[ Page 2107 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the "Vancouver Stock Exchange Act, 1907" (Bill PR 401) Mr.

Strongman.

Introduction and first reading –– 2107

An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter (Bill PR 402) Mr. Strongman.

Introduction and first reading –– 2107

Society of Industrial Accountants of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1977 (Bill

PR 403) Mr. Veitch.

Introduction and first reading –– 2107

An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants of British

Columbia (Bill PR 404) Mr. Veitch.

Introduction and first reading –– 2107

An Act to Amend the Trinity Western College Act (Bill PR 405) Mr. Veitch.

Introduction and first reading –– 2108

Oral questions.

Alleged political interference with B.C. Ferry Corporation. Mr. Lockstead –– 2108

Purchase of Cheyenne shares by Richard Lillico. Mr. King –– 2109

Increased allowances for veterans. Mr. Gibson –– 2110

Juvenile holding facilities. Mr. Wallace –– 2110

Committee of Supply: Ministry of the Provincial Secretary and Travel Industry estimates.

On vote 30. Mr. D'Arcy –– 2120

Mr. Cocke –– 2111 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2120

Hon. Mr McCarthy –– 2112 On vote 34.

Ms. Brown –– 2112 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2120

On vote 3 1. Mr. Macdonald –– 2120

Mr. Wallace –– 2114 Mr. Mussallem –– 2121

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2114 Mr. Wallace –– 2122

Mr. Macdonald –– 2114 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2124

Ms. Brown –– 2115 Mr. King –– 2124

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2115 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2125

Mr. Macdonald –– 2115 Ms. Brown –– 2126

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2115 Mr. Rogers –– 2127

On vote 32. Mrs. Jordan –– 2127

Mr. D'Arcy –– 2115 Mr. Lea –– 2129

Mr. Lea –– 2115 Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 2129

Mr. Wallace –– 2116 Mr. Cocke –– 2130

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2116 Mr. D'Arcy –– 2131

Mr. Lea –– 2117 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2132

Mrs. Wallace –– 2117 Mr. Wallace –– 2133

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2117 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2133

Mr. Lea –– 2117 Mr. Macdonald –– 2134

Mr. Wallace –– 2117 Mr. Barnes –– 2134

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2118 Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 2135

Mr. D'Arcy –– 2118 Division on vote 34 –– 2136

On vote 33. On vote 35.

Mrs. Dailly –– 2118 Mr. King –– 2136

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2118 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2136

Mr. Wallace –– 2118 Ms. Sanford –– 2137

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2119 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2137

Mr. King –– 2137 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2139

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2137 Mrs. Dailly –– 2140

On vote 36. Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2140

Mr. Wallace –– 2138 Mr. Lea –– 2141

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2138 Mr. Wallace –– 2141

Mr. Nicolson –– 2138 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2141

On vote 37. Mr. Lea –– 2141

Mrs. Dailly –– 2138 Mr. King –– 2142

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2139 On vote 38.

Mr. Lea –– 2139 Mrs. Dailly –– 2143

Mr. King 2139 Hon. Mrs. McCarthy 2143

Appendix –– 2144

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. J. DAVIS (Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications): Mr. Speaker, we have with us in the galleries today students from North Vancouver Secondary School accompanied by Mr. Rosseti, their teacher. I would like the hon. members to make them welcome.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): For the last 10 years a group of people have paid an annual visit to the now capital from the former capital, New Westminster. Mr. Speaker, there are some 50 of them today from New Westminster, who have come over to watch the proceedings, to visit with their MLA and possibly to watch the other MLAs in operation. I would like the House to welcome the group from New Westminster, Mr. Speaker.

In the hall a moment ago, I spoke with the mayor of New Westminster, His Worship Muni Evers, who was heading for the gallery. I believe he is in the gallery but I just can't see him at the moment. I would ask the House to welcome him if he's in the precinct.

HON. K.R. MAIR (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): In the gallery today is one of Kamloops' most distinguished citizens, a man who is a freeman of the city and who is now in his fifteenth year as an alderman. I would like the House to welcome Alderman Tony Romano.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): A year ago today, on March 22, women from all over British Columbia rallied and discussed some of their problems- with all the members of this Legislative Assembly. In honour of this anniversary, some women from the Cowichan Valley Status of Women are visiting me today and are seated in the gallery: Linda Marsch, Noel Gunnarson, Dianne Hill, Barbara Covay, Jeri Scull and Irene Hill. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming them.

MR. R.L. LOEWEN (Burnaby-Edmonds): Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask the House to join me in welcoming my very good friends from New Westminster, including His Worship Mayor Muni Evers.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. SCHROEDER: Order, please. (Laughter.) Here from the floodplains, Mr. Speaker, is a gentleman from CHWK Radio, who combines sports casting with agricultural reviewing, Mr. Grant Elliot.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Very shortly, a group of students from Alpha Junior Secondary school will be in the gallery. I would ask the House to welcome them.

MR. H.J. LLOYD (Fort George): Len Proppe, an alderman of the City of Prince George and chairman of the Fraser-Fort George Regional District will be in attendance this afternoon. I would like to ask the House to bid him welcome.

Introduction of bills.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE "VANCOUVER

STOCK EXCHANGE ACT, 1907"

On a motion by Mr. Strongman on behalf of Mr. Shelford, Bill PR 401, An Act to Amend the "Vancouver Stock Exchange Act, 1907, " introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

AN ACT TO AMEND

THE VANCOUVER CHARTER

On a motion by Mr. Strongman, Bill PR 402, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

SOCIETY OF INDUSTRIAL ACCOUNTANTS

OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

AMENDMENT ACT, 1977

On a motion by Mr. Veitch, Bill PR 403, Society of Industrial Accountants of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1977, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE INSTITUTE

OF ACCREDITED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS

OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

On a motion by Mr. Veitch, Bill PR 404, An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants of British Columbia, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

[ Page 2108 ]

AN ACT TO AMEND

THE TRINITY WESTERN COLLEGE ACT

On a motion by Mr. Veitch, Bill PR 405, An Act to Amend the Trinity Western College Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Oral questions.

ALLEGED POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

WITH B.C. FERRY CORPORATION

MR. D.F. LOCKSTEAD (Mackenzie): Mr. Speaker, a question to the hon. Premier: Mr. Premier, in view of the fact that a director of the B.C. Ferry Corporation, Mr. Graeme Roberts, has resigned because of alleged political interference - stating that he never understood that his role was to be that of a boardroom back bench warmer - will the Premier now act to free that Crown agency from political interference by removing the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications immediately from that corporation?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I must observe that the question, as it was posed, is out of order and irregular in that it asks the Premier to influence or to remove another member of the cabinet.

HON. W.R. BENNETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, as the member may or may not know....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, it is the position and the duty of the Speaker to point out these things to the hon. members in the House. If the minister still wishes to answer, that is a responsibility of the minister, not the Chair.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the member is wrong when he suggests that the director who has publicly announced his resignation, Graeme Roberts, announced political interference. What he did suggest was that in the early formative months of the board he felt restricted. I have publicly urged him, because I haven't had an opportunity to meet him yet, to reconsider because it's his very independence of thought that made him an ideal candidate to be selected for these new independent boards that this government has brought in on many of the Crown corporations and agencies in an attempt to do just that - to free the type of political interference and cabinet domination that took place under the former government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

HON. MR. BENNETT: I hope to meet with Mr. Roberts this afternoon. I hope he will reconsider his decision. I hope that the new members who will be selected for that board when, hopefully, we achieve some agreement with the government of Canada on them finally making their contribution to the Pacific coast ferry system . . . that representation from the middle and upper coast will have the same type of independent and politically free directors such as Mr. Roberts, who has been free to state his opinions.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: As a. supplementary, Mr. Speaker, the Premier didn't answer my question. Mr. Roberts said that "Davis has been running the Ferry Corporation in the past and obviously intends to do so in the future." So is the Premier telling this House that he and the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications are going to continue to interfere politically in that Crown corporation? Is that what the Premier is telling us?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, what I'm telling the member is just what everybody knows, that each director will have a vote, that the corporation will be just as we suggested, free from the type of political bungling that took place under the former government in ICBC. We don't want that type of political interference in Crown corporations ever again. I hope Mr. Roberts will reconsider his decision, and I hope that the many other directors who have the same opportunity for freedom of expression will stay and help rationalize the ferry system on the Pacific Coast.

Let me just assure that member, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I think the hon. Premier is proceeding a little further than just answering the question.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Let me assure that member, Mr. Speaker, that there is no attempt and there will be no attempt by the government to dominate this board. It's why the Ferry Corporation was set up. It has been two and a half months since that ferry corporation was set up on January 1. I'm sure, with the new associations and new opportunities for that ferry corporation, naturally it will take some time for the new directors to develop a working relationship.

But, Mr. Speaker, let me assure you again - to that member over there - that there will be no political interference in the boards or commissions in this province.

[ Page 2109 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I think, Mr. Speaker, that the opportunity Mr. Roberts has had to speak out indicates that very opportunity.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, the Premier gave a long answer, but he did not answer my question. However, I want to ask the Premier if any other board member has indicated that he will also resign because of political interference on that board.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, Mr. Speaker.

PURCHASE OF CHEYENNE SHARES

BY RICHARD LILLICO

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Mr. Dick Lillico has now admitted profiting through trading in Cheyenne shares in the same fashion as Mr. Arthur Weeks. Will the Premier instruct the Provincial Secretary to ask for Mr. Lillico's resignation?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The hon. member has embarked on a discussion on a matter that is before a commission, and I would suggest that it would be improper to discuss that on the floor of the House.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, this is public information. The member referred to is under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Secretary in the same way that Mr. Arthur Weeks was. Government treatment of an employee is in no way relevant to the matters before the inquiry. I think it is quite permissible for the Premier to answer the question.

MR. SPEAKER: The rule deals with evidence which may be before that commission, and it's quite reasonable to assume that that type of information would be before the commission. So I suggest that both the questioner and the minister who is about to answer, I believe, be very temperate in remarks in that respect.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I was about to give the member the same advice that you just gave him: that in putting the matter before a public inquiry, the government did not want to prejudge any member, and such evidence as is presented before that inquiry will await the outcome of the decision of the commissioners.

There have been no dismissals of any employees of government since the inquiry has been called. The inquiry was called, in fact, to bring out all the facts and allow them to be judged by the commissioners in a non-political, dispassionate and judicial way. As such, that very commission would prevent the type of action or witch hunt that member is suggesting I instruct the Provincial Secretary to carry out.

I hope that all members would respect that these judicial inquiries, of which there are three, are just that.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): It's not a judicial inquiry.

HON. MR. BENNETT: This inquiry in fact, I hope, will bring out all the facts and will protect those who are innocent from the type of rumour that can take place during such a controversy and, in fact, the government is waiting eagerly for the report of the commissioners. I certainly am eagerly awaiting to see those who have yet to appear to give testimony of that inquiry who have not yet done so.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary, I appreciate the Premier's answer and I think it's fair enough if the government wishes to proceed in that way, but in the interest of being even-handed, will the Premier then order the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) to reinstate Mr. Weeks, who committed precisely the same alleged offence as has Mr. Lillico? I'm sure the minister would want to be even-handed in the treatment of public servants.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Certainly, Mr. Speaker. I just explained that dismissals took place before the inquiry was called; none have taken place since the inquiry was called. There is a very significant difference there.

MR, LEA: What's the difference?

HON. MR. BENNETT: The other is waiting for the results of the inquiry. The second difference would be in the very significant difference of the sensitivity of the positions of the employees. We're waiting for the judicial inquiry and the commissioners to make such a judgment.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I do not appreciate the fine distinction which the Premier draws, but I wonder if, in light of his decision to treat Mr. Weeks in one manner and Mr. Lillico in quite another, he can confirm the veracity of the claim the Minister of Economic Development made that he had terminated Mr. Weeks on the advice of the Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the member Is incorrect. I have fired no one. The minister is responsible for his own employees. If you made that suggestion, I would hope that you would withdraw or, if you have proof of that suggestion or think you do, take it to the inquiry. Your party has been very

[ Page 2110 ]

remiss in not showing up after all the statements you had to make before the inquiry. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) sent a high-priced lawyer to say he had nothing to say and no evidence to give.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I'll recognize one more final supplementary from the hon. member for Revelstoke-Slocan.

MR. KING: I appreciate your concern, Mr. Speaker, because you did admonish both of us to be temperate and I would hardly call that temperate.

Mr. Speaker, the point is that Mr. Weeks at the inquiry and Mr. Phillips both indicated that the directive to terminate the individual came from upstairs, came from above, if I recall correctly.

Interjection.

MR. KING: No. Mr. Weeks, in giving testimony at the inquiry, and Mr. Phillips, the Minister of Economic Development, in a press interview indicated that the advice came from above to terminate Weeks. I want to ask the Premier if he gave that advice to the Minister of Economic Development.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, we're now getting into the area of evidence that could be before the commission. That member has stood up and said, first of all, that Mr. Phillips gave testimony at the commission. He hasn't been there yet. You're always wrong.

MR. KING: Tell the truth!

HON. MR. BENNETT: The fact that you haven't shown up yet.... I'm sure you'll take the opportunity.

MR. LEA: Are you willing to give evidence?

Interjections.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I would like all members to wait for the evidence to be given at the inquiry and the commissioner to give the report. I certainly hope that the very vocal members from that party over there that had so much to say in noise before the inquiry, but little in substance, will be embarrassed by their lack of taking the opportunity to show up. Instead of sending high-priced lawyers to say, "we really don't know what we're talking about; we have nothing to say, " like the Leader of the Opposition did, I hope you'll finally recognize your responsibility or apologize to the people of B.C. that you didn't i know then and you don't know now what you're talking about.

MR. KING: Where's your Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) ?

INCREASED ALLOWANCES FOR VETERANS

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Human Resources. In view of the fact that under the present GAIN regulations a veteran in receipt of a disability pension and also in receipt of the handicapped persons income allowance from the province is docked dollar for dollar from his provincial allowance if the federal pension is increased for cost-of-living purposes, and in view of the fact that according to press reports disabled veterans may soon get a big boost in pensions from Ottawa, could the minister assure the House that he will make appropriate steps to see that those boosts are passed on to veterans?

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources): Well, Mr. Speaker, considering the fact that the policy which is now in effect was reviewed, I'm sure, over the last dozen years by various governments and has remained unchanged, I can assure the member that due care will be given to his suggestion immediately.

JUVENILE HOLDING FACILITIES

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): This is to the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Speaker. In light of the tragic incident in Courtenay last Thursday where a young juvenile girl hanged herself in an RCMP cell because there was nowhere else to accommodate her, and since the evidence indicates that she was to be returned to a Parksville foster home, could the minister tell the House what investigation, if any, he's conducted of this tragic situation to ensure that facilities for this kind of problem will be provided and that juveniles will not end up in an RCMP cell?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Well, Mr. Speaker, that question should be directed to the Attorney-General's (Hon. Mr. Gardom's) department. The foster home that the youngster was housed in was apparently adequate and I don't think that was the problem, so what occurred following her leaving the home or running away from the home during the night should be directed as a question to the Attorney-General.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: I would think, hon. member, that t would be more appropriate, if it is a matter that is under the jurisdiction of the Attorney-General, to hold a supplemental question until that time. I'll

[ Page 2111 ]

listen to your supplemental then, hon. member.

MR. WALLACE: My whole point, Mr. Speaker, is that I think I have the right in this House to disagree with the minister's interpretation. All the reporting in the media suggests that an attempt was made to find some facility' under the jurisdiction of Human Resources for temporary management of the young girl who had, indeed, run away from a foster home.

My whole point is: Do we not have some mechanism under this minister.... Can I ask the minister what mechanism his department has to deal with exactly this kind of situation, or does the minister believe that it's quite reasonable and appropriate under such circumstances for the RCMP to lock up the young girl in a cell?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. minister, inasmuch as the question applies to his jurisdiction.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Again, Mr. Speaker, I don't know all of the details regarding the circumstances that led to the apprehension. Certainly we do have facilities available in most areas; we have receiving homes. Also there is always the opportunity for someone who has apprehended a youngster like this to return that youngster to the home from which the youngster ran away. I don't know what the circumstances were or why the RCMP did what was reported to have been done, but we'll certainly investigate it. I'll take it as notice.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF THE

PROVINCIAL SECRETARY AND

TRAVEL INDUSTRY

(continued)

On vote 30: grants - special services and events, $2,910, 000 - continued.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, under this vote you have a tremendous number of options. Traditionally in British Columbia the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) has given by far the greatest number of grants up until the change of government. Then there was a move away from the Provincial Secretary so that grants could be more appropriately applied -grants given by the Ministry of Human Resources, grants given by the Ministry of Health. This provided a better means of assessment.

But, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that seems to be occurring in our new government is a squeeze on grants. I've said a number of times before in the

House that I find it strange that a government which had been elected on the basis.... One of its greatest pledges and part of their election platform was to encourage volunteerism wherever possible and yet we see in so many areas a cutback, squeezes on grants. Now we haven't seen that quite to the same extent in the Ministry of the Provincial Secretary but we certainly saw that under the Minister of Human Resources' (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm's) votes, and we discussed that in great detail at that time.

I think, however, that some little thought should be given to what's happening in Canada today by the Ministry of the Provincial Secretary. Instead of making nasty remarks about the backs of cornflakes boxes about the use of French in Canada and the whole subject of Quebec, what we should be doing now is something a little more positive.

I notice that the federal Minister of State has developed a project to increase the interchange of young people from Quebec to other provinces. For example, I notice that in my town of New Westminster there is a move now for 50 students to come to our YM-YWCA and visit with the people in our town so that there can be more understanding. One of the things that I think is clear is that Quebeckers don't trust the rest of Canada. They don't know the rest of Canada. They've been, to some degree, confined behind the St. Lawrence Seaway, if you will, or whatever other geographical setup there is to stop their travel this way. But face it, Mr. Chairman, they do travel east or south. I believe that the future of Canada is probably the most important thing that we have to contend with today. Certainly federalism is uppermost in our minds. We support federalism 100 per cent, as I believe many of the governing party in British Columbia do. Some, of course, have indicated a tendency toward western separatism but, hopefully, there will be reason over there.

What I am suggesting, Mr. Chairman, is that the Provincial Secretary get in touch with the federal government and get in touch with Quebec and find out what we can do as a jurisdiction to entertain, to bring into our midst as many young people - because it's the young people about whom we have to concern ourselves, as far as the future of Canada is concerned - out here on an exchange basis as we possibly can.

As I say, I am very thrilled that in some sections of our province some people, in co-operation with the Secretary of State, are doing some of this work. But it has to be expanded. It has to be expanded to the extent that there are a great number of people who come visiting the west, come visiting British Columbia and come across that Rocky Mountain Great Divide, and then our own students go back there to get a better idea of how they live.

So, Mr. Chairman, out of our grants vote this year

[ Page 2112 ]

I would like to know whether or not there is anything planned in this regard. If there is, is there any possibility of an increase by virtue of the need for Canada to be a united Canada?

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary and Minister of Travel Industry): I thank the hon. member for New Westminster for the suggestions. May I say that during the centenary celebrations in 1967 that programme was well done by British Columbia. Our department has been studying the suggestion of bringing it forward once again for an exchange of students, as you have so well pointed out. It is an exchange of the young people that is so important. We are very keenly interested. The vote will cover that kind of project. I am awaiting some report from my department, but we think we can launch it this year or that we can put something into it this year. I have to say that I really agree with the member that that kind of exchange from east to west will probably do more for the unity of this country than any form of legislation ever could. I certainly agree and I appreciate his statements on that.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Unfortunately, I missed vote 28 yesterday but I think that maybe the Provincial Secretary wouldn't mind responding to a question about the funding for the Vancouver Indian centre. They put in an application for $15,000 and they have not received a response.

But what I really want to talk about today, Mr. Chairman, is a new programme which the Vancouver Indian centre began just over a year ago, and that's a hot-lunch programme. I think that could come under community grants.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. If it should more properly be debated under vote 28....

MS. BROWN: Oh, I'm finished with that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're finished with that?

MS. BROWN: I'm on to vote 30 now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MS. BROWN: I moved through that really fast, Mr. Chairman, while you were checking it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I was afraid the hot lunches were going to be served under vote 28.

MS. BROWN: No, no. Hot lunches come under vote 30, Mr. Chairman, because it's a whole new programme that they are designing. What it is, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Provincial Secretary, is that the centre began to recognize that there were a number of people from various parts of the province who would come into Vancouver who would not be eligible for welfare or UIC, who would be unemployed with no means of support and who, quite often, would be very hungry.

The centre got into the habit of preparing a hot lunch once a day and anyone who was hungry - it wasn't just for Indians - can go to the Indian centre and have a not lunch once a day. This is why I think it is a community thing, Mr. Chairman. What they found was that they were feeding between 30 and 50 people a day with this hot-lunch programme that they have, and no one is paying for it. Somehow this is coming out of their operating costs, and they can't afford it.

When I met with them and with their cook, who seems to be an absolute magician, the cook said that it costs about $4,000 a year to run this programme. I don't see how they can feed that many people, quite frankly, on $4,000 a year. That is all that they require. If they could get $4,000 from somebody they can continue with this programme, Mr. Chairman, which the entire community uses. A lot of the young kids passing through Vancouver as transients go there in the summer just to have a hot lunch.

I'd like to recommend it to the Provincial Secretary and suggest that maybe her department could look at the possibility of at least putting up a couple of thousand dollars to help with the funding for this.

My second question to the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Chairman, under vote 30, has to do with funding for women's groups. There was $200,000 allotted in 1974, 1 think it was, under the Status of Women committee for the government. Of course the present administration wiped out that office, but the groups that were funded through that office, to a large extent, still need funding.

There were 200 women's groups in the province which were getting some of their funding through that office. They were getting it also through the Secretary of State and LIP and various others. I'm wondering what has happened to a number of the really good programmes that used to be funded. I'm thinking of the one in Oakalla, for example, where the women were being funded in terms of pre-employment so that on discharge they would come out with some kind of skill. I'm also wondering what has happened to the Hope Craft Cottage - the one that was being run for handicapped women. What has happened to their funding?

In her estimates last year, the Provincial Secretary indicated that she would still be willing to fund women's groups which applied to her. I wonder if she would let me know which of these groups have had a yes because all the ones I hear from have had their requests for funding turned down. I'm thinking of the

[ Page 2113 ]

Fraser Lake Women's Centre, for example, which is not just a women's centre. It deals with consumer counselling and ombudservice and a number of other things. They applied to the Provincial Secretary for $22,904 and they have not received any response from the Provincial Secretary in terms of whether or not they are going to get their funding.

I know that the response that the Provincial Secretary has been giving to a number of these groups is that the department would prefer to fund groups that are provincially based rather than community groups. I think that's a marvellous idea if the department really would do that. What I'm thinking about is the kinds of problems we are having with Human Resources, for example, in terms of funding transition houses, where Human Resources is willing to fund on a per -diem basis but not willing to pick up the tab for the seed money for starting.

Transition houses are provincially based. Would the Provincial Secretary see her department as being willing to take responsibility for the start-up funding for the transition houses in those areas where a need has been clearly demonstrated?

Another area that the Provincial Secretary might want to look at is the business of funding for rape relief centres. That's another area where per them funding is possible through Human Resources and through Health and, hopefully, through the Attorney-General's department. But that core funding - that first bit of money that is needed to get the thing rolling and off the ground - I'm wondering whether the Provincial Secretary would see her department as being responsible for that.

The other area, of course, has to do with the whole business of child abuse, which I know is a parent problem and is certainly not just a problem that has to do with women, but does, to a large extent. I wonder whether the Provincial Secretary would also see that....

I'm excited about her concept of funding groups that are provincially based and wonder if she could indicate to the House which of these other groups that are provincially based, aside from the Vancouver Status of Women, the department is now willing to take responsibility for. Has she really thought in terms of these more global needs that women have, such as transition houses, rape relief, child abuse, women's health collectives? These kinds of groups need seed money just to get them started.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: First of all, may I say, in respect to the last question regarding child abuse that I have had a very real interest over many years in this particular subject and I appreciate what the member is saying. There has to be more education and there has to be more done. In that vein, I have had good co-operation between the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) and I think you'll find that an aggressive programme will be underway in that area.

You asked about several other programmes and you question whether they should be more properly funded under the Provincial Secretary. The position we've taken in terms of funding is that when a ministry has a particular area of responsibility and interest, programmes should fall naturally and be fulfilled under that responsibility. There are some areas that do not fall within one ministry, but perhaps under two or three responsibilities. In that case, I've had the responsibility for undertaking them through the grant system of the Provincial Secretary.

About the Vancouver Indian Centre and their grant, I would think that that would be in the hands of the Indian Advisory Committee. It brings advice to the Provincial Secretary and then they're funded under that.

I'm not sure about the hot-lunch programme that you suggested, but I assure you that I would like to look into it. If we have that information in our department, I'll be pleased to look into it. I am just not apprised of it so I can't make a comment on it.

You asked questions on some of the women's groups which we have funded in the past year, which, of course involved the Vancouver Status of Women. There is a very special home service for women who are members, who have had accidents and who are members of the Canadian Paraplegic Association. It's a specialized programme which, I think, is working very well. There are, of course, Travellers' Aid under the YWCA, which is a good programme, and the Maywood Home and the Salvation Army, which get funding under our jurisdiction. There are several programmes and grants that we do fund. Most of the time we take the attitude that if it is a good programme which does not fall within the boundaries of a specific ministry, then it comes into my area of jurisdiction,

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask the Provincial Secretary specifically about that programme in Oakalla. I am particularly concerned about the pre-employment training for women, and also the Hope Craft Cottage. These were not traditional programmes; these were alternative programmes funded under that particular department.

I know that the traditional funding through the Y and that kind of thing continues. But I wanted to talk specifically about the dilemma of programmes that fall under the jurisdiction of three or four departments. A transition house is a perfect example of where the Department of Human Resources is locked into federal-provincial cost-sharing and can deal only with per them rates. They can't handle seed money and they can't handle start-up funding - at least they're not prepared to. I think the Provincial Secretary's department, which has more flexibility in

[ Page 2114 ]

these areas, should look at that kind of funding for these areas: rape relief centres, transition houses, women's health collectives and other groups that get some of their funding through the Department of Labour and some through the Department of Health. They certainly should be getting some through the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) but they have not been successful in that.

This is a whole new approach which I am suggesting. I'm wondering whether you would be willing to look at your department as taking responsibility for the start-up funding of province-wide programmes which other ministries can't handle because they're locked into the federal-provincial cost-sharing.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, the member for Burrard has specifically asked about one area of pre-release employment opportunities. Again, that does not fall under my area of interest at the present moment. It is being undertaken, I think, through the Elizabeth Fry Society, which gets its funding, I believe, through the Attorney-General's ministry. I can stand corrected on that, but I believe the Attorney-General does fund that society. I can't address myself to whether that particular programme comes under them but I'd be pleased to find out.

Secondly, on the whole area of grants, the government has had a year to assess the whole idea. I think I made the comment last year that I would like to take a good look at how the whole granting procedure is done. We are addressing ourselves to a melding of the whole programme of the grant system in an intergovernmental way. That is underway at the present time in an intergovernmental committee of cabinet. I will certainly take the member's suggestions and I appreciate having them.

Vote 30 approved.

On vote 3 1: Provincial Elections Act, $ 580,236.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask if an electoral reform commission would be funded under this vote. I'm referring to the commission which the Premier has already said would be set up to deal with boundaries, balloting methods, election expenses and all these other factors. If such a commission is to be funded under this vote, I'm wondering why there's no increase in money available since, presumably, such a commission would involve some substantial expenditure. The Premier said earlier in the House that not only would the commission be set up, but it would report in lots of time prior to the next election. He stated publicly the other day that there would likely be an election in 1979, so all I'm asking is that if these statements are reasonably correct in their estimation of time, should there not be money in the 1977-1978 budget or estimates for this vote to encompass the cost of the electoral commission?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, in answer to the member, the moneys for such a commission would fall under the Public Inquiries Act. Therefore that funding would come under that part of my ministry which we discussed last night. As we said last night, it was always an iffy figure depending on what commissions were called. That's why you don't see any additional funds under this particular vote.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask the Provincial Secretary if she's considering making elections fair in this province and whether she's found the drafts of the election expenses Act that was prepared by the NDP. I have no particular reason as to why we didn't pass the bill except that we did so many things and we had a heavy legislative agenda.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Okay, you fault us on that, but I'm asking the Provincial Secretary now whether or not you're going to bring in legislation that will make it, as other provinces have done, that you disclose the source of political campaign funds, after, say, a $100 contribution - the big ones that are the important, influencing, potentially corrupting donations - whether you limit the amount that is spent on provincial election campaigns, as they've done in the States, although the figures are astronomical, and whether you will consider the problem of subsidizing the democratic political process so that it isn't privately funded and you get into the area of private influence in public business, which necessarily follows.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Is the member discussing matters which would require legislation?

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I'd like a bill brought in, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's not appropriate at this time.

MR. MACDONALD: But I can just hint that I want a bill and won't ask for it directly. The bill is already drawn up, and I'm sure that the Provincial Secretary would have no trouble finding it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: In that case, hon. member, let's consider that the hint has been made.

[ Page 2115 ]

MR. MACDONALD: Okay.

But I do think it's time in British Columbia that we eliminated the potentially and actually corrupting influence of campaign funds on provincial politics. We began the process in this province with the disclosure Act, which probably didn't go far enough. But there's this whole area of slush funds. I would not like the minister to say that she believes in the conducting of an election under this vote without election-expense legislation, because those are the kind of elections that have been bought and sold in this province for years. I'd like to know whether the Provincial Secretary will bring in such election-expense legislation before the next election.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. It would be no more appropriate for the minister to answer the question than it was to ask the question - not in committee.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. W. DAVIDSON (Delta): Go right ahead!

MS. BROWN: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the Social Planning and Review Council of B.C. - SPARC - conducted a questionnaire among its handicapped to find out how they were coping with the business of voting in provincial elections. They discovered that 77 per cent of the returns indicated that the handicapped people were having problems with voting because of disability, fragility, lack of architectural access to polling stations and lack of accessible transportation. What SPARC did was study the legislation of other provinces and other countries and conclude that the fairest way to deal with it would be through the postal vote. They have suggested to the government, I think, that the Provincial Elections Act be changed so that handicapped people could be able to use the postal vote in elections. As a matter of fact, their recommendation reads as follows: "That all levels of government proceed in developing legislation, together with the appropriate machinery and public education, to establish a postal vote in Canada." I'm wondering whether the Provincial Secretary has received their report and whether she has got any ideas on it or not.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, the problems of the handicapped in voting have been well documented. I can only say that all of the suggestions that have been given to me in the past few months, having had the responsibility for the Provincial Elections Act, would be, of course, all turned over to a commission to study and to report on. I feel that that's the best thing that I can do.

I have had more than those suggestions; I've had many. I think it would be best just to give that material over and hope that that commission would have some objective point of view on it, or a consensus after the commission report.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I ask the Provincial Secretary whether she will refer the question of election expenses to this commission as part of its terms of reference.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I can assure the member, Mr. Chairman, that all the subjects that have been raised under that area, including his, will be put before the commission.

Vote 31 approved.

On vote 32: provincial emergency programme, $1,347, 486.

MR. C. D'ARCY (Rossland-Trail): The provincial emergency programme, in plain English, I gather, used to be civil defence. I'm happy to see that there is a slight increase in the amount allowed. However, I'm wondering if the minister can tell us how much of this is going to be buried or lost in administration, both here and with the co-ordinators. I would agree that these people do an excellent job, but the fact is that the people who are actually going to be on the flood lines, organizing the sandbags or trying to put out the fire in the gasworks, are largely volunteer people around this province.

I'm wondering if there's provision for training, upgrading, co-ordination, and getting these people together to compare notes. We have a tendency to forget about them unless the creek rises or some disaster happens, and then we expect them to look after us and co-ordinate work with the police and health agencies. As I say, they're mostly volunteer people - at least the ones I know are volunteer people - really of the nature of trained volunteer firemen. In many cases, in fact, that's what they are. I'm wondering if there's some provision for these people to perhaps be allowed to continue their work in improving the services that they could give in the event that they're needed at some point.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I think one of the problems we have in coastal communities - I know we have it in Prince Rupert - is not the provincial emergency programme itself and not federal programmes that are put in place to supply emergency services in case of disaster, where rescue is needed, but a total lack of co-ordination between the different agencies that are involved in trying to bring

[ Page 2116 ]

these programmes into effect quickly when they're needed, with one authority at the top who can make decisions. That just isn't happening in emergency programming, especially at sea.

What happens is that by the time everyone has figured out who's really in charge, it's usually too late, or almost too late, or you're darn lucky to get there in time to save lives or to save property. That is the area where I see a real weakness in the programme - the lack of co-ordination between federal agencies and provincial agencies in times of emergency. There just isn't one person. I know this more than some others, I think, having worked in the media, where you try to get some answers when there's an emergency happening and you can't even get the right person to go to to ask the questions, never mind get the answers.

It seems to me that the Provincial Secretary would be doing the people of this province a real service if she would talk with the federal agencies that are involved in emergency services and with her own people within her own department to try and establish in each area of the province one person or one small board of maybe three people at the most. There still has to be a general manager for that board, but there should be one person who the RCMP, search-and-rescue of the federal government, the provincial emergency programme and the staff of that programme know they should take directions from. In my experience in water rescue, it's always left up in the air. There's never any one central authority to take charge of all the programmes, pull it together and then use all of those programmes in an imaginative and in a beneficial way to either avert disaster or to try and bring it under control in some way.

I wonder if the Provincial Secretary would take it under advisement to really look into this, because I believe that maybe there's a chance that the bureaucracies are spoofing the politicians a little in this regard. I really believe that. I think the whole area should be looked into. I'm not saying this in a partisan way. It was under us, it was under the previous Social Credit government and now under this government. But there just is no co-ordination of emergency services in times of disaster. We're going to end up one of these days with a major disaster on our hands with no co-ordination of the services available.

I believe that there should be an investigation of sorts. If it’s internal I don't care, but there should be a review and an investigation of the services that are available for air-sea rescue. or sea rescue, to come up with some recommendations that the federal government could also take note of. There's a vacuum here that should be looked into by the Provincial Secretary and her department because there's just no co-ordination at all that I can see.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask two quick questions. When this vote describes "disaster and emergency situations, " do oil spills come at all under this vote, or have we already had the assurances from the Minister of the Environment (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) that he's responsible? But it would seem again, to follow on from some of the comments of the member for Prince Rupert, there may well be times when disasters of this kind occur very abruptly and a whole lot of people become involved in cleaning them up. I wonder if this vote has ever been called upon or will likely be called upon for that purpose.

I would be interested to know if the minister could tell us approximately how much has been spent from this vote in the fiscal year which ends next week. Thirdly, I notice under the rather general phrase of "grants, contributions and subsidies" there's about a quarter of a million dollars. Could the minister just tell us very briefly who were the main recipients under that heading of "grants, contributions and subsidies" in the year which is just ending?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: In response to the last questions from the member for Oak Bay, that subsidy of $200,000 goes to municipalities and assists them in the co-ordination with the volunteer people and training and so on.

You asked whether or not this programme takes care of oil spills. There's a voluntary spill recording system. It really addresses itself to the small bays and marinas and coves and that sort of thin& More than 200 spill reports were received in 1976: 120 were marine incidents and 90 involved land and land-to-air and land-to-water occurrences. The majority of marine incidents were slick reports or spills at dockside. Most of them were readily identifiable. The most common cause of spills was human error. So there is some reference to oil spills, and there is a co-ordination between this organization and our environmental organization as well.

To answer the member for Prince Rupert, we just are working all the time at that co-ordination. I will take his comments in the light in which they were given. I can tell you that we're striving constantly to improve the programme. In 1976, for instance, there were 275 calls recorded for search and rescue, with a total of approximately 3,000 persons responding, and approximately 20,000 man hours were involved in those rescues last year. I want to say that the size of the groups varies from five or six members to over 50, depending on the need.

May I say right now, as the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) mentioned, we have had an outstanding group of volunteers who have undertaken this kind of rescue. We appreciate them very, very much. I'll take what you say as good advice

[ Page 2117 ]

and I can assure you that with our new director and with the advice that you have given, and the constant improvement that we strive for, I think that you'll find that we will, as we go on, improve it quite considerably.

I think I have responded, then, within the answers to those questions to him. You asked specifically, though, about training. That training is going on and our new director is very, very strong in that regard. We hope that there will be better training programmes in this coming year. We expect there to be.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate what the minister has said. I really do believe the problem, and I could stand to be corrected. I just really believe the problem is that all the agencies that are involved really don't want to take any directions from any other agency. So what happens is they all feel they are top dog. When the time comes, who's going to direct all of them? I just really believe we'd go a long way to solving the problem if there was one central agency, no matter who it is, that takes charge of the others when the need arises and the time of disaster is there.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, following along in the lines of what the member for Prince Rupert has said, I would agree that there is a desire for each one to be the top dog when the problems are minor. But when they become a bit major, then suddenly there's no one who wants to take the responsibility. Certainly we had an example of this on the west coast of Vancouver Island last year when there was a fairly major oil spill with an oil slick floating around there, and no one coming forward and taking the responsibility for the clean-up until some weeks or so later, when finally something was resolved.

It seems to me that we're coming closer and closer to the time when we're going to have more and more of these major types of emergencies that we're going to have to face, and until we do get some definite line of command and someone really firmly responsible and charged with the authority to move rapidly and quickly when the need arises, we're going to be in a bad situation. Certainly the expense could be much greater if there is a time delay in these matters.

The other thing that I wanted to mention, Mr. Chairman, was relative to the $250,000 for grants. It has been mentioned that some of this is for flood control. The minister has indicated they go to municipalities. I know that I would be out of order if I spoke of another vote, but again it concerns me that even in the minister's own jurisdiction there may be some overlap here. I'm wondering, you know, where you draw the lines. What is considered as being flood relief under this particular vote, Mr. Chairman? I thought I should mention it here before we got further along.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I was sort of hoping to give everybody an opportunity to speak on the same subject. At any rate, in answer to the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) , we are, as a matter of fact, because of that specific instance that you related to the House today.... We have, since that time, been negotiating with the federal government for that kind of communication. We think that there was a breakdown there that was quite evident, and there is no question that that must be overcome.

As for the other question, though, I really wouldn't like this debate to end without saying to you that there has been, in many, many cases, some incredibly great work done and lives saved. It should be noted on the floor of this House today that it isn't all negative, and I think what you are bringing to the House today in terms of co-ordination is very well said. I will certainly take it under advisement.

MR. LEA: The negotiations are going on with Ottawa, and I'm glad to see that those negotiations are going on, but I'd like to make a suggestion that the minister, along with her political counterparts in Ottawa, please make the final decision - that even the negotiations themselves not be entirely left up to the agencies involved. I would like to see the politicians involved in this one because, you know, I don't think the egos of the politicians are involved in this one. I just believe that the politicians have a real role to play here to pull us all together. I would ask that the minister become personally involved in watching this one.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I want to add a voice to the minister's support of negotiating with the federal government. The sad part is that in the last several years this issue has come up time and time again about jurisdictional responsibility in dealing with emergencies, and particularly it is the issue of oil spills. Although members of the House might find this very amusing, Oak Bay had its oil spill three years ago. Since then, there has been just the most absolutely incredible months and years of writing letters back and forth between the municipal government and the federal government. It's all very well for us to talk about grants to municipalities, which the minister mentioned, and it's all very well to say we're negotiating with the federal government, but the fact of the matter is that no progress whatever has been made in clarifying some of the ridiculously vague regulations which presently exist in regard to who is responsible for the cost of cleaning up oil on the shore. The mayor of Oak Bay, just the other day, finally received what I gather to be the last communication, to the effect that Oak Bay pays the bill. One of the reasons that Oak Bay, as the

[ Page 2118 ]

municipality, is to pay the bill is that they couldn't identify where the oil came from.

I know that the minister can't be expected to come up with magic answers to that kind of situation, but I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, that I have raised this issue repeatedly over the last two or three years in the House and there just does not seem to be clear progress in defining the responsibilities of federal, provincial and municipal governments in this whole field of emergency services, whether it's oil spills or any other kind of emergency. In the case of the Oak Bay situation it was a few hundred dollars, but it could have been a few thousand or it could have been a hundred thousand, in which case there is no way the municipality could pay the bill. ~

In this case a few hundred is not a problem, but the principle is a problem. I would hope that by just mentioning this specific example to the minister and the interminable series of communications where Oak Bay has been passed from one jurisdiction and one department of the federal government to another, finally coming up with such a "no answer" to the situation, the municipality simply being told, "you're stuck with the bill, " it would point out that it is perhaps more urgent than the debate this afternoon would tend to realize just because the particular incident I quoted involved a few hundred dollars. With some of the tankers that are about to come down our shores, it's quite obvious we're faced with incidents where the cost will be immeasurably greater and the damage to the shoreline will require much more work to clean up.

Under these circumstances I plead with the minister to try to get to the federal government the urgency of the situation and the fact that we've made very little progress in the last several years.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, just to assure the member, the cases that have been brought to the floor today have already been a matter of negotiation with the federal administration. We think we're going to win. We think we're going to get that line of communication better resolved because of the negotiations we've had. We now have, as you know, a Ministry of the Environment which also addresses itself to this. We feel that the whole thing is coming together rather well. I'm optimistic; I truly am optimistic. I take your advice and will certainly make sure that by the next time we get into this discussion we will have had some progress.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I hope that is the direction we are going, as the Provincial Secretary says, because what this little episode in Oak Bay indicates is the abominable lack of sensitivity that senior governments - this one and the one in Ottawa - can have to minor community problems. I don't think the question is whether or not Oak Bay applied properly. The question is: for $500, why do they have to be so darn chintzy?

There is a major potential problem here and they should be looking at it, whether they get the proper communications or not. I think the provincial government, rather than simply saying, "we hope to win on this one, " should be saying the same kinds of things to communities when they come to them with problems and the same kinds of things to the federal government.

In any event, Mr. Chairman, I was very pleased to hear what the minister had to say regarding assisting the volunteers out there who, after all, are the people who are the first line of defence in the case of civil emergency. But the concern I expressed about the funds for this programme being swallowed up in administration and bureaucracy would seem to be borne out by the details of the vote. We see a growth in the technical and advisory help, yet in the part that directly involves the volunteers - the instructors -the staff has been cut from four to three. We see a 25 per cent staff cut in the area that the minister assures me she is making improvements on and that the director is going to make improvements on.

I don't question her veracity in this regard, nor do I question her good intentions. But the fact is that the amount of money and the number of personnel simply don't bear out her statements. I'm wondering if she could elaborate on that in a little more detail as to why the number of instructors have been cut when, in fact, the volunteers out there tell me that they would like more opportunities on their own time, in many cases, to upgrade their abilities and skills.

Vote 32 approved.

On vote 33: air services, $1,508, 000.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, it's very difficult to deal with this vote. One reason is that the Provincial Secretary hasn't tabled the log for the government aircraft fleet, which has usually been tabled by this time.

My first question to the Provincial Secretary is: when is that log going to be tabled?

MR. KING: She's flying on one wing!

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, the log is now ready to be tabled. I will be pleased to do it this evening.

MR. KING: Why not now?

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, this vote is described as providing emergency services. I wonder if we could just have a brief description of these services

[ Page 2119 ]

as contrasted with the services provided by the air ambulance service under the Minister of Health's (Hon. Mr. McClelland's) estimate?

I'm interested to know what fraction of the $1.8 million that was budgeted relates to emergencies. I presume the larger part of the budget would be for air transportation, which will be described in the log, and aerial photographic services for the provincial government.

While I'm on my feet could I ask again if the minister has any approximate figure for the amount of money that has been spent out of the $1.8 million estimate? I noticed that the budget is to be reduced in the incoming fiscal year by $300,000. 1 wonder what the indications are underlying the feeling by the minister that the budget can be reduced by $300,000. Is this to mean less use of government aircraft by the government members? The Minister of Health is nodding his head furiously. Or is it perhaps that the emergency services listed under this vote are to be provided by the emergency services of the Ministry of Health and the air ambulance service?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, just in response to the first question, an up-to-date report on the air ambulance transfers would perhaps give you an idea of this. Since the air service has gone into more of the major change in terms of its operational role, we see the air ambulance as a very great part of the service of that particular organization.

In 1977, for instance, there were 109 patients taking part in air evacuations, incorporating 248 flying hours. These emergency flights were co-ordinated by the Rescue Co-ordination Centre. Ambulance transfers, which were pre-scheduled, non-emergency flights, were also co-ordinated by emergency help. In the calendar year of 1976 which proceeded those 109 patients, there was a total of 142 flights combining air evacuations and air ambulance transfers. That represented just over 358 flying hours in that year.

The answer to your second question is that there will be a charge-back system to ministers in the coming fiscal year which will represent the use of the aircraft by the ministry. That represents the change from $1.8 million to the $1.5 million, which you asked about - the $300,000. We believe that the difference will be a charge-back in the system and it will be a revenue to this ministry.

MR. WALLACE: I seek a little clarification, Mr. Chairman. In other words, each ministry will be charged for the value of the air services provided to the minister, the deputy minister and his staff. Is that included somewhere in the other estimates of the other ministers? I presume this is a little bit like the use of square footage in government buildings. It is being charged back on the same principle.

1 was puzzled; I am sure it was just a slip of the tongue. She said there were 109 patients evacuated in 1977. Did she mean 1977, or was she referring to the 1976-77 fiscal year?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Those figures are the totals of January, February and March to date, and this is written on March 17. May I just say that the charge-back is only for our own public service travelling. There is no charge for the emergency part.

MR. WALLACE: One last piece of clarification: When an emergency arises, how is this demand placed upon the government? Do they phone the air ambulance or do they phone these air services under the Provincial Secretary? I am a little puzzled. There seems to be a split in a responsibility here where, quite clearly, it would suggest that all these episodes should, first of all, seek the help of the air ambulance service. Is there a shift in government policy to ensure that this is a unified responsibility and that there isn't this responsibility on the part of air services, which are meant to transfer government ministers and civil servants around the province, as contrasted with a much more obvious and specific responsibility of dealing with injured and sick people?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: This is all co-ordinated through the air-sea rescue service: if they think that our equipment and our expertise is better for a particular emergency, we are called upon directly through them. It comes directly to the air ambulance service of our department.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sorry to belabour this point, but I am really puzzled by all this, although I think we are getting to the facts. But the point is, I thought the air ambulances were specifically equipped, modified and designed to deal with medical and surgical emergencies. I have to ask the question: Does the air-sea rescue service, which is federally organized, send the message to one or the other of the ministers' offices? Is the minister satisfied that that is working properly? It seems to me that there are times when this minister's office is consulted for help when it should be the air ambulance, because the minister mentioned ambulance transfer. That's another phrase that had me puzzled. Does she mean that the initial help is provided in some other way and then the patient is transferred to an air ambulance? It's a little confusing, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Okay. Let's separate "emergency" from the "transfer of patients" which, unless it is a transfer which involves an emergency accident, would be done in a planned programme on a non-emergency basis through the Health minister with our ministry. However, to address my answer to

[ Page 2120 ]

you regarding the emergency, we get back to the same consideration that was given earlier on another vote, where the request was made to have co-ordination with the federal administration. That's exactly how we organize this air-sea rescue programme. I can assure you that I feel it is working very well. To go to anything different - that is, the spin off of any of the other departments and to do it through them - would be a delay in time. It would not be a waste of time, but certainly a delay. This organization goes through air-sea rescue first. They can, if you like, shop for the quickest and most effective way to save life. I feel quite confidently that it is the best way.

MR. D'ARCY: I'm wondering if the minister can expand a little bit on the recoveries - the $540,000 showed here - which she has indicated presumably ministers would be paying into for flying around or. . . . I don't know whether there are any nannies in the air in B.C.; I hope there aren't. But do civil servants and departments pay this? In other words, is it prorated on every department - the minister's office and individuals? If so, how do we come up with the figure of $540,000? That's approximately 25 per cent of the gross for the air services. Does that mean that people are only paying and departments are only paying 25 cents on the dollar? How do we arrive at this figure of $540,000?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The charge-back, Mr. Chairman, is taken after the commercial rate. This figure was based on experience that we have had in the past, in taking the past history of how much of the programme is attributable to our people who are using it as a transport service. That charge-back goes to each ministry - to that amount in total. I have to say that that is an estimate by the, comptroller, based on information given to us in the past.

Vote 33 approved.

On vote 34: British Columbia lottery branch, $10.

MR. LEA: Too much money!

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I would really like to make a comment on this vote because of the fact that we have a little change in programme here - in the purpose of the use of the moneys that are brought forward through this vote.

As you know, we have launched a new lottery in the past few months. It began December 15, and it's called the "Western Express." It's a bi-weekly lottery that is bringing to the province of British Columbia this dollar express ticket. It sold from December 15 until February 23. It has increased in popularity so that at the present time, even though we have had.... The purpose of the lottery was designated in the past to go to sports, culture, recreation and leisure activities. We are going to change that now in this particular one. Remember, this is only in the Western - the bi-weekly lottery. The Provincial, which is the $5 lottery, still has that designation for sports, culture, recreation and leisure activities.

In the next few months, starting April, May, June and July, we are going to have the proceeds for that lottery go to medical research. I can tell you that many other worthy organizations from time to time.... We are going to have a programme of changing the charitable organizations that this money will be going to.

It may be of interest to the House that this lottery started with December 15 selling 415,000 tickets. On February 23, the last recorded sale, 1,084, 855 Western Express tickets had been sold. Because of the success of it, we think that we should now put some of those proceeds into other areas of need. I think it is well known by this House that the federal administration has pulled out of many medical research grants that are very much needed by the province of British Columbia. We are hoping that we can do something in this area through this fund.

I will say too what I have said before in terms of lotteries and in terms of these needy things. I think that it's really a sad commentary on our province that we have to, perhaps, rely on a lottery for medical research.

MS. BROWN: I agree with that 100 per cent.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I frankly don't stand to make that announcement with any degree of pride that we are having to do so as members of this House, but I suggest to you that the dollars that have gone into sports, recreation and culture have been used in a most worthwhile manner. Now that we are getting more dollars into this fund, I think we would be remiss if we did not approach this and put it into other things at this point in time. So I'd like to just tell the House that.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I'm glad to have the minister's further explanation of the express lottery, which is perhaps not too bad in terms of the sums involved. I think the top prize is $50,000.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: One hundred thousand dollars.

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, it's $100,000 now.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: These things creep up, and

[ Page 2121 ]

now we're moving into the area where by gambling, we are going to pay for medical research, which should be paid for by public funds.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I know. You've got the bottom line there. You don't want to raise the money by a fair system of taxation or repeal the succession duty and all the rest of it.

I'd love to get into an argument with the Minister of Health who stands up before each of these votes and makes a little speech, instead of just calling the.... But another time - I'm not arguing with him.

I'm concerned about where we're going in Canada - and I'm expressing a personal opinion - and the extent to which we're bitten by the lottery bug. I read that Loto Canada is going to create, in the month of March of this year, "12 instant millionaires." I guess we should all feel good about that.

MR. WALLACE: Tax-free!

MR. MACDONALD: Tax-free it is, too.

The advertisement goes on, and the advertising is false and misleading and puffing. It should worry the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Mair) , but very little worries that minister.

The Provincial also has prizes of $1 million. There are five $1 million prizes out of the Provincial lottery, in which we co-operate with the other provinces. So we're creating instant millionaires and an awful lot of poor people. It's a very regressive form of taxation. You don't find wealthy people buying lottery tickets. They do better down on Howe Street. On Howe Street you could lose your shirt, but your odds are better on Howe Street than they are with the lotteries.

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health): Your government brought them in.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, it's the limit. We have lotteries, Mr. Chairman, and there's no question that they're here to stay. We've faced the problem of the money going out of the country because of the Irish sweepstakes, and they're here to stay, but we seem to be going crazy in terms of these million dollar draws in Canada.

I think that creating instant millionaires is sending out a subliminal message to Canada that you get something for nothing, that that's life, that it isn't hard work, it isn't saving, it isn't wise investment, it's a something-for-nothing world in schemes that don't create new wealth but redistribute the existing wealth. We pay $850,000 to administer it here in the province of B.C., and take that money back, presumably under this vote, so that we only have a $10 vote. The instant millionaires - and there are some across the House - think that's the kind of society and kind of world we should have, but the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) knows the other end, or he should: the poverty; the expectations that are created; the so meeting-for-no thing philosophy; the competitiveness of it rather than working to create a better society -1 the gross inequalities of wealth that we create in Canada by creating millionaires on the one hand - very few of them - and very poor people on the other hand.

The thing is growing like Topsy and I think it's getting out of control. Here you announce something, Mr. Chairman. The minister announces an extension, and I rather like the idea of the "Western Express" -I think that's what you call it - because of the lower limit of prizes. I like the idea that there should be community bingos and community lotteries working where everybody knows each other, on a small scale, to benefit a local project. I don't think that's any kind of a dangerous thing to our national life, but I think the creation of instant millionaires in this kind of a society that we're living in is something that we have to watch.

We can become like some of the South American countries where they go around carrying these numbers games. People try to make a living by selling them, with weekly draws and daily draws. We become a gambling society and forget what it is that makes a country worthwhile. It destroys our social values.

I'm glad that the Loto Canada, at least, is not being sold, as far as we can prevent it, out in B.C.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I thought the Loto Canada tickets were not being distributed by distributors in B.C. Maybe you can't prevent it, Mr. Chairman - to the Provincial Secretary - but I understood that we were discouraging selling those tickets to pay off the Olympic deficit. We should discourage that, and we should have our own lotteries but on a modest scale, and get away from these million dollar draws and their false advertising and all the false values they create in our society and in the minds of our youth.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Dewdney.

MR. LEA: Head Munchkin.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Whip.

MR. G. MUSSALLEM (Dewdney): I could not sit in this House and allow this vote to pass. It's a very

[ Page 2122 ]

retrograde form of rudeness that we foist on our people to allow our people to assume that somewhere, at the end of some rainbow, a million dollars can ensue, when the hope is not even faint. When every province in Canada is involved in some form of lottery, it's actually a rude form of taxation against the poor ...

MR. MACDONALD: That's right.

MR. MUSSALLEM: ... in the hope that someday they'll make a dollar. I'm ashamed of anybody that will stand in this House and approve a lottery. A lottery is wrong; it's debilitating; it is a thing that takes away the strength of the individual. I know people who haven't got the $ 10 or the $20 to spare, and yet when the paper comes in at night, when the winners are announced, they're afraid to look at the paper to see whether they've won or not. Do you think that's being kind to the people? I tell you it's a sad day.

It would be easy for me to have researched - and I did not do it because I didn't expect this vote, having forgotten all about it - but the state of New York went through a situation like this less than 50 years ago. The state of New York found itself in serious financial trouble, because behind the lotteries the old story comes again. Crime moves in. Crime moved in behind the bingo games a short while ago, and crime will move in behind lotteries.

Lotteries are dangerous and debilitating. They are a curse on our society, and the people who can't afford it - and no one can afford it - are the ones who buy the most.

I do not blame this government; nor do I blame any government that falls prey to the desire to create this thing, for some unknown purpose. I say that this government should be the first to say that British Columbia shall remove itself from this blight of a lottery or any system therein involved.

I hear our minister say that it's going to be used for medical research. I tell the minister, who I respect probably more highly than anyone in this House, that this money should never be allowed to be used for medical research.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. MUSSALLEM: I say it will be a curse on that research, because the principle is wrong. Everything involved is wrong. If we want to have medical research, let us pay for it in the proper way.

MS. BROWN: Hear, hear!

MR. MUSSALLEM: Let us pay for it from proper taxation but not from this wrong idea of a some thing-for-nothing syndrome. I join myself with the hon. member for Vancouver East. The some thing-for-nothing syndrome is something we in this party talk against. Let us not join ourselves with a something-for-nothing syndrome - the hope that someone somewhere will get a few dollars they did not earn. You cannot have anything you do not earn.

Did you ever read about the history of the winners of lotteries? It's a sad and terrible story. There's no time for me to tell you of some of them here, but you can go back as far as you want to the days when the Irish lottery was the only one. It was a reasonable thing to assume - take a chance and buy a ticket. But when we all got into this act, where is the money coming from? From my pocket and from yours. The hope of winning is so infinitesimal that the chance of me walking out of the parliament buildings tonight and finding $100,000 on the sidewalk is far greater than winning a lottery, if you take the odds in fact.

I say to this government they would do a favour to this province of British Columbia if they would enact an end to this scourge on the people.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I suppose we should also outlaw all other kinds of moral wrongdoing in our society. I thought we had all decided that you could not legislate morality or unlegislate morality. After all, what's freedom of choice all about? We all talk in this chamber about freedom of choice. Who compels anybody to buy a lottery ticket?

MR. E.O. BARNES (Vancouver Centre): High pressure.

MR. WALLACE: We all talk about the millions and millions of dollars that we make off the sale of liquor, which causes a great deal more misery and ill health and mental breakdown than lotteries ever did. Does anybody come into this House and say that we should try and do something about making all this filthy money off the sale of liquor?

MR. MUSSALLEM: We're stuck with that; we're not stuck with the other.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, we're stuck with it. Mr. Chairman, the whole area is so relative when you start debating what is moral in this House that it is an endless, nebulous argument. The fact is that we all know - and the member for Dewdney just provided one of the reasons - that lotteries have increased around the world. There was, once upon a time, only one main lottery. Many different countries saw money leaving their country to go to Ireland, so they started the lotteries to keep the money in their own country on the very reasonable basis that if the money was going to be spent - as, indeed, human nature had shown down through the centuries it

[ Page 2123 ]

would be spent - why not try to keep some of that money in your own country?

I hear a lot about the horrors of foreign investment in this country and the horrors of capital investment leaving this country to go elsewhere. Here is a recognition through a well-controlled system of govern ment-supervised lottery that at least we can retain some of this funding. I've never heard such a disturbing thought in my whole life that maybe we shouldn't try to make this money available for medical research.

AN HON. MEMBER: By lottery?

MR. WALLACE: That's what he said. The member for Dewdney said he didn't want a penny to go to medical research because of the source of money. But I suppose it would be all right to take all that money from booze and turn it over to medical research and ignore all the ill health and mental breakdown and social destruction that goes on from booze.

All I'm trying to say, Mr. Chairman, is that I'm not at all happy that we have to indulge in lotteries. It's like many other things in this life. I wish things were not so and that human nature was not so, and that we didn't have a whole raft of problems resulting from human nature. But you have to look at the situation in the light of facts and history. I don't know how often I have to make this quotation that those who don't learn from history are doomed to relive it. If we have any kind of intellect and intelligence, surely we should look around and not just emotionally suggest that because it's not a very attractive way to deal with the situation we should hold up our hands in horror and talk about the immorality of lotteries.

The member for Dewdney mutters in my elbow that it's a tax on the poor. I'm trying to tell this House, Mr. Chairman, that you would think this was some tax imposed on the poor. The sales tax is certainly a tax imposed on the poor, and I couldn't agree more - they have no choice as to whether they pay sales tax.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: The member for Burrard - the lady member, first member - for whom I have the greatest respect....

MR. CHAIRMAN: And who should not be interrupting you.

MR. WALLACE: No, I don't mind her interrupting me, but for once she and I find our lines of reasoning very divergent. I thought that all of us in this House would recognize two things: that whether we like it or not, human nature has instilled in most of us the hope that perhaps there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now whether you like to accept that or not is really immaterial- it's much like our reflex mechanisms when we feel that we're about to be hurt.

Human nature, human response, human activity is as has been demonstrated for many centuries, if not from the moment we climbed out of the slime probably, that human nature has time and time and time again shown this tendency. And because of that tendency, other countries, including Canada, feel that at least if we can retain some of the money in this country and use it for good purposes....

I happen to believe that a lot of the money has been put to good use and I'm delighted to know that some of the money will be made available for medical research. Now I don't dispute for a moment, Mr. Chairman, that the federal government should hang its head in shame at the cutbacks in federal funding for medical research. But surely to goodness that's no justification, because the federal government isn't pulling its weight, for the provincial government in British Columbia to become all holier than thou and say: "Tut, tut, we're not going to have anything to do with lotteries, even if it brings in a million bucks for medical research." Well, I think that is blatant hypocrisy, particularly when nobody is compelling anybody to buy a lottery ticket.

Now if there were some compulsory, mandatory way in which poor and rich alike were being involved in contributing to lotteries, I could completely reject that. But the fact of the matter is that the programmes have been successful in that many non-profit groups, as the minister has pointed out in reports which she tabled with this House -recreational, cultural, sports activities - have benefited from the sale of these tickets. Now we find that another very urgently needed recipient is about to benefit from this fund - namely medical research. I feel that if we are to accept the arguments we have heard this afternoon, that this is a blight on our society and is morally destructive, I can think of a vast number of other topics that we should probably be discussing long before we get round to discussing the morality or immorality of lotteries.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair. ]

As I say again, if there has to be one glaring problem in our society that far exceeds any sin that might follow from the sale of lottery tickets, that unquestionably has to be the ever-increasing consumption of liquor with all its consequences to our society. So while I agree to this extent that it would be better to get by without lotteries, history shows that the money is going to be spent on lotteries and it would be better spent in British Columbia so that we can have some control over what is done with the profits from the lotteries. I happen to think that

[ Page 2124 ]

to this date some very useful purposes have been accomplished.

The member for Dewdney throws in the innuendo that "of course, when you have lotteries, you have crime." Well, would the member like to tell the House what evidence he has to suggest that we've got some hidden Mafia dealing with lottery money run by this government?

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: And again he mutters at my elbow: "You're darned right we have crime." All I want to know, Mr. Chairman - and I think this is a very valid question - is whether the minister can tell us if there is any evidence that criminal activity is involved in the Provincial lottery or the Western

Express lotteries which we're debating under this vote. The suggestion has been mad ' e by one of the members of her own party that of course crime is involved in these lotteries. I again would agree that gambling encourages crime, and there are all kinds of other gambling that perhaps our provincial government could investigate or deal with, or set up a crime commission, as they do in Quebec, but that's off the point. The point is that this minister is administrating two lotteries and providing financial returns, and overhead expenses are listed. In March, 1976, the administrative expense was 5.3 per cent of the gross revenue. All the figures are listed here, Mr. Chairman, for anybody who cares to look for the details. But that's rather a disturbing statement by the member for Dewdney that he is quite sure that crime is involved in the lotteries in B.C. I think that's probably the very next subject we would ask. . . .

MR. W.G. STRONGMAN (Vancouver South): He didn't say that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. member for Oak Bay has the floor.

MR. WALLACE: The member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) interjected at my elbow a moment ago, "you're darned right it's involved, " which perhaps was not recorded on Hansard. Now if the member wants to stand up and correct that quotation which was not recorded, then that's fine.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hearsay!

MR. WALLACE: I would suggest that somebody else who's talking about hearsay behind me would realize that probably that's the extent of the member's knowledge of how much crime is involved - hearsay.

But regardless of that, let's get the issue settled once and for all. Could I ask the minister to tell the House if at any time since the inception of B.C. lotteries under the sponsorship of the British Columbia government there has been any evidence brought to her desk or the desk of her predecessor that criminal elements are involved in this lottery system? If so, could she quote the examples?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, because of the significance of the last question asked, I'm going to reply no - very definitely no. But I want you to know too that I am constantly concerned. I can assure the House, Mr. Chairman, that the lotteries are under extremely strict control in this province. I want that to be known. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing, as the member has asked.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I've listened to the debate go backward and forward with some misgiving and a considerable degree of interest. I appreciated the Provincial Secretary standing up and explaining the introduction of and the rather spectacular success of the Western Express. I believe she said that sales had accelerated in a very, very short period of time to $1,034, 000, 1 believe it was.

Interjection.

MR. KING: Oh, tickets - 1.184 million tickets. That's rather spectacular; nevertheless it's a very spectacular growth. I listened with a considerable deal of interest to the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) , who used terms such as: "Crime moves in when these kinds of lotteries are developed." He categorized the lotteries as a curse on our society, As I say, Mr. Chairman, I have some rather mixed emotions.

I want to read a copy of a letter which I received a short time ago from a constituent. It's addressed to:

Mr. Donald A. Phillips,
District Manager,
B.C. Lotteries Branch, 534 Broughton St.,
Victoria, B.C.

Dear Mr. Phillips:

The executive committee of the Fauquier Development District have contacted all of our steady customers and find that it will be impossible for us to handle the Western Express as well as the Provincial lottery tickets. The bitter feelings expressed by the committee are: "gangster tactics; dictatorship; legalized and admissible discrimination because we are a small, progressive community.

The discussion also raised the question of moral business ethics. We have been successful in covering 200 bodies by canvassing on an individual basis over all

[ Page 2125 ]

past issues of the Provincial. In order to do this, we have been required to contact people over a 15-mi. area. All moneys earned have gone into community projects. Now, because of our minority position, you insist that we handle the Western Express under the threat of relieving us of our agency if we do not.

We have a large number of retirees in out district and this, no doubt, makes us unique because of the very low saturation point. We felt originally that it was only fair to ask when we canvassed the district and the reception was at least 90 per cent against.

Please reconsider the position you place us in and make an exception to the rule.

(Signed)
Mr. A.J. Martin, President,
Fauquier Development District.

Mr. Chairman, I'm certainly not inferring, nor does the letter infer, any criminal activity, but I think it does infer something less than voluntary participation in the programme. I think it does indeed infer some undue pressure being exercised on the carriers of these tickets. When the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) stressed the voluntary nature of participation, I would think in the light of this kind of conduct against the carriers, he may well have second thoughts. I'm certainly interested in hearing ....

First of all, I want to know who Donald A. Phillips is. It doesn't say "the Hon. Donald Phillips." I presume it's not the Minister of Economic Development, or is it? I don't think so. I think this is possibly the correct name of the individual in charge of the lotteries branch.

Secondly, I want to know whether the Provincial Secretary was aware of these very heavy-handed methods that were being used by the lotteries branch to induce agencies to sell the new Express tickets as well as the Provincial. I want to know if the Provincial Secretary will instruct the lotteries branch to cease and desist with this - I suggest that blackmail is a fair term for it - because certainly these local agencies, who are relying on the sale of the Provincial to fund local projects, being required under threat of termination also to take on the Express is a form of undue blackmail, in my view. I think the letter is correct in that way.

I want to know whether the Provincial Secretary approves of that style of doing business. I want to know whether she'll intervene to find out, first of all, how prevalent this kind of conduct has been. I want to know whether she will order a cease-and-desist in this kind of heavy-handed attitude toward local municipalities and agencies handling the Provincial. I want to know if she still feels as proud about the spectacular growth in the sale of Express tickets in light of the undue inducement that's been placed on carriers to handle that type of ticket.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, first of all let me say without any equivocation that the suggestion that the policy of government is as has just been interpreted by the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) is completely untrue. It is not a policy of government. I'm surprised to hear about the charge. I will be pleased to look into it. I'd appreciate it if he would make that correspondence available to me.

I'm surprised about the matter in more than one way. First of all, you want to know who Mr. Phillips is. I'm told that Mr. Phillips is an employee of the lotteries branch. He is a public servant in the Victoria office of the lotteries branch. I'll certainly look into the charge.

I would just offer to you that since the Western lottery has come into being, it has really been a question of not being able to get sufficient tickets rather than trying to push tickets, if you'll pardon that expression. What I'm saying to you is that I'm surprised by it. I will look into it. It is not a policy of the government or of the lotteries branch.

I would also like to go back into this whole lottery history and tell you that we did not initiate lotteries in the province of British Columbia. As Provincial Secretary for the government, I have responsibility for the lottery branch. I'm sorry that the member for Vancouver East is not in his seat right now. Let me quote the previous Provincial Secretary (Mr. Hall) in this House when, on May 1,1974, he spoke on behalf of the bill which was put before this House and which all members but one in the now opposition and the then NDP government voted for. That was the Lotteries Act. It was the then NDP representative from Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) who voted against the bill in the House. In the vote that was taken, 30 voted yes. Let me say that the member for Vancouver East, who spoke so eloquently against lotteries in this House earlier, in the opening of this debate, voted with the government at that time.

May I just quote from the previous Provincial Secretary who, on May 1,1974, said:

HON. MR. HALL: I don't think we will see the bingo palaces going - on a Saturday night - out of business. We are asking questions about introducing a whole new social ethic - gambling. The previous administration licensed lottery after lottery after lottery, bingo fix after bingo fix after bingo fix, until such time as the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) had to do something about it and they changed the rules and regulations. In that statement, the Provincial Secretary of that day was saying that the then Attorney-General of the day really was so aggressive in trying to change the situation they apparently found that they wanted to bring in a lottery Act, and so they did.

I want to go back into that history because that was an amalgamation of the four western provinces.

[ Page 2126 ]

In getting together as a marketing group, those four western provinces brought in the Western lottery at $3. As has been the history of all lotteries in this country and in other countries, as the prizes get larger the appeal for a lottery is greater. When Loto Canada came in again this past year to salvage the Olympic deficit of this country, they brought in the Loto Canada $10 ticket with the very extravagant appeal for the million-dollar prizes.

It was then placed before us, the western provinces in total. I have had several meetings with the ministers of the four western provinces. It was put before us that we either had to revise the $3 lottery which was put before this House earlier, and enacted on, and revise it to a different prize structure.... This was done. So the Provincial came in which is patterned after and is in co-operation with the Ontario government's $5 Provincial.

The reason that we did not go along ... and we were asked, and the decision had to be made and made last year. The reason that we didn't go along with the Loto Canada lottery was because the $10 Loto Canada lottery was not going to be marketed within the community organizations which we had through our Western Express. They had been able to benefit in many ways. Therefore the subject of the Western Express was that if we were going to increase the $3 lottery to $5, were we going to exclude all of those who had $3 or less to spend? Therefore the western ministers decided on the Western Express.

When I said how many tickets it had sold, I have to tell you that I would prefer, if I am taking on the administration of this through my position as Provincial Secretary.... The debate before this House today, Mr. Chairman, is not whether or not we are going to have a provincial lottery; the debate is whether or not I, as the Provincial Secretary with this under my responsibility, am administering it in a responsible way. If I did have any note of pride, then I say to the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) that I would really prefer it then, if I am going to be responsible for an organization, to be a successful one, surely. I don't say the amount of tickets as a matter of pride as much as a matter of information.

I am pleased, too, to note that in the sale of tickets which has gone on under the Western Express, it has benefited people. It has benefited in the proceeds of the lottery going for sports, culture, recreation and leisure activities. In the Western lottery fund it has done so to the extent of over $4 million; and an additional amount has gone even more into the community organizations. What I have said to you today and what I'd like to reiterate once again is that the new-found proceeds of the $1 lottery ticket should not be added, we feel, to the sports, culture, recreational activity grants, because they are getting sufficient out of the Western lottery. I wanted you to know the change of plan. We will put it on to medical research for the next four months and hope that medical research - for instance such organizations as the B.C. Heart Foundation, B.C. Cancer Society and the B.C. Cystic Fibrosis Society -would perhaps benefit.

I do want to say that Loto Canada, indeed, is being marketed in British Columbia. They have a federal charter with a special Canadian Act. If we did go out of the lottery business - and that, of course, is up to the House - they would still have the opportunity and the ability to sell lottery tickets in the province of British Columbia under Loto Canada. They sell through banks and their own agents, and all of those agents are commission sales people. Our sales people are people who are commissioned to put the commission back into the community for community events; and I see that as a very big difference. I can also say to you, and share with you, that had we taken the route that the federal government had taken, and taken it into a sales situation, which is much more manageable and has a far better marketing programme to go into probably than volunteer help has - and that has always been proven so - I think that we could probably sell more tickets. I don't think we are so terribly interested in the volume of it as we are in where the money goes, and I prefer it to go into the community organizations. That was the decision that was made.

MR. MACDONALD: That's the NDP route you're following. That's good.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, just to summarize, I would like to say, now that the hon. member for Vancouver East is back in his seat, that although he gave an eloquent address at the opening of this debate, he didn't say anything in 1974 in the debate but he voted for the bill at that time. I am really surprised at the fervour in which he enters this debate against lotteries when he didn't say a word during that time.

MS. BROWN: I think that what the Provincial Secretary has just told us is the whole problem that we have with lotteries, and that surely has to be their proliferation. You start with one and before you know it you're into three, four and five of the other. I'm not discussing lotteries in terms of the morals involved. I quite agree that trying to legislate morals is a very difficult thing to do. But I do take issue with the concept that there is such a thing as social gambling - as vote 34 refers to this as social gambling. There is no such gambling. It's gambling. When the government gets a cut out of it, it's called social gambling. When the government doesn't get a cut, it's anti-social gambling. But it's really the same thing. Gambling is gambling. You involve yourself in it because you think you can make something out of

[ Page 2127 ]

very little. You can put $5 down and get $100,000, as the case may be.

I am against lotteries for economic reasons, because there are statistics that show over and over again that it is the people who can least afford it who buy the lottery tickets. It is! It is a tax on the poor. There is incredible evidence everywhere, Mr. Chairman, to illustrate this. And the worse the economic times are, the more there is gambling and the more people you find buying lottery tickets. As your unemployment rate goes up the number of lottery tickets sold go up too, because more and more people are hoping to be able to make it by winning something, by putting out $5 and being able to win something, or putting out $10 and being able to win something. That is the only opposition I have to lotteries. If lotteries were something that wealthy people did in their spare time, it wouldn't bother me if they are immoral, or moral as the case may be. But that's not what happens. It's poor people who can't afford it who buy these tickets.

What do we find? Now medical research in this province is a very serious business and it should be the responsibility of the federal as well as the provincial government. Medical research is now going to be supported by the poor in the same way as culture. is supported by the poor and sports in- the province is supported by the poor. Because those are the people who are buying your $3 million worth, and $4 million worth of lottery tickets. It's not the millionaires going out there and buying millions of dollars worth of lottery tickets; it's the poor people who are buying them. They're the ones who are going to be supporting medical research.

I believe that heart research and cancer research and cystic fibrosis research are all crucial things and they're our responsibility - no question about it. The government should be funding this kind of research. It really is unfair that on top of something as retrogressive as a sales tax, which again is a burden on the poor more so than on any other economic group, we are adding this additional burden. Now we're saying to them: "You have to also pay for medical research." And that is my contention with it. It has nothing to do with morals. It is that once again we are asking the people who have the least to put out the most, to pay for these kinds of services that all of us need and enjoy.

MR. C.S. ROGERS (Vancouver-South): I wouldn't expect that all the people that buy lottery tickets in the province are now going to consider themselves to be poor after the last speaker. But I will agree with the last speaker that a great many people who buy lottery tickets are the people who can least afford them. I believe they are a regressive tax. They may be voluntary, and they're a cruel hoax, to say the least. If it's to be called an investment at all, it's to be called the most speculative investment ever and definitely one of the. . . . Well, it's what you might call an "outside chance." I would recommend it as a very poor investment for anyone. But it is human nature to buy lottery tickets, and if we don't have a lottery in this province, then we'll have the same thing as we've had in the past where the lottery money finds its way to Ireland - where again another cruel tax is actually exerted on the people because the Irish Sweep tax which many people....

Excuse me, did the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Chabot) want to have a chat on this?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. ROGERS: Within Ireland where the Irish Sweep is believed run by the Hospital's Trust, in fact it's run as private enterprise, and a certain percentage of the proceeds from the Irish Sweep Hospital Trust go towards hospitals, and a great amount of it goes to, I believe, the Guiness family, which has an interest in it; I could be corrected on that. So I think it's just as well we do have a lottery here because there are people who are going to buy lottery tickets. I certainly don't recommend them to anybody. I think they're an extremely poor investment. But it's best that we have it here under our own government control than have it run somewhere else. If we don't have them the money will go to Alberta or - one worse - probably they'll go to the lottery to pay off the Olympic deficit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MRS. P, J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Mr. Chairman, I was unfortunately called out of the House just as this debate became very interesting to me. It was the member for Vancouver East's comments that I found very interesting and very stimulating. _

That member used to stand in the House when he sat in that position before some years ago and with his eloquence and his fingers tucked into his lapel, he talked about the right of people to take - I think he called it - "a bit of a flutter, " whether it was at the track or whether it was in a lottery. I notice the hon. research assistant chuckling gladly, because he remembers that that member has been one of the strongest advocates in the past at one time of off-track betting, at one time of lotteries, and various other areas. And I would remind him that when he was the Attorney-General it was the NDP that brought the concept of a western lottery into being. I myself voted for it, although I must admit I had some reservations at the time. But I voted for it for the very reason I stand to defend it today. I can only say, my, what a difference a couple of years makes!

I think the reason, Mr. Chairman, for that member slipping his thumbs from his lapels to his pockets is that he is having just a little bit of problem reconciling his and his party's position when they

[ Page 2128 ]

brought in lotteries - which are in fact the principle of windfall profits for no effort, as has been stated in this debate - and the fact that this party and this member opposed the removal of succession duties which are the result of hard work and effort and accumulation, after taxes, of people's efforts. I would be prepared to discuss that quite further under that bill. I don't want to transgress.

Let me remind you, Mr. Chairman, that that, I believe, is the root of his position today. How can he possibly stand up here and speak as eloquently as he did - and with much of the concern that we feel -and yet have been part of the proliferation of lotteries, after he talked of all the bad things about lotteries in this province.

I missed the hon. Provincial Secretary's comments, but I believe she expressed some concern - and I believe we all have some concern - about lotteries. I personally feel that people should have a right of choice. It's not fully a matter, as the second member for Burrard (Mr, Levi) said, of legislating morality. It's really, are we to be sole judge and jury of what, in fact, are part of various people's lifestyles? I think that there are people who may get more pleasure from going to the beer parlour or buying a lottery ticket than another person might get from putting all their money into a home.

Surely we are free enough - and should be free enough in our society today - to allow the right of those options. Who are we to say that nobody should ever buy a lottery ticket? We are not in a position to be saying that. Our responsibility is to see that if there is a lottery, and the right and opportunity to buy a lottery ticket....

Interjections.

MRS. JORDAN: Would the hon. the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Chabot) like to have the floor?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. member for North Okanagan has the floor.

MRS. JORDAN: I think that unsaid comments about his windfall profits last night have probably gone to his head today.

Interjections.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Order, order!

MR. WALLACE: You're getting it from all directions!

MRS. JORDAN: As I was saying....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MRS. JORDAN: ... it is our responsibility as legislators to see that if there are lotteries, such as we have....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. member for North Okanagan has the floor. Proceed, please.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Sorry.

MRS. JORDAN: Our responsibility lies in the area of seeing that these lotteries are managed with integrity and responsibility - in terms of the balance of money that's spent on promotions, the balance that goes to profits and the balance that goes to prizes - and of seeing that, in fact, there is not a proliferation of lotteries. I think that is a major concern. Let there be one or two; let them be under proper control; let the prizes be equitable and fair; and let the opportunity to win be equitable and fair.

Personally, I have no objection to the profits going to medical research at this time. This is a vacuum that, unfortunately, for whatever reasons, was created by the federal government, on top of the fact that there probably hasn't been enough money spent on medical research in all of Canada through the years. 'Mere probably never will be. So I would think that the right of the Legislature and the minister responsible, to change from time to time the emphasis of where these profits should go, is a good thing. We should guard that, Perhaps medical research is the place it should go now, as that vacuum came very suddenly. When we can fill in that vacuum and the proper allotment goes to research from the proper sources, then let's use the profits to build up another area where emphasis is needed.

The last thing I'd like to say is that I feel that if there's no paid sales force, the opportunity for other people or for all groups to bid on the sales rights from time to time should be kept open. It shouldn't be any group's misconception or prerogative to become captive in terms of their right to sell the tickets. I would hope that this option would be kept open for everyone. I again thank the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) . He's a marvellous waffler, and I'll be very interested to hear his comments in the debate under the Succession Duty Act.

MR. MACDONALD: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, while my estimates are not up (laughter) , I suppose I should defend myself on one statement which was quite wrong, and that is that I have supported off-track betting.

MRS. JORDAN: I'm sorry on that.

[ Page 2129 ]

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, would you take that one back? The other: we were containing the problem. I know there is a problem in the bill that we brought in.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I would withdraw if I made a mistake there, but I am glad that the Attorney-General does ...

MR. MACDONALD: Next year I might.

MRS. JORDAN: . .. indicate that he did promote lotteries in British Columbia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. member for North Okanagan withdraws.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, it's not the lotteries; and the fact of whether we should or should not have the morality or immorality of lotteries has been discussed quite thoroughly. What interests me is where the money's going - to medical research.

The Provincial Secretary, Mr. Chairman, said that one of the reasons that she'd like to direct the money into medical research is because the federal government, in some areas, has been backing out of paying what they have in the past.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: And there are applications for more medical research.

You know, the one thing that I can't understand -and it's bothered me for years - is how one of the most affluent countries in the world has had to rely on charity for medical research, and now on gambling. It just seems wrong that a country as rich as ours - one of the richest in the world - cannot take medical research as a high priority, and put the necessary amount of funds into it as one of our No. I priorities.

All of the good work that's done by community organizations in raising money for medical research or to help in the medical services area - I commend them for the work they've done. They've picked up a lot of slack when there were areas that had to be filled.

There's no doubt about that, but it is basically wrong that people come to your door in the middle of the night asking for money to help with cancer research or to help with TB research. There should be no need for anybody to knock on your door for those reasons. The same people should be coming to pick up areas of slack that should be looked after, but it should not be for medical research into cancer or medical research into cystic fibrosis or any one of those areas. As one of our top priorities in this country, as a society, we should be looking out for those things already and there should be no need to put any of this money into medical research. This is not a partisan debate that we're having in this House. That's obvious from the different positions from the opposite side of the floor.

But how much money do we need for medical research to do a proper job in British Columbia? Whatever that amount is, if we can possibly afford it, the money should go there right now and everybody in this House should vote for it to go there. But to rely on charity, and now the proceeds of gambling, for medical research, to me, is something that all of us - not only in B.C. but all throughout Canada -should hang our heads in shame about, that we have to beg and use gambling money for medical research. It is wrong in my opinion. This party maybe does not think it's wrong; I don't know, I haven't even discussed it with them. I just feel personally as a member of this House that it is wrong. I just feel really strongly on this point.

When I was a young fellow a couple of years ago, when I first became aware of the problem of people coming to the door, I couldn't understand it then. Why in this rich country that I was growing up in did they have to come to my house and my neighbour's house and ask for $1 for cancer research? We should all give our $1 or our $5 gladly because it has to be done, and then hang our heads in shame at the method that we have to go that way to get medical research money in one of the richest countries in the world. It's a shame on all of us.

Interjections.

HON. P.L. McGEER (Minister of Education): It's a filibuster!

Mr. Chairman, I felt compelled to say just a word or two about this particular proposal of the Provincial Secretary. It seems to me that if there's an income from lotteries, there isn't a better use that those funds could be put to. I think we would find the arguments of the opposition much more attractive were they to suggest to us some alternative course of action. It's worth noting that the province of Ontario has recently made a commitment of $15 million from their lotteries to go for this purpose.

I think there's little doubt that what the member for Prince Rupert says is true: there is a crisis in medical research in Canada. I'm informed that the federal government has received more mail on this single topic than any other single issue before them. Despite that fact, the medical research enterprise in Canada has been undergoing slow starvation for the last two or three years.

I would also feel, Mr. Chairman, much happier if the opposition could become a little more consistent in their approach. It wasn't this government that introduced the lottery.

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MR. LEA: Nobody's talking about that!

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I'd like to recall some of the remarks, because the people who voted against the lottery are now on this side of the House.

MR. LEA: No, they're not. They're on every side of the House.

HON. MR. McGEER: All that's happening is that they're putting the proceeds of the lottery to more useful purposes.

I want to remind some of the members of the opposition what their government said at the time this bill was introduced. I think it's worth recalling the remarks for some of the people who are now sitting in the House who were not present at that particular time.

There was one out of the 38 members of the NDP who did vote against this bill - the minister, Peter Rolston. But here's what the former Provincial Secretary had to say about his voting against the bill.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: I want to recall this, Mr. Chairman. I think it bears repeating, perhaps several times. "The support of a lottery is party policy for the NDP." Not only is it party policy for the NDP.... To put it in the words of the Provincial Secretary of that time, he said: "Our comrades...

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. McGEER: ". . across the prairie provinces in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will be joining us in providing the service."

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

AN HON. MEMBER: Read the whole thing. You left out Alberta.

HON. MR. McGEER: No, Mr. Chairman, I did not leave out Alberta. The former Provincial Secretary left out Alberta because they weren't amongst the comrades.

I'll read it again. "Our comrades" - our comrades! - "across the prairie provinces in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will be joining us in providing this service." Mr. Chairman, it's a very, very worthy cause and I just wish those comrades in opposition could get together.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I expected something more from a minister of the Crown than to stand in the House today and Red-bait the way he has.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. COCKE: You know and I know, Mr. Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) , exactly what the then Provincial Secretary (Mr. Hall) meant. Anyway, I wanted to stand up today, Mr. Chairman, and take exception to some of the things that some of my colleagues have said.

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. COCKE: You know, we thought out this bill when we brought in the lotteries bill. To begin with, we were inundated in this province with Irish lotteries that have been here for many, many years, notwithstanding the fact that they were against the law, notwithstanding the fact that they were all going out of the country, notwithstanding the fact that the member for Vancouver-Burrard's people - the poor - were then being dunned $10 for an Irish lottery ticket, not the $1 that the Western Express calls for.

Mr. Chairman, then we found, subsequent to that, that the province of Quebec introduced a lottery which made B.C. part of its market. The member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) suggests, you know, all sorts of things can occur in the operation of a lottery - corruption and all those kinds of things. Whether they have or whether they haven't in Loto Canada nobody can know for sure, but there's less likelihood, Mr. Chairman, in the hands of a government than there is in the hands of private enterprise. That's exactly what we were concerned about. That's why we brought in our own lottery. That's why we co-operated with the western provinces in our own lottery - so that we could get some access to funds that were badly needed at that time for recreation.

I share with the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) some of his thoughts. You know, we should be able to guarantee medical research. I happen to have been Minister of Health for a short time, and I never ever saw enough medical research being done, with or without the federal government's help. We have a tendency, you know, to kick the can off the federal government. I did at the time they withdrew their support of medical research, and I will continue to do so. Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to take money for medical research wherever I can find it - I certainly am.

MRS. DAILLY: I agree.

MR. COCKE: If it is the poor, if it is the rich -whoever pays for it - they're going to be paying for

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something else if they're not paying for that. I think it's a better use of their money than having it thrown away.

Now let me get back to precisely what I said in the first place. One of the main reasons that we felt it important for us to get into this particular area was because other jurisdictions were doing it. We didn't believe that this was an area for private enterprise. We still don't. We never will. My good comrade from Vancouver-Point Grey I'm sure would share that feeling, and he is a comrade.

MRS. DAILLY: Comrade McGeer.

MR. COCKE: Comrade McGeer.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's a pinko!

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, one thing that the Minister of Education said when he stood in his place was that they're getting more mail in Ottawa on this particular subject than any other - his exaggeration, as usual. I bet they're getting a lot more mail on Margaret, and they're certainly getting a lot more mail on baby seals.

MR. R.E. SKELLY (Alberni): And Mick Jagger.

MS. K.E. SANFORD (Comox): Unemployment.

MR. COCKE: Look, the Minister of Education and I both share a commitment to medical research. I hope that someday we can get our priorities in the right place; that someday we can sit down and decide that, look, you know, here are areas. Even then, Mr. Member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) , there will always be somebody saying, "here's another area, " and he won't have all the agreement he would need. You know, I really don't want that decision left to this House, or any other House. There are people who are working in attics right now who will possibly come up with another Salk vaccine, or a penicillin, or whatever, so, Mr. Chairman, I'll take that money from wherever it comes and I'll support this situation. Let's keep it honest; let's keep it straight; let's keep it in the hands of government.

MR. WALLACE: Why don't we have a free vote?

MR. D'ARCY: I think that neither the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) nor the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) are going to get their estimates through this afternoon. 1 think the Provincial Secretary's done very well here. I'm reminded of the story from Greek mythology where you throw a rock into the middle of a group of soldiers, they each think the other one has done it and they eventually kill each other off and then you take over. She's sitting there very happily after making a little remark about medical research and the rest of us have been batting it around here for about two hours.

I think, though, that we've heard an excellent example here of what exactly can happen with the proliferation of lotteries. No sooner had you made the announcement, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, than the member for Dewdney got up and expressed reservations about lotteries going with the office of being the member for Dewdney.

No sooner had he done that than the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) , who is a medical doctor and very concerned about medical research, and the former Minister of Health (Mr. Cocke) and the member for Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) got up and defended it on the grounds that it was going to support medical research. That is entirely what we don't want to come out of lotteries. We don't want to enlist very legitimate causes in society in the cause of supporting and promoting and expanding lotteries. That is what is wrong with using the money for medical research, in my opinion. It isn't that we don't need it for medical research; it is that you enlist the group as a lobby. That is terribly wrong.

Many people in this debate have said: "Well, really, we accept we have to have lotteries, because people are going to gamble anyway, and let's keep some of the money in B.C. Let's not have it going to Ireland or Ontario or even to Alberta." Some members have said that. But what does the minister tell us in her estimates? She tells us that her administrative budget is going up by something like $250,000, but then we find out that $210,000 of that is for advertising and promotion.

Now maybe the minister is telling us the truth -that she really doesn't want to see lotteries expand and they're only using this extra $200,000 for advertising in order to compete with other lotteries who would be taking money out of the province. Perhaps that's what she has intended. The fact is, though, that there is going to be some $200,000 more - a total of $475,000 - expended in British Columbia in fiscal 1977-78 by the government to promote gambling. That's what we're into.

I have some other questions for the minister. Because the lottery is self-supporting - indeed, it is a profit-making venture for government - we see the total amount of the vote is only for $10. However, we have seen some evidence produced by the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) that the branch has been especially promoting the Western Express lottery. The minister herself has said that this isn't necessarily new money. What I would like to be concerned with is whether there is a reduction in the amount of revenue coming in through the regular $5 Western. In other words, is the total revenue from lotteries somewhat finite and are we seeing, in fact, a

[ Page 2132 ]

transfer of revenue and funds from cultural, recreational and leisure activities to medical research? That is a question which I would like the minister to answer.

I would also like to take issue with the minister's statement that the funds for recreational and leisure activities are sufficient. I've been concerned - and I expressed this concern to your predecessor, Mr. Hall - that the money was too centralized. The profits from the lottery in fact were going into senior levels of recreational and cultural activities, and the people who really sold the tickets, who very often were teenagers in various communities selling tickets to support a swim club, a basketball club, a hockey club or pipe band or whatever it was, kept a little bit of their selling and they did get a chance on sharing in some of the winnings if they sold a winner, but when they went to the provincial government for operating funds they were told: "We're sorry, the government has no money for these kinds of activities." When they wrote the lotteries branch, the lotteries branch would write back and say: "We're sorry - we've expended $100,000 or $1 million, but they've all gone to the Babe Ruth League Council for British Columbia or whatever it is and there is nothing left for the communities where the tickets were actually sold."

So I would like either a redistribution of some of .those funds or some provision to be made in the regular Western lottery for money to be returned to the communities where it's actually raised and to be returned to some of those groups and clubs which hold licences and work very hard to sell tickets. I don't think the system right now is very equitable.

However, I would also like the minister to tell us whether there has been a reduction in sales of the Western, because if there has we are in effect seeing a transfer of revenue to medical research from social and cultural and recreational activities. I think that is not good for this province.

As I said earlier, I'm very, very concerned that the lotteries branch and the Provincial Secretary have in effect enlisted a new lobby. We used to call it jokingly "the medical-industrial complex." They have enlisted that lobby to promote gambling, and I find that reprehensible.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, to respond to the hon. member's recent questions, let me just say that there has been an increase in sales of the Western as well. That is an increase which accrues to the benefit of those people who are worthy organizations, You mentioned that you have a dispute as to whether or not the youngsters who are really using these recreational services and sports and culture and leisure activities really benefit. They benefited with all organizations of all age groups to the amount of $1,142, 335 in 1976. That will be increased now because of the increased volume of ticket sales.

In terms of promotion and advertising, I administer the fund. The marketing of the programme is done through our lotteries branch and they are doing the same amount of promotion and advertising on a percentage basis as they've done before. It is just the same portion of the return that is being spent on advertising and promotion.

I want to say, though, something to the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) , who read a letter on the floor of the House earlier which indicated that there was a policy within the lotteries branch to make sure that the Provincial lottery, the Western, is sold along with the Express. I have advice and I have now a copy of the letter that indeed that is the story that is coming out of that office. I would like to just assure the member that that policy that is being enunciated through that office will be changed forthwith. I do not agree with that and it was not a policy of government.

Could I just say in just summing up the various concerns of the people who have expressed their concern about the medical research moneys that it would mean, then, that you either make a decision that more money goes into the cultural, recreational and sports activities.... You would increase the amount, because as the return increases you would increase the amount to those endeavours. It is not to say that they are not worthy, Mr. Chairman, nor have they not always been worthy. It just means that they are going to have an increased amount of money. Quite frankly, I question that if more money was put into that, if their plant and their voluntary activities can meet the amount of money at that rate.... I frankly don't think it can. I think that at this point in time we are better to put that extra money into yet another worthy cause. I just would like to say again that it isn't really a question of how much money should go into medical research as how much money should go into sports, recreational and cultural activities.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I find the remarks of the minister rather strange because she's making the assumption that funds have to be earmarked. Since when did government earmark revenue from the forest industry for the forest industry? Since when did revenue from sales taxes on automobiles go into the Ministry of Highways? Since when did revenue from alcohol sales go into rehabilitating people with chronic alcohol problems? It has never happened in B.C. Since when did revenue from fishing licenses go to the fish and game branch?

She's suggesting that the amount of money which the province of B.C. is prepared to put into medical research, or operas, or sewage, or anything else, is somehow dependent on what money comes in from a particular lottery. That has never happened before in

[ Page 2133 ]

this province, to my knowledge. I think it's wonderful that the government is making some money available for medical research. I think it's fantastic, but why on earth does it have to be tied to a bloody lottery? That's my question.

Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I'll take anything back that was out of order.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I'll be pleased to answer that question. "Since when?" can be answered: when the NDP government brought in a Lotteries Act, May, 1974. That is the Act which I have to administer and that is the Act that I am explaining today and that is when the decision had to be made as to where the revenue from the lotteries would be made.... The decision was made in that year and it was made the year after and right up until this moment of 1977 that it would go into sports, recreation, cultural activities in the province of British Columbia.

MR. D'ARCY: You're the government now.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The decision is that because that money has exceeded the amount of money. . . . The revenue that comes from the lottery has exceeded the amount of money that I assume that even the NDP thought possible.

Let me just say that in the four months of April May, June and July it is anticipated that around $2 million in those four months will accrue to that Western Express to be distributed to a worthy cause. Now if you're saying in your assumption that you would like more, and that extra $2 million to go into more in addition to the moneys that are already going into sports, cultural and events, then I will take your advice. But they are getting more than they have had in the past and, in addition, medical research will get another $2 million. I hope that's quite clear.

MR. D'ARCY: I perhaps didn't make myself completely clear on the money going for recreational sports and leisure to the Minister. I appreciate that there's a large amount of money. Her answer is the same kind of answer that the lotteries branch sends out to people who write in, and that was my objection. The fact is that while the funds are being disbursed they are a large amount and they are increasing the minister is quite right. They're centralized; they're being centralized. They're going to the senior levels; they are not filtering back to the people who actually sell the tickets. It's the old case that not only must there be benefits-, there must appear to be benefits to the people in the communities. They're not seeing any benefits from the lottery.

Perhaps the minister could construe this as political advice. I know politicians don't like to get political advice from other politicians, but I do believe that there would be a lot of good will toward the government if recreation groups and cultural groups right in communities like Trail and Castlegar could actually see some operating funds available to them. Even if it was not a large amount of money, if they could actually see some of these disbursements. To write to them and say: "oh, there's $1.84235 billion or million sent out, " doesn't mean anything if they never saw any of it. If none of it was never visible to them, it's just a figure on a piece of paper, on a nice polite letter from the minister or the lotteries branch. That's what I'm talking about.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The lottery branch does not disburse the money. The money is disbursed through the B.C. Cultural Fund - $2,275, 000. It's well known by those associations, organizations and the individuals who have benefited from that fund where that money comes from.

Also, the B.C. Physical Fitness and Amateur Sports Fund disbursed $1.3 million last year. Again, they are aware, because some of those very organizations are some of the organizations that sell the tickets as well.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask the minister a question. In view of one of the elements in the debate today which, I think, has some validity - namely the escalating nature of the top prizes - how often does the lotteries branch review the actual structure of the lottery in relation to the number of prizes and the unit value of each prize? It would seem to me that the criticism has been made that there is a tendency to escalate the programme per se and to try to provide very large prizes rather than perhaps having smaller prizes for a larger number of winners. I wonder if the minister could tell us what the ongoing system of review is with regard to the structure of the prizes.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, first of all there is a board of the western provinces which meets every second month. There is an ongoing evaluation of where we're at at the present time. I have met personally with the ministers of the four western provinces three times in the last year. Again, we addressed ourselves to policy and that kind of thing, which is a recommendation of the board members.

I think that it would be unsatisfactory, having made the decision that we made in the fall of last year as to the prizes, to change them too often. I think that is confusing in the public mind. However, that is on recommendation of the board and I don't think we should change the rules of the game too often, if you like. They do meet very often. They meet six times a year as a board, and then we as

[ Page 2134 ]

ministers met three times last year and will probably meet as frequently this year.

MR. MACDONALD: I feel I've got to say a word in my own defence.

We passed the lotteries legislation under the NDP government. I supported it, because I thought we should try and contain this problem. As the Provincial Secretary said, Loto Canada was being sold and the federal was on the scene. The Western guys had gone into it in a big way; the Irish money was there and it was going back to Ireland. There was a danger, because the tickets were being sold commercially, of crime creeping into the enterprise, as it has in Quebec. There is certainly political patronage on a scale you wouldn't believe in that province. So we contained it in a lottery Act.

But the reason I don't like what is going on right now is that instead of containing the problem we are exploding it in this province. That's my personal feeling. Look at the advertising, as the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) says. In an era of restraint, Mr. Chairman, we're increasing the advertising - the pushing of the tickets - from $265,000 a year to $475,000. 1 don't like that, the explosion of the problem.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of very brief remarks to make. I must apologize to the House for asking them to indulge me, as I digress a bit. I sat in my seat listening to what I feel was one of the most profound debates during this session. It just happened by accident. I'm sure that no one expected that for the last two hours we would be discussing questions of morality in government and government's role in introducing legislation controlling or not controlling the levels of morality within society.

I must give credit to the member for Dewdney

(Mr. Mussallem) , who was the first one to stand and make some pretty profound remarks in this regard against his government, in fact. I think that's a good commentary on the democratic system that he was able to express what I feel were quite controversial comments about the morality of the programme that we've been discussing for the last two hours - the lottery programme which was introduced by the former administration - and which also raised some interesting comments from members who were in the former government.

Although I didn't come prepared to debate the matter, I still feel I should contribute a few remarks because sometimes just by accident you get into the real crux Of a situation and some of the real problems that we haven't found the ways and means of dealing with. There were many divergent views, Mr.

Chairman, this afternoon, on what was moral and what was immoral and whether or not you could legislate morals. I think history will show that legislators have attempted to do both. They have attempted to be quiet in some instances, and in other instances they have attempted to operate with very rigid control over the behaviour of people.

Just recently, for instance, the mayor of the city of Vancouver has threatened to take the business licences from operators who are selling pornographic magazines. Probably people consider it to be a good idea, but it's nonetheless taken away their right of choice, which I think was the argument that the hon. member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) was pointing out. The question of morality is really a very difficult one for elected representatives to try and follow through on, because there doesn't seem to be any agreement as to just what is moral.

Mr. Chairman, I realize I'm only speaking for the record because everybody else is out to lunch this afternoon. They're probably not that concerned because they know that it's a pretty difficult thing to nail down in any even.

But I think those of us who will be reviewing the remarks that were made by the various members will be pretty impressed as to the vastness of the problem, and the evasiveness of the problem, and the difficulty that we have in really trying to assume our jobs with responsibility. On the one hand we are expected to provide resources or funds to carry on programmes that are necessary such as medical research, cultural programmes, recreation and so forth. We know that by nature, as some people have suggested, some people tend to carry on activities that we don't consider are in their best interests emotionally, physically or otherwise. At the same time we may advise them against some of their activities, we feel that if they are going to have these activities we try and rationalize that we may as well put a tax on it. So we're looking for ways and means of generating funds. This is a dilemma that was not created in British Columbia or in any recent time. It's historical.

One of your members has a resolution on the order paper to fight the proliferation of war weapons. I think it's the Trident missile. Now there is an attempt....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we have been sliding around a bit. Vote 34, please.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, this is very much to he point. It's talking about legislating morals. We're suggesting that we can train man to not fight, train him to not gamble - influence his behaviour. I'm saying that this is a problem that we really don't understand. We're trying to come to grips with it. That's why I think this is an important debate. I know it was taken lightly at first, but when you look n retrospect it was probably one of the most important debates we've had.

[ Page 2135 ]

As I said, it happened by accident. No one came, I think, prepared to debate this matter, but now that the issue has been raised. . . and I give full credit to the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) , who stood in the House and said that he was against lotteries. He didn't feel that those important human services should be relegated to the role of having to be supported by alms-giving, by begging on the street or whatever. He felt that there should be some dignity involved. But at the same time as a legislator he may not have a solution either.

It is not a simple matter, but it's one that I think we should have learned something about this afternoon on all sides of the House. There has been no consensus; no one seems to be sure. We have had a little mud-slinging. The member for Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) tried to get the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) by saying, "Well, he said. . ." and so forth, and back and forth. But at the same time we are all sort of confused as to how to do it.

HON. MR. CHABOT: What's your position?

MR. BARNES: I'll tell you what my position is. I don't feel that gambling is a good thing. I'm not in favour of it, but I would like for us to socialize a little more and to give people some idea about leadership.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: Listen, Mr. Member! You asked me - now listen!

HON. MR. CHABOT: You voted for it.

MR. BARNES: Forget about what I did. Let's deal with today. I'll tell you one thing - you check the records and see what I said. Check the records in Hansard, and see what I said. You want to go do that now? I'll ask for an adjournment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, he's trying to nail me. I know exactly what I did. I was unsure at the time and I did nothing, because it was a complicated situation. I did nothing, but I'm doing something now. Better late than never, Mr. Member. I'm making a stab at it now, and I hope that the whole House, Mr. Chairman, will be a little wiser and a little more sensitive and concerned - especially the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) .

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: I'm glad you interjected because really you are the one that can solve this problem instead of coming in with your rigid programmes saying that everybody's going to follow the core curriculum right down the line. Now that's legislating morals. He's suggesting he knows exactly what people should do. There was no debate on what the core curriculum should consist of. It was laid down.

This is one of the problems, I think, when you consider the effects of our decisions on people's lives. As many people have said, they are afraid to look at the paper for fear they may not have won. They can't wait to find out what the returns are going to be. There is a lot of emotional impact on people around gambling, a lot of apprehension. Many people are speculating, putting their life savings and everything else, hawking the house and committing themselves to all kinds of unprofitable lifestyles.

So I think there are some problems, and we have to be prepared to accept the consequences. I think alcoholism is related to a main source of revenue, We make money off it, but at the same time we create problems. And so it goes. What's new?

Well, let's not get high and mighty and say that we have the solutions. I realize that no one does, but let's not kid ourselves either. We have people standing up like the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) and even myself, trying to say: "Look, this is a problem; let's be honest - maybe we should go back to the people and begin to tell them some of these programmes."

This is all I have to say on the matter. Thanks, Madam Provincial Secretary. Fortunately I have asked you no questions so you won't have to rise to answer any.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, I was quite interested in the debate today, particularly as 1, like some of the other members, voted against the lottery when it was introduced by the last government. The concerns I had then are still with me, such as the growing importance of increased advertising to increase participation in the lottery. But I do accept the arguments that were advanced then because it has been proven that we have diminished the outflow of capital to other lotteries and that at least that money that is spent is remaining within our boundaries.

I guess it's wrong to deny our people the purchase of small glimmer of hope, no matter how bad the odds are - and the odds are very bad. It's a poor purchase. They must be allowed the opportunity to purchase a dream but they should be advised of what a poor investment a lottery ticket is. Recently articles have shown how little the chances of someone winning are when they purchase a ticket. But one thing the lotteries have done - and I spoke against them - is held that money here. That money does remain here for the benefit of some very worthwhile projects.

I think the unfair part of it is that those who can afford it the least are the ones who may be buying

[ Page 2136 ]

the lottery tickets, but we do have in our country the right of choice and the right of purchase, no matter how much it may be detrimental to you. We have it with alcohol; we have it with cigarettes. On every cigarette package a warning is now printed that the smoking of cigarettes may be injurious to your health. So I suggest to the Provincial Secretary that on every lottery ticket she put a slogan saying: "The purchase of this ticket may be injurious to your pocketbook."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 34 pass?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye!

MR. WALLACE: Division!

MR. KING: Who called a division?

MR. WALLACE: I did!

MR. MACDONALD: What!

MR. KING: There was no opposing vote!

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

Vote 34 approved on the following division:

YEAS - 40

NAYS - I

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

On vote 35; unemployment insurance and workers' compensation, $13,200, 000.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, we heard a great deal of criticism regarding the number of public servants on the provincial payroll during the New Democratic Party administration. I think this vote, vote 35, which reveals the contributions paid both to the Unemployment Insurance Commission on behalf of provincial employees, and similarly to the Workers' Compensation Board, is a pretty good indicator of the numbers and the continuity of the numbers of staff involved by the provincial government.

I note that there's a considerable increase in the budgetary figure for 1977-1978 over 1976-1977. It is an increase in excess of $2 million - or just slightly less than $2 million. I wonder if the Provincial Secretary can explain this increase. Does it mean that there have been a great number more employees hired? Or does it mean that the rates for unemployment insurance contributions and workers' compensation contributions have appreciated to that degree? I'd be very sceptical of an increase in those funds to that amount. I wonder if the Provincial Secretary would comment.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, this increased amount allows for a 20 per cent proposed increase that has been indicated....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Can I ask the committee to come to order? We cannot hear the Provincial Secretary's reply.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The increase in this vote allows for what I understand is a proposal to increase the unemployment insurance rates by about 20 per cent. It also reflects the fact that even though the dollars are more, it is probably attributable to an increase in salaries which, as the member for Revelstoke-Slocan knows, is really the response to the salary increases which came under the contractual agreements in that year, or will come in this coming year. Cost-of-living adjustments will make more money increases. The total salary vote will not particularly mean more people, but will mean more dollars. It's a percentage of that amount; it's on a percentage basis.

MR. KING: Just to pursue this matter, Mr. Chairman, the budgetary figure for unemployment insurance contributions is $9.5 million. I suggest that a $2 million increase in the total budget does not reflect 20 per cent of $9.5 million. I also suggest that incremental increases in the salaries does not affect the amount of UIC contributions. There is a maximum level for contributions. If my memory serves me correctly, it is in the area of $9,000 a year which brings a maximum contribution of UIC benefits. I don't think any incremental increase in salary would affect that maximum contribution.

[ Page 2137 ]

There's no concomitant increase in unemployment insurance contributions along with rate increases. It's only when it exceeds a certain level that any difference is made whatsoever. That's a fairly low level before the maximum is payable. I submit that that has been the case for by far the majority of public servants over the past number of years.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the committee please come to order? We're having difficulty hearing at this end of the room.

MS. SANFORD: I would like to pose a question to the Provincial Secretary under this vote with respect to the Workers' Compensation Act, There are some people who are on the work-release programme under the Attorney-General's department who are working in various jobs related to forestry such as tree-planting, burning and clearing. Now it is my understanding that these people who are on the work-release programme, who are doing a regular eight-hour-a-day job and who are facing some danger as all people who work in forestry do, are not covered by the workers' compensation provisions of this particular vote. I have had representations from the John Howard Society on behalf of these inmates who are on the work-release programme. I've taken it up with the Attorney- General, and I'm wondering if the Attorney-General has now resolved this and has in fact approached the Provincial Secretary to ensure that the inmates who are on the work-release programme are in fact covered by workers' compensation

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, if I may just go back to the Revelstoke-Slocan member's question, I am advised that that indeed does reflect the many people in the clerk and clerk-typist category. There is a significant amount in there - at least not a significant amount but some amount - and that is near 20 per cent. If you figure it out, it exceeds, I think, 18 per cent. I think my advice was fairly accurate. I'd like to think it always is. I've got a pretty good staff.

Also, Mr. Chairman, in response to the member for Comox, could that question please be addressed to the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) under his vote?

We have no knowledge .... We pay out the amount but we have no knowledge of the policy. I rather think that this could be handled more properly either under the Minister of Labour, who is responsible for workers' compensation, or under the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) , perhaps. At any rate, I can take the advice, but I have not the answer. I have not got that information. The best I can give you is to find out the answer for you and give it to you in a personal way.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, there's another matter that I wanted to raise. I'm not quite certain as to whether or not this is the appropriate time to raise it. It's a bit of a unique situation. Since the Provincial Secretary is responsible under this vote for workers' compensation contributions and she is also the minister in charge of the Government Employees Labour Relations Bureau (GERB) ....

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, I'm not; that's under Finance.

MR. KING: That's finance. Okay, but the Public Service Commission and the agency that bargains through them on behalf of the Liquor Control Board employees ... ?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, all bargaining is done under the Finance minister.

MR. KING: It is; I see. Well, there is a policy that I'd just like to outline to the minister and maybe she could comment on it. It does have some relevance to the workers' compensation contributions that public service employees make.

I find that if permanent temporary employees, or auxiliary employees, as they are called, are injured on the job - or off the job, for that matter - and are eligible for Workers' Compensation benefits, they lose their place on the seniority roster within the Liquor Control Branch and, I presume, within other branches too. Now I'm aware there's a collective agreement governing the relationship. But for seniority they are credited, on a day-to-day basis, for days worked. This means that an employee injured and off for six months or a year would be bypassed by fellow auxiliary employees on the seniority roster, and might end up, rather than working every day through seniority entitlement, as not being eligible for work except on a very, very interim basis -perhaps once a month. It seems to me a most unjust system and one that, in effect, is discriminatory.

Now I'm really not attempting to assess blame in the matter because I'm aware that this is a contractual arrangement between a trade union and a certain agency of government. But I would certainly appreciate it if the Provincial Secretary, through the Public Service Commission, which is under her jurisdiction, would have a' look at this situation. I think it may well be remedied through collective bargaining in the coming round. In the meantime, we're left with a situation which, in my view, is most unjust and most discriminatory, as between auxiliary employees and those who are full time. It's an anomaly, and I wanted to make the House aware of it.

Vote 35 approved.

[ Page 2138 ]

On vote 36: Provincial Museum and resource museums, $3,659, 102.

On vote 36.

MR. WALLACE: I just want to ask whether there's been any consideration given, in the process of reorganizing the government ministries, to bringing the Provincial Museum under Recreation and

Conservation. It seems to me that the mixture of museums with Travel Industry is not the most attractive because Travel Industry, basically, concentrates on promotion. It's kind of a sales job, whereas the museums of any province or country should place more emphasis on historical, archaeological and other cultural values. I'm not saying there has been any distortion of the true goals that the museum service should be seeking in British

Columbia. But this minister already has a very large portfolio, as we've demonstrated by our debate on her estimates for the last several sittings.

I mentioned, during the debate on the estimates of the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Bawlf) , that he seemed to be given by this government the whole area of culture as part of his responsibility. I just wonder if this minister would care to comment on whether the government might consider taking the responsibility for museums out of the Provincial Secretary's portfolio and allocating it, let's say, to the Minister of Recreation and Conservation.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The point is well taken, and when the reorganization of the ministries was undertaken we did consider that. In fact, if you thought in this last two days that the ministry of Provincial Secretary was rather large, it was much larger before we divided many of the departments. They have gone into the Ministry of Recreation, bringing recreation under all one umbrella for the first time.

The reason behind keeping this particular legislative precinct has reference to the idea of security. We undertake within our Provincial Secretary's ministry the organization of guides and so on. You'll also note, further in the estimates, that we have Archives and the Legislative Library, as well as museums. For very many reasons, most of which concern security, we think that we should leave it within that ministry. It does not mean, however, that there isn't a lot of co-ordination that goes on.

I also want to say in this regard, even though it does seem to you a little foreign to the tourist industry, that surely the museum itself is one of the greatest tourist attractions of Victoria - perhaps of British Columbia.

We are going to be approving a grant system for community museums which will, for the first time, give an amount of money which will, perhaps, provide incentives for upgrading of important areas of museum operation in the communities, such as care

f collections, documentation, community programming and so on. So that will be strengthened. We will, of course, be working in conjunction with he Ministry of Recreation and Conservation at the same time.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): Mr. Chairman, as the minister quite rightly and proudly points out, the Provincial Museum is one of the finest. I think she could go much further abroad than British Columbia. Certainly the new exhibit is considered by some to be the finest in the world. What I would like to bring to the minister's attention is something that was mentioned to me and only just now do I recall it. That is the deplorable state of the curtains in the northwest comer. Imagine the effect, having visited the fine exhibits upstairs, to go down into the tourist shop to buy a souvenir of British Columbia and to look at the terrible condition of the curtains. They've had too much sunlight and they are in absolute shreds.

MR. WALLACE: I've got some like that at home.

MR. NICOLSON: I would urge you to get to the Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Fraser) and see that something is done to rectify that. With the amount of money that's been spent on that, I think it's rather shocking to have things in such a deplorable condition.

Vote 36 approved.

On vote 37: government publications, $200,000.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, this is the vote dealing with publications from government. We understand that yesterday, March 21, a meeting was held at which the Premier advised executive assistants called in from all ministries that, first of all, things are going badly for the Social Credit Party. A pamphlet is to be prepared to outline - and I want to emphasize this part, Mr. Chairman - the positive aspects of Social Credit programmes and, Mr. Chairman, the negative aspects of NDP programmes. The text for the pamphlet is then to be prepared in the various ministries and edited in the Premier's office. The text is to be ready within a few days so that the pamphlet will be ready in time for Social Credit MLAs to take with them during the Easter recess.

Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions for the Provincial Secretary relative to the remarks I just made. Does the Provincial Secretary believe that it is right that the taxpayers' money should go for such a pamphlet? Does she condone the fact that public

[ Page 2139 ]

servants - I'm not referring here to the executive assistants; I'm referring to the public servants who will have to be used to produce this information -are being asked not just to put out positive publicity on the government under which they are working, but to prepare negative publicity and political statements against the former government? Is this the way public servants should be used? Just yesterday we had a speech and a discussion from the Provincial Secretary about politicization of public servants. I consider this a very blatant misuse of our public servants and a misuse of the taxpayers' money.

I'm asking the Provincial Secretary to answer the questions I've just posed to her.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: This vote is to take care of government publications or distribution of government publications. The story that has been just related by the hon. member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) . . . . As far as I know, I have absolutely no knowledge of it. I assume that she will give documentation on the floor of this House as adequately as did the member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) yesterday when a story which he admitted was without foundation was put before the House.

I really can't answer an iffy kind of a question like that when there is no documentation. I don't even know what she is talking about. As far as the government's attitude in regard to a political kind of advertising, it is not the government policy to have political advertising.

MRS. DAILLY: If the Provincial Secretary is telling the House that she has no knowledge of this, obviously - eventually - this will have to come through her department. I would ask that she contact the Premier about the preparation of this material, and then maybe she'll be prepared to answer us.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Give your sources! What are you talking about?

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, it's not a case of "we think" that it happened; it happened. There was a meeting yesterday in the Premier's office. All the executive assistants were called in and that's what they were told: to make a pamphlet up within a few days to outline the positive aspects of programmes under Social Credit. The pamphlet at the same time would point out all the negative programmes, in the Premier's opinion, I suppose, of the NDP.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: Now that is what has happened.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: It's very easy. The Premier is in the House. He is not in his chair, but he can be contacted quite easily by the Provincial Secretary.

Did the meeting take place? Yes, it did. Were the executive assistants told that? Yes, they were. We're not saying: "Did it take place?" We're asking you whether you agree with it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, that's what we're asking the minister: does she agree with what the Premier told the executive assistants yesterday? It's not a case of "if." It's: does she agree with it?

MR. KING: On this matter, Mr. Chairman, I think the Provincial Secretary is partially right. If she has no knowledge of this, then it's up to the Premier to answer for the misuse of public servants in the preparation of politically partisan documents. That is unquestionably a misuse of the taxpayers' dollars. But since that is apparently taking place, we are concerned that it will be taken a step further and further abuse will take place by paying for that exercise through the grants contained in government publications contained in vote 37. What we're simply asking from the Provincial Secretary is her assurance that if any follow-up order comes from the Premier or any other government official with respect to the preparation of partisan political material, she will unequivocally resist and refuse to utilize the personnel and the dollars provided for vote 37 in that way.

MR. CHAIRMAN: May I remind hon. members that the Provincial Secretary cannot be expected to answer questions for those areas for which she's not responsible.

The Premier has the floor.

MR. KING: Well, Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The Premier has the floor.

MR. KING: Well, you misinterpreted what I said.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, just to correct a statement by the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) , who is wrong again, not only did I not speak to the executive assistants of government yesterday in my office, I've never attended a meeting of all of the executive assistants or any large portion of the executive assistants in these buildings at any time. The member is wrong again, as he's always been. He's wrong now, he's been wrong before, but he was really wrong when he was government.

[ Page 2140 ]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Wrong, wrong, wrong!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We have been doing so well. We'd like to have moderate language. (Laughter.)

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I didn't appreciate the comment from the Chair if it was directed at me.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No.

MR. KING: I certainly was not attempting to hold the Provincial Secretary accountable for the actions of any other ministry or the Premier. I was simply seeking assurance from her that if a requisition or a request was submitted to her office for the preparation of political material to be paid for out of the allocation in vote 37, she will deny any such application. It's a simple clear-cut assurance that I'm asking.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I may have been wrong. One of them could have been sick and not attended the meeting. But the meeting took place.

AN HON. MEMBER: It did not.

MR. LEA: It did.

HON. L.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Labour): On a point of order, the Premier stood in this House and told the committee that such a meeting did not take place. The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) has just taken his seat and said that it did. I ask him to withdraw the imputation that the Premier was not telling the truth to this committee.

MR. LEA: He did not say that the meeting didn't take place. He said he never had a meeting with all of the executive assistants.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Or any particular group of them.

MR. LEA: No, he didn't.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Withdraw your remarks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the member for Prince Rupert if he.... Did he impute any improper motive to the Premier in making his statement? If you did, I must ask you to withdraw. I have no alternative.

MR. LEA: I don't understand a thing you're saying. I didn't say that. I just said the meeting took place. I didn't say whether it was improper.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The Chair is not interested in the content. The Chair is only asking the question: did you impute any improper motive to the Premier in making your statement? If so, I must ask you to withdraw.

MR. LEA: No! No, I didn't. If the Minister of Labour did, that's fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So ordered.

Interjections.

MRS. DAILLY: To the Provincial Secretary: I would like to point out to her that if I were in her position - and certainly over on this side of the House - and listened to the statement made by the Premier, I certainly would not feel that he has satisfied our minds that such a brochure is not being prepared. Instead of answering that question directly, we still have hanging over this House the fact that the Premier has not denied that such a brochure is being prepared. So finally, to the Provincial Secretary - as the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) said - may I say that if she is approached to get the machinery going for this publication, I certainly hope that she will stop it.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: First of all, I am going to say without any doubt at all that I think that the motives the hon. member for Burnaby North is placing on this ministry and on myself are completely improper for an hon. member of the House. Of course I would not condone a political type of publication out of this vote. She knows it and the House knows it and I reassure the member at this point in time. But I would like to say that this again is yet another line of questioning that has been taken by the socialists on that side of the House which is an extremely . . .

MR. BARBER: Tell us about the secret police.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: ... low form of debate, Mr. Chairman, and I really don't think that any of that line of questioning - a made-up fabricated story ...

AN HON. MEMBER: Ohhh!

[ Page 2141 ]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: ... which is brought to this House and questions are asked on it - should be honoured by an answer in this House. I remind you, Mr. Chairman, as the Chairman who is responsible for the decorum in this House, that surely all of us should be reminded by you that we should at all times be very concerned about the information and the line of questioning that is brought before this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oooh!

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: We should be very, very careful, as we all have the responsibility and take the responsibility for those accusations which are put forward in this House.

MR. BARBER: Where are the secret police?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I suggest to you that anyone can make up a fabricated story and bring it to this House ...

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: ... for someone else to shout down, and it's a low form of debate. If people cannot bring facts to this House, I think it's a sad commentary on this House today. I think it has been done for the second time in a row in two days and it's really sad, Mr. Chairman, that the members don't understand the responsibilities in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Chair has been asked for clarification. Perhaps I'll make that clarification now. It is understood by all members of this House that each member accepts the responsibility for all statements made in this House. The Chair has no knowledge as to whether statements are correct or incorrect, nor is it the duty of the Chair to muzzle members in their statements. Every member accepts the responsibility for his own statements and, therefore, the Chair couldn't possibly be held responsible for erroneous statements made in this House.

On a point of order, the member for Revelstoke-Slocan.

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that the hon. Provincial Secretary said that the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) had fabricated a story and made up a story and presented it to this House. That is, in my view, imputing an improper motive to the member for Burnaby North and I would ask that the Provincial Secretary withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the hon. Provincial Secretary please withdraw any imputation or improper motive?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I'd be pleased to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MR. LEA: I would like to ask the Provincial Secretary a question - just one question. If 1, through public accounts, were to ask for a voucher paying for curtains and make-up for the first state of the province address that the Premier gave of somewhere around $3,000 for the entire production - for curtains, and props, and make-up for the Premier for that address --- would she stand in her place and say that I'm fabricating?

MR. CHAIRMAN: How does this relate to vote 37?

MR. LEA: Because it's publications. As a matter of fact, I think it was under this vote.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, perhaps....

MR. LEA: This is the vote that I understand it went under.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: I understand it went under this. I know the voucher exists. I'm just trying to nail down the vote.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, maybe I should remind you that a matter of this nature perhaps ought best to be considered under the public accounts committee. It's not the purpose of this committee to delve into this kind of a procedure.

MR. LEA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to know why . , ' or rather not why there's a reduction of about 20 per cent in this budget, but in what particular direction since paper and labour and all the other costs going up. Can I assume that either fewer publications are to be available, or is the minister cutting back on staff, or how does one reduce $250,000 to $200,000 at a time when wages, and overhead costs, and every other cost of producing publications is going up?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I'm advised that the organization for the distribution of government publications has not been used in the

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past, and it was in the overall decrease of expenditures in, I think, the overall reduction in the ministry that was taken out of this particular vote. That's the only advice I can give. There is not an attempt to increase it, but that is why it has been decreased. It's because that particular position, I think, or positions that would perhaps acquire to this have not been used in the past - have not been placed.

I MR. WALLACE: Could I just ask specifically: has there been any reduction in staff or persons associated with this vote? There's no mention of any staff at all, and I just wondered if this is one area where perhaps the government was trying to reduce the size of the civil service.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, we didn't reduce it, but we have not put that person in place. That's really what has happened in that vote. We did not reduce it. There is a salary in that vote, but we did not.... In the year before, I think, there were positions that we had planned to put in, or at least were in that vote prior to it, and they were never filled.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sorry to be confused on this. It seems to me it's the other way around. There is nobody shown up as salary in 1976-1977, but there's somebody being paid $19,000 in 1977-1978 that was not recorded. The other expenditure is reduced from $250,000 to $180,000. 1 guess I should be more specific and say: what is the reduction under 90, the bottom line that says "other expenditure" where there's a reduction of $70,000? By what is this cost being reduced?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm given to understand that we decreased the overall just as an estimate that there would be that 5 per cent reduction in the ministry for this particular department. So $50,000 is part of that - "decrease of another $50,000 to make up part of an overall 5 per cent reduction in the Ministry of the Provincial Secretary."

MR. LEA: Maybe the Provincial Secretary could help me so that I would know which vote to direct my inquiry for in public accounts. In which vote would it have been possible to have paid for the props and the curtains and the make-up for the Premier for that broadcast?

MR. CHAIRMAN: This matter is for public accounts.

MR. LEA: Yes, I understand that it was paid from the Provincial Secretary, and I'd like to know which vote it is that I could ask for.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure the hon. member would be pleased to do that research.

MR. LEA: Well, the Provincial Secretary could answer right away, so it would save me some trouble.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I don't even know what you're talking about.

MR. LEA: Oh, you devil!

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: It must be some inside joke that you have,

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I'm a bit concerned and distraught at the rather sanctimonious lecture which the Provincial Secretary delivered to the opposition and to the House with respect to allegations that are made. I want to say, first of all, that the question of the meeting that was raised certainly has a foundation as far as the opposition are concerned. This was not something that was manufactured. In the way, I might say, Mr. Chairman, that wild and unfounded allegations were developed by the Provincial Secretary herself with respect to secret police forces.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, with great respect, I think this matter has been very, very well canvassed. The Chair has been more than lenient in this matter.

MR. KING: With the Provincial Secretary. I hope that some degree of leniency will continue, Mr. Chairman, and I know it will. I just want to make this point, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: This matter has been well canvassed.

MR. KING: When reason is called for in this House by any member, it must be followed by those who call for it. I think the Provincial Secretary's failure to apologize for statements that were proven without substance in fact, that were revealed during consideration of estimates in this House, does nothing to improve the climate and the responsibility of debate in the House.

Mr. Chairman, I did ask the Provincial Secretary earlier for a simple assurance that she would resist the payout of any funds through vote 37 for purposes that were political. I did not ask her for a lecture regarding the basis of raising matters that come to the attention of the opposition. Indeed, that's what scrutiny of the estimates is all about. I think no one should know better than members of the government that information comes to hand. It's not always documented, but it's of sufficient nature and

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sufficient concern that it is the obligation and the responsibility of the opposition to raise it on the floor of this House and elicit from the government the information as to whether or not it's valid or whether or not it's true. Surely that's the function of an opposition in the House; surely that is what our responsibility is, Only the government can provide the information, the substantiation or the explanation. That's what we seek.

When we are constantly being attacked by ministers of the Crown who have the responsibility for these estimates, I view it as an attempt to subvert the parliamentary process and to discourage and intimidate the opposition from pursuing information that citizens of this province have brought to our attention. Allegations that are made are, I think, handled in a discreet and proper way when they are raised in this House. Questions were raised and that's surely the purpose and the function of the opposition in the debate on estimates.

I resent, Mr. Chairman, within the limitations that you grant to me, being admonished and lectured by one who has abused the process, in my view, and failed to apologize to the House on the other hand.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The point is well made.

Vote 37 approved.

On vote 38: public information, $150,000.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, this is the very specific vote that states that it provides information to the general public about provincial government programmes. I wonder if the Provincial Secretary could give us an overall view of. . . . I see here it's just $ 150,000. 1 wonder if she could tell us, in preparing that estimate, what her department had in mind for $150,000. There must have been some way at arriving at that figure. What kind of public information do you see there?

MR. KING: The fourth quarterly review?

MRS. DAILLY: We're wondering about the quarterly review. We're wondering, of course, about the possibility of the brochure which we still haven't been assured is not going to be prepared. Just where do you get the $150,000? What do you plan to do with it?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: This refers to the service that is given by a telephone service for anyone phoning in for information from the government departments, perhaps on a question to do with Human Resources, or the Health ministry, or whatever. It is that service which is provided in a central telephone exchange service, apart from our ordinary parliamentary exchange.

MRS. DAILLY: I take the hon. minister's explanation of the vote, certainly, but if you have a public information officer 4, just what is the role of that public information officer in this vote then?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I'm given to understand that this position is not filled at the present time. The public information officer 4 is not filled. I'm not so sure, Mr. Chairman, from the information that I have at the present moment, that it would be, but I think it was brought over from the last vote. It was the same category and that's why it's in there today. I'm going to have to get more information on it, but it is not being spent at the present time, for the information of the member.

MRS. DAILLY: I have a few more questions on this. but I'm wondering if I could ask the hon. House Leader if he's prepared to move that the committee rise.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. Mr. Curtis and Hon. Mr. Hewitt file answers to questions. (See appendix.)

Hon. Mr. Williams moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.

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APPENDIX

71 Mr. Wallace asked the Hon. the Minister of Agriculture the following questions:

Under Vote 94, it was estimated that in 1976/77, $350,000 would be allocated for agricultural aid to developing countries-

1. What sum was actually spent?

2. Which countries received aid and in what amounts?

The Hon. J. J. Hewitt replied as follows:

"1. $35,073. (These funds were granted to support development education activity within British Columbia.)

"2. No countries received aid."

88 Mr. Gibson asked the Hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing the following question:

Which bonds managed by the Municipal Finance Authority, for which the Minister is fiscal agent, are denominated for repayment as to capital and interest in United States dollars or other foreign currency, and in what years, and in what amounts, do the principal repayments come due?

The Hon. H. A. Curtis replied as follows:

"Since the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has neither the statutory power nor responsibility to act as fiscal agent for the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia, it would be inappropriate to answer this question. The desired information is available from the Secretary-treasurer of the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia, 880 Douglas Street, Victoria, B.C."