[ Page 1563 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Tabling reports

Law Reform Commission seventh annual report. Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 1563

Committee of Supply: Ministry of the Environment estimates.

On vote 84.

Mr. Levi –– 1563

Mr. Lockstead –– 1567

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 1568

Mrs. Wallace –– 1569

Mr. Lea –– 1570

Mr. Skelly –– 1572

Division on vote 84 –– 1577

On vote 85.

Mr. Wallace –– 1577

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 1578

Mr. Barber –– 1579

Mr. Shelford –– 1580

Mr. Barber –– 1581

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 1584

Mr. Wallace –– 1584

Mr. Nicolson –– 1586

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 1587

The House met at 8 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gardom tables the seventh annual report of the Law Reform Commission.

HON. G.B. GARDOM (Attorney-General): With the leave of the House, I would like to make a couple of short remarks dealing with the report.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You'll note, Mr. Speaker, from the annual report that the contributions of a number of people to the commission are recognized and greatly acknowledged in the document. I would personally like to take a brief moment, if I may, to express my sincere appreciation to Mr. Leon Getz, the chairman of the commission, who is returning to the University of British Columbia Law School this fall.

Professor Getz was appointed chairman of the commission in 1974, but his association with law reform has been a part of his life for much longer. He served as a member of the task force reforming the Canada Corporations Act in 1967 and 1968, as a special advisor to the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in the Canada Corporations Act revision in 1969 and 1970, and he was counsel to our own Law Reform Commission in 1970 and 1971. He also served on two special committees of the B.C. Bar Association on companies and the administration of justice. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that it is, indeed, not often that a commission can attract someone with both the academic stature of Prof. Getz and the thorough knowledge of the working law. His ability to, indeed, blend these two talents into the work of a law reform commission will, I think, serve as a model to our province, and to the rest of the country for that matter, and it's a talent which will not soon be duplicated.

We have had a very effective Law Reform Commission in British Columbia. It needs the continuous and valuable impact of the bar of the province, and I know that in the future the interests that Mr. Getz has incorporated so well into the commission's work will continue and grow.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY

OF THE ENVIRONMENT

(continued)

On vote 84: minister's office, $124,088 -

continued.

MR. N. LEVI (Vancouver-Burrard): Before supper we were treated with an address from the kamikaze wing of the Socred caucus. I had rather hoped that he would table some documents, but he didn't. I presume he intends to sometime today. The member nods his head, which is an indication that he means yes.

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): He recognized who the kamikaze pilot is.

MR. LEVI: The member, Mr. Chairman, , made a very eloquent plea for the development of the land in the Houston area. That issue will be going before the Land Commission in the next week. He indicated that he was sure that the right decision would be made. He also indicated at that time - and he was making a very ardent plea to the minister - that for some years now Houston had not made quite the successful development that it had hoped. In 1969 and in 1970, there were high hopes for development in Houston, but it didn't work out. As I recall, the former Premier of the province went up and made a great speech and opened up the Bulkley Valley forest operation.

Interjections.

MR. LEVI: Yes, the Bathurst Company was involved and it looked like things would really get off. It was one of those $100 million deals that really went nowhere. But the important thing is, as the member pointed out to the minister, that at that time they had gone to a great deal of trouble to build up the services in that town way beyond what they, unfortunately, wound up needing because the development didn't come off.

Well, there's big talk now that there's developing going to happen up there, that if they can get the Lieuwen ranch out of the land freeze, the town will take off again and that there will be a lot of employment. Now nobody, certainly on this side, has any disagreement with the question of developing industry for employment. The question that was raised over here that we have raised with the minister is that the decision that should be made in relation to the land should be one which is environmentally appropriate. That will be the issue that will be discussed next week up in the area.

But on the question of development in that area, things are obviously going to happen. It is interesting to note that a year ago - in January, 1976, as a matter of fact - a company went into the area and bought a very large shopping centre. Presumably it was a company that had some faith in what the future was going to be in that town. They went in and bought up the shopping centre. The name of that company was Township Estates Limited. Now that's a company that comes from Kelowna. I wondered, as

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some of us did on this side, why a company from Kelowna would go all the way up to Houston to buy a shopping centre in an area that had had a great deal of trouble developing.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: Well, we were interested in that kind of thing. I am sure that the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) , who was the mayor, was aware of the purchase. He knew that Township Estates Limited came in and bought up the shopping centre. We were interested in what Township Estates was because, after all, we wondered why it was that a company all the way from Kelowna had gone all the way up there to buy the shopping centre. Well, we checked on the Township Estates and it appears that one of the shareholders in Township Estates is a company called Okanagan Investments Limited, which is also from Kelowna.

As a matter of fact, some of the people who filed the annual report with the Companies Act - a Mr. Charles Cotterall and Mr. R.H. Horton - are from Kelowna.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is the member for Kelowna?

MR. LEVI: People who have faith in the development of Houston came up from Kelowna through the Township Estates company and they bought a shopping centre. Another person attached to this company is a Mr. J. Bruce Smith, also of Kelowna. Lots of people from Kelowna. If one looks, as we did, at who Okanagan Investments are -because that was something that we wanted to find out - we find that there were some more people from Kelowna who were very interested in the development of what's going in Houston. They were obviously interested in the shopping centre because they participated in the purchase. I am sure that this was known to the member for Omineca. We have a Mr. Dodd of Kelowna, a Mr. Abelard of Kelowna and a Mr. Simpson of Kelowna. Here's Mr. Bruce again, from Kelowna. Then farther down we have Mr. Horton again, from Kelowna. All the way from Kelowna and they go all the way up into Houston to buy a shopping centre in a town that had had one difficult time for the past six years.

AN HON. MEMBER: When did they do that?

MR. LEVI: There's a little touch of irony about that. They were first raised up and it looked like there were great possibilities in 1969 and 1970 by the previous Premier. That didn't work out. They practically went bankrupt. Now, all of a sudden, these people have gone back up there from Kelowna, from the town where the former Premier comes from, and there they are investing in Houston. This took place in January of last year, 1976.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, during the debate this afternoon we had to caution the member for Omineca, but some of the material was hardly relevant. Although I have been waiting patiently, I would like to hear you relate this to vote 84.

MR. LEVI: Well, we are relating it to the development of Houston. We are relating it to the plea that was made by that member on behalf of the town of Houston for the Lieuwen ranch, which he hopes will be taken out of the land freeze. People on this side are anxious that it not be taken out of the land freeze and that some other option be found. It was indicated by the minister that he would look at other options. We suggested very strongly that one of the options could be. . ...

MR. CHAIRMAN: You will relate it either to a statement or a policy or the administration of the minister.

MR. LEVI: The Land Commission, Mr. Chairman - that's what we're talking about. Land and the Land Commission.

Interjections.

MR. LEVI: That's what we're relating it to. With land comes development. That's why the issue is being raised in Houston. That's why that member got up and talked about what is needed in Houston, because several years ago they were somewhat misled by the development that was going to take place and by the former Premier of the previous government. It didn't work out the way everybody had hoped it would work out. It was a $100 million proposal in 1970 that went nowhere. He pointed out to the minister that they had very heavy tax burdens there as a result of this. They had built services for 8,000 people and they never materialized. Now there seems to be some expectation that that town will get off the ground if the Lieuwen ranch is pulled out of the land freeze, and development could continue. I was saying in my remarks that in anticipating this development that was going on and is going on in that area, a company by the name of Township Estates went in there and bought a shopping centre. Township Estates is associated with another company by the name of Okanagan Investments Limited and I listed a number of people who come from Okanagan Investments. We were looking at another company in terms of a similarity of the people who were involved in the Okanagan Investments Limited and in the Township Estates Limited.

[ Page 1565 ]

Again, it was a question of the feeling that there is going to be some development there. Some of it may be based on the fact that that land will come out of the land freeze. As I said, that should not happen. There should be some other option for them.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, may we have a lower noise level? Perhaps it could be suggested that if there are conferences that must take place, they could take place outside of the chamber.

MR. LEVI: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm still on the point.

So what we're dealing with here is the whole question of land and development - development, which is the expectation of the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) , and the question of land, which is a major concern of the Minister of the Environment. We were told this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, that the member for Omineca in his capacity as the mayor of the town prior to the last election did inform the minister what was going on up there in terms of the application to take the farm out of the land freeze. We did not get that impression from the minister earlier on in the afternoon because it didn't seem that he knew too much about it.

But again, in terms of the development and in terms of the people who were interested, the people whom I have listed, there must be some expectation up there that things are going to improve, because that's what that member wants - things to improve so that the tax base will be better and that the local citizens will not have such a burden. But it all hinges on that meeting next week, that public meeting that the Land Commission will hold, a somewhat historical meeting because for the first time, as I understand it, they're going to receive oral and written briefs from people in the area who are interested. It's a somewhat new, unique and worthwhile departure for the Land Commission, something that's to be applauded in that area.

In terms of the development, Mr. Chairman, in terms of the people who are interested in that area, we're also interested in a third company that seems to be.... They have similar names, but we don't know whether they're involved up there or not. This is a company which is known as Okanagan Holdings Ltd. It has exactly the same people named on its annual report for 1976 as does the company of Okanagan Investments Ltd., so we can only presume that these same people, although operating in a different company, have some faith in the development of what is going on up in the Houston area.

What I'd like to do is to just indicate to the House that there are some concerns, I think - certainly on my part - about the development that is going on up there in the interest of companies, particularly when I look at the names of some of the shareholders of the third company that I have mentioned, whose directors are the same as the first and second company's that I have mentioned.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I'm waiting very patiently for you to relate this to the administrative responsibilities of the minister.

MR. LEVI: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'll go back to the question of the land and the land development that is anticipated to take place in that area. This afternoon when we discussed the Houston question, we talked about the environmental problems related to that question. We also talked about other options. That member for Omineca got up and made a very urgent plea to the minister that this take place. We're saying that there should be other options considered, not just that it should take place because, as he argues, the jobs are needed. We agree that jobs are needed, but there are other options, other options which have not been considered, in our estimation.

Something is happening in the Houston area; something is happening in terms of development; something is happening in terms of expectations up there, expectations that the town will once again get launched as it hoped to have done in 1969 and 1970. 1 pointed out the various companies that are involved. I pointed out that out because these are people who went from Kelowna into the Houston area, who were prepared to put money into an endeavour there, a shopping centre.

AN HON. MEMBER: Out of order!

MR. LEVI: It was out of order. We're talking about development - that is a crucial power of the function of that minister. For the past several weeks in this House, Mr. Chairman, we have heard of various enquiries and reports regarding land dealings in various areas of the province. We've heard about Abbotsford; we've heard what went on in Coquitlam; we've heard about Chilliwack; we've heard about Richmond; we've heard about Delta this afternoon. We also heard as well this afternoon about Omineca, and the Lieuwen farm, and the expectations of that member for Omineca that they would, in fact, get some further development.

We can say that people are interested in the area, that there are expectations, that there are some developments going on and that the future looks good. I pointed out that there were two companies involved in that and that there is a third company which we are interested in. But we don't know if they are interested in it, only that that company has most of the same directors and official officers as the other two companies. That's what I'm saying, Mr.

[ Page 1566 ]

Chairman.

That company, which is Okanagan Holdings Ltd., is a company that appears on the disclosure form of the Premier of the province. That company does appear as a company on his disclosure form. The people who are listed in the last report that was filed with the Companies Act that's available are as follows, and there are a large number of people: David Ballantyne, Betty Barlee, Mrs. Anne E. Bennett, Russell J. Bennett, W.A.C. Bennett, Merrie Ann Betuzzi, Mr. Blackburne, Mrs. Blackey and Mr. Boltres. All of these people are from Kelowna.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. With great respect, this does not relate to the administrative responsibility of this minister.

MR. LEVI: Well, it certainly does relate to the administrative responsibility of the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. If the member can show how it relates, the Chair would be very happy to allow the member to continue.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, if the minister is responsible for land and we can't talk about land and land development, how are we going to talk about mines under the Minister of Mines, or hospitals under the Minister of Health, or highways under the Minister of Highways? Obviously it's in order to talk about land and the development of land under the minister responsible for lands. I mean, when else would you talk about it?

AN HON. MEMBER: It's private land.

MR. LEA: Of course it's private land. He's the minister of lands. He's also the minister responsible for the Land Commission. This piece of land in particular is related to an application in front of the Land Commission from the British Columbia Development Corporation. It's all involving land. I don't see how, Mr. Chairman, you can rule it out of order.

Mg. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has the responsibility to try to enforce the standing orders by which all of the House wishes to govern itself. I am cautioning the member now who has the floor to make sure that his remarks are strictly relevant to the responsibilities of the minister under vote 84. Please proceed.

MR. LEVI: Mr. Chairman, we heard from the minister himself - not today, but previously - where he talked about his practice of touring various lands around the province that have come to the attention either of the Land Commission or of his own department. He has gone around, either with the chairman of the Land Commission or by himself or with his staff, to look at these lands. He has made a practice of doing that. It gives him a better idea of how things go. He talked earlier during this session -although I don't think this afternoon - about when he visited Captain Terry's land. He said he was there. I was the one who asked him if he went at the time when there was an application pending. He said yes, he did. I found that rather strange that he went at that time.

I still find it strange that a minister who is responsible for a Land Commission, which is extensively an independent body, admits out of his own mouth that he went there during the time the application was before the Land Commission.

MR. KING: Shocking!

MR. LEVI: Well, we talk about the kinds of functions that ministers have to carry out and how they have to be extremely careful about what they do in relation to their ministry. I pointed out earlier this afternoon when I was speaking that we have going on up in the Houston area a rather unique hearing, a hearing which is so unique that the procedure they're following is quite different, and yet, as far as I can gather, the minister has not been into that area at all. I wonder why. He's been everywhere else. He was in Williams Lake. . . .

AN HON. MEMBER: He's got an MLA.

MR. LEVI: He's got an MLA? Well, we've just heard there's an MLA there. I pointed out this afternoon - and the member was not here, Mr. Chairman - that if that MLA would have been doing his job, the minister would have been much better informed about the application in respect to the Lieuwen farm. But the minister didn't appear to be. Now we hear from the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) , Mr. Chairman, that he did in fact inform the minister. Now we only know that he said that. He said he was going to table some documents. We haven't seen them yet.

So we must go on the basis that the minister was not completely aware. But I am surprised that the minister was not in the area - did not go into the Houston area. After all, in terms of the history of this province, Houston has a rather unique history. It was unique in recent years as a town that was once offered the golden carrot of all sorts of investment and job opportunities and then, at the last minute, it was snatched away and they went into a very serious decline.

The whole question of the Houston project is a very serious one. They don't want to miss the boat twice. I appreciate what the member was saying this

[ Page 1567 ]

afternoon when he talked about jobs. He musn't, in any way, try to indicate to the public that somehow this side of the House is not interested in jobs. What we are interested in under this estimate is land and land development, and the proper way it should be done. Well, next week we're going to have that hearing.

HON. J.R. CHABOT (Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources): It's Crown land.

MR. LEVI: Crown land? We've just been informed by the Minister of Mines that the Lieuwen land is Crown land.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: You know, when he puts his glasses on he goes stone deaf.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LEVI: Now I would like to ask the minister a question: was he asked at any time to visit the Houston area to look at the land that was involved in the application? After all, as I pointed out to him this afternoon, his own department, through one of his regional directors, wrote a letter to the regional district saying that this particular farm should not come out of the land freeze.

Was he asked by the member for Omineca to go up and look at it? Did the member say: "Come up and look at this. We have a serious problem. They're going to take out 325 acres of farmland."? We heard from the member this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, that it's not a very good farm because the people who lived on it couldn't make it pay. Now on this basis, if a particular farmer couldn't make it pay, then presumably it's bad land. Suddenly he has reclassified it himself and it should come out of the land freeze. That's not the opinion of the experts up there.

That's not the opinion of the experts up there. The experts' opinion from the Ministry of the Environment is that it is not in the best interests of the environment to take out that land. The question is: was the minister asked by that member for Omineca or was he asked by any other group to go up and visit, go take a look at this land?

MR. KING: Did he give an opinion to the Land Commission?

MR. LEVI: Well, that's the other question. Has he given an opinion to the Land Commission?

MR. KING: Did the member for Omineca give an opinion to the Land Commission?

MR. LEVI: We'll have to ask the member that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's out of order.

MR. LEVI: Knowing the member, knowing his directness and his utmost concern for his area, I'm sure that he probably did give an opinion to the Land Commission. In fact, this afternoon he stated an opinion as to what the result was going to be on the outcome of the hearing next week. Either it was a pipedream or he really was serious that he, in fact, has some knowledge that we don't in the House.

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): That's without a doubt.

MR. LEVI: Perhaps the minister will tell us, first of all: did the minister visit the area? If he did not visit the area, was he asked to visit the area? Was he asked by the member for Omineca, or was he asked by any of his staff? That's really what we would like to know.

MR. D.F. LOCKSTEAD (Mackenzie): I'm surprised the minister won't get up and answer these very, very important questions that the second member....

HON. K.R. MAIR (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): If you sit down he will.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'll defer to the minister, Mr. Chairman. He was going to answer.

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of the Environment): The answers to the questions from the member for Vancouver-Burrard are no and no.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I have two very short questions for the minister that haven't been touched on yet. Mr. Chairman, last week I drew to the minister's attention the problem of chlorine leaks at FMC chemicals in Squamish. As you know, on August 3, 5 and 6, and November 29,1976 - particularly November 29 - there were very bad chlorine leaks at the FMC chemicals in the Squamish area. The minister didn't appear too knowledgeable at that time about this situation, but I have since spoken to the minister. We started to discuss this matter in private, and we were interrupted and I didn't receive a full answer. But I thought at this time I would like the assurances from that minister that the health and the lives of the people working in the plant in the immediate area and in the community of Squamish will be adequately and suitably protected, and their lives will not be endangered. The minister, I am sure, will be prepared to answer that question in detail, Mr. Chairman.

[ Page 1568 ]

Secondly, it has been brought to my attention that the possibility exists that the lands branch has received a request from the Environment and Land Use Committee to prepare a report or study to determine what Crown land may be available for recreation values, or for lease, with a view to eventual private ownership. Is the government thinking of removing areas that are presently under the park reserve from that category? If such a study or report has been requested from the. Environment and Land Use Committee, could the minister assure this House that the committee will hear representation from regional districts, municipalities, local ratepayers' groups and environmental organizations? Or is this to be an in-house study? I am very concerned, Mr. Chairman, that this government seems to be moving towards the policy of centralization of control of planning for lands throughout this province. I would like that minister to take a few minutes and possibly answer that very important question - at least, important to my community.

While I have the floor, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to - probably for the last time under this particular vote - take a minute to let this House know that I have 47 or 48 water districts in my riding. Over the past four or five years I've had the opportunity to work very closely with people in engineering and the water rights branch, and I just think they should be commended, in spite of a lack of staff, for doing a very outstanding job.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I thank you, Mr. Member, for your kind words.

The Squamish FMC - we did discuss this very briefly, Mr. Chairman, in the hall the other evening. If the member concurs, I'd be most pleased to supply him with a copy of a letter which was directed to FMC, unless you want it read out, involving that, and some additional information about them. I appreciate your bringing it to my attention.

The question, I believe, was: are we preparing a study to investigate the possibility of release of parks land for private use? If I'm correct in what you said, a parks reserve for private use.... I'm unaware of any such study for that purpose. I'm advised that in the Sechelt area there is a land-use study, but not related to parks. It is relative to what lands may be suitable for developments, but not parkland.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Really, in terms of the FMC situation, I would just like the minister now - I'm not aware of the contents of that letter, but I will look at it - to assure this House that no danger exists to the lives and health of the people in that immediate area.

Secondly, in view of the study, I think the minister did misunderstand me slightly. I was discussing Crown land generally. Is such a study taking place, or will it be taking place shortly, or in the near future, on Crown land generally? I included as part of my question the areas that are now in the category of park reserves.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, to the member, we are very interested in the release of Crown land for specific purposes such as housing or industrial development and to try and develop housing projects. This is an ongoing programme, but there's no overall plan which I'm aware of.

We do intend to investigate certain Crown lands for specific purposes such as greenbelt areas or perhaps some environmentally sensitive areas - wild rivers and so on - but nothing that is in a single plan. I would very much like to tell the member that we can guarantee the safety of any specific plant, but when you're dealing with an industrial chemical plant, it's virtually impossible to guarantee safety.

The pollution control branch has certainly provided FMC of Canada Limited with some very specific directives and I'll see that the member receives a copy of this this evening so he'll have an opportunity to read through it. But I can't guarantee safety. I'm sorry. I wish I could.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Chairman, the longer this debate goes on on this minister's estimates, the more concerned I become about the future of the environment of this province. It seems that the minister is continually side-stepping answers or referring to some other department.- It seems to me that it is a complete abdication of the responsibility that has been put upon him by the Premier of this province to protect the environment of British Columbia. It seems, rather, that he's running a department that is committed to putting out fires rather than preventing those fires, in every sense of the word.

Following along the line of what the member for Mackenzie has said - and I'm sure that I will get the answer that it is the responsibility of some other ministry - I wonder what this minister has to say relative to Cominco and the continuing pollution there as a result of a problem within that plant. By simply a paying of a regular fine which is so minimal, it behooves the company to continue to Pay that fine rather than do anything to clean up the problem. I'm wondering what the minister has to say about that.

There's a similar problem just north of me in the constituency of Nanaimo, but very close to where I live, in the Harmac pulp mill where there has been evidence recently of a very severe problem in the bleach plant. Employees are working in a very hazardous condition as a result of a gas there in the bleach plant, and it's been rather kept under wraps.

It has now come into the open and those employees there are extremely concerned about this.

[ Page 1569 ]

To me, this is not specifically a responsibility of the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Health, but this is a part of our environment. I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that this minister should be performing the duties that have been given to him by the Premier of this province. He should be going out and protecting our environment and not just running around with stopgap measures when there's a problem occurring. He should be making moves to prevent these kinds of things.

MR. LEA: Superminister.

MRS. WALLACE: That's really what he should be, a superminister. Instead, Mr. Chairman, he's turning out to be a token minister and nothing more.

When I rose to speak I was really intending to go back to some of the problems of oil pollution, Mr. Chairman. I have here an article written by Thor Heyerdahl: "How to Kill an Ocean." It's a very interesting article, Mr. Chairman. He is a very noted author, as you may well be aware. He's a learned man and well respected. But I just want to go into one small portion of this report. It relates to actually our fourth, resource industry, our fishing industry. Again, I might be told that it is not the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment, but to me, Mr. Chairman, if there are things in our environment that are affecting our resource industries - particularly a resource industry as important as our fishing industry - it certainly is the concern of the Minister of Environment. It is one of his responsibilities and this is one of the things that we should be discussing under this estimate.

In this article, Mr. Chairman, there is a table that deals with some of the effects of petroleum products on marine life.

I just want to read a few of the points that are made here, and one of them is on plankton. If you allow plankton to be exposed to crude naphthalene in the ratio of one part per million to three parts per million, the result is that it suppresses the growth and there is a reduction of bicarbonate uptake. If you extend that concentration of petroleum product to 10 parts per million, you get an inhibition or delay in the cellular division.

Now I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that plankton, as I am sure you are well aware and as the minister is well aware, is one of the most critical things that we have to consider because it is the source of marine life. That's right, Mr. Minister, so we really should be concerned about what possible oil concentrations or oil spills do to that particular part of our marine life.

With something like kelp, for example, it is a high food value product, and there are many people in this world that are using kelp as a food. If we expose kelp to toluene in the proportion of 10 parts per million, we get a 75 per cent reduction in the photosynthesis within 96 hours, Mr. Chairman - a terrific reduction. That again is a real hazard to a potential food supply for this world and certainly a hazard for our marine life.

Something a little more relative to the fishing industry is codfish larvae. If that is exposed to Iranian crude oil, Mr. Chairman, in 10 parts per million again, there is adverse effects on behaviour, leading to death. Now we're talking about the codfish industry there, Mr. Chairman. Lobster larva - six parts per million of crude delayed the moult state, so there again there is another industry not particularly related to this coast, but certainly related to the Atlantic coast.

Chinook salmon and striped bass exposed to benzene at 5 to 10 parts per million showed an initial increase in respiration. Clams exposed to No. 2 fuel oil had glandular tumours. Oysters just simply exposed to bleed water, Mr. Chairman, are reduced in the growth and the glycerin content. An oyster exposed to oil at 0.01 parts per million is markedly tainted.

So I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the fishing industry presently and in the future can be very adversely affected by any oil spills on the shores of British Columbia.

I have waited, and waited in vain; he's come close, but he hasn't said it. I've waited and waited for that minister to stand up and say that he is prepared to take some action to prevent the Kitimat pipeline from being constructed and to prevent the supertankers from moving up and down this coast. But he hasn't come through, Mr. Chairman. He's come close, but he hasn't come through. I would hope that before this vote is over, that minister will stand up and tell us that he's opposed to the Kitimat pipeline and that he is prepared to stand up and speak out on the part of the people of British Columbia.

While I'm talking about fish, Mr. Chairman, I spoke about this - I don't think it was in this estimate, but recently in the House - relative to the federal Minister of Fisheries. The minister had indicated that he had spoken with this minister about the Fraser River. I asked the minister if he had spoken to him about the McGregor diversion.

I understand, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. LeBlanc has assured the Fraser River Joint Advisory Board that the Environment Canada study will be made available to the public in the early new year. It will not be a watered down study; it will be a complete document available. This document is now available, Mr. Chairman, and it comes out very strongly opposing the McGregor diversion. Now that is the opinion of the federal authorities, Mr. Chairman, and I'm wondering where this minister stands relative to the McGregor diversion and the fishery industry in this province.

Just before I sit down, and while I'm talking about

[ Page 1570 ]

diversions and dams, Mr. Chairman, there's just one other point I want to raise. That relates to the Site C dam on the Peace River. I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that that proposed dam will flood some 10,000 acres of ALR land and 43,000 acres in total -much of it good land, but 10,000 acres of class I land. As far as I am concerned, that is equivalent to taking 43,000 acres out of the agricultural land reserve. It's the same thing - if you flood it, it's gone. That's land that is particularly fitted for growing vegetables and it's the only area in the northern part of British Columbia that can produce those kinds of vegetables.

It's easy to talk now that we can get them from Mexico or from California or from anywhere we like, but that day is soon going to be gone, Mr. Chairman. I would ask this minister if he is prepared to stand up and take a firm stand to assure that we maintain that 10,000 acres of class I land behind the Site C dam, which of course means that we do not build that dam, Mr. Chairman.

I suggest that this minister has to go beyond the very narrow perimeter of what he may consider to be his portfolio, because he is in effect a superminister, or he should be. The environment relates to every one of our resource industries, to everything we do. The minister has not indicated that he is prepared to take that kind of stand or proceed with those kinds of actions. He has indicated, rather, that he is the token minister that many of us have come to think of him as being. If he wants to redeem himself, Mr. Chairman, in the eyes of this House and in the eyes of the people of British Columbia, I suggest he stand in his place and tell us that he is prepared to stand up against the Site C dam, against the McGregor diversion and against the Kitimat pipeline.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, just before the minister answers, I'd like to say a few words about the proposed Kitimat pipeline also.

First of all, I think it must be taken into account that local people should have some say over what's going to happen to the region - as a matter of fact, probably a great deal of say. There has already been one petition with over 4,000 signatures just in the city of Prince Rupert against the Kitimat pipeline.

Prince Rupert is basically a fishing community. The ongoing economic stability of Prince Rupert and area is fishing.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: Which reminds me, Mr. Chairman - I challenged that guy to a debate a few weeks ago, which he accepted, and now he has backed out. The radio station in Smithers phoned him and he said: "No way. You're not going to get me into that!" So unless you want to go up to your riding and debate it like you promised you would, just sit down and be a good boy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Vote 84, please, hon. member.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, the people of my area on the north coast of this province are not asking that the province of British Columbia accept anything but a no-go on that pipeline. We're not going to accept anything. We're not going to listen to people talk about hearings and whether it should go ahead or whether it shouldn't go ahead. The fact of the matter is that we don't want it to go ahead. It's not going ahead because I don't believe the people in my area are going to stand for it going ahead, whether the government makes the decision that it's going to go or it isn't. They're not going to stand for it.

I don't know how many people have traveled down the Douglas Channel. But anyone who hasn't should - because that's going to be the routing of those oil tankers. The Douglas Channel isn't very wide. People who have been in marine industries all of their lives - fishermen and other commercial sea-going people - tell me that there is no way that one of those tankers could go up the Douglas Channel with enough speed to even be under its own control. It would have to be taken in by pilot boat right up the Douglas Channel in order to be safe. People who have grown up in the area and have fished and sailed the area all of their lives tell me that there are many uncharted shoals.

It reminds me, Mr. Chairman, of the experts from the lower mainland who went into another rural area of this province for three years in a row and took water readings. Each year that they went, there was this old fellow sitting on the bank. He watched these city slickers with all their degrees come into his own area for three years. At the end of the third year they said: "Yup, this is the point where that ferry landing is going to be. What do you think about it, oldtimer?" He said: "I just think it's great, except every seven years it's dry."

That's what happens when you send in all of these experts to decide whether or not the way of life is going to change in the area that we live in. We're not going to stand for it. We're not going to see the livelihood of fishermen jeopardized. We're not going to see Indian people, who are also fishermen and have been there and fished for all of their lives and all of their ancestors' lives, go hungry because there are no fish, because a consortium of oil companies wants to get oil down cheap.

But the most ludicrous part of this whole thing, Mr. Chairman, is that we already have an environmental hazard situation at Cherry Point. We already have one. The former Governor of the state of Washington, Dan Evans - a good environmentalist, in my opinion - said that the best way to go would

[ Page 1571 ]

be to move the whole facility out to Port Angeles. But to make it economic, they would also have to have Alaskan oil. By so doing, you eliminate a hazard of the tankers traveling into Cherry Point and you move it out 'to Port Angeles. But if Kitimat goes ahead, that will mean it will not be economic enough to move the Cherry Point installation out to Port Angeles.

So what we'll have is an environmental hazard of some extent, but not as great as Cherry Point, because we'll have Port Angeles as the port. The only thing that sane people can decide is that the international border in this case doesn't mean anything. We all will suffer from environmental oil spills. We will all suffer, whether it's in the Cherry Point area or in the Kitimat area.

So for the sake of us all and for the sake of the future, let's take a long, hard look at Port Angeles. There is no reason for Kitimat - none at all! Not even the oil that will travel through that pipeline, if it goes ahead, will come to Canada or to British Columbia. There will be no revenue for British Columbia from that pipeline. All we will be doing is supplying a transportation route for American oil from Alaska to the United States - that's all we'll be doing.

The bureaucrats have the nerve to suggest to the government that what they should do is trade off a chunk of our environment for short-term economic benefits from the United States. Is there anybody in this House besides government who thinks that that might not be a bad idea? Is there anybody? You can't tell me the member for Skeena thinks that way.

MR. C.M. SHELFORD (Skeena): I don't think.

MR. LEA: I don't believe that, Mr. Chairman. The member for Skeena does think, and he thinks well. He knows that that pipeline shouldn't go through Kitimat. He knows that those oil tankers should not go up the Douglas Channel, don't you, Mr. Member? You know that!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LEA: You know, Mr. Chairman, whether or not that pipeline would be economic, it will not be for Canada.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Let's hear it from Cyril!

MR. LEA: Even if it were economic it shouldn't go ahead, because why should we blow the fishing industry for American oil companies? Why should we when they can take it down, make a wide berth, come away around, not even come near the Queen Charlotte Islands and come in to Port Angeles? Why should the fishing industry of British Columbia and the aesthetic qualities of our coastline and other marine life all be in jeopardy because a consortium of oil companies want it that way? Surely to God we in British Columbia should make up our minds what we want for now and for our future.

The Minister of the Environment and his government can stop that project dead in its tracks by using section 6 of the Environment and Land Use Act - dead in its tracks! I suggest that if those hearings that the federal government are holding say that this project should go ahead, the provincial government should use everything within its legal power to stop it. If they don't have enough legal power to stop it, if we're not in session, call this Legislature back and let's pass some laws so that we can stop that project and others like it. We have it within the power of this Legislature to do that. If we do anything less we are not being good British Columbians.

For the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Chairman, to even waver or waffle on this point surprises me. He too is a British Columbian like the rest of us. He has a duty to stop that pipeline and those oil tankers traveling through our waters to unload their oil at Kitimat. One hundred jobs - that's what we're looking at. We're talking about the creation of 100 jobs, approximately.

MR. R.E. SKELLY (Alberni): Excepting cleanup.

MR. LEA: Excepting cleanup. You know, Mr. Chairman, the minister announces that he's going to put this new programme together to clean up oil spills, and I commend him for it. But he also has it within his power to make sure that the organization he's putting together never has to clean up an oil spill from a tanker plying the waters of Douglas Channel to unload its oil at Kitimat. There shouldn't be any "Let's wait and see. Let's see what the experts say." It should just be a flat no, for the simple reason that it's not a case of if we have an oil spill, but when. We all know that. It's just when.

What if that tanker just happens to be traveling by the estuary of the Skeena River? You know, there's one person in this House besides that minister who should know better than anybody else the kind of damage an oil spill like that could do to the estuary of the Skeena. That's the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications who, at one time, was the federal Minister of the Environment and has dealt extensively with oil spills on the east coast. I believe in that area that the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications did a good job on oil spills when he was the federal minister. But he knows the damage.

MR. WALLACE: What did it cost?

[ Page 1572 ]

MR. LEA: What did it cost? It cost us our heritage in some cases, Mr. Member, because of the shoreline that was ruined and marine life that was ruined. But the oil spill itself.... Are you talking about the one that hit the shores of Nova Scotia?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LEA: I'm not sure how much that cost. Maybe the Minister of Energy could tell us. He was the federal minister at the time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On vote 84.

MR. LEA: What I want to hear, Mr. Chairman, is the minister stand up and say on behalf of British Columbians: "I will do everything within the law to stop the Kitimat proposal going ahead, and if the law isn't strong enough I will come into this Legislature with legislation with teeth in it to make it strong enough." That's all he has to say, and do you know what he'd be? He'd be a hero. With his track record he needs to be a hero for once - he needs it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. LEA: Hear, hear is right. That's all you have to do, and do you know something? You would be taking the correct moral stance. We're talking about our heritage and our future, and it's no time for the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) to sneer in his West Vancouver fashion. I'll tell you something, Mr. Minister of Labour. I'll tell you something about it....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: Yeah? I'll tell you one thing, you and your city slicker downtown....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LEA: You get up there and tell those fishermen. You get up there and tell the fishermen.

You tell him to quit sneering like a banana! That's all he's worth, because he doesn't give a damn!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Vote 84, please, hon. member.

MR. LEA: Yeah, vote 84. Mr. Chairman, it's even stupid to ask that bunch to act morally.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, if the minister wishes to answer the question posed by the member for Prince Rupert, I would be pleased to defer to the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I have recognized the member for Alberni.

MR. SKELLY: On the first day of the debate on the minister's estimates we on this side of the House listened to his opening speech, which was a written speech and well prepared by Mr. Frew, in addition to his other duties, and the minister appeared to adopt a co-operative stance for a change.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: No, but the prints were there. (Laughter.) He said at the end of the speech, and I am quoting from the Blues.... I see that the minister is following because his lips are moving.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: What's that mean?

MR. SKELLY: He said: "I shall be most pleased to answer any of your questions." We've asked questions of this minister. In fact, the first speech I made in response to that minister's initial opening of the debate on his estimates was that we welcomed some of the statements that he made that he intended to co-operate on environmental issues. We welcomed the fact that he was going to hold public hearings on the Thompson River. We welcomed some of the reports that he had tabled in the House, particularly on Eurasian milfoil in Okanagan Lake and the upstream report on the McGregor River. We welcomed some of those things. We welcomed the type of co-operation that that minister evidenced in his opening speech in the House. We welcomed particularly the last statement that he made: "I will welcome and will be pleased to answer questions from all members." So taking him on his word, which is difficult, we asked him questions about the oil pipeline.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. Please select more temperate language in your debate.

MR. SKELLY: We asked the minister questions about the Kitimat oil pipeline, the potential for disaster, the quality of the studies. Initially, Mr. Chairman, he responded that he had serious doubts about the quality of those studies, but he wouldn't come out with a statement one way or the other on that Kitimat pipeline.

He wouldn't come out, even though he recognized that there were serious doubts about the quality of the studies that were made on that pipeline, to take a strong statement against the pipeline and the oil port, or to delay the National Energy Board hearings until such time as we had quality information before us to present to those hearings.

[ Page 1573 ]

We asked the minister time after time after time. We realize now that the minister cannot make those statements, that he does not have the jurisdiction, not within British Columbia, but within his own cabinet. He doesn't have the power to make any kind of a personal or an official statement on the Kitimat pipeline. The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) said that the present Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Davis) should know the threat that the Kitimat pipeline poses to the Skeena estuary; he should know that.

It's interesting to read from federal Hansard, the position that the present Minister of Energy took on the east coast when that coast was threatened by an oil spill due to the construction of a refinery at Eastport, Maine, in the United States. Here's a question from February 23,1977, from the federal Hansard, :

In view of increased activity in connection with the construction of an oil refinery at Eastport, Maine, and in view of the hazard this presents to the fishing industry, would the minister re-state his position and the position of the government as set out by his predecessor, Mr. Davis, that under no circumstances will large tankers be allowed to pass through Canadian waters to supply any such refinery? That was the position of Mr. Davis, then Minister of the Environment, in anticipation of construction of an oil refinery in Eastport, Maine, when he anticipated that tankers were going to go through Canadian waters that were valuable to Canadians as a fishery and marine resource.

Why has the government changed? Why has the minister changed? We know that he's undergone a conversion on the road to Damascus, that he's no longer a Liberal per se, but a member of a coalition. But has he changed in his position relative to the Canadian environment? Why has he not taken a strong stand in opposition to a Kitimat oil port and the Kitimat pipeline, where he did so on the east coast? Mr. Davis said that under no circumstances will large oil tankers be allowed to pass through Canadian waters to supply any such refinery.

We ask the Minister of the Environment....

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Will you call that unruly crowd to order, Mr. Chairman?

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: We ask the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Chairman, to take a stand on the McGregor diversion, and on the possible impact that diversion would have on the fishery and the water quality of the Fraser River. We've questioned him time after time to take a stand in favour of the environment of this province. There has been no answer. He indicated that he would be pleased to answer our questions. When we asked him questions on the McGregor diversion, when we asked him about possible alternatives - no answer.

It calls to mind, Mr. Chairman, a statement that he made last May to the SPEC organization. It gives an indication of what kind of power this minister has and what kind of jurisdiction this minister has in his department. This comes from a statement he made to 30 people in the Society for Pollution and Environmental Control at a meeting in Vancouver. He said his department has been too busy to tackle the problem of energy conservation. "Pressed further, Nielsen said his department doesn't have the authority to prevent the expansion of needed energy production. He added that the Environment department doesn't have the power to veto unacceptable energy programmes, even unacceptable from an environmental point of view."

The minister appears to have no power whatsoever over the protection of the environment of this province, no power over the Kitimat pipeline, no power in cabinet, no jurisdiction within cabinet. Even though his department and this government has that jurisdiction, the minister simply doesn't have the power in a cabinet dominated by developers to oppose the Kitimat oil port, to answer our questions on the oil port and to answer our questions on the McGregor diversion or on alternatives to dams on the Fraser River.

He admits that he has no alternative energy policy whatsoever and no veto power over undesirable power developments. He is not, in effect, a Minister of the Environment when it comes to areas over which Mr. Bonner has jurisdiction. Mr. Bonner appears to have the absolute right when he chooses to destroy the environment with undesirable developments, and this minister has no jurisdiction whatsoever.

We've been asking questions about the safety of oil tankers. The minister talked about technology and he talked about alternatives. He said that there is the possibility of developing oil tanker technology that would be safe to transport oil up and down the coast, and it appears that in this matter he is at odds with the government of Alaska.

I'd like to quote from an article, Mr. Chairman, in The Vancouver Sun, January 14,1977:

"The state of Alaska has issued a stinging indictment of the tankers that will carry its oil down the west coast through hazardous Canadian waters. At least we get a statement from the state of Alaska expressing their concern about the territorial waters of Canada, a statement from another government of concern about our territorial waters that we don't get from our own government in this

[ Page 1574 ]

province.

"Declaring the safety standards inadequate,

Alaska has also attacked the U.S. Coast Guard for failing to impose strict regulations and pleaded with the government in Washington to take action before there is a catastrophic oil spill.

"Alaska's indictment includes studies conducted by and for the state which claim that less than half of the 26 tankers assigned by the oil companies to transport oil from the Alaska pipeline are adequately equipped or constructed, and, in spite of the fact that only half of them are adequately equipped and constructed according to Coast Guard standards, that oil will begin to flow in the summer of this year."

The state of Alaska has expressed concern about the threat to the environment of the Canadian coastline and the territorial waters of Canada. Yet we've had no similar expression of concern from the minister who is responsible for the environment of this province on a similar matter.

He promised when he opened debate on his own estimates that he would answer questions willingly and that he would be pleased to answer questions from the opposition. No answers, no statements and no position whatsoever on the Kitimat pipeline.

The Premier mumbles something to himself there but we know that it's the Premier who really decides the position on environment in this province.

There is a cartoon in the Times - I won't say who did it - which shows a caricature that closely resembles the Minister of the Environment holding up a puppet, and it says: "Now that's the kind of land commissioner that I like." In actual fact it is a two-stage puppet, Mr. Chairman. Below the picture, below the cartoon is the hand of the Premier saying: "Now that's the kind of Environment minister that I like." It's a two-stage puppet.

AN HON. MEMBER: A two-tier puppet.

MR. SKELLY: A two-tier puppet - a double bottom. (Laughter.) We're concerned, Mr. Chairman, that this minister is simply a hollow man. We were promised a superminister of the Environment. The Premier went around the province during the last election saying that the NDP didn't create a Minister of the Environment. "We are going to create a superminister of the Environment and give him control over all the departments of government that have as their jurisdiction the maintenance of a clean and healthy environment in the province of British Columbia." Instead of a superminister we get this hollow man.

We wonder what the minister's plans are for the Land Commission.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Oh, the minister has stated quite clearly some time ago what his plans were in an interview with Liz Hughes of the Victoria Times I headlined: "B.C. Land Freeze Thaw Coming Slowly." He produced, while he was being interviewed by this member of the press, a file on his desk containing two long sheets of paper containing his preliminary list of 35 to 40 amendments to the Land Commission Act. But he says they're mostly procedural. "Nielsen, a former radio hotliner and a rookie MLA, says he doesn't want to titillate Miss Hughes. . .

Let me run by that again.

AN HON. MEMBER: The taming of the Frew.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. The member for Alberni continues.

MR. SKELLY: It says:

"Nielsen, a former radio hotliner and rookie MLA says that he doesn't want to titillate the public with hints of major changes to the commission, but one amendment will most likely return some of the responsibilities now held by the Land Commission to regional districts and municipalities. Local and regional districts must have more input into their land, he says."

In other words, he wants to go back pre- 1972. We all remember what happened before 1972 when we were losing 10,000 acres of farmland every single year in this province. We were losing the best farmland that we had in the Saanich Peninsula, in the Okanagan Valley - remember the H.A.P. Taylor Ranch? - in the Fraser Valley, in the minister's own riding.

We know that some of the largest real estate companies in Canada are involved in the province in deletions of land from that agricultural land reserve. We know the kind of money that's to be made and the sources of campaign donations that are available from deletions of agricultural land from the reserve and upzoning of that land.

Here's an example, Mr. Chairman, again from the minister's own riding - 226 acres south of the Steveston Highway in the land reserve. Fromm, Werner, Holgrem, Fishall were the owners, they assembled the land between 1970 and 1972. The price was $1.1 million, or $3,700 an acre. Optioned to Western Realty, January, 1973. Price: $4.272 million. Optioned to Adera Construction and Techram Securities, June, 1974 - one year - $5.932 million, or $18,000 an acre. That's a 600 per cent increase. Estimated value now if removed from the

[ Page 1575 ]

land reserve: $24.45 million, or $75,000 an acre.

We all.know what kind of money this minister is dealing with when he talks about deletions of land from the land reserve and upward zoning and who has the chance to make windfall profits. We have had several examples in the last year and a half of Social Credit administration where it has come to light that municipal officials, elected officials and possibly even government are involved in rezoning and deletions of agricultural land in which windfall profits were taken or there is the potential for windfall profits.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Alberni continues.

MR. SKELLY: We heard earlier today - and the Premier is now in the House - about the situation in Houston where there is a deletion being sought on the Lieuwen farm. In the agricultural land, Mr. Chairman, within the jurisdiction of this minister, a public hearing is to be held into that deletion.

Also in that area, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) supports the Kitimat pipeline - again within the jurisdiction of this minister. He says that the Kitimat pipeline and this deletion from the ALR is going to result in a sawmill and 400 jobs in the sawmill and thousands of jobs in that pipeline -tremendous benefit for the area of Houston. After all, the services were designed to accommodate 6,000 people or 8,000 people - I forget what numbers he used. He said that they had a school designed to accommodate 600 kids, they had sewer and water services designed to accommodate 6,000. He says they even had a shopping centre designed to accommodate 6,000 people. And who owns that shopping centre? They bought it this year -Township Estates. And who owns Township Estates?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. This is out of order and was also very well covered already.

MR. SKELLY: Not this part, Mr. Chairman. You're anticipating what I'm about to say.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, hon. member, I've heard what you have said.

MR. SKELLY: This is new material that has simply come to light.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed.

MR. SKELLY: Okay, I'll do that.

Now we're talking about profit-making on deletions from the agricultural land reserve and the potential for profit-taking. We're talking about the potential for profit-taking in a pipeline development for people who provide services along the right-of-way of that pipeline development.

The member for Omineca brought up the shopping centre, and how the deletion of this land from the ALR and the construction of a sawmill and the construction of a pipeline would help this particular business to turn a profit because it was designed to accommodate a community of 6,000 people. The business is owned by Township Estates, which in turn is owned by Okanagan Investments, which in turn is owned by Okanagan Holdings.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. What is the new point? This has been well covered.

MR. SKELLY: The new point is that there is a connection between that company and the Premier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: 'Mat's out of order under this minister's vote, hon. member.

MR. SKELLY: There is an opportunity for profit-taking in the development of a pipeline in that area which is under the minister's jurisdiction, and there is an opportunity for profit-taking in the deletion of land from the agricultural land reserve and the rezoning of that land to a higher use to bring more people into that area to patronize a shopping centre, which was a point made by the member for Omineca.

The Premier is connected with Okanagan Holdings. There is the whole Okanagan connection in there: J. Bruce Smith....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member....

MR. SKELLY: Einar Gunderson.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I remind you for the third time ...

MR. SKELLY: Tony Tozer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I remind you for the third time that this is out of order. Please proceed to material which is in order under vote 84.

MR. SKELLY: W.A.C. Bennett. Annie Bennett.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. SKELLY: Russell Bennett.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, please proceed to material which is in order under vote 84.

[ Page 1576 ]

MR. SKELLY: What we are concerned about, Mr. Chairman, is the potential for profit-taking ...

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is out of order.

MR. SKELLY: .. . in rezoning of agricultural land which was placed in the agricultural land reserve by the former government, which the member for Omineca has been discussing with the Minister of the Environment to have that land deleted from the reserve, to upzone that land and to allow some profit-taking on the part of the people in Houston community as a result of that upzoning - also as the result of the Kitimat pipeline.

How can we expect a government whose members have the opportunity to take profit from the construction of that pipeline - I'm talking about personal profit, Mr. Chairman - to oppose that pipeline regardless of what the threat to the environment is?

Mr. Chairman, under the previous government we lost 10,000 acres of farmland a year. We deprived the young people of this province of the right to go into farming as a worthwhile and economically viable endeavour, even though it was a time when young people were going back to the land and wished to go back to the land. We deprived old people. We knew that people involved in farming had an average age of 50 or better, and we deprived them of the right to hold onto their land and to run viable farms by allowing that to take place. Farm production industries and food processing industries went out of business, at least one for every year the previous Social Credit government was in office when municipalities and regions had control over agricultural land.

This minister has made a promise that he was going to turn the agricultural land and appeals on agricultural land back to the regional districts where they belong. That's what he said.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Not good enough!

MR. SKELLY: That's our question: what does the minister intend to do with the agricultural land reserve? Is this a true Minister of the Environment? We suspect not. Our experience has indicated that he is not. He's a token Minister of the Environment, as the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) stated. He's the minister trying to preside over the liquidation of the environment of this province, the minister assigned to take all the heat when the main thrust of cabinet is to develop, to allow people to take profit from upward zoning of land in the agricultural land reserve. .

That's the kind of Minister of the Environment we have in this province, and it is universally recognized, Mr. Chairman. Simply read the papers. An article by

Chris Dafoe, Vancouver Sun, February 2,1977: "One of the greatest problems facing employees of the provincial Environment department in Victoria has been defined to mean to come fully to grips with the vast grey wasteland that exists between the minister's ears.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Could the member please be seated?

"Good temper, " says Sire Erskine May, "and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Parliamentary language is never more desirable than when a member is canvassing the opinions and conduct of his opponents." I would suggest that that is now. I would suggest that the kind of remark that the member has just made is hardly acceptable in this House. Although I won't ask you to retract the statement, I must give you this caution. Please proceed.

MR. SKELLY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just Eke to read another comment from Allan Fotheringham. He's not a known NDP supporter or card-carrying member of the NDP. He's a respected member of the press.

"Bennett shirked from doing what he knows will eventually have to be done - the removal of Jim Nielsen as Environment minister where he has been a disaster, as was predicted from the day he was named.

"Nielsen admitted at the time that he had no knowledge nor interest in the field. Bennett's pride seems to be the only thing maintaining that minister in his awkward role."

It's strange, Mr. Chairman - the positions that this minister has taken. When I asked last year if the minister would be willing to impose a moratorium on development in the Fraser until we had adequate opportunity to study the management of that estuary - which, again, I said was the living artery of this province, the most productive estuary on the western coast of North America - the minister said.... The minister has admitted the value of the Fraser, and he said in an article in B.C. Outdoors magazine: "There is no question that the Fraser is in danger, and that we should do all we can do to see that it is not destroyed." The minister admitted that in an interview in B.C. Outdoors magazine. Yet what was his reaction to the suggestion that a moratorium be imposed on the development in the Fraser estuary? He said: "We don't want to impose a moratorium until we know what the impact of a moratorium is going to be."

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Read Hansard. That's where it is. Mr. Chairman, this minister doesn't even know the

[ Page 1577 ]

basic fundamentals of operation within his department - that you impose the moratorium first in order to prevent those impacts, assess those impacts, and if you find that those developments don't have the impact that the potential suggests, then you lift the moratorium and allow them to go ahead.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Right on!

MR. SKELLY: The minister doesn't even know how his own department should operate and the fundamentals of environmental protection.

I'd just like to close my comments, Mr. Chairman, by saying that one of the things we do in the Legislature to have a little fun is to suggest who might be in the cabinet if, say, we had a coalition. I'm quoting from "Talk Politics with Jim Hume." I hesitate to say that this member might be a card-carrying member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. May I remind the member that estimates do not afford the proper opportunity for discussing from which house of parliament a minister should be chosen, or whether he should be in the cabinet or not, or which minister should represent the government in respective estimates under consideration? It's hardly in order to suggest a new name for the cabinet.

MR. SKELLY: That's true, sir. I suggest that that is the duty of the press and they've been performing it admirably. The press says: "It's all in good fun until we get to the last appointment on this list of MLAs most inappropriate for established portfolios." That last name reads: "For Minister of the Environment - Jim Nielsen."

For this reason, Mr. Chairman, we can't support the salary of this minister. He's simply not worth the salary.

Vote 84 approved on the following division:

YEAS - 30

NAYS - 19

Mr. Cocke requests that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

On vote 85: general administration, $2,201, 513.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I'm particularly interested in the item that describes "provincial major disaster grants." While this House may be divided in many aspects of this minister's responsibilities....

I know it's difficult to contain yourself, Mr. Chairman. It's just a riot tonight. This particular issue isn't a riot. This is a provincial disaster.

One of the areas that every speaker in this debate has touched upon is a major oil spill. No one has disputed the fact that it is not a question of if an oil spill occurs - the matter is when. On vote 85, Mr. Chairman, the funding for provincial major disasters is reduced from $1.5 million to $0.5 million.

I seem to recall that in the budget of 1976-77 there was a recapture of certain funds. I can't recall whether one of the recaptured funds was the provincial disaster fund. Perhaps the minister can enlighten me. But I have looked back into the estimates for 1975-76 and I can't find an item. Of course, the minister didn't have a ministry at that time. I'm very interested to ask one or two questions. Where was this item in the budget prior to the setting up of a Ministry of the Environment?

Secondly, the reduction of $1 million in funding to cope with a major disaster just seems to be a complete contradiction of all that this debate's been about. If there's one theme that's come across in the debate on the minister's vote, it was the genuine attempt by, I think, all spokesmen in the opposition parties to alert the people of British Columbia to the fact that, whatever we do, tankers will be bringing Alaskan oil down our coastline, and whether they go to Kitimat, or Port Angeles, or Cherry Point, or Grays Harbour, or wherever, the undoubted conclusion is that sooner or later we will have an oil spill of a substantial dimension. I quoted the miles of coastline that would have been contaminated by the Argo Merchant mishap had that ship had its mishap off the west coast of British Columbia.

Now we come to vote 85 and we find that in the budget the funding to cope with that kind of disaster is reduced from $1.5 million to $0.5 million. I just can't think of any more incongruous and ridiculous reduction in the budget than that. One can only come to one of two conclusions, Mr. Chairman. We can either assume that there is money tucked away

[ Page 1578 ]

somewhere else in the budget which is less obvious by its title, or the government is not aware of the harsh facts of life in regard to the transportation of Alaskan oil. I find it just unbelievable in the light of the debate we've had.

For the information of the House, Mr. Chairman, we've debated the Minister of the Environment for something in the nature of I I hours, and in those I I hours plus of debate just about every spokesman for the opposition parties has emphasized that we will be having oil spills starting in just a few months from now. We've had all kinds of objective experts quoted in this House, and I have quoted them myself, to the effect that to some substantial degree there's not a great deal we can do about oil spills, particularly in the wintertime. Yet whatever we do attempt to accomplish we've cut back the funding from last year's budget by two-thirds. Mr. Chairman, if you will look down towards the bottom of the vote - in fact, the second bottom line of the vote - it lists grants, contributions and subsidies, and that grant has been reduced from $1,795, 000 to $775,000, a reduction of $1 million in grants, contributions and subsidies, so that between grants to various organizations to assist in pollution prevention and control, and the grants available to deal with provincial disasters, the reduction is of the order of $2 million out of a total vote of $6 million last year.

This Ministry of the Environment, Mr. Chairman, at a time when it is giving lip service to the dangers of massive oil pollution on the west coast, and when we've heard statements that there will be measures taken to deal with an oil spill when it occurs.... I've no wish to intrude on the rules of the House by reflecting on a vote of the House, but that is a fact. That is a measure of the reassurance which the government has tried to give this House. When we really get down to the essential facts of this ministry we find that under general administration the essential areas provided for grants to deal with disasters, and grants, contributions and subsidies are cut back by $2 million, that, to me, speaks for itself. The government is not serious about providing the money to deal with the oil spills which this government cannot prevent.

I don't think there's any doubt that we are faced, before very long, with the fact that these oil spills will occur. The degree to which they'll occur and the frequency with which they will occur depends, I gather, on the final decision as to which terminal on the west coast will be the main receiving terminal for these massive tankers. I suspect that if the terminal turns out to be Kitimat, then we can look forward to some pretty disastrous experiences; if it's Cherry Point, perhaps less frequent; and if we could persuade the Americans to go for Grays Harbour and monobuoys, it would probably be less often still.

Regardless, world experience and the statistics I quoted earlier on say that 1976 was the worst year ever. In the first nine months of 1976 there were more episodes and more gallons of oil spilled than in any preceding year. You can't fail to be impressed by that figure when you also take into consideration the ever-increasing demand for oil in every developing country in the world. When you put these facts together and then look at vote 85 and find that we have deleted $2 million from the money available to deal with these disasters or the prevention of these disasters, the espoused commitment of this government to prevent and deal with such serious problems in the environment just rings a little hollow, Mr. Chairman.

I wonder if the minister could just tell us why this funding has been cut back by two-thirds at a time when the danger is greater than it has ever been before. Our fishing resources might be wiped out and our coastline contaminated and all kinds of long-lasting ecological damage done. I would also like to ask the minister in very specific terms regarding the second bottom line entitled "grants, contributions and subsidies." How was that $1.795 million disbursed last year and how does he anticipate that the much-reduced sum of $775,000 will be spent in the coming fiscal year?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: To the member for Oak Bay, the last figures he mentioned - the million-dollar difference in the second-to-last line -$1.795 million to $775,000 is precisely the million dollars you referred to from the major disasters fund. That is the million dollars difference on that figure. If the member for Oak Bay would ...

MS. BROWN: Would you go over that again, please?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The figure you see, "grants, contributions and subsidies. . . ."

AN HON. MEMBER: No. 80?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes. The reduction of the $1 million is earlier represented by the reduction of the provincial major disaster grants.

Mr. Chairman, if the member for Oak Bay would look at the deputy minister's office, he would see an increase from $410,000 last year to $788,000 this year. One of the reasons for that is by way of internal transfer. The professional services which had been in the general research grants expenses vote of last year are now contained within the deputy minister's office's vote. If you look at those figures you will see that the difference between the $592,000 and the $275,000 is compensated in that earlier vote under deputy minister's office where professional services will now be charged. The balance, to the largest

[ Page 1579 ]

extent, will go for grants and general research, but the professional services have been transferred to the deputy minister's office. This is part of the internal reorganization. That's why there is such a difference in those figures and it almost balances out.

MS. BROWN: No, it doesn't balance.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: One million dollars short of a major disaster fund.... Yes, it's precise - $1.5 million to $500,000.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: If you notice the total vote, $3.064 million to $2.201 million, which is somewhat less than a million.... One million dollars of that is made up in the reduction of the major disasters grant. The reason the figure of $500,000 was chosen for major disaster grants this year was that it was based on part on the average expenditure of a number of years gone by, including last year, which was somewhere, we anticipate, around $600,000. But we appreciate that you cannot anticipate a major disaster. I am told by our accountants that in 1972 the expenditure was approximately $10 million, and that certainly had not been anticipated. Much of the expenditure that we will be developing in this current fiscal year is a carry-over from previous years, a matter of cleaning up some of these earlier awards.

It's obvious, Mr. Chairman, that in the event of a major disaster, no matter what amount you had in your fund, whether it's $1.5 million or $500,000 or $3 million, $4 million or $5 million, if it's truly a major disaster, the cost could be almost anywhere -perhaps $10 million, $20 million, which would require a special warrant or require the authority of the House. Should a major disaster occur, the cabinet must declare it a major disaster area and the money would simply have to be obtained by way of a special warrant or by permission of the House.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Well, Mr. Chairman, at this time of night I have no wish to prolong the debate unduly, but I think the minister has really just demonstrated to the House that this item is a farce because it's meaningless. It's absolutely meaningless. If we're going to put items in the budget at a time of fiscal restraint and I appreciate the need for fiscal restraint and we're going to throw around the odd figure of $1 million when it's meaningless, why not leave the damn thing out of the budget altogether? What kind of nonsensical gobbledegook is this?

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sorry. I just think that we try to....

[Mr. Lauk in the chair. ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Get on with it, Mr. Member.

MR. WALLACE: I withdraw the word, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Don't stall the votes.

MR. WALLACE: Here come de judge.

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: But, Mr. Chairman, I'm just suggesting, in response to the minister's comments, why bother to put an item in where the minister has demonstrated - and I accept his argument - that if we have a really major disaster, $1 million won't begin to scratch the surface. I quoted the experience of the Japanese in an oil spill over a year ago where they had hundreds of thousands of people mopping up the oil spill and the cost was enormous. So all I'm saying is that if we're going to have any rational debate vote by vote in this House, the figures should mean something. I would suggest with the greatest of respect that maybe we should leave out the word "major" and just describe this as "provincial disaster grants." But to put in the word "major" implies that we know very well that there will be a major oil spill and that the money in this vote will be available and adequate to cover the costs of that major disaster. Obviously, we've proved in debate that it is totally inadequate. So with the greatest of respect, I suggest that perhaps next year we leave out the word " major. "

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): One hesitates to question the learned Minister of the Environment about anything, but we can certainly question him about these estimates. He's cut general research grants and expenses by $317,000. He's cut the provincial major disaster grants by $1 million. He's cut his whole budget by almost $1 million and he tells us he's defending the environment. One hesitates to question the learned minister, but one can reasonably ask why.

I'm happy to sit here occupying the seat previously occupied by Mr. David Anderson. He was, as you know, a member for Victoria who made a most honourable career in the federal House and in this House defending the environment, defending the waters and the shoreline and defending the future of this province against the intrusions of oil tankers,

[ Page 1580 ]

against the madness of allowing them into our waters in the first place. He continues to this day, at this moment, on behalf of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, in that most important role.

Were he here, 1 think he would ask this learned minister a number of questions. He would ask, first of all, whether the minister is simply blind as a bat, if he is deaf, if he is, in fact, dead to the experience of every other jurisdiction in the world.

The minister tells us he's interested in cleaning up spills should they occur. He also tells us that he can't really anticipate when they will occur. So in order to make the budget look good, he'll cut the budget by $1 million. We're not interested in the ability of this learned minister to anticipate oil spills. We want him to prevent them altogether. We don't want a nickel in this budget for cleanup of oil spills. We want a commitment by that minister to prevent altogether the likelihood of their happening. We want this minister to stand up and to tell the federal government and to tell the government of the United States and to tell the international oil companies that they are simply not welcome in the waters of British Columbia if they bring with them poison.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. BARBER: The poison they propose to bring with them is oil. The oil kills and kills again and we cannot afford it. We don't want it here in the first place.

AN HON. MEMBER: Have you tried burning oil in your car?

MR. BARBER: As it happens, 1 live three blocks from the buildings and walk as often as 1 can. 1 live in my own riding, in fact, and hardly use my car at all.

AN HON. MEMBER: He uses a footmobile.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, we want a minister who takes his job seriously. This learned minister apparently does not.

Authorities throughout the world have demonstrated repeatedly that it is almost a waste of money to try and anticipate and thereafter clean up a major oil spill. We want a minister who's interested in preventing those spills.

This minister, Mr. Chairman, is more than a bit of a joke in his own ranks and is more than a bit of a joke within his own ministry. He's barely even taken seriously by his civil servants, much less by the public.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the member proceed?

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: I don't know. I think she's wanting to put the capital out to tender again.

Back to this learned Minister of the Environment - Mr. Hotline. He's cut the budget again and again. He's diminished his responsibilities; his own capacity is more than a little diminished. He tells us he's interested in saving the environment. Were he so interested, Mr. Chairman, he would be demonstrating to the federal government and to the American government that the tankers don't belong here in the first place and that we don't want them, under any circumstances, in the second. Any other position is simply, clearly, nuts. It's simply nuts and cannot be defended by any other than this apparently learned minister.

I'd like to ask this learned minister some questions. I'd like to ask the minister if he would be so good as to define for this House his interpretation of the meaning of a recycling programme. I'd like to ask the learned minister what recycling means, how he views it, what he sees his ministry's responsibility should be in regard to it and what leadership, if any, he's willing to exercise in defence of it. That's my first question to the learned Minister of the Environment: what is recycling as he sees it?

MR. SHELFORD: Mr. Chairman....

MR. BARBER: No, Mr. Chairman, I was continuing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, I'm sorry.

MR. SHELFORD: Mr. Chairman, you're doing an excellent job there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the hon. member defer so that the hon. member for Victoria could follow up his questioning?

MR. SHELFORD: No, I think he can carry on later on. (Laughter.) He'll have more to talk about.

No, I certainly don't intend to keep the House more than a couple of moments, but I would like to bring it down to earth, if that's at all possible. One of the questions that was asked was: why was the budget reduced? The second time it was saying, well, we should be paying more. Of course, I think if you read my speech a few days ago, I was saying that if a company spills oil it should damn well pay for any cleanup.

MR. LEA: Under what plan?

MR. SHELFORD: At the end of the world, like my young friend from Victoria talks about, it's not quite as startling as he might think. I've heard this story and it makes me feel old when I

[ Page 1581 ]

say it. But when I went overseas in World War 11 and landed in Britain just in time for the Battle of Britain, the Thames estuary was a dirty ditch with sunken tankers and bombs dropping. My friend from Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) no doubt has heard quite a bit about it but is too young to remember it.

I remember very distinctly the people and the prophesies of the socialists in Great Britain at that time talking about this very thing: the end of the world had come and there was no turning back. I was quite interested to go back in 1971 to find people fishing on the Thames arm to arm - they were so thick! And the only thing that destroyed the fishing on the Thames was not the sunken oil tankers but the garbage strike in 1972 when the garbage wasn't picked up and the fish were killed, and they were back to square one to World War 11 again.

Back to World War 11, after leaving Great Britain....

Interjections.

MR. SHELFORD: I want you to listen to this, Gordon. After leaving Great Britain, I landed in Sicily. On the first day there were four tankers sunk by bombs and torpedoes off the coast of Sicily.

Interjection.

MR. SHELFORD: You'd have lost your whiskers, my friend, if you'd have been there.

On the second day there were three tankers sunk and the amazing thing was that there appeared to be no damage. Of course, we were too damned scared to go back and really look at the coast.

Interjection.

MR. SHELFORD: That's right. But what I'm saying is that the end of the world doesn't happen right then. The question I've been asked in many groups -SPEC, the Steelhead Society and various others - is: I want to know and you want to know what's happened to the hundreds and hundreds of ships that were sunk during World War 11, and how come there's a fish in the blasted ocean at all? If what we hear from my young friend from Victoria is true that one spill will kill the whole entire coast. Here we have oil spilled and it's not the end of the world.

During the first six months of the war they say German submarines off the U.S. coast sank tankers carrying 20 times the oil load of the Argo Merchant which my friend from Oak Bay just mentioned. Of course, the question is: what happened? The disaster didn't happen that my friend from Oak Bay and especially my friends from Alberni and Victoria claim - and I can see my friend from Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) who always shakes her head because she was never practical in her life - but if you can answer these questions, what happened to the hundreds and hundreds of tankers that were torpedoed and sunk in World War 11?

MR. LEA: We have a Hansard now.

MR. SHELFORD: Yes, I'm glad we do. I hope you get on the Hansard so you can't twist like my friend from Burrard would like to do on every occasion. Just read what I said in Hansard that I want to see three very clear things done prior to.... If you want to do some research and you want to be really useful, and I'm sure my friend from Victoria (Mr. Barber) does want to be useful, then you should start doing some research on what happened to the World War 11 ships that were sunk by the hundreds. We can make studies, and of course we hire people who have their minds made up before they ever start the study.

MR. LEA: That's right!

MR. SHELFORD: That's right, and both sides are guilty. What we need is someone to sit down rationally and say: "Okay, it is true that there were hundreds of tankers sunk in World War 11. Did they kill all the fish in the Bay of Biscay, in the English Channel, in the Mediterranean, off Sicily, off Hong Kong, or wherever it happens to be?" This is the type of useful research that should be done.

MR. KEMPF: What happened to that oil?

MR. SHELFORD: That's the question we'd like to know.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: All those ships and one tanker!

MR. SHELFORD: No, that's not true, my friend. You must have been with the CBC too long. You don't deal with facts. (Laughter.)

MR. LEA: Withdraw!

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, tonight's been a bit of a revelation. Up until a few moments ago, I thought there was only one person in the House with the particular qualifications of that minister. Now I discover there are two. (Laughter.) It's amazing, just amazing. Does he think that evolution has produced a new variety of fish that somehow eats the oil and thrives on it, that the vegetable life in the ocean has somehow learned to adapt to the oil sticking around

[ Page 1582 ]

it? Does he imagine that somehow the beaches have learned to absorb the oil? Does he conceive that somehow the ocean has absorbed, magically and organically, all of that oil during the Second World War?

There is in fact a respected author, a competent author, an author who has recently produced a work of very serious significance in the whole field. His name is Noel Mostert. The name of the book is Supership. I expect every member of this Legislature received a copy of it. I did. I read it.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: No, I haven't yet, but I'll borrow yours when you'll loan it to me.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the member continue?

MR. GIBSON: Don't browbeat the member, Mr. Chairman.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, quit harassing our speaker.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. BARBER: This is really most extraordinary that any member of this House would stand up and attempt, for a moment, to minimize the dangers of oil spills on this coast. It's absolutely ludicrous. It's phenomenal. That any member would try to make out, and have the public make believe, that somehow the dangers real and present are in fact imaginary and anticipated, is absolutely ludicrous. So now we find we have not one but two members of this Legislature with the particular qualities identified forever in the minds of the public with that Minister of the Environment. It's just amazing.

We're going to be talking about oil spills a great deal more under this and other votes. We're going to be talking over and over again about the failure of this minister to exercise any leadership whatever in the prevention - outright and altogether and forever - of the possibility of oil spills along this coast. An oil spill at Port Angeles of a tanker the size that would go to Port Angeles - should, by horrible mistake, an oil tanker docking facility and a pumping facility ever be created there - would ruin for years the beaches of Victoria. It would be most interesting to see this learned minister come forward at that time and say: "Well, it was a bit hard to anticipate it and we put nothing in the budget. Gosh, what a shame it happened, but don't worry, after a period of time the thing will take care of itself."

MR. LEA: Then to a station break.

MR. BARBER: Then to a station break and ask Keith for the time.

All the shoeshines in the world, Mr. Chairman, wouldn't shine up his shoes after he stumbled along the beach after one of those oil spills had taken place. The minister has exercised no leadership. The minister has taken no initiative. The minister has achieved virtually nothing to persuade anyone on either side of the House, including his own civil servants, that he's to be trusted with this environment. The grants, donations and subsidies to organizations that should be taking a leading and a serious role in persuading the public of the very real danger of oil spills - the minister has cut and cut and cut again.

I'd like to pursue my earlier line of questioning of the learned Minister of the Environment about recycling. Once again there has been a failure of leadership of the most abject and pitiable sort on the part of this particular minister. There are within the capital precincts daily thousands of opportunities to persuade, and perhaps even compel, the public service to engage in recycling programmes. There are opportunities in schools and regional colleges and universities to persuade people of the merit of the same programmes. There are opportunities in business and there are other opportunities, every one of which this minister has completely failed to take.

The only solution of any serious order is to prevent them altogether by forbidding them altogether. You don't allow them into the water. You don't allow them to build the facilities. You don't allow them to come anywhere close. You allow them, if They should take place, to take place in the home ports of the people who own the tankers and own the oil. That's not us, and that's not you. That's them down south. Let them have the oil spills there if they wish the oil so much. We don't want it, we don't need it, and we won't suffer it. That's how you stop it; that's how you prevent it; that's how you make it not happen at all. That's the only serious response.

Interjections.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The second member for Victoria has the floor.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, let me ask again of this particular minister, such as he is: what is recycling as you see it?

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: Thank you. What else is recycling

[ Page 1583 ]

as you see it in regard to the public service and in regard to your particular role, such as it is, in persuading them to adopt complete and effective recycling programmes? Oh, he has to ask his deputy. We'll hold on a second while he gets the answer. Have we got it then?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, could you please give some direction to the Chair under which one of these lines are you discussing recycling?

MR. BARBER: "General research, grants and expenses." Because I'm proposing to the minister that the kinds of grants he should be making to recycling organizations, public schools, regional colleges and universities, he obviously cannot make because the budget has been cut. He obviously will not make them because he hasn't thought of it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed.

MR. BARBER: He obviously has failed to make them because we see no evidence of them. I'll continue, if I may.

Has the minister any announcements whatever to make of leadership that he may have taken in regard to persuading or compelling the public service in the province of British Columbia to engage in serious and comprehensive recycling programmes? Has he any announcements at all? Has he any interest at all? Has he any knowledge at all? Will Keith Frew come down here and tell the minister what recycling is all about? Where are you, Keith? Come on down.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member or we'll have to ask for another member.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MS. BROWN: Somebody needs to protect him.

MR. LEA: Simple question.

MS. BROWN: Simple mind.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed.

MR. BARBER: I wonder if the minister would care to tell us about the millions of dollars he's investing in public education in the province of British Columbia under grants and subsidies for the purpose in making people of this province realize that the future is limited by the extent to which we learn how to use over and over again, more and more economically, more and more efficiently, more and more carefully, those resources we have at present.

The minister has taken no leadership. One wonders if the minister has any comprehension of the problem. 1 recall last year - about this month last year - asking the minister over and over again whether he would even make a few thousand dollars available to the Greater Victoria Recycling Depot, one of the largest and most successful operations of its kind in the province. It was only after the minister was harassed and bullied and embarrassed and humiliated into realizing....

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: Oh, no, he says.

Once again he had failed to exercise leadership and make any serious commitment. He finally decided: "Well, 1 guess 1 better give them a bit in order to silence the member for Victoria." The bit wasn't enough; the bit wasn't adequate; the bit we see in this budget is not enough and not adequate either. I'd like to hear about the millions of dollars that this enlightened minister is committing to recycling programmes in the province of British Columbia.

I'd like to hear under this grant and under this estimate about the millions of dollars he's making available to business, in order that they can create programmes, in order that they can learn from excellent programmes elsewhere, and in order that they can follow the splendid example of this learned minister and create within the ministry in this province comprehensive and effective programmes for recycling.

1 would like to hear from this learned minister, Mr. Chairman....

MR. LAUK: You pay $19,000 to get your shoes shined.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 85 pass?

MR. BARBER: It shall not.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. BARBER: 1 try not to interrupt my colleagues on both sides when they're hassling one another. I'll wait till they're finished.

I'd like to hear, Mr. Chairman, about the speeches this learned minister has made encouraging people in government and business and labour, in the public and private sectors, in schools and at home, to understand, to create, to maintain, to expand, to make serious and effective recycling programmes in the province of British Columbia.

I'd like to hear from this minister, Mr. Chairman, how many recycling depots and centres and

[ Page 1584 ]

organizations he presently supports, how many more he expects to support next year, how many of his staff are committed to expanding the programme in British Columbia, where he expects the programme will be at the end of this fiscal year. I'd like to hear how many speeches he intends to make in this Legislature, if they're not written out for him in advance by Keith Frew, discussing and defending -and he has no need to defend them if they're serious and effective - programmes for recycling in this province.

I'd like to hear the minister tell us about these things. The people of British Columbia wait for the minister to tell us that he even knows what the word means. We'd like to hear from that minister representing that coalition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the suggestions which the Hon. member is making, he's making over and over and over again. He is becoming tedious. I would suggest if you wish the answer, you must be seated and allow the minister to answer.

MR. BARBER: When the minister waggles his head or wiggles his ears and indicates that he intends to answer, I'd be happy to take my seat. I'm going to take my seat for a moment, Mr. Chairman.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: We want to hear about recycling.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Well, 1 wasn't sure if he was serious. The member for Victoria, despite....

AN HON. MEMBER: The second member.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The second member, excuse me - no offence.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Perhaps you have reason to be, but no offence was meant.

Mr. Chairman, the second member for Victoria talked for some time but asked very little other than recycling, recycling, recycling his questions. He was incorrect, of course, as he very often is.

The reason the Victoria group waited last year is that the regional district must apply for the money. And they did; they got their money. They've never been turned down. In fact, no recycling group who have support of a regional district or a local municipality has been turned down. About 12 to 15 groups received funds last year by way of the co-ordination through the regional district or municipalities.

The grants in the current fiscal year will total approximately $220,000. The grants budgeted for next year are approximately $240,000. On the vote, in case the members are interested in the vote, a decrease of $317,000 arises from the transfer of moneys to the deputy minister offices, as I mentioned to the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) previously. That is the difference in that transfer.

On the recycling groups, I've answered your questions. The rest of what you said is hardly supportive of response.

MR. LEA: Give us your personal opinion on that.

AN HON. MEMBER: He just has.

MR. LEA: We want to hear him talk about it.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The member didn't offer anything more that was worth responding to.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I came here not meaning to say very much tonight, but the member for Skeena (Mr. Shelford) really can't make a speech like that and not elicit a response.

MR. LEA: He's lonely for estimates of his own.

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: I'll read the whole thing.

The member for Skeena talked about the fact that tankers were sunk of Sicily during the war. If that happened during the war and we didn't really see any terrible tragedy as a result, why should we worry about tankers off British Columbia's coast?

AN HON. MEMBER: He didn't say that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes, he did. He did so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Let's hear the member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, for the sake of the debate, I'll quote from the clipping, which I also happen to have and which the member for Skeena has: "Oil Spills Not the End of the World." It's from The Daily Colonist of Wednesday, March 2,1977. It says: "During the first six months of the war, German submarines off the U.S. coast sank tankers carrying 20 times the oil load of the Argo Merchant; and there apparently was no long-term damage to the shorelife, fish or wildlife."

MS. BROWN: You mean that wasn't an original speech?

MR. WALLACE: March 2,1977.

[ Page 1585 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the CBC?

MS. BROWN: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did Hume write that?

MR. WALLACE: And, Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, order please. The member for Oak Bay is trying to make a speech.

MR. WALLACE: All I would agree with ...

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Would the hon. first member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) come to order, please?

MR. WALLACE: All I would say, with the greatest of enthusiasm, is that I very much appreciate the effort that the member for Skeena made when I was 10 years old. He did go and dodge the bullets in Sicily. I think that's got to be said with real feeling. I appreciate the effort he and many millions more made. That must not be misunderstood. I appreciate that.

But, Mr. Chairman, this book Supership has become recognized as a tremendous record of research of the pace at which the whole question of world transportation of oil has changed in a most dramatic fashion in a remarkably short period of time. I say this with no disrespect to the member for Skeena, but he was really off the point.

I recite from this book:

"When World War II ended, the largest tanker had a deadweight of 18,000 tons. In 1950 a 28,000-ton ship was considered important enough to be launched by Princess Margaret. In 1956 tankers of 45,000 tons were sailing the seas and plans for a I 00,000-ton class were being saluted with all manner of superlatives in the early '60s.

"These were extended, in turn, to the 150,000-ton, the 170,000-ton and 200,000-ton. By 1968" - and that's almost 10 years ago -"when the first of a sextet of 326,000-ton tankers entered service on charter to Gulf Oil, all explanations of amazement had grown limp from repetition. In 1972 the 372,000-ton Nisseki Maru succeeded these Gulf ships as the biggest vessel in the world and the event passed virtually without remark. The commissioning of the Globtik Tokyo will fall back in line when several 550,000-tonners now ordered are completed."

It goes on to say that there are plans for a ship with 750,000 tons, and 1 think the figures just boggle our imagination.

But the point I'm making, Mr. Chairman, is that we must recognize that yes, ships were sunk during the war. 1 think two points follow: they were very small ships in comparison to the figures I've quoted; and 1 don't think there were too many people paddling around in the water off Sicily fishing at the time of the invasion of Italy. 1 don't say that to be demeaning or to overlook the suffering of the war, I'm just saying that we don't really know what the impact was for three or four or five years after the war or during the last years of the war until 1945, because we had far more pressing issues to deal with.

I think we're being very insular or perhaps we're burying our head in the sand if we make that kind of comparison in trying to console ourselves as to the fact that probably oil spills are not as bad as they've been made out. Oil spills in a tragic sense are very comparable to the arms race of the 1970s, compared to the arms race of the 1930s. Although the member for Skeena did me the honour of suggesting I'm really quite a young fellow, 1 actually was 10 years old when the war broke out in 1939 and I have some memories of thoughts and expressions that my parents had and expressed in the home prior to the outbreak of the war in 1939. 1 can remember the sense of doom that we had in Britain because of all the air power that Germany was reputed to be building up and, indeed, was building up.

But if you try just for a quick moment to compare the absolutely puny total force of that air power compared to the immense destructive power of one single location, the Trident nuclear missile base, you begin to understand that perhaps our minds just can't comprehend the geometric progression of the powers of damage to the ecology and the powers of destruction that reside in human hands today. I'm not here to preach, to suggest, that anybody has sudden complete answers, but it is a little depressing to try and take a part in this debate and to be refuted in the most archaic and out-of-date way by talking about 18,000-ton tankers. The answer clearly lies in the challenge to human beings to discuss and negotiate and come to reasonable agreements before some of these events ever happen.

But to try to seek consolation in the fact that somehow or other, if there is a major disaster, we will find the $20 million of $30 million of $40 million by special warrant to deal with the situation just seems to me such a negative and ill-informed approach to the two main problems that face humanity. One is the question of what we're doing to the environment; the other one is our capacity to control the nuclear arms race. 1 don't think anyone can deny that the future of humanity, to a degree that never ever existed before in human experience, depends not on our human

[ Page 1586 ]

capacity to deal with a problem once it happens. The only way we're ever going to perpetuate human existence, never mind human standards of living as we know them now, is through a negotiated, enlightened approach to prevent the problem from ever happening in the first place.

I still hope that the minister and this whole cabinet will try to do something a little more energetic and a little more aggressive, perhaps, in dealing with our federal Canadian government, and the state and federal authorities in the United States. Because it is simply useless to spend all our time debating whether we're putting enough money into dealing with the result of some of these disasters. The challenge to us, and certainly the challenge to the human race right now, is to find a measure of understanding that will prevent these disasters.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): Mr. Chairman, that was an excellent speech, I think, from the member for Oak Bay, something that I don't like having to follow. But I'd like to say that concern over supertankers is not just something that's held by members who represent a coastal area, people whose riding touches on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is a question of survival of mankind.

I've also received a copy of Supership, and while I haven't gotten around to reading that - I intend to -the one thing I have taken the time to read is the study of the Federal Energy Administration on "Crude Oil Supply Alternatives for the Northern Tier States." I think that it seconds a point that has been made by the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) and the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace): in the United States the alternatives that are being considered and the alternative of building a Kitimat pipeline are conclusions that they reach because they don't like the environmental alternatives in their own backyard.

If the minister has read this report, "Crude Oil Supply Alternatives for the Northern Tier States, " of August, 1976 - the title page submitted to the Hon. Nelson A. Rockefeller, president of the Senate - and if he would look at the aims and the objectives of the report.... The objective of the study was to assess the feasibility, cost and potential environmental, social and economic impacts of various alternative supply sources and transportation systems for the Northern Tier area.

It's rather interesting that having examined the various alternatives, one of which was the Kitimat oil pipeline, they then took that as being the best of the alternatives. When they went to consider the possibilities of even building from Port Angeles, which we also don't like, they said:

"The key environmental issue associated with the Northern Tier proposal concerns the construction and utilization of an oil-receiving port at Port Angeles as an alternative to current tanker deliveries in the inner Puget Sound. The issue of increased tanker traffic in Puget Sound and the potential for oil spills has been the subject of considerable attention from environmentalists and the state of Washington."

The state of Washington has expressed its concern. It has a position, but this minister doesn't.

Interjections.

MR. NICOLSON: I'm quoting a report that was submitted in August, 1976, before Dixie Lee Ray was elected. However, it's not clearly established that relocating a present oil-receiving port to Port Angeles will result in an overall environmental improvement, that is as opposed to Cherry Point. If the minister has read this, which I suggest he should have, then he will see that there are many alternatives for the United States, the alternatives which my colleague for Port Alberni (Mr. Skelly) has been mentioning - the Sohio proposal and many others. Their position was, at this time....

Interjections.

MR. NICOLSON: Okay, at this time it was against it. There was environmental concern.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. NICOLSON: There was environmental concern. The federal position was to go to Kitimat because it wouldn't rub the environmentalists, it wouldn't lead to the delays that might be experienced in going through Washington state because Washington state had legislation which demanded impact studies.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: This isn't being behind the times. You people are 100 years behind the times.

People are concerned all over about these things, so concerned that even in the Netherlands they've done a simulator study of the Kitimat Channel through the Douglas Channel. They have fed into a computer and have run, using experienced pilots and captains, a simulation study of approaches to the Kitimat port. Using all the data - the 110 mile-per-hour winds - they ran aground in 50 per cent of those simulation studies. Has the minister heard of those studies? Has the minister read of the Federal Energy Administration's report, their position and why they came to the conclusion that the Kitimat oil pipeline was the best alternative? It

[ Page 1587 ]

was merely expedient. It was merely because they had some assurance that they could run roughshod over the people of British Columbia, with an absolutely emasculated Ministry of the Environment in this province, and the same type of a eunuch existent in the federal administration. They have already initialed agreements with the federal government which can be seen by reading these reports.

1 ask the minister: Has he ever read this report? Has he read Supership? Does he have any comprehension whatever of the fact, as pointed out by this member, that a supertanker spill would be equivalent to 27 tankers at the end of World War II -27 tankers going down at the same time, in the same place? That is the magnitude that we're dealing with.

The minister feigns indifference. Perhaps we should read to him some of the other factors here.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: If the minister would care to respond, what is his position as to tanker traffic along our coast, through our inland waters and through the Strait of Juan de Fuca?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The questions have been canvassed many, many, many times previously. What I find of interest tonight is that the member for Nelson-Creston was going to give us Washington state's position, which seems to fluctuate almost on a weekly basis. Mr. Member, you'd be doing this House a great service if you would tell us what Washington state's position is on oil tankers.

The member may have some jurisdiction over Port Angeles. What was it that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) said?---Tell Port Angeles they can't have W- Just like that - go down and declare war on Port Angeles and say: "Thou shalt not construct a pipeline or an oil-receiving port." For the benefit of the second member for Victoria, Port Angeles happens to be in Washington state. Perhaps he hasn't been made aware of that. We're going to tell them what they're going to do, where they're going to build ports, whether they're going to allow tankers to cruise their waters. We're going to lay it on the line and say to them: "Thou shalt not pollute." Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could simply say, ---thou shall not pollute, " and it occurred? Yes, that report is not an old report, but it's certainly not a new report. It has been in the hands of the ministry for some time and is one of the reports that is being used to co-ordinate the position.

AN HON. MEMBER: Have you read it?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes, I have read that report if it's the one I'm thinking of. The information seems to be similar to the other. That's one of many, many reports that are available to the people within the Ministry of the Environment, particularly members within the secretariat who are working with other ministries - Energy, Transport and Communications and others - on developing the position British Columbia will take relative to the tanker question, relative to the Kitimat application, relative to the new application before us, the reversal of the pipeline application. Many, many aspects of this must be considered, must be co-ordinated. We are speaking with Washington state. We have advised Washington state of our concern about oil tankers in the Juan de Fuca Strait. They appreciated having someone from British Columbia tell them of their concern, although I must mention the meeting we had with the director of ecology. He said that in years gone by, a couple of years ago, they saw representatives of British Columbia's Legislative Assembly speaking in Washington state and stating their concern about the oil. They mentioned, I believe, members by the name of Anderson and Brousson.

The information the members have been offering the House tonight, Mr. Chairman - the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) , the member for Skeena (Mr. Shelford) , the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) - is information that is available by way of reports and publications. There is a great deal of information on oil. There is a great deal of misinformation on oil. There is a tremendous amount of opinion, concern and emotion. There are also a great number of people who are attempting to do something about it - people who are involved in the technological world who are attempting to combat that which they know they must overcome. That is, when an oil spill occurs they must combat it in some way.

To speak of prevention is altruistic and it's idealistic. It isn't necessarily that practical. Certainly we'd like to prevent oil spills. The best way we can guarantee that oil spills are prevented is not to ship oil, period; not to consume oil. The member for Oak Bay made that strong statement that prevention is the best cure. But with all respect to the member, he wouldn't have a profession if we could live that way. If we could prevent illness and disease we wouldn't really need that many doctors.

MR. WALLACE: We don't accept illness and disease, though. That's the whole point.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Of course not. Nor do we accept pollution, and that's why it's necessary to anticipate pollution, wherever possible, and work toward resolving that and cleaning it up. Who could disagree with any member, Mr. Chairman, who says "prevent it"? Wonderful!

The suggestion we've heard tonight is: "Tell Port

[ Page 1588 ]

Angeles not to build a port." My goodness gracious, what a solution to that problem! If any learned member of the opposite side or government side has a solution, we'd be very pleased to hear of it. In fact, 1 wouldn't even mind receiving letters of concern from any member of this House. I've seen very few letters from any member of this House to the Ministry of Environment relative to their concern about it. Some have expressed their positions in the House, but 1 haven't seen their concerns. The member for Oak Bay said the other night that environment is above politics, and 1 think he's quite correct. Environment isn't a political situation. Environment is vitally important. It's a lifeline. It's one of the two major concerns that the member pointed out. If people wish to play politics with environment, fine. People play politics with virtually every topic under the sun. But we just can't have partisan attitudes toward environment. Environment does not relate to a political philosophy or a partisan attitude. It is a problem that all persons are concerned with.

If people have resolutions to these problems or if people have solutions to the problems, rather than childish insults and other comments, then make them known in a positive way. We'd be most receptive to hear from any of you.

The residents of any given area who see a threat of any kind - whether it's oil pollution, whether it's some type of infestation in a forest, whatever it may be - are naturally going to be alarmed and concerned. We hear from the representatives of those areas and we pay attention to the representatives of those areas. Members on both sides of the House have corresponded with the Ministry of the Environment. Some representatives have, outlining their concern. We've acknowledged that and we take that into consideration.

Various ministries within the government are correlating information. They are looking at the options, much as that paper the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) spoke of. They are correlating these options, identifying the potential hazards and identifying the potential problems. They are working with the federal government to see what they are capable of doing and what their attitudes are; with the state of Washington to see what their attitudes are, such as in the energy speech by the governor of Washington state, where in her speech she indicated she was in favour of supertankers going to Cherry Point. A week or two later she indicated she was in support of a Washington state bylaw, directive of the law - whatever they call it - that would prevent them going to Cherry Point. The director of ecology was unable to state

Washington state's position when we met with him. He was unable to give us a firm position at that time. We welcome such a position from him. We welcome the communications with Washington state.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The wonderful world of humour that we've witnessed tonight with their instant solutions - no details, just instant solutions Prevention - wonderful!

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Prevention has been the motto of such organizations as the tuberculosis association, the cancer association and the rest. Prevention - but they're still occurring.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Prevention, certainly. Prevention - a simple solution to a problem, and everyone agrees with that. But nobody has come up with a solution. Nobody says this is how you prevent it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yeah, you stop it!

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Oh, you stop it. Wonderful.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Well, now, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence. We have now developed our solution. Twofold: you prevent it by stopping it.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10: 59 p.m.