and the fact that you're surrounded by some neighbours who cause problems, but the Scottish race also used to fight its neighbours with some fervour, and they seem finally in large measure to have solved that problem, and I wish you the same success in Israel.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 86 pass? The member for New Westminster continues.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, thank you for permitting me to continue my remarks, and I will be very brief at this point.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Baumgart letter that I read characterizes the opinions that many, many people have about the Medical Centre — people who understood it. One of my biggest problems has been that people haven't really understood what was going on. I suggest that there certainly is no justification for wasting taxpayer money in this way and at the same time cutting services.

We have available, Mr. Chairman, at the Vancouver General Hospital the nucleus for the service that's necessary and it needs updating. St. Paul's Hospital needs to be brought up to date and teaching provided at these facilities, teaching provided at Shaughnessy — teaching provided at the existing extant facilities, if you will.

Mr. Chairman, UBC has a hospital now — a psychiatric hospital. I think that that probably also characterizes what happens when you build out there. One of the people that I consulted, in the process of coming up with the idea of whether or not to put a hospital on the campus or not, was the Deputy Minister of Health for Canada. The former Deputy Minister of Health for Canada was the person who put together the Sherbrooke campus hospital. You know what he said? He said that that hospital on the campus at Sherbrooke was the biggest mistake in his life.

Then I talked to Claude Castonguay, at that time Minister of Health for the Province of Quebec. I said to him: "What are you doing about Laval?" He said: "Laval University's going to be different." He said: "The teaching will go on at the university, but at the hospitals it will go on in the present six hospitals in Quebec City."

We could have done the same thing, Mr. Chairman, but what is occurring now is going to create a dichotomy of interest. I suggest that that really won't take care of the needs for this province.

Mr. Chairman, we didn't have enough time to develop the facilities, but we were certainly on time. The B.C. Medical Centre Act was only brought into being late in 1973 — October, 1973, to be exact. That shows that in the short time that they had available from late 1973 to 1975 they did a monstrous amount of work, and were right on time.

The present minister, Mr. Chairman, has taken the money that was invested in the future of B.C. and wasted it.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask one question: what in the world has brought about the decision to put a 300-bed extended-care hospital on the Shaughnessy site? Has any study been done to show that it's a good idea?

Mr. Chairman, I wonder at some of the decisions that are emanating from the present minister and from those people who took the place of the old B.C. Medical Centre.

Mr. Chairman, what about cancer? Is cancer to grow in its present site? Is the direction of cancer in B.C. to be inhibited by not becoming part and parcel of what was a co-ordinated activity, or is it going to be on its own again? If it is, then it's not going to be an aspect that will grow and flourish in our province.

We were fortunate; we were able to attract one of the best brains in cancer in North American, Dr. Tom Hall, away from the United States — the antithesis of the old brain-drain syndrome. We were able to attract

[ Page 1964 ]

him back up to here to lead the cancer control agency.

But, Mr. Chairman, we have to put priorities where priorities are needed, and it should be part of an integrated process of teaching, research, and part of the whole delivery system in this province. To leave it where it is, I suggest to you, is to spend probably $25 million to $30 million on a very inaccessible area. I talked to the city council at some length in Vancouver, and what did they tell me? Get every service away from VGH that you possibly can. People now taking children down to the cancer service, or people going down there themselves, spend half their time driving around the block and congesting what is already a terribly congested area still further. I suggest the direction of the B.C. Medical Centre was to move the nucleus of cancer up to the Shaughnessy site. That should still be very much a part of where we're going.

Mr. Chairman, I only hope that if the minister is steadfast in his determination to rip apart, to rend asunder all of the work that was done, I would hope that he can put together some kind of an organization that will at least attempt to co-ordinate the activities of the health, teaching and health delivery in B.C. — not medical training, Mr. Chairman, not as the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) described it, but health training. Co-ordinated health training is what B.C. sorely needs, and I would hope that that will be the direction. Certainly if not now, it will come, because even that minister cannot stand in the way of progress forever.

MR. WALLACE: The dimension of the health budget in many hundreds of millions of dollars means that we should look at health in a very wide sense, and this I am sure we will do in the days ahead, but on this particular occasion I would like to speak specifically on one issue of great importance to the greater Victoria area. Despite participation in a political forum, I do intend to try and present a very fair and objective review of this particular issue and try to avoid either emotionalism or politicking. I simply want to try and bring to the House some kind of valid and accurate appraisal not only of an issue which will meet the need of people in this area but which does involve a large sum of money at the same time.

Mr. Chairman, I am talking about the issue of the new general hospital to replace, in large measure, the Victoria General Hospital. I am the first one to agree with many of the residents of this area that there has been a long delay in tackling and beginning to solve this particular problem. I am sorry that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis) is not in his place because the delay in providing this third hospital....

Mr. Chairman, I don't think we have enough members for a quorum.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No quorum in the House? Then it is incumbent upon the Chair to have those members present transcribed in the Journals, and I would ask that the Clerk-Assistant would begin.

Hon. members, standing orders 6 and 7 read:

"The presence of at least 10 members of the House, including Mr. Speaker, shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for the exercise of its power.

"Whenever Mr. Speaker adjourns the House for want of a quorum, the time of the adjournment and the names of the members then present shall be inserted in the Journal."

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So that means we do have a quorum. May we continue?

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I knew that every member in the House was just bursting to hear my speech....

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: Anyway, I notice my friend from Saanich and the Islands (Hon. Mr. Curtis) is back in his place and I appreciate that. I'm not in any way implying anything critical of that member. I just wanted to comment that the first study of any significance to try and solve our local problem, believe it or not, was published in May, 1968 — eight years ago.

At that time the chairman of the Capital Regional Hospital District was one Hugh A. Curtis who, I remember, held a public meeting at the Municipal Hall in Saanich. I was at that time much impressed by the strong push which the present member for Saanich and the Islands gave to this study. As the members can probably see, this was no mean appraisal of the facts; it was an in-depth review of the hospital needs of the greater Victoria area, looking as far ahead in the final part of the report as 1986 from 1968. That report, Mr. Chairman, made some very distinctive proposals, which in large measure have not changed in the years that have gone by without action.

As I said at the outset of my remarks, I'm not here to lay blame or to criticize delays, but I do feel that someone now must try to put the facts in perspective in the hope that we can prevent making a very regrettably wrong decision about this hospital, costing $40 million to build and probably $1 million a year to operate — to ensure that it will not be placed in the wrong site in this area simply to save, admittedly, a sum of money in the short run.

This report I have referred to is well known as the Agnew Peckham report, and recommended in

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recommendation (4) that a new general hospital of about 200-230 beds be built in the general area of Elk Lake. For those of you in the House who are not as familiar with the area, Elk Lake is on the Pat Bay Highway, on the way to the ferry terminal or the airport. It was suggested that the site be at least 20 acres and preferably 30 acres or more.

It's also important to mention recommendation (22). It made it quite clear that it was not recommended that there should be a general hospital in the Colwood-Sooke area, at least not until a hospital of 100 beds could be justified.

Recommendation (23) goes on to say that when a hospital is justified in the Colwood-Sooke area, it should be a branch or division of one of the larger general hospitals.

Mr. Chairman, these are facts and the recommendations by hospital planners and people with expertise who are paid taxpayers' dollars to come up with factual, relevant, accurate information.

Now in the delays that have occurred since 1968, one of the problems appeared to be the inadequate powers of the advisory committee. In November, 1974, the former Minister of Health (Mr. Cocke), who has just taken his place....

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Sorry, I correct that statement: the former Minister of Health who has been here all morning and has spoken so much that I've had to wait quite a while to get my piece in.

At any rate, in November, 1974, the then-Minister of Health amended the bylaws of the regional hospital district which enabled the directors to set up a hospital and health planning commission with greater power and greater authority. The very real and obviously wise reason was to try and build public confidence in the planning that would be done, but, above all, to ensure that when these planners and experts made their recommendations these very recommendations would carry a great deal of weight — in the same way that within the medical sphere, perhaps, the general practitioner gets a second opinion from a consultant who is more highly trained, as a patient would attach more significance to the consultant's report.

So this amendment to the bylaw in 1974 resulted in the setting up of the health and hospital planning commission in the greater Victoria area. That commission was subsequently composed of very dedicated and highly respected individuals in our community in the greater Victoria area. And I don't say that because the chairman happens to have the same name as I have, but Robert Wallace has done a very first-class job in chairing that health and planning commission.

Mr. Chairman, one of the first functions the commission assumed was to review all the possible sites in the greater Victoria area which might be suitable for this third hospital. They reviewed nine sites and they used a very detailed set of criteria such as the accessibility to the site, the relationship to highways, the time distance to hospitals and to the university, ancillary use, the effect on the neighbourhood, fire protection, transit services, view and surroundings, subsoil, et cetera. There were actually 21 criteria used and each criterion was given so many points. The nine sites were reviewed within that very complicated but necessarily thorough context, which again bears out the professional enthusiasm with which this commission proceeded to do its job.

Before I go further, Mr. Chairman, let me just say that when these results were worked out, the Helmcken Road site, now being suggested for a hospital, was No. 7 on the list of nine. It was the seventh most desirable. When this commission had taken all this trouble, gone through all these details of study and all these different criteria, the Helmeken Road site was No. 7 in the list of suitability.

So while there are many other points to be covered, that point is very significant in this discussion — namely that a very substantially significant study by well-informed planners and regional directors, some of them, surveyed nine sites in a very efficient and reasonable way and came up with that conclusion.

One could also quote other aspects of the report, Mr. Chairman. But I don't want to go into a great deal of detail on the report as such, because the conclusion about the Helmcken Road site is quite obvious. I should also say, to put the matter in context, that without any doubt the overall conclusion was that the McKenzie-Douglas site was without a doubt far superior in relation to all these different criteria than any of the others.

I'll just quote paragraph (a) from the report of July 16, 1975. It's entitled "General Location Considerations."

"The Helmcken site compares very poorly with the three highest-rated sites in terms of accessibility to the population served. The effects of this will be felt by visitors to the hospital, doctors, hospital staff and outpatients, to mention only a few instances. The site does not have transit service at present, of particular importance to female staff, and extending service to this site would require developing a new route. Locating a hospital on this site" — and again I'm referring to the Helmcken site — "would increase traffic congestion both on the Trans-Canada Highway and on the old Island Highway, and the congestion would be compounded by satellite uses associated with the hospital."

[ Page 1966 ]

Now there can't be anything much clearer than that. Another part of the report which I think is being overlooked in the public debate that's going on states that the criteria utilized in the site selection by the committee was fully in accordance with the goals and policies of the regional plan. It states:

"The planning staff have examined the three sites preferred by the site selection committee and have found that these locations do not fundamentally oppose the principles of the regional plan." In regard to the regional plan, the report went on to say:

"In this plan, hospitals of regional significance are to be located taking account of the adequacy of regional roads, public transport, water and sewer services for the proposed uses and compatibility with adjacent uses." Surely these again are very fundamental factors in planning any large hospital.

Mr. Chairman, I might interject that this report also referred to a quote from the magazine entitled The Scientific American. I think members would agree that that's a very reputable journal or magazine which deals with a wide variety of human issues. The Scientific American in March, 1971, had been studying the cost of U.S. government buildings, and went on to say that the findings of that U.S. study were quite relevant in looking at the Canadian buildings of the same type and size. It pointed out, on the basis that most of these buildings, such as a hospital building, were looking at a life of perhaps 40 years, that of the total cost, 2 per cent was in the building, 6 per cent was in the operation and maintenance of the building, and 92 per cent was in the cost of salaries. I understand that a rule-of-thumb formula that's used these days is that when you are building any substantial project, the site cost of the land can be reasonably considered to be about 10 per cent of the total cost of the project.

I refer, Mr. Chairman, to the Agnew Peckham report of 1968. I just want to say that because of the various delays and problems in progress, the regional hospital board in 1975 asked for a review of the original report by the same consultants. Dr. McQueen embarked on a restudy of the original study. Unfortunately the regional politicians chose to keep that second study secret and it was never published in the manner that the original one was published under the direction of the now Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis). At any rate, the press, with their usual nose for news and accuracy, reported in the Daily Colonist of April 9, 1975, the heading: "Little New in Hospital Study; Rehash of Old Ideas at a Cost of $34,500." The second study, I gather, more or less confirmed the same basic recommendations as the first study. Soon after that restudy the commission went to work and came up with this proposal that without a doubt the McKenzie-Douglas site was far superior, for all the reasons I've mentioned, to any other site. I understand that the decision by the commission was almost unanimous.

Again, with respect, I would have to question the judgment of some persons in the field of the hospital district activity keeping in camera the kind of voting that went on on an issue which had dragged on for years and which was increasing in cost and complexity as the years go by, and now will cost $40 million. I think that it would be only fair to the taxpayers, if we are using highly competent planners and consultants and elected members or appointed members to a planning commission, that when they make a decision of this significance we should at least know what the voting was, but I am told that it was almost unanimous.

Since that decision there's been a provincial election and the government has changed, and that caused some further delay, but finally the regional hospital board asked the present Minister of Health to make a decision. Again, to put all the facts on the table, Mr. Chairman, the Helmcken site, as compared to the Douglas-McKenzie site, is unquestionably something in the order of $1 million cheaper.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Two!

MR. WALLACE: Well, the minister says $2 million, but that overlooks the fact that the Helmcken site will require a substantial amount of servicing. It is in unorganized territory and has, I believe, a large water pipeline that runs right through the middle of the site that will have to be relocated. Sewer facilities will have to be provided to the site. There is only access through one road, namely Helmcken Road, and there are many reasons why the simple price that is being quoted at the Helmcken site is by no means the final price for making the site acceptable for hospital construction.

I agree with the minister that we probably cannot tell at this point what that additional cost will be, but it is not at all accurate to compare the land cost at Douglas-McKenzie simply with the land cost at Helmcken Road, because the Helmcken Road site, apart from all the other disadvantages, some of which I mean to mention in a moment, requires a substantial expenditure of funds, if only in the form of providing sewerage facilities and highway access.

The minister has clearly gone on record as stating that there is a restraint on government spending, and that the whole thrust of the government's policy these days is to minimize costs. That's a reasonable goal, and that should be a goal of government, but it shouldn't be a goal of government if you make a short-term decision which is going to cause nothing but wasteful expenditure of money, traffic jams,

[ Page 1967 ]

inefficient service and overhead costs over the next 40 years.

That will make this $1 million difference look like peanuts once we get into the new hospital, if it is ultimately built on Helmcken Road. The minister has made the decision, and I'm speaking at some length today in the hope that I can demonstrate to him some very valid reasons why it would make a lot of sense to reconsider his decision.

I might interject that I congratulate the minister and welcome his reconsideration on the per diem charge for extended-care patients which he announced last night. It does show that the minister is not rigid in his approach to political decisions and is willing to acknowledge that a decision might have been made without all the evidence being considered, and it's exactly that principle I'm trying to stress today. He may well have made his decision about the third hospital site without being a party to all the information, and without looking down the road 10 or 15 or 20 years and recognizing that we're not just building a hospital to save $1 million in the short run, but probably will end up putting a hospital in the wrong place. When it's there and built, and it's going to cost $40 million to build and $15 million a year to operate, do you want it in the wrong place? It's just that simple.

In asking the minister to reconsider the decision he's made, I just have to ask if the government has forgotten one of its own recent decisions. I'm talking about the Department of Highways, and I'm sorry that the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) isn't here to take part in our debate. Again, if I might refer to the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis), who has had a long awareness of the traffic problems as they affect the Blanshard Street extension and the Trans-Canada Highway, he and I and any of us who have been in the municipal picture for any length of time know that the bottleneck on the Trans-Canada Highway between the Town and Country shopping centre and the Colwood cutoff is one of the most severe traffic problems in the whole greater Victoria area. It is of increasing severity, particularly from 7 till 9 in the morning and 4 to 6 in the evening, most weekends, and certainly June, July and August when we have a high flow of tourist traffic on that highway. The Helmcken Road intersects the Trans-Canada Highway right in the middle of that biggest bottleneck section. To top all that off, Mr. Chairman, we just had the announcement by the government a few weeks ago — I can't remember the exact date, but I think the end of April — by the Minister of Highways that the plans to extend Blanshard Street and widen the Trans-Canada Highway have been postponed indefinitely.

When you put all that together I would submit, Mr. Chairman, that there are many powerful facts which would surely make the minister reconsider.

I'm not entering into a debate as to whether the money is available for widening the highway or not. That's a much more debatable issue. What I'm trying to emphasize is the fact that the hospital on Helmcken Road would be a very short distance from the point where Helmcken Road intersects a section of very busy highway which is becoming increasingly clogged and congested, and that very section of highway which the former government had promised to widen will not now be widened, and there's no date set as to when it will be widened.

In fact the Minister of Highways announced the policy of the government to cancel widening of the highways. I have a clipping here from The Vancouver Sun of April 30:

"The minister said no money has been allotted to the two projects, and he did not know whether money would even be set aside in the 1977-78 budget. Widening the Trans-Canada Highway between Town and Country and Thetis Lake overpass was to be done this spring at an estimated cost of $5 million."

Mr. Chairman, I know you're busy reading something else, but I really think you should get this.

"Work on the Blanshard Street extension was to begin this fall, after nearly 13 years of setbacks."

Thirteen years we've been talking about this particular highway! Later on in the same report it states:

"The widening of the Trans-Canada Highway between Thetis Lake overpass and the shopping centre was considered a high priority because traffic along the route is getting hopelessly tangled up during rush hours."

It surely goes without saying, Mr. Chairman, that if there's one particular building in our society where it is rather important to have hasty access, it would surely have to be a hospital. I can't really think of any other type of building which must have that as a very primary consideration in choosing a location.

Can you just imagine, Mr. Chairman, an ambulance trying to get along that part of the Trans-Canada Highway at peak rush hour? No doubt its sirens would blare and all the other traffic would come to a halt and they would do the best they could, but I think the potential for the ambulance with the victim itself to get into an accident under these circumstances would be very considerable.

One of the reasons that ambulances have to be particularly careful is that very fact that in their haste there are liable to be misunderstandings at traffic lights, or whatever, and when the ambulance itself becomes involved in the accident, then, of course, we have double trouble. Not only the person in the ambulance may well never make it to the hospital but someone else in the other vehicle becomes involved or

[ Page 1968 ]

injured.

The statistics, incidentally, Mr. Chairman, from January of this year show that at the Helmcken Road section of the Trans-Canada Highway there have been 12 accidents of one kind or another since January.

I really feel that the minister is correct only to this extent: that by putting the hospital at Helmcken instead of Mackenzie, in the very short run he would be saving something of the order of $1 million and maybe more than that. I'm the last person to try and slough off that figure in the terms of C.D. Howe, for example, by saying "What's a million?" That isn't my opinion at all. We all know that $1 million is a lot of money, but I have to repeat that the total project we're talking about is so very, very much more.

The building itself will probably cost $40 million and the operating costs around $12 million to $15 million a year. Do these sums of money not justify putting out the extra million in choosing the site in order to get the hospital in the right place?

Now I've been approached by various persons saying that, of course, there is growth of population both in the Colwood-Langford area and in the Saanich Peninsula area, and I acknowledge that argument. But again, on three grounds I say that it doesn't really hold up in the long run.

First of all, the regional plan for the western part of the district does not suggest a general hospital with all the associated facilities that would be required in that Helmcken region.

Secondly, the population growth is still faster in the Saanich Peninsula area than in the western area, and thirdly, the traffic problems that I have referred to, to me seem a convincing argument that almost on that basis alone it would seem very unwise, if not utterly foolish, to proceed with the construction of a hospital with that kind of capital and operating expenditures at a site where the very efficiency of the hospital would be suspect and access would be a very serious problem.

I would say in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that two very basic principles are involved beyond the dollar principle. First of all, we all pay lip service at least to the concept of regional planning and regional development of facilities. I know again that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis) has a much wider understanding and experience in this field than I have, but he knows that in terms of sane and long-sighted planning the regional concept has to be followed.

It makes no sense at all to draw up regional plans and to have regional hospital boards and regional concepts until one day somebody makes a unilateral decision based on the dollar sign which just throws all the regional planning out the window. Now if that's what the government wants to do, I would suggest that we should scrap nine-tenths of all the people who are involved in regional affairs. I'm not being facetious when I say that. It makes no sense at all to have these many highly skilled, dedicated regional people, whether they're planners or technicians or regional directors or what they are, if they're committed to a concept and they spend their days and their weeks and their months studying and coming up with recommendations based on that concept and then they find that, for the simple fact of X amount of dollars, all their expertise and the recommendations just go out the window. That, I think, is almost more important than this specific example of where that kind of principle is probably about to be contravened.

Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, I'll just quickly finish by saying that I know the public of greater Victoria are utterly frustrated about the lack of action or the delays, and now that we appear close to deciding on one site or the other they are much relieved, and I personally am being accused of obstructionism by asking the minister one more time to reconsider.

The last thing I am trying to do is obstruct. What I am trying to do is say for goodness' sake, after eight years, please let us not put the hospital in the wrong place.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Everybody wants to see the new hospital built as quickly as possible. One of the points that the capital region people made when they met first with me in my office was that I was the fourth Health minister that they had dealt with on this problem. We certainly don't want to see them deal with a fifth; we want to get on with the hospital. That was the major portion of our consideration. We also, Mr. Chairman, wish to make sure that regionalism is a concept that works. I don't think the government should be arbitrarily stepping into regional decisions on an ad hoc basis, but there is a time when the minister of any department has to take some personal responsibility. In all conscience, Mr. Chairman, there was no way in which I could recommend the purchase of the particular site in question, not only because of the cost but certainly primarily because of the cost.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

Our own department, Mr. Chairman, in evaluating the various sites which were up for consideration for a new hospital, clearly indicated that some of the western sites were, in fact, suitable for a new hospital — in particular the Helmcken Road site, which had been included in the commission's submissions.

We have a couple of objections, Mr. Chairman, to locating the hospitals at this site. First of all is a question that you referred to about the comparison of the two sites simply in terms of dollar values. You're correct; it can't be done. You are also correct that there will be a significant outlay of capital funds

[ Page 1969 ]

to maintain sewage facilities for the Helmcken Road site if we go there. Now whether or not we have to go out and connect on to sewage in the unorganized area or the municipality or we put a sewage disposal site on-site, it doesn't really matter; it's a technical detail. But the cost will be there. As well, the topography of the McKenzie-Douglas site does not lend itself to the easy construction of a hospital. It is going to cost a significant amount of extra money to build a hospital on that site. I've got estimates ranging anywhere up to an extra $1 million just to take care of the topography problem that we have at the site. There will have to be considerable structural changes made in the construction of the hospital itself in order to make up for that.

I say the prime objection, Mr. Chairman, is the cost of that property. It's $2.5 million — $100,000 an acre — for a piece of property which cost a total, to the owners, of $417,000 to accumulate. That is a significant profit, for a private developer, which this government was not prepared to accept for a piece of property which is still within the agricultural land reserve. The last time the application was made to have that property taken out of the agricultural land reserve, that application was refused.

Mr. Chairman, we were able to get the option on the site which is now the basis of a proposal that we made to the regional district people not even for the $20,000 an acre, which was the estimated cost when the evaluation was done, but for $15,000 an acre. We have a firm option on 34 acres of property at that location now, signed with the owner. We have made the proposition to the regional district that here is the opportunity for the regional district to get ahead with a hospital. We've made the guarantee to them that we will enter into negotiations about government assistance for providing those off-site services that are necessary. We have made the promise that if they will accept that proposal, Mr. Chairman, we will give them immediate approval to begin planning a new hospital for the greater Victoria region.

I think it's a good proposal, and I think that many other members of the region, as well as the planning commission, also agree that it is a good proposal. In fact, one of the members was quoted in the press the other day as saying that in closed meetings of the commission there was objection, not recorded, to the McKenzie-Douglas site. So, Mr. Chairman, I think all of us want to get on with the job. I would like to see the region, and the commission, address itself to this new proposal. I still can't accept the cost of that property as a cost on government. That is a decision that has been made and, at this point, I don't see us going back on it. I appreciate the member's concern in this whole issue, and certainly we share it, but there we are.

If I could just reply quickly to a couple of the points that were made by the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) with regard to the child and maternal health-care centre, we have a basic disagreement on the way to provide those facilities. We think we are doing the right thing in providing those facilities, with a new children's hospital to be built immediately and the rebuilding of Grace Hospital which, interestingly enough, is one of the only hospitals in British Columbia where the occupancy rate for maternity is going up, and that's because Grace is held in such high esteem throughout this whole province. We think that Grace Hospital can do the job. They've proven over the years that they can do the job, and we've guaranteed to them that we will rebuild that hospital on its present site to take care of the needs that we think the people of British Columbia have. So we have a difference of opinion.

Mr. Chairman, as well with regard to the waste of money, I pointed earlier to $1.6 million in architectural fees being spent on BCMC so far to one architectural firm. If that money had all been spent on a facility which was going to be built, I suppose it wouldn't be wasted, but most of the money was spent on something that will never see the light of day and would never have seen the light of day regardless of which government was in power. Only $400,000 of those fees was spent on the child and maternal health care centre; $1.2 million was spent on the overall development plan for the Shaughnessy hospital site, a plan which was scrapped by the previous government because they knew that they could never afford it, and also because they knew that the city of Vancouver would never allow the kind of development that they were planning for that site. There was a massive upheaval in the city of Vancouver because no one at that level had ever been consulted about what was going to happen at the Shaughnessy site.

We've made sure, Mr. Chairman, that in relation to the children's hospital we had representatives from the city of Vancouver on the task force which met to decide where the children's hospital would be built and what kind of a hospital it would be and how it would be financed. We were assured by the city of Vancouver that we would have their complete cooperation in this matter.

Briefly on the UBC hospital, there's no point in us going all the way around the bush on this, because we have a basic disagreement. I'm sure we'll never come to a meeting of the minds on this development. I would remind the member for New Westminster, Mr. Chairman, that he has no knowledge of what kind of a hospital is going to be built on the UBC campus, because nobody does. That's the reason.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I'm saying now that there has been no decision made on

[ Page 1970 ]

what kind of a hospital will be built at UBC except that it will be under the direction of the Department of Health and it will be a complete family-practice hospital. That's the commitment that we've made, and the $90 million figure is something that the member has picked out of his own imagination, as usual, because there is no figure except $50 million which has been committed and offered to the task force which has also been set up in a very democratic way with the representatives from the medical profession, from UBC, from the Greater Vancouver Regional District, and others concerned, and the major teaching hospitals as well, to decide what kind of a hospital will be built to provide for doubling of the number of British Columbia students who can be graduated from the medical school at UBC. Mr. Chairman, that's the democratic way to go about things and that's the way we intend to continue to go about things.

Let me caution again that the terms of reference of that task force do not only include a school at UBC, a medical school at UBC. They also include.... The task force is expected to report on the measures which are necessary and the amount of funds out of that $50 million or $55 million which is necessary to make sure that the facilities in the existing teaching hospitals are upgraded to be able to handle that doubled output of British Columbia students coming from UBC. It's all part of the package and it answers the criticism that is being made by the British Columbia Medical Association that they have no objection, as I understand it, to a teaching hospital at UBC providing we make sure that those other facilities are offered. That's exactly what we're doing, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to respond briefly to the minister's comments. I can't possibly overemphasize the concern of many people, of all people in this community, that for as much as we don't want to have any further delay, it really doesn't make any kind of sense, just for the sake of ending delay, to forge ahead and build a $40 million hospital in the wrong place with all kinds of problems. Transportation and access to a hospital surely has to be a fundamental concept in the planning and the decision as to where it will go.

I couldn't agree more that the minister must be sensitive to the first outlay of dollars and that if you're comparing two sites and one's $1 million cheaper than the other, it has....

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Okay, let's say a million and a half, not two million, and I said at the beginning of my remarks that I didn't want to get into a hassle on arguing about figures which none of us know with absolute precision. We do know that the Douglas-McKenzie site is certainly a great deal more expensive than Helmcken; that is not a part that I would argue.

But the minister did talk about the McKenzie-Douglas site being in the Agricultural Land Reserve, Mr. Chairman. I just want it to be on the record that the Helmcken site is also in the Agricultural Land Reserve. So let's not suggest that that is any significant difference.

I can inform the minister, without revealing any secrets, that the municipality of Saanich would be very happy not to have a hospital on the McKenzie-Douglas site, because they are already in negotiations for a large-scale commercial development on that site, which will provide them with a tax base which every municipality has its tongue hanging out to accept. I wouldn't want the impression to be left that somehow or other we can't build a hospital at the McKenzie-Douglas site because it's in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Technically at the moment it is, but it's every intention of the municipality of Saanich to have a large commercial development on that site.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: No, but the fact is that there are many reasons, regardless of how the land is put to other uses. There are many cogent reasons, I am led to understand, that the municipality wants it out of the Agricultural Land Reserve, and they have good arguments which, presumably, as a municipality...they'll be taken directly to cabinet. So I just give the cabinet fair warning that they'll be hearing from the municipality of Saanich, which is the legal right of the municipality of Saanich, both to seek that course and to avail itself of the provisions under the statute to seek to have that land removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve. But even that isn't the most important thing.

A clipping from the Victoria Times on November 8, 1974, quotes the then-Minister of Highways (Mr. Lea) as saying that he agrees with his planners that this combined Blanshard Street-Trans-Canada Highway problem "poses probably the most unique and complex transportation problem in North America." He went on to say that he had been told by his department advisers — I am talking about Department of Highways advisers — that the measures that were even being proposed were only the minimum that would be required to try and solve that highway problem in any kind of adequate way. Now even these minimum measures have been postponed indefinitely.

Mr. Chairman, I keep coming back to the emphasis on comparing perhaps $1.5 million in 1976 with nothing but access and highway problems for many

[ Page 1971 ]

years ahead, not to mention the question as to whether efficient standards of emergency care could be guaranteed to patients in emergency trying to get down that highway and get to the hospital in a hurry.

MR. L.B. KAHL (Esquimalt): What nonsense!

MR. WALLACE: The member for Esquimalt interjects.

I would just hope that he doesn't happen to end up as the first patient trying to get to that hospital in a hurry. Somebody will be that first patient; and it's rather similar to the arguments we have heard during the strike that because somebody didn't die from lack of care, perhaps the strike could continue. But every right-thinking person knew that sooner or later somebody was going to suffer and probably die because of the strike. It didn't happen as far as we know; but give it another day or two or a week or two and it would have happened.

All I am saying is that if you build that hospital on Helmcken Road, because of the incredible evidence of traffic congestion already, which is going to get worse in the absence of any Highways department plan to improve it, sooner or later somebody isn't going to get to the hospital because of the surrounding problems of traffic congestion and inadequate highway access.

Now it's quite obvious I am talking to deaf ears on that side of the House. I have tried to present this argument objectively, and all that the member for Esquimalt can come up with is an interjection of the word "nonsense." I think that is a very irresponsible comment from the member for Esquimalt. Regardless of that attitude, I am trying to make the point that this community desperately does need action and some decisions made for that third hospital. But because we have almost got to the point of decision, let's not be so overwhelmed by the legitimate concern about spending dollars wisely that we save a million and a half now and cause ourselves, and a lot of patients, endless amounts of trouble, with perhaps less than effective patient care in relation to emergencies and, indeed, costs which will be shown over the years far to exceed the $1.5 million that you save in the short run.

MR. W.S. KING (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chairman, I would like to move to the subject of the dispute that has taken place in the hospital industry between the Health Labour Relations Association and the Hospital Employees Union. I appreciate that this has been a matter of concern to the government over a period of time, and statements have been made when the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) invoked section 73 of the Labour Code to provide for a 21-day cooling off period. I point out, however, that the action on the part of the Minister of Labour does nothing to provide an end or a solution to the dispute.

The dispute continues and must be resolved within the next 21 days. I'm going to try to draw to the Minister of Health's attention an approach which I think it's obligatory on him to take if there's any prospect whatsoever of that dispute being solved in a voluntary way. I'm not offering this in a critical sense, because I understand pretty well the problems that do obtain in the health industry in terms of the bargaining structure and so on. But the fact of the matter is that under the directive which apparently has gone out from the Department of Health to the hospitals, I submit to the House, Mr. Chairman, that it's absolutely impossible for the hospital industry to consummate a collective agreement with their employees at this time.

I refer, to begin with, to an article which appeared in the Vancouver Province on today's date, an article by John Braddock, a medical reporter:

"Hospital services are likely to be cut if a provincial government directive limiting operating cost increases is carried through, Vancouver area hospital administrators warned Thursday.

"They hear they will have to pick up the tab for this year's collective bargaining agreements. And if the Hospital Employee's Union settlement is greater than hospitals expect, the money will have to come from other programmes. The same would apply to registered nurses and other groups seeking new contracts.

"The directive from John Glenwright, associate deputy minister of hospital programmes, says that because of the government's policy of constraint the 1976 increase will be limited to 8.5 per cent of the 1975 budget, subject to certain adjustments.

"The method will replace the previous practice of 'line by line review of hospitals' estimates' in which each service was costed separately.

" 'Your attention is drawn to the fact that funds provided to your hospital on the above (new) basis must cover any increased costs that will be incurred by your hospital as a result of 1976 collective bargaining agreements, including any additional costs that may result from the job evaluation study,' Glenwright said in his circular.

"He asked the hospitals 'to cooperate by postponing the introduction of any new programmes until after the 1976-77 fiscal year. I wish to emphasize that because of the limited funds available, hospital programmes will not be in a position to provide funds for new programmes during the current fiscal year.'

[ Page 1972 ]

" 'It is regretted that no funds will be available for financing the hiring of summer students in the hospitals in 1976.'

"Lions Gate Hospital administrator, John Borthwick, called the 8.5 per cent 'awfully tight. We'll just have to reassess the cost of programmes, but it all depends on the settlements reached with the unions.' "

That's the relevant section of the article. It's not in its entirety.

I would further expand on this problem by reading from the Blair report, the report of the industrial inquiry commissioner which was directed to the Minister of Labour, and I presume to the Minister of Health, on April 5 of this year. On this important matter of job evaluation, which I'm sure the Minister of Health and his officials are aware of...and there's some very pertinent sections in the Blair report which clearly point out that unless the Minister of Health is prepared to stand behind, to guarantee the funding to the hospitals in this province, which will be incurred by the new collective bargaining round this year, then the hospitals have no other place to obtain those funds from, other than to cut services. That's what they're in business to provide — services to people who are ill.

So I'm not sure whether the Minister of Health understands that the directive that has been sent out, his failure to give a commitment so far that he will stand behind whatever costs are imposed by the new collective agreement, is, in effect, and very effectively ensuring that no agreement in that industry can be consummated between the hospitals and their employees. I'm sure that the government would wish to see a voluntary solution to the problems that exist in that industry. Certainly that's the preferable way of solving the problem of human relations, and industrial relations is human relations.

I point out that the industrial inquiry commissioner, Mr. Blair, starting on page 12 of his report, gave a very cogent background of this problem of job evaluation, which is a high-cost factor of the collective agreement this year. I'm not going to read it all because I don't think I have time today. I'll deal with this more fully next week perhaps, but there are a number of passages here that I would make the House aware of. The commissioner concludes in discussing job evaluation, which will set a rate for all of the functions covered by the Hospital Employees Union members.... He says on page 14:

" In their current round of wage negotiations, the parties negotiated their way together on job evaluations to the extent set forth in the revised article 12, job evaluation, of their proposed collective agreement, which is attached hereto and forms part of this part. However, the opposing views of the parties in respect of several aspects of the matter have prevented full agreement between them on job evaluation.

"As pointed out earlier, the Minister of Health has not yet officially released to the parties the administrative committee's report on job evaluation, and since there will be an initial implementation cost to the job-evaluation programme proposed in the administrative committee's report, Health Labour Relations" — that's the bargaining arm for the employer — "takes the position that it cannot agree to the implementation of the programme until such time as the parties have received from the Minister of Health official notice of his acceptance and release of the report in question."

And it wishes words to that effect embodied in the revised article, job evaluation, of the new collective agreement.

What, in effect, the Health Labour Relations Association is saying is that while they are in favour of adopting in principle the administrative committee's proposed job-evaluation programme, they must have assurance that the funds to cover its initial implementation costs will be made available to its member hospitals by the Minister of Health.

Now without that assurance...they have an agreement, a tentative agreement that they would like to execute — they would like to consummate and execute — as a collective agreement, but they are prevented from doing so because, in effect, the Minister of Health, by directive apparently, has said: "Look, you're going to be restricted in total budget increase to 8.5 per cent this year, and if your collective agreement salary increases — in addition to the other increases, presumably, in hospital budgets for that year — exceed this amount, then the funds will not be made available."

Now I point out that I'm sympathetic to the Minister of Health and his officials in terms of the dilemma that confronts them under the usual circumstances and the historic circumstances in the past whereby the collective bargaining process imposes a charge on the department which they have no way of controlling, and they are simply asked to respond to. That's a problem, a real dilemma, and a flaw, may I suggest, Mr. Chairman, in the bargaining structure and which our government was confronted with, in all frankness, and which the current government is confronted with. It's going to have to be straightened out; it's a difficult one to deal with. But I submit that there is an important change this year — a very, very important and significant change, which I appeal to the government, particularly to the Minister of Health, to recognize and respond to. That change is the fact that we have on the floor of this House a bill, Bill 16, which would have the effect of referring all collective agreements in the public sector

[ Page 1973 ]

in British Columbia to review by the Anti-Inflation Board.

I'm sure the government's intent to establish that process in the province, and then repudiate it, in the case of the hospital industry collective agreement by saying: "we're not going to rely on the process we're bringing in by legislative action; rather, we are going to establish our own guidelines at 8.5 per cent, subject to the directive " — I think that would be an act of bad faith, and I don't believe for one moment that it's intended. I think the government hasn't recognized that Bill 16 and their stated intention, although it's not passed yet — it certainly is retroactive as I understand it.... So long as that is the government's direction, then they have a clear obligation to say: "Fine, we'll honour whatever cost is imposed upon us through the collective bargaining process because we're secure in the knowledge that it's going to be subject to review by the Anti-Inflation Board, and that's the process that we've set up by statute as being fair and equitable and acceptable."

Anything less would be a complete repudiation of the government's direction and their initiative in Bill 16. It would be a clear denial of the whole collective bargaining system, and I'm confident that that's not what is intended. I think the dilemma has not really been perceived.

Under the circumstances, Mr. Chairman, I appeal to the Minister of Health to publicly commit the government and the department this year to say: "Fine, we will not leave the hospitals holding the bag. We will fund whatever costs are imposed upon you through the collective bargaining system, secure in the knowledge that through our own legislative action that collective agreement and that cost is going to be subject to review by the Anti-Inflation Board anyway."

I want to suggest that if this is done, there is absolutely no roadblock standing in the way of a settlement of the dispute between the hospitals of this province and the Hospital Employees Union. I suggest there's no roadblock if that occurs. I believe that the government is as anxious as most of us are, I believe, to see a conclusion to the industrial relations dispute in the hospital industry that is not imposed in any arbitrary way and hence, perhaps, leaves a lingering hostility and ill-will which would affect and downgrade the morale of that very important industry where morale is important.

I am sure that the government feels as I do, that they would like to see a voluntary accord reached by those parties, and I strongly appeal to the Minister of Health. If he'll give that kind of commitment, which is not an uncontrolled commitment any more, if he'll do that, I strongly suggest that a voluntary settlement of that dispute is within reach. I think it would be a great assist to the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams). I wonder if the Minister of Health could give that kind of response. It's a conditional one. It's not a carte blanche.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, there's no way that I could give that commitment at this present time. Your remarks are very interesting and I'll take them into consideration. That's the best I can do.

I would like to refer to the letter, briefly, that went out to the hospitals. I'm sure the member, the former Minister of Labour (Mr. King), will recognize that it wasn't a flat 8.5 per cent which was mentioned in the letter, but 8.5 per cent after specific adjustments have been made to the 1975 approved budget for the following year.

I would just like to point out, Mr. Chairman, through you to the member, that the 1976-77 budget for hospital programmes — this year's — is over $530 million. The 1975-76 budget, including two special warrants, came to $462 million, so the increase to be voted, and which we're discussing today, is $68.4 million. There will be an additional increase because of the co-insurance charge increase to the hospitals, I suppose, of around $9 million after the adjustments are made that we announced last night. That makes for a total difference of over $78 million, which is not an 8.5 per cent increase but a 17 per cent increase.

Hospital costs, Mr. Chairman, have been rising at alarming rates; in the last two fiscal years in British Columbia, 34 per cent per year. We've had to give some indication to the hospitals that they've got to come up with some restraining measures.

I'll take those matters that you've indicated today, and in your telegram earlier, under consideration, but at the present time I cannot give that commitment. I do hope, however, as you do, and as every member in this House does, that the two sides will get together and come to a solution on their own without having to have some further kind of government action taken.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

AUDITOR GENERAL ACT

Hon. Mr. Wolfe presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Auditor General Act.

Bill 45 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m.