[ Page 3467 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Highways and Public Works estimates.

On vote 147.

Mr. King –– 3467

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3467

On vote 148.

Mr. King –– 3467

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3467

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3468

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3468

Mr. Kempf –– 3469

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3470

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3470

On vote 149.

Mr. King –– 3470

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3470

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3471

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3471

On vote 15 1.

Ms. Brown –– 3472

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3473

On vote 152.

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3473

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3473

On vote 156.

Mr. Levi –– 3473

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3473

On vote 157.

Mr. Levi –– 3474

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 3474

Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing estimates.

On vote 195.

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 3474

Mr. Barber –– 3476

Mr. Nicolson –– 3482

Mr. Barber –– 3483

Mr. Rogers –– 3490

Mr. Barber –– 3493

The House met at 8 p.m.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

HIGHWAYS AND PUBLIC WORKS

(continued)

On vote 147: general administration - Highways, $4,169, 162.

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): Mr. Chairman, I have a fairly brief question for the Minister of Highways with respect to the policy pursued surrounding the disposition of material removed from highways. I'm thinking of where major cuts are underway and gravel and rock material is then in surplus to the immediate needs of the Highways department and is dumped elsewhere.

In this kind of situation, I would appreciate it if the minister could advise as to just what the policy is with respect to providing that surplus material to private property holders. When that occurs is there a .charge involved to the private property holder? Is it the policy of the Department of Highways to use Highways department machinery to level the material when it is dumped for the benefit of private property people?

I'd appreciate just some general policy from the minister on that point.

HON. -A.V. FRASER (Minister of Highways and Public Works): To the member for Revelstoke-Slocan, the general policy is to get rid of the excess material at the closest point possible. If it happens to be private property there isn't a charge for it, but I think they try and put it on Crown property. The main cost involved is hauling it, and they try to get rid of the excess as close to the job as possible.

MR. KING: Yes. I appreciate the minister's advice. Under what circumstances would Highways department equipment be used to level material on private property? Would there be a charge for that also?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, the chief engineer advises me that if they're dumping it on private property they usually make an agreement to leave it in an orderly fashion, which means levelling it. They're pleased to get the area to dump it in, rather than having to haul it a lot further.

Vote 147 approved.

On vote 148: highway maintenance, $136,239, 800.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, with respect to highway maintenance, I wonder what plans the minister has for the western access to the city of Revelstoke. The minister is aware that a new and major dam project is actually under construction, despite the fact that there's an appeal pending, but the construction work is underway with every indication that the traffic load related to that dam, which is just on the periphery of the city of Revelstoke also, is going to create a heavily congested area, despite the flow-through of ordinary traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway.

There's a problem there in terms of just the general congestion, which will be aggravated tremendously by heavy equipment related to the dam construction - that is, hauling in cement and that type of thing, which presumably would be loaded on the east end of Revelstoke.

There's the other problem, Mr. Chairman, regarding a growing residential population on the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway and the consequent problem of school children having to cross the main Trans-Canada Highway to find their way to their various schools within the city. With the kind of traffic increase that one can anticipate in that area, I suggest to the minister that the danger to pedestrians using that just ordinarily marked crossing is going to become much more severe and much more problematic.

I believe the minister has looked at it first-hand within the last few months and I would appreciate him advising me as to what, if any, plans his department has for resolving these problems.

HON. MR. FRASER: Well, Mr. Chairman, to the member for Revelstoke-Slocan: he's aware that I have been there. First of all, I don't want to get into the Revelstoke appeal. But I'll say that it is going ahead and some work of course is going on now. Despite the appeal, I think there's a lot of things involved there. The member's probably aware that we're dealing with the city. They're talking about boundary expansion and my colleague, the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis) , is dealing with that. Hydro is involved, the Highways minister is heavily involved and hopefully we can resolve all these problems at that level, with the city council and the amalgamation that happens. Highways will be a big factor in that, such as continuing maintenance for a number of years.

You're talking here, as I understand it, about the Trans-Canada crossing. The chief engineer advised me again that we're in pretty tight quarters there. There's

[ Page 3468 ]

the railroad underpass and so on, but I think that we can work these things out, hopefully, and not at a cost to the city of Revelstoke.

MR. C. D'ARCY (Rossland-Trail): Mr. Chairman, under this vote I would like to make some comments to this minister. When he made his opening remarks under his office vote, he did cast some aspersions on the quality of maintenance work done in the province. I'd like to tell him it certainly doesn't apply in my area. I am very proud, and I think he should be, of the work done by the maintenance people in my constituency and in most of the West Kootenays. My riding has over 50 miles of main trunk highway above the elevation of 3,000 feet and much of it receives in excess of 200 inches of snow a year. It's seldom, if ever, that these highways are closed and, in fact, it's seldom, if ever, that they are not passable. The district administration and the three maintenance establishments have a record over a period of years going back to, I quite agree, before I was an MLA.

However, I want to ask the minister, if he could consult with his advisors there, about a number of allegations made to me by people, both in my area and to the west, using the Hope-Princeton Highway. They say that the road sand, used to give better traction during the winter, has been getting coarser in recent years and that the incidence of damage to automobiles, particularly to windshields, was getting greater. I've not been able to find evidence of this, but I have checked with ICBC and I have found that there has been an increasing number of comprehensive claims for damaged windshields during the winter months. Perhaps the minister could cast some light on this and perhaps reassure the House that there are not going to be some coarser and larger rocks dumped on the roads by the maintenance trucks in the winter, due perhaps to cutting some corners in the crushing and stockpiling of gravel for the purposes of additional traction.

I'd also like to note that there have been particular shortages of road graders in some cases. I realize that most back roads in many parts of this province are now paved and there's a lesser need for road graders in the maintenance equipment of the Ministry of Highways. However, it's getting increasingly difficult to get what few gravel roads there are graded, simply because there are fewer and fewer graders around and it's becoming increasingly expensive to get them out onto the job where they're needed. I'm wondering if the minister can give us some assurance that there will be an adequate supply of road graders to look after those few roads which still do need road grading in the summer months and the winter months as well.

HON. MR. FRASER: To the member for Rossland-Trail: he raises some good points here. To start with, my remarks regarding maintenance really pertained to the summer months, not the winter, and on behalf of the men out there, I think they do an excellent job in the wintertime. But it doesn't matter what I think about it; I'm going on the basis of complaints from the citizens about the quality or quantity, or whatever you want to call it, of the summer maintenance - specifically, the grading of gravel roads.

We have a union contract; I don't blame the men involved at all. They're not doing anything illegal; it's quite legal what they're doing. But in some remote areas they're operating 50 and 60 miles away from their home base. Under the union agreement, they're entitled to portal-to-portal pay. They travel 50 miles to work in the morning in a pickup, they run the grader for two or three hours, and then it's time to turn around and go back to their home base. These graders are worth around $80,000 a machine to buy and I just ask the members: would Emil Anderson Construction or Dawson Construction have an $80,000 machine running three hours a day? I suggest that if they did, they wouldn't be in business very long; obviously they don't do that. So we're trying to grope with this problem now.

It's a case of getting more operators to increase the level of maintenance so that the machines run more, In turn, of course, that gets the quality of the gravel roads up. Or we could go out to the private sector on a contract basis for some of the work.

As you know, these people all have tenure of office. We can't sell all the graders and lay the people off, and we have no intention of doing that. So these are problems that we're looking at now, and specifically summer maintenance. There is room for improvement. We have made some personnel changes at head office and I'm looking forward to the recommendations from the people who have been promoted. Maybe we can come up with a better standard of summer maintenance.

Regarding rocks in the sand, Mr. Chairman, I get a lot of complaints as minister about this in the winter months. Quite frankly, when we have rocks in the sand, it appears to be carelessness every time we check it out. There is a screening process for sand and there is no business to have rocks in the sand. But we do get a lot of claims for this, not only in our claims division but in ICBC, and we're again trying to get a better handle on that.

You didn't mention the fact about salt, but I will say that we're getting a fair amount of complaints regarding salt. We're using salt sometimes entirely because the motorist wants an instant decent surface and salt is the quickest way to do it without sand. I understand we keep a salt mine in business in Saskatchewan. It is shipped out here to the Highways ministry by the trainload. The complaints are starting to come in now from bodyshops and from car owners about the conditions of the vehicles. That's

[ Page 3469 ]

something else we're looking at.

Regarding graders, the inventory of graders in the ministry has never been higher than it is at the present time. We're continuing to upgrade them. By that I mean upgrading the inventory as to age. We still have a few older machines. We intend to keep purchasing until we have a better inventory, particularly on the quality side of graders, because they're important the year round for snowplowing in the winter and for summer maintenance in grading.

I'm fairly happy with the quantity of graders, but we have to upgrade the quality, and we're going to continue to do that. I might say in the last three years the grader inventory has gone up quite materially. If there is a problem in the Rossland-Trail area I'll ask the people to look into it, but generally we are better off than we have been in the history of the province for graders.

MR. D'ARCY: I would agree there are more graders around, but most of them a great deal of the time are being used on pulvey mixing - actual paving operations and surfacing operations. They're not being used on gravel roads; they're either being used for the resurfacing operations or initial surfacing operations.

I only have two major stretches of road which fall into the category of gravel roads. Both see rather poor summer maintenance. One is the 14-mile stretch of road out into the Sheep Creek Valley from Rossland, which is part of the old Cascade Highway, which is actually seeing more use than it did when it was a major highway because of the operations on the Santa Rosa Ranch or the Corrections Ranch and the fact that there are now 10 families living out there.

The second road, which I'm sure the minister is familiar with because he has received a great deal of correspondence on it in the last few months, is the Deer Park Road.

I would hope to see a slow programme, perhaps, of surfacing particularly the steep grades on these roads through pulvey mixing over the next few years. I think it would save a great deal in maintenance costs. I think the minister is absolutely right when he says the cost of maintaining gravel roads as a proportion of the total budget is extremely high right now. It is beginning to more and more warrant the initial cost involved in pulvey mixing them to avoid having to send graders out there once a month or once every six weeks or whenever it is.

I know that the engineering people in the Department of Highways are not too happy about improving or surfacing substandard roads. There is a feeling that the traffic load is going to build up and you should rebuild the things in the first place. I would agree with this approach when it comes to parts of major highways which are substandard from an engineering point of view, such as parts of the Hope-Princeton Highway.

I don't agree with it when it comes to secondary roads which have been secondary roads for 40 or 50 years and are likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. I think we just need to look around Victoria at the number of secondary and tertiary roads which have been surfaced in a very modest way for a number of years and that pavement has not been subject to too much wear and tear and has not cost the department or the municipal authority a great deal of money. They are usually narrow roads, they usually do not have cleared shoulders, and they are quite serviceable and acceptable. I would hope that the minister and the department could consider pulvey mixing over a summer capital works or day-labour programme for some of these roads, even though I would agree that they're substandard from an engineering point of view and I would certainly agree that they hardly warrant capital costs for major grader alignment improvements.

HON. MR. FRASER: I appreciate your observations about the local roads and we'll certainly look at that, but I would like to throw out the observation to the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) that if you pave a substandard or a narrow road, what the engineers are concerned about is safety. If you do that to a comparatively narrow road, immediately it's surfaced the speed limit increases and we have a problem. That is why they really like to get a better base down and a better alignment, as they call it, prior to surfacing because of safety measures. I think in some cases we probably go a little wide, but that's another argument when we're building a road, but this is again, I think, good engineering.

But in some cases I don't know why we couldn't be a little narrower than we build to, but then drainage gets affected and the engineers like to see it as wet because their experience is, apparently, when they do it on a narrow basis and as people move in, traffic builds up and they have to do it all over again. So they say: "Let's do it to a proper width and drainage when we're at it." Safety is a big factor when you are surfacing a substandard road.

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): Mr. Chairman, just a couple of quick comments on this vote. I was happy to hear the minister say that he is having second thoughts about the use of salt on our highways in the wintertime. I have had many complaints from my constituents in regard to its usage. We in the north feel that we have over the years become very good winter drivers, what with studded tires and proper winter tires. The usage of a great amount of salt....

Interjections.

[ Page 3470 ]

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, it's awfully noisy in here.

With the usage of salt, the people of the north found it to be very costly in regard to repairs on vehicles and also in regard to the damage done on concrete carports when cars are driven into these and the salt drips off. Consequently, during the winter it eats up the carports. I would like to suggest, through you, Mr. Chairman, to the minister, that we take a long look at the overusage of salt on our highways. I think in many cases sand is a far better material to use.

Regarding the purchase of graders, I would like to compliment the minister and his ministry for changing a long common practice in this province of buying graders merely on a dollar basis. Finally I see in this ministry the purchase of some good machinery which will do the job and stand up and which does have an availability factor which overrides the extra dollars that might be paid for that particular machine.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I have one more item. I just noticed that ferries come under vote 148. The minister has announced that he has a task force or Mr. Miard is looking at ferries. I notice one that is not mentioned in that survey is the Castlegar ferry. On the one hand I can say I'm glad you're not looking at it; on the other hand, I've had some advice from the local area that they are somewhat concerned that perhaps since the minister did not mention that particular ferry that he is not particularly interested in it. I would note to the committee, Mr. Chairman, that this particular ferry, along with the Albion ferry, is consistently the most heavily traveled ferry route in the entire province operated by anyone - B.C. Ferries or the Ministry of Highways - even though it is now operating only 16 hours a day whereas it used to operate for 24 hours when it was the major highway crossing.

It has been mentioned by some people within the department at various times that this ferry is not really needed since there is a bridge five miles downstream and a dam five miles to the west of this particular route. However, I hope the minister would agree that when you have a ferry run which is as heavily used and as popular as this one is, it must be needed; otherwise it wouldn't see such heavy patronage despite the fact that occasionally it does get shut down on short notice due to either mechanical problems or because of sudden variations in the water level due to changes in discharge rates by B.C. Hydro.

I'm wondering if the minister can assure the committee and myself - and hence the people of my constituency - that this ferry is going to continue operation as it has done for many years.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, we're certainly going to look at the Castlegar ferry. I wouldn't give a commitment but at the moment we have no intention of shutting it down. I don't know what the committee will report. We'll release that when we get it.

I might say, while we are on ferries for a minute, that the reaction ferries and the cable ferries are causing us quite a few operational problems. I would personally like to see us eliminate those before we eliminate the Castlegar ferry, if possible, by alternate routes. We can't leave the citizens stranded, but I think the day has come when we should start phasing those out. Again, we'll wait for a committee report on those as well.

Vote 148 approved.

On vote 149: highway construction - capital, $179,078.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate it if the minister could advise me when he plans to start construction on the tunnel at Cape Horn Bluffs on Highway 23. I'm not sure whether the minister had an opportunity to make a trip over that section of the highway or not, but if he didn't I do hope his staff is able to get him up there within the very near future because it is one of the last single-lane highways left in the province of British Columbia.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the problem is that the highways both from the south end and the north end off the Trans-Canada are very inviting and very nice. As a consequence, many happy tourists go down that way, towing their boats and trailers and mobile homes and so on, only to end up on a single-lane road around the Cape Horn bluffs towering 2,000 feet above the Slocan Lake. They gasp for breath, and shudder, and sometimes abandon their vehicles there never to return and spend tourist dollars in beautiful British Columbia.

I hope the minister will do something about it. I hope the minister will get on with a tunnel, which I think is actually the only solution to that towering mass of rock that looms over top of the highway.

Additionally, I would appreciate some comments from the minister with respect to his plans on the proposed highway around Trout Lake to avoid the Gerrard spawning grounds of one of the world's unique strains of rainbow trout. The minister's department, I think, has decided to proceed on the north side of the lake. I would appreciate from him a report as to just what kind of timetable he has in mind for that work.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, to the member for Revelstoke-Slocan, last to first, I think you are referring to Gerrard bridge and the elimination, or otherwise, of it. I'm happy to tell you

[ Page 3471 ]

tonight that we're surveying there now. We're going to start this year - about six miles of road - and hope to get it completed next year. In fact, they're actually surveying now. We won't have to do anything with the Gerrard bridge.

MR. KING: Save the fish.

HON. MR. FRASER: That's right - save the fish.

Regarding the Cape Horn bluffs, Mr. Chairman, to the member for Revelstoke-Slocan, I haven't been there yet but I'm looking forward to it. I can tell you tonight that the engineers have decided to make an open cut and not build a tunnel. We're looking at 3,000 feet - in some cases, 400 feet high - of rock cut. There's no decision to start on it, but the policy has only recently been recommended that they not build a tunnel but do an open cut. Apparently that approximately half-a-mile of road will probably be in excess of $2 million.

MR. D'ARCY: I would hope when you're making that 400-ft.-deep cut you keep an eye out for some ore values. There's been a lot of silver taken out of that area at one time or another - the Slocan Ottawa mine, and several others. You never know, you might end up being able to pay for part of the thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: I've already staked it.

MR. D'ARCY: That member has already staked it.

Mr. Chairman, there are three pieces of highway I would like to ask the minister about. One piece of highway which I find extremely congested, and has been congested for'years, is that part of Highway 10 between Highway 17, east to its junction with the 401. A few short sections of that have been four-laned, and some have been three-laned. However, that is one piece of highway which surely must have almost as high a traffic count as parts of Highway 99 or even the 401 itself. I would like to ask the minister if the department has any plans for this particular stretch of road.

I happen to think - although I represent a relatively distant, rural riding - that there's been no part of this province where the highways have been neglected to such an extent, considering the population growth, as they have been neglected in the suburban areas surrounding the city of Vancouver. I think Highway 10 is a prime example of a highway which should have been four-laned in its entirety years ago.

Another section I would like to ask the minister about is the approximately 24 or 25 miles of the Hope-Princeton Highway from the ending of the parkway section, just west of Similkameen Falls, to a point a few miles east of Whipsaw Creek bridge where the four-lane section commences to go into

Princeton. I consider this piece of highway to have been poorly built, even by the 1948 standards by which it was constructed. Perhaps the government of the day was running out of money when they got to this section of highway. Although some passing lanes have been added in the last 30 years, the highway really hasn't been improved very much. There is still a long section before you attain Sunday summit which is still just two-lane. If anyone has ever been behind a diesel rig or a camper going up this section, you realize you can spend about 20 minutes at 20 or 25 miles an hour. There is absolutely no three-[illegible] even on this section.

In addition, I think the minister will be aware that there's a number of 20 to 25 miles-per-hour hairpins on this particular section, even though I don't consider the terrain as rough as some of the rest of the mountains that the highway is built through. If the department is tossing around whatever it is, $120 million or $130 million for the Coquihalla section, I think that we could perhaps deal with four-laning and reconstructing this 24-mile or 25-mile section of an existing highway which is, as I say, terribly inadequate even by the standards of 30 years ago.

The third question I'd like to raise is that the minister, I'm sure, is aware that the Ootischenia Meadows highway link is nearing completion - at least the grading is nearing completion. I'm wondering if the minister could let us know if the servicing contract is prepared or is being prepared. Certainly this fall is not too soon to begin crushing and stockpiling aggregate so that highway can be paved in its entirety come next paving season of next summer.

I can't help tossing out here that considering the remarks some of the people made about who builds highways and who doesn't, this particular stretch of road was, I think, promised for every election starting in 1956, going through a by-election in '58, and provincial elections iii '60, '63, '66, '69 and '72. All those elections up until 1972 elected Social Credit governments and Social Credit candidates. It was a matter of months after the election of the first New Democratic government in 1972 that this highway was started and is now nearing completion. I'm wondering, as I say, if the grading will be completed later this year and if the minister can give us some indication of when servicing is going to start on this particular piece of road.

Certainly I've got a file of papers from the various chambers of commerce - in particular the overall body, the Kootenay-Boundary chambers of commerce - wondering when this particular thing is going to see its final completion.

HON. MR. FRASER: Regarding the Kinnaird Meadow siding road, we are calling a servicing contract this fall. I might say that there are two

[ Page 3472 ]

structures to build; they're also being called. We hope to see that road in operation for the motorists by late summer of 1978.

Regarding your remarks on the Hope-Princeton, I'm aware of this road. We are doing a lot of work on there and we're going to continue to do the work of the four-laning. Your reference to spending money on the Coquihalla is correct. That was, as you know, announced in the throne speech, but we don't have to stop work on the Trans-Canada or the Hope-Princeton because of that. The upgrading of both those roads - the Trans-Canada and the Hope-Princeton - will continue as well because we are going to need all three at the rate the traffic keeps increasing in the next eight to 10 years. We're going to have to keep upgrading the two we've got and build a third one.

I think the member from Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) takes the same road home that I do. I'm quite aware of the inadequacy of Highway 10 but there are no immediate plans to do anything with it. We're in a pretty confined area there. There are drainage problems and everything else. But you're referring to Highway 10 from Highway 17 through to Langley. I agree that it is a confined road but we haven't any immediate plans to do a major job on Highway 10.

Vote 149 approved.

Vote 150: general administration - public works, $10 approved.

On vote 15 1: government building maintenance, $10.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure whether this is the correct vote or not to talk about this but I'm going to anyway.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We'll determine if it's the right vote.

MS. BROWN: I wonder if you'd help me determine it after I'm through saying what I have to say.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure that's not what the member means, but please proceed.

MS. BROWN: There was a policy under the previous government to spend a percentage of the cost of government buildings on buying pieces of art, weaving or whatever to put in government buildings. Is this the correct vote? Am I under the correct vote to talk about that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: This is the furnishings for public buildings?

MS. BROWN: Yes, works of B.C. artists, paintings....

MR. CHAIRMAN: May I just enquire of the minister which vote he'd like this discussed under?

HON. MR. FRASER: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I'm sure this was taken away from this portfolio and given to Recreation and Conservation.

MS. BROWN: Thank you. I appreciate that.

My other topic I want to talk about is the work that was done in the front of this building in terms of the concreting which the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) commented on. I certainly agree with that in terms of the different levels of the curb and how very ugly the work is in terms of not only being poorly done but also very ugly.

I just want to say one small word on behalf of the geraniums. They are planted in a very hostile environment. They are obviously very unhappy. The leaves are yellowing; the flowers are dying. The reason for this, Mr. Chairman, is because the geraniums like sun, and they are getting neither of these two elements where they are presently located.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Alex will give them love.

MS. BROWN: And they like love as well, yes.

In fact, where they're presently located on the side of the building, they are continually in the shadow of the building, which means that they never get very much sun and they certainly don't get any heat.

MR. KEMPF: Move the building!

MS. BROWN: If you can't move the building, I would like to suggest to the minister that that is an ideal location for begonias..They would thrive very well there. They would find that a very happy environment in which to grow. I think, in view of the fact that you have such excellent gardeners taking care of the rest of the gardens around the building, that maybe you should suggest to them that they do something about removing those very unhappy geraniums from there and replacing them with something which would be much happier in a shaded environment.

I also want to say, Mr. Chairman, how very disappointed I am at the lack of imagination shown in the finishing of the front of the building. We were told when it was going to be closed off that there were going to be roses or grass or something there. Instead we find ourselves with this incredible

[ Page 3473 ]

concrete with two little squares in it with these very unhappy geraniums in them. This is a city of very beautiful gardens. I think that if one just looked at the gardens around the building here, one could have had some idea of how to finish that area in a much more attractive way. I'm very disappointed in the Ministry of Public Works, Mr. Chairman, for doing such a very ugly job on the front of the building.

HON. MR. FRASER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm very disappointed that the member for Vancouver-Burrard is disappointed. But I appreciate her observations and I'll pass on what you've said to very excellent gardeners about relocating the flowers.

Vote 151 approved.

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): Vote 152: $10.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I think it's a matter of courtesy. The House Leader has been here for some time and I think that she could not only call the vote but also the contents of the vote. That's the normal practice.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that the pleasure of the House; I certainly think we can abide by that.

MR. D'ARCY: "Construction of provincial buildings." I'll save the Provincial Secretary the job.

The minister knows what I'm going to ask him about. It's the construction of the provincial building in Trail which has been tossed around as a political football for the last 25 or 30 years by three or four provincial administrations and several Ministers of Public Works. I'm not going to read into the record some of the minister's correspondence to the city of Trail in which he says essentially: "Yes, we're going to build the building, but not right away."

As recently as last fall, the minister assured the city council in Trail and the people there that they were going to have a provincial building that would be one of the first constructed by the B.C. Buildings Corporation. The B.C. Buildings Corporation has since announced the construction of a number of buildings - the Trail building is not among them. I'm very disappointed - and so are all the people within the city of Trail - that this particular building, which has been promised for so long by so many different ministers, is still something which is just vaguely on the horizon.

I would note, Mr. Chairman, that there is not a city in the entire province in excess of 4,000 or 5,000 people which does not have a provincial building and has not had one for some time. The city of Trail has around 11,000 people, it is the population centre of the West Kootenay area, and yet it does not have a provincial building. In the correspondence that has gone between the minister and the city of Trail, it would appear that unless some building occupancy arrangements can be made with the various departments, we could be somewhere down the road as yet. I think the minister owes some kind of an assurance to the people of West Kootenay and particularly to the people of Trail that this is going to become a reality in the foreseeable future.

HON. MR. FRASER: I'm very aware, as the member for Rossland-Trail has pointed out, of several administrations promising this building. I guess I'm more or less in that position myself. I would just like you to tell the people in Trail that we'll make our mind up on that in about the next 30 days. We're quite busy, but there are problems there with other ministries which we have been grappling with since we were in the Trail area. We haven't got that all cleared up. I don't want to commit myself that we're going to start a building or anything. We have to deal with the other ministries on a space basis. Some of them are not sure of their requirements; we're corresponding with them now. I think that within 30 days we'll know what we're going to do.

Vote 152 approved.

Vote 153: rentals, $10 - approved.

Vote 154: safety engineering division, $4,786, 793 - approved.

Vote 155: Glendale laundry, $1,586, 334 -approved.

On vote 156: building occupancy charges, $10,699, 582.

MR. N. LEVI (Vancouver-Burrard): Perhaps the minister could now tell us - because in all of the estimates so far we've been trying to find this out from the various ministers - what formula is used to apply to the various ministries for the rental and maintenance of buildings. Perhaps the minister would tell us how that is arrived at.

HON. MR. FRASER: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to. I'm quite amazed that the other estimates have come up and they didn't explain it because they had letters from this ministry telling how it was arrived at. I guess they couldn't find it when the time came.

Basically, dealing with the principle of how we assess the rentals, the base rent is equivalent to the cost per square foot in the private sector plus the cost of normal operation and maintenance, including the cost escalations, plus the estimated cost for

[ Page 3474 ]

operating overhead and planned maintenance.

As for leased properties, the basic lease cost is adjusted for renewal and escalation, plus the estimated cost of additional contract services, plus a surcharge of 3 per cent to cover administration. I reported to the Legislature earlier in this debate that the value of the real estate to be transferred was $429 million. So that's basically the principle that has been used, Mr. Chairman.

Vote 156 approved.

On vote 157: computer and consulting charges, $316,000.

MR. LEVI: Could the minister tell us what the cost was last year of the computer and consulting charges for the ministry - or for the two ministries, I guess it was then?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, the assistant deputy minister advises me that we were just sharing before that and I guess there wasn't a charge. This charge in here is based on an estimate of time required.

MR. LEVI: Who were you sharing with, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. FRASER: I understand, Mr. Chairman, we were sharing with all other departments, but the data centre wasn't backcharging.

MR. LEVI: Well, Mr. Chairman, in other votes when I've asked this question there apparently was money set aside last year in the budget for this. I'm not talking about the minister's department. I don't understand. Where were you getting the service from? That's what I'm not clear on.

HON. MR. FRASER: The service was coming, Mr. Chairman, from the then Department of Transport and Communications, now the Ministry of Energy, Transport and Communications.

MR. LEVI: And there was no cost, as far as you know?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, to the member, there was no backcharge.

Vote 157 approved.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF MUNICIPAL

AFFAIRS AND HOUSING

On vote 195: minister's office, $147,856.

HON. H.A. CURTIS (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to present the estimates for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for this fiscal year to the committee. I will attempt to answer all questions as fully as possible.

It might be helpful, Mr. Chairman, to review briefly the services provided, firstly, by Municipal Affairs. These are outlined in the estimates and I will refer to them as they appear there.

Essentially, the administrative services division provides for the administrative review and processing of local government bylaws which require provincial approval or registration, as well as the review of land-use and related bylaws. The division of Municipal Affairs is also responsible for the review of administrative practices and procedures in local government, an area which has been badly neglected in past years.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

I think it's important to explain to the committee that we have had authorization this fiscal year for increasing the number of staff in the Municipal, Affairs section of the ministry, because clearly the section has not kept pace with the growth of local, government, the regional districts and other demands which are made on it. It is the smallest section of any ministry in terms of numbers of people involved. I am appreciative of the fact that this year the Treasury Board did authorize an increase in staffing, which was certainly overdue.

Financial management. This programme provides the staff complement and necessary expenses to review and analyse all aspects of local government finance, including borrowing proposals and financial statements. It also provides for a review of the financial practices and procedures of local government but, as in administrative services, this area of responsibility has fallen short due to lack of staff and also to volume of the day-to-day workload. Staff increases have been provided in this section as well for this current fiscal year.

Planning services is another division of municipal affairs. The staff and funds provided in this programme are for the review, the support and the advancement of the community and regional district planning processes in municipalities and, naturally, regional districts. There is also provision there for the co-ordination of Provincial planning policies, proposals and initiatives with local government.

Under the very general term of "municipal aid, " we have included in this year's estimates municipal assistance in various sections. First, there are the per capita grants which provide municipalities with a grant of $34 per person plus the per capita catch-up grant. The homeowner grant this year is increased

[ Page 3475 ]

from $380 to $430 for those persons over 65 and also for those in receipt of war veterans' allowances and for the handicapped. As well as increasing the homeowner grant, this government before and during the last election campaign in 1977 undertook that it would be making grants to municipalities on a more equitable method. I do not want to speak of a bill which is presently on the order paper, other than to identify the revenue-sharing programme which is now ready for consideration by this Legislature, Mr. Chairman.

In the meantime, recognizing the difficulties faced by the municipalities due to their growth and the effects of inflation, we've continued with the interim revenue-sharing system - year 2 of interim revenue-sharing system, or son of interim revenue-sharing - which has resulted in a fairer method of distributing those funds.

The Sewerage Facilities Assistance Act has been increased from $11 million to $15.6 million, and it is going a long way to assist municipalities in providing badly needed sanitary sewerage facilities.

In transit - and perhaps the committee would care to discuss this aspect a little later on - we intend to continue with what is called the "smaller city programme, " which has seen service introduced into a number of communities, including Trail and Maple Ridge, this past year. It was just introduced at the beginning of the week in Kelowna and will be very soon in Prince Rupert. The Burrard Inlet ferry system, for which this ministry is responsible -Sea-Bus - went into operation on June 17, and passenger traffic is running with well over anticipated usage. In fact, Mr. Chairman, it might be of interest to the committee to know that from June 17 to date - that is, to sometime this afternoon - well over 300,000 persons have used the Burrard Inlet ferry system.

We will have to plan quite quickly for some sort of small ceremony marking the one-millionth passenger. We can expect that person to arrive at. one of the terminals in, 1 would expect, late August, early September or mid-September - somewhere in that neighbourhood.

Under the general heading of "local government restructure and amalgamation" in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs section, Mr. Chairman, we have a few people involved in relatively few projects, but each one is very complex and occupies a great deal of time and effort. It is a continuing effort to upgrade and modernize local government in the province and to provide improved services to local taxpayers. So the government does continue with its study of restructure or its assistance to a restructuring committee in a number of communities.

At the moment, we have in place six restructure committees in various parts of the province. We offer assistance and expertise in this regard. We meet with the local committee but we do not intend to introduce and we have not, under any of the restructuring thus far, introduced any form of pressure in terms of what a community should or should not do. We simply respond to the best of our ability to a demonstrated community interest in restructuring or amalgamation. It is the nature of people that many of those proposals are destined to fail; nonetheless, we respond to the community interest and we assist. In some instances there has been successful restructuring.

That particular part of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, as I said earlier, occupies a lot of time and great patience and skill on the part of senior representatives of the ministry.

Mr. Chairman, 1976 was a record year for housing starts in the province. Total starts for that year reached 37,727, surpassing the 37,000 starts recorded during the previous record year of 1973. Now admittedly this phenomenon was not peculiar to British Columbia. Total starts in Canada reached well over a quarter of a million, about 273,000 - again a record high in 1976. Of particular note is that metropolitan Victoria exceeded its previous record year by 6 per cent. Although metropolitan Vancouver did not have a record year, starts were up 25 per cent over the previous year.

In regard to the type of housing and style of housing units being built, it may be of interest to the committee to note that only 27 per cent of the units started in metro Victoria during 1976 were the single-detached dwelling. In 1975, 37 per cent of those total starts were single-detached. The percentage of single-detached starts in metro Vancouver has remained stable at 50 per cent over the past two years. For the province as a whole, single-detached starts continue to represent 55 to 58 per cent of all starts.

Mr. Chairman, I think that at this point I would simply refer to the excellent service which is offered, not to me and not to this government as such, but to the people of British Columbia by the senior people in the sections of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Mr. Bill Long, Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs, is with me on the floor for committee discussion. Mr. Larry Bell, deputy minister in the Housing section, is also present and ready to assist not only me but the committee. I look forward to the discussion.

I have a very strong feeling with respect to the senior people in both sections of the ministry. There are some members of this House who have more contact with them, perhaps, than others. I am sorry that Mr. George Gray in Housing has found it necessary to step down due to ill health prior to his scheduled retirement next year - although Mr. Gray continues to offer assistance to the section, notwithstanding his retirement. In addition, Mr. Lou

[ Page 3476 ]

Marcoux is not in good health. Therefore there is increased pressure on Mr. Bell and Mr. George Chatterton and others within the Housing section of the ministry. 1 do look forward to assisting the committee as 1 can.

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): 1 too would like to thank the minister's assistants who are here on the floor tonight. They've been on consistent practical and personal help to me in my responsibilities as critic for municipal affairs, housing and transit. I appreciate their advice and their commentary, some of which, indeed, the minister will discover to his potential unhappiness, I'm actually using tonight.

This isn't going to be a very long debate, and I'm sure it's not going to be a very heavy one. My own remarks are divided into four sections. The first of them will describe the failures of the administration in promises for which 1 believe this minister should be held accountable. 1 propose to demonstrate to the House that there have been seven principal failures of administration and promise within his own ministry since he assumed that authority.

The second argument that I intend to put forward is that the minister has made three very peculiar, very strange claims in his administration since he took office, and I propose to discuss those for a moment. I'm sure he won't find them particularly heavy going.

The third aspect of his administration which I propose to discuss is what 1 believe to be his substantial neglect of duty in eight particular fields, and I'll be revealing those eight, one through the other, as the debate proceeds.

The final argument to present, at least on behalf of the official opposition as its critic, will be a number of proposals which I hope the minister might wish to take seriously. I have a number of specific and positive recommendations which, in our view, will help to bring some improvements, some welcome changes, some imagination and some progressive thought to the administration of that department.

So those are the four principal sections of the debate that 1 propose to lead, Mr. Chairman: his failures, his occasional strange claims of success; neglect of duty in at least eight instances which have come to my attention; and, finally, several positive proposals for change and alteration.

The first of the minister's failures which I'd like to discuss for the moment is centred around the fact -in our view, the observable fact - that the minister simply does not have very much clout in this particular cabinet. That the minister's a former Liberal and a former Tory and a present Socred simply doesn't carry a lot of weight in his own cabinet. Indeed, there are five particular instances which I should like to demonstrate, Mr. Chairman, to, I hope, the satisfaction of the House.

The first instance that came to our attention is in regard to the Assessment Authority for which the minister is responsible, at least as its leader in the House and as its one-time chairman. This House may remember that when the budget came down a little while ago, we discovered that the minister, in an obvious cabinet fight, had lost to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) . Now can you believe that - anyone losing to this Minister of Finance? Somehow he managed to do that, because indeed we see that the Assessment Authority in its original budgetary presentation when the budget was read on the floor of the House in vote 11 was suffering a cut of $3.5 million in its annual grant from the province.

Can you believe that we should be able to stand up here tonight, Mr. Chairman, and say that the first of five proofs of this minister's lack of clout, weight and authority in that cabinet is that he lost to the Minister of Finance, of all people? The loss was such that the $3.5 million cut from the Assessment Authority's annual contribution from the province meant that municipalities had to make up the difference. It meant a 75 per cent cut in the operating grant of that authority and it meant that municipal and regional government throughout the province had to make up the difference. It was cleat when the budget came to the floor of this House, Mr. Chairman, that the minister had lost the battle. It's clear to us that he lacked the clout.

We now discover in the subsequent turn around that indeed the government has agreed for at least this year to restore that difference. Why did that happen? Not because the minister had persuaded them. Had he been able to persuade them, he would have persuaded them before the budget came down. That is, I think, a logical observation, Mr. Chairman. He didn't Persuade them at all. The powers that be that persuaded the government did not include the minister. They did include municipal and regional government officials from throughout the province; they did include the executive of the UBCM. They did not include the minister.

So the fact that we were able to persuade the government to reverse its very foolish decision to cut the operating grant of the Assessment Authority was not the result of the minister's interventions. Once again, if I may point out, had he been able to intervene successfully, he would have done so in cabinet before the budget came to the floor. The fact that there's been a subsequent turnaround is proof of the authority and the weight of municipal government and further evidence of the lack of authority and lack of weight within his own coalition cabinet of this particular minister.

The second piece of evidence that I should like to offer, Mr. Chairman, as to the lack of clout on the part of this minister is the fact that he failed in cabinet to persuade his colleagues to continue with the McMath report.

[ Page 3477 ]

He failed to persuade his colleagues to allow the report, chaired by Alderman Robert McMath of the municipality of Richmond, to continue in its research and development stages. Indeed, 1 am informed that he lost to the anti-academic elite of the coalition cabinet - in particular the Ministers of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) and Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) and the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) . In disputes with the cabinet, the minister, to his credit, stood up in favour of the McMath report and in favour of its continuing surveillance and analysis of municipal financing and taxation problems in the province of British Columbia.

We're glad he did that. The problem is he lost the cabinet fight; the problem is the report was killed. They never allowed its research stage to continue to its natural end; they killed it in mid-life and the report we have is, in effect, half a report. Its authors have on public record on several occasions said that. That to us, Mr. Chairman, is the second evidence that this minister simply doesn't have any weight in cabinet. He loses. He loses all the time and he lost in the battle to continue with the studies of the McMath report.

Thirdly, Mr. Chairman, this minister has lost in his defence of municipal and regional government to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) . Once again this minister is on record, reasonably and wisely enough, as recommending - and I'll later in the debate be reading into Hansard his old Hansard remarks - that the property tax is not an appropriate source of revenue for school costs. We agree with him; we think that's just fine. The problem is that this minister has lost over and over again in cabinet to the Minister of Education, who doesn't seem to share his point of view.

Indeed, what we discover, Mr. Chairman, is that in the last two years the property taxes in British Columbia have gone up 11 mills. Two years ago they went up 6 mills; last year they went up 5 mills. What it means, Mr. Chairman, is that a political promise made from several different parties by this minister over a period of time has not been kept. Indeed, to the contrary. the minister has lost the arguments in cabinet which would otherwise have sustained his point of view that school taxes should be reduced and that they should not rely on property as a means of their basic assessment.

The minister thirdly now, having lost to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) , the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) , the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , is now in this third instance once again losing to the Minister of Education.

Fourthly, Mr. Chairman, the minister also demonstrates his lack of clout when he finds himself unable to defend municipal government against the ravages of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) . Specifically what I'm referring to are the cruel and foolish and stupid cutbacks in social service support which was previously granted under the enlightened administration of the previous Minister of Human Resources (Mr. Levi) . We now see the present Minister of Human Resources running around making cuts wherever he thinks he can find political gain.

The problem is, Mr. Chairman, that the municipal governments in this province have to make up the difference over and over again. The problem is that when those cutbacks occur, the people who've been cut go to their local councils, the people who've been cut go to their regional districts, they go to their village councils, they go back home because the province has turned them down. What this means, Mr. Chairman, is that the man who should be defending municipal government against those wrongful claims - sentimentally legitimate as they may appear, but fiscally wrong in principle - has failed to defend them.

In the city of Vancouver we find that some 35 social-service agencies, having been cut by the Minister of Human Resources, have gone to city council and have asked that city council to make up the difference. Indeed, that city council at the moment feels obligated to do so. In greater Victoria some 10 social services are now in the process of applying to their municipal councils because once more the cold-hearted Minister of Human Resources has cut them down.

This is the fourth instance, Mr. Chairman, which demonstrates to us that the man who should be defending municipal government against these attacks and onslaughts has failed to do so. Indeed, what we see is that he stands idly by and helplessly by while other stronger members of cabinet force their policies down the throats of municipal government. This minister appears to be utterly powerless to defend them. Thirty-five social service agencies in Vancouver are now going to Vancouver city council. It should not be the responsibility of city council to pay for those services, Mr. Chairman. The minister himself used to say that when he was in opposition. I believe him and I believe tonight he believes that too. The problem is he can't stand up against the Minister of Human Resources. He lost again for the fourth time.

In the fifth and final occasion a dramatic event occurred in this House just a few nights ago. We were debating second reading of the Islands Trust Amendment Act. As you may remember, I had taken the position that because the regional districts, seven in all, involved had asked for a meeting with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and had obtained it and had gotten nowhere, they had then gone on to ask for a meeting with the Premier.

[ Page 3478 ]

The Premier informed them that they were to have this meeting. To our very great surprise and to the very considerable chagrin of those seven regional districts, they discovered that that night when we were debating this they had not been alerted in any way. Indeed, it was not to be for another week that their audience with the Premier was scheduled. We discovered that the week prior to the scheduled June 21st meeting with the Premier, the Minister of Municipal Affairs was attempting to push through second reading and committee stage of the Islands Trust Amendment Act.

What we saw - to the considerable embarrassment of the Minister of Municipal Affairs - here on the floor of the House is how once again he loses in any struggle with any of his cabinet colleagues.

We had proposed an adjournment of the debate, Mr. Chairman; we had proposed to put it off until after the June 21st meeting with the seven regional districts; we had proposed that the Premier not lose face with those seven districts; we had proposed that the meeting go forward and then the debate subsequent to it. The Minister of Municipal Affairs refused my request over and over again and indeed voted down the motion to allow it.

What happens when the Premier comes into the House, Mr. Chairman? The Premier - a politically more sage person, apparently willing to embarrass his own Minister of Municipal Affairs in front of the rest of the House - overrules him and says: "That's right, we'll adjourn. We're nice guys, we don't want to offend anyone - we'll put it off until after June 2 1." That's the fifth and - for this evening's purposes -final example of this minister's total lack of weight and real authority in that cabinet.

He loses over and over a gain. He lost to the Minister of Finance regarding the Assessment Authority; he lost to not one but three of his colleagues regarding the McMath report; he has lost repeatedly to the Minister of Education on school property taxation; he has lost to the Minister of Human Resources on social services; and he has lost to his own Premier in this House on the Islands Trust....

MR. CHAIRMAN: On a point of order, the hon. member for Fort George.

MR. H.J. LLOYD (Fort George): Under the standing orders, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to call your attention to standing order 43, 1 don't think any rivalry between the cabinet ministers is of any special interest at this particular time. We're talking about the estimates for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I think you've allowed him plenty of tolerance in this field. I'd like to get back to the matter under discussion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With great respect, I find the member is in order.

MS. BROWN: Smarten up, Prince George!

MR. BARBER: As I said, in this first part of the debate I'm outlining what are, in my view, seven principal failures of administration and achievement on the part of this minister. The first is that he has simply no clout in his own cabinet.

The second, which I propose to discuss now, is in four parts. This minister has repeatedly and spectacularly failed to consult with appropriate authorities. In a very minor example of it, he failed to consult with the city of Victoria when he decided to sell the property at Mount Stephen. He broke a long-standing and written commitment to the people of Victoria that the property in Mount Stephen in my own riding was to be committed to co-operative housing. He failed to consult with city council.

He failed to consult in any adequate way at all with the persons concerned and, sure enough, they were as surprised as I, Mr. Chairman, to discover in an obscure journal called The Journal of Commerce, published in Vancouver, a tender putting that property up for sale. He failed to consult with any local authorities at all and, once found out, he had to back down.

Now to his credit, Mr. Chairman, he did, when backing down, give the city a considerably better deal than it would have gotten had he refused to back down. Indeed, he kicked in a substantial amount of money, some $200,000 in all. It will finally amount to assistance with sewering and other programmes there. But the basic evidence is that had we not read that advertisement in that obscure Vancouver journal we would not have found out until after the fact that that minister had put that property up for sale.

The city had sold it at cost for low-cost housing; the province determined to triple the cost - the purchase prices was $200,000 - and to sell it for $600,000 and to keep the difference. We found out, we argued in this House, the minister backed down, and the city got a better deal. Had he consulted with the city in the first place, no such trouble would have resulted because he would have known, as we knew, that that kind of administrative shenanigan was totally unacceptable to the city of Victoria.

That is the first but not the only instance of this minister's failure to consult with municipal and regional authorities, with whom he should be talking all the time.

The second failure to consult is again concerned with the Islands Trust, Mr. Chairman. It is again concerned with the fact that this particular minister has tampered and meddled in a very political and very dumb way with a previously successful and delicate balance of authority between island and regional

[ Page 3479 ]

district interests. The minister has gotten himself into trouble.

The minister has, for the first time, witnessed a walkout by trustees at an Islands Trust meeting. The walkout occurred in mid-May. The walkout occurred because the trustees, anticipating the moves of the minister, began to take some moves of their own in order to try and re-establish the balance. The walkout occurred because by his meddling he has set members of the Trust, appointed and elected, against one another. The walkout occurred in part, for the first time in the history of the Trust, Mr. Chairman - and it has been a controversial Trust - because of the minister's failure to consult in any sensitive or thoughtful way with representatives of the Trust and with the islanders themselves.

He has failed to consult and now he is in trouble for it. He has seven regional districts breathing down his back. He had to suffer the humiliation of the Premier repudiating him in this House regarding the date for a meeting. On the islands themselves, many of which are located in the minister's own riding, his own popularity is, at the moment, a dimming and falling star. The minister has failed to consult and it has got him into trouble. That's the second occasion.

The third occasion is concerned with transit. The minister has been telling the people of this province that he intends to bring in an urban transit authority of some sort or another. That is good; we're happy that he is doing that. What the minister has not done or demonstrated is his willingness, in advance of that or any other act, to debate, in a conscious, sensible and intelligent way, the principles of that kind of legislation. Mr. Chairman, those changes are profound. Whatever this minister does, within or without legislation, will have a profound effect on the third largest city in the second largest country in the world. This minister is not consulting on any of these questions of transit, Mr. Chairman.

My caucus has met with members of the transportation committee of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. They do not feel that they know at all what to expect from this minister or what to anticipate from his government. I have been unable to make any contact of a successful sort with anyone in transit in greater Vancouver who has any idea at all what the minister is planning for them. Indeed, their fear is that the minister will simply announce something or other, at some time or another, and they will read about it in the papers just like the rest of us.

1 appreciate the peculiar and necessary constitutional requirements that bills themselves be kept secret. I think that is fine and 1 respect it. What we're proposing, Mr. Chairman, and what this minister has failed to do, is a process of sensitive, intelligent and systematic consultation in advance of legislation as profound as that which he is anticipating. Lacking the consultation, Mr. Chairman, he gets into trouble and so does his government. Lacking the consultation, he creates conflict and chaos where none previously existed. Lacking the consultation, he fails to do the job he should be doing as minister.

No one is proposing that he go to them with a bill in hand and say: "What do you think? 1 haven't dropped it in the House yet but I'd like your opinion." What we are suggesting is that he could go to those people in transit, particularly in greater Vancouver but also in greater Victoria, and say to them: ---These are some of the principal considerations that 1 have as a minister. These are the themes of my government's interest in transit. These are the parameters of our thinking and our money. Within those broad areas, given those important forces, what are the choices we have and what are the things that we can do?"

That's consultation, Mr. Chairman, and it makes sense. It is consultation and the minister has failed to do it. It's consultation and the minister has not delivered.

On the fourth occasion that 1 propose to discuss this evening, the minister has failed abysmally to consult with municipal and regional governments on changes of any sort that he proposes to the Municipal Act.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are not about to discuss legislation or proposed legislation during the vote in supply. Would you please go to another line of questioning?

MR. BARBER: Well, precisely, Mr. Chairman. What 1 am discussing is the failure of this minister to consult on those or any other changes. I'm not discussing the contents of the bill. I've very carefully tried to avoid that and 1 appreciate that rule.

What 1 am saying is that any bill, no matter what its contents, would be the stronger, its arguments the better and its success superior had consultation occurred in advance. I'm not discussing the contents of this bill. What 1 am suggesting is that changes in the Municipal Act as anticipated and announced by this minister are of such a sensitive and important nature that no matter what the contents of the bill itself are, he should be talking in advance with those people and he should be discussing it in advance.

We have the failure of the notorious Bawlf report to persuade anyone that this minister consults with anyone. We have its partial repudiation by its so-called authors, all of whom, save one - its chairman - seem to find fault with it. We have evidence over and over again of the failure of consultation on the part of this government.

AN HON. MEMBER: You mean he didn't ask

[ Page 3480 ]

you?

MR. BARBER: He didn't ask anyone except himself and I don't think that's good enough. He's not doing the job he could have and should have been doing. He came into this portfolio, Mr. Chairman, with great hopes. He has a tremendous background in municipal government - probably the best of any man who's ever held that portfolio.

He has over and over again disappointed his own supporters by failing to consult, by failing to involve, by failing to create opportunities for testing and challenging of his own ideas, and that's a shame. It's not necessary. That's the second major administrative failure that we propose to discuss.

The third is his failure to honour a long-standing promise to the senior citizens of this province. That promise by governments for years has been: we respect you and we'll help you look after yourselves. We respect you and if you make that choice, we'll help you live together. We respect you and if you make the choice to live together, we'll help make that as possible financially and administratively as we can.

We see in this minister's budget that he has cut the capital construction grants for senior citizens' housing from $10 million to $4 million. Now we know why the Socreds gave them free campsites, Mr. Chairman. They cut the budget for seniors' housing construction from $10 million to $4 million and gave them free campsites instead. Big deal! Hurray for them! What an achievement; what a remarkable thing to do; what glory. They must be very proud.

This minister has failed to honour an historic promise in the province of British Columbia that elderly people will be looked after. There are many elderly people who enjoy living with one another in a home like, say, North Park Manor where 1 was visiting just a couple of weeks ago. It's sponsored by a Baptist church, located at the corner of North Park and Quadra in my own riding. It's a successful, happy example of the value of voluntary initiation of a project like that, of local, provincial and federal government moneys and of a commitment by a provincial housing authority under the previous Minister of Housing, my colleague from Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) .

Under the successful administration of the predecessor Minister of Housing, those kinds of things got off the ground. Under the failed administration of this minister, when budgets have been cut from $10 million to $4 million and free campsites have been offered instead, it's no wonder that senior citizens feel that they've been betrayed just a little by the promises of this government.

Now as well as the failures at hand, he has been responsible for the peculiar course of something known as the joint committee on housing which turned out in October of last year a notorious report, called the "Report of the Chairman to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing." One of my colleagues has taken a particular interest in this report and later on the debate will be asking some very interesting and important questions about the contents and, indeed, the financing of this particular study. We have some questions that, in our view, have not been satisfactorily answered at all.

What 1 wish to introduce to the record right now, Mr. Chairman, is the fact - and is a reminder of the previous statements as well - that the alleged co-authors of this report found that, we are informed, it was somewhat difficult to support all of the recommendations within it. Indeed, some of them said they couldn't support very many at all. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, the bill that's resulted from the report has itself been changed in just the last few weeks.

But 1 won't talk about that. I'll talk about the notorious Bawlf report. It's not signed by its co-authors; it's signed by its chairman. It's signed by its chairman because it doesn't represent anyone other than the chairman. There is no other report. No other co-authors ever wrote anything else. The report is the creation of one man who sat around with a lot of others and, as it turns out, wasted their time. It's the brainchild of this minister who has used it in a very peculiar fashion to justify some of his very peculiar housing policies.

The report, Mr. Chairman, was considerably criticized by municipal government officials when it first came out because what it advocated was a kind of carrot-and-stick approach to housing. What it said was that there are municipalities in this province that are not doing the job they should in order to provide the opportunities for housing starts that they need. What the report said is that incentives and disincentives chiefly of a financial nature have to be created in order to provide the housing starts that this province needs. The report was criticized for being heavy-handed. The report that this minister was responsible for was criticized for being ruthless and arrogant and for attacking municipal government.

I'd like to read a quote into the record, if 1 may, Mr. Chairman, and ask the minister if he recognizes its author. Referring to this particular kind of issue, the quote said:

"I'm concerned by the actions of some municipalities, or alternatively the non-action by some municipalities, and by delays in preventing needed housing units from going ahead. This is not a widespread problem, but it's a very big problem in two or three municipalities and they are standing in the way of building and housing. The government is going to have to take a look at the situation and take action to circumvent this type of action by some of the municipalities."

Is that a familiar quote, Mr. Minister? Have you ever

[ Page 3481 ]

heard that before?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you address the Chair, please, hon. member?

MR. BARBER: Through you, Mr. Chairman, has the minister, 1 wonder, ever heard that language before describing the role and the sometime failure of municipal government to provide the housing starts that they should be providing and the opportunities that they should be making available?

Well, indeed, it's remarkably similar to the language with which the chairman of the Bawlf committee introduced his own report and it's remark-ably similar to the language used by the minister himself when the same report was released to the public. The problem is that it was the language used by the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr. Lorimer. Indeed, he is quoted in a speech of March 14,1975, by the now Minister of Municipal Affairs. The ironic thing is, Mr. Chairman, that when it served his political purposes this minister then went on to say:

Big stick! Big Brother! The minister could not, or would not, tell this House which municipalities offend him in this regard. He didn't indicate that he has made any attempt to meet with the troublesome councils to communicate with them and discuss where the problem might lie.... It can be described as a big stick or Big Brother attitude, an increasing hostility toward its own municipalities. What irony, Mr. Chairman!

When it suits his political purpose he would attack a 'government that might point out that some municipalities have been neglected. When it suited his political purpose in opposition, he would attack our government for pointing those things out now that he's in power, he offers a report - repudiated in part by its alleged co-authors - that makes the same observations and which comes in even more heavily with carrots and sticks. It is, to say the least, a little inconsistent, Mr. Chairman, and it is in our view another of the principal failures of this particular minister. They're attempting to force growth for bribes and blackmail; they're attempting now to do something far worse than in his previous imagination he could ever accuse the previous government of having done. It's a major failure, in our view, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm not sure that the word "blackmail' is a proper parliamentary term.

MR. BARBER: Well, 1 withdraw it. I would use "carrots and sticks, " if you prefer, Mr. Chairman.

The final major failure of administration that 1 should like to discuss tonight, Mr. Chairman, is this minister's failure to deal with any speed at all with the field of strata titles. Indeed, for months and months and months this minister has' been utterly neglectful of the field. Without debating the bill at hand - its contents or anything else - I should like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that this minister has been on notice from municipal and regional governments since the fall of last year, since February 10 from the Capital Regional District, since March I from the Powell River Regional District, that there are major holes and flaws.

For months and months, Mr. Chairman, this minister knew that there exists in the present legislation a loophole whereby developers placing bricks in a pile located at the corners of a lot could get away with an utterly wrongful, an utterly....

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, this clearly, MR. Chairman, is the subject of legislation presently before this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, hon. minister, I was just going to bring that to the attention of the member. Kindly proceed, hon. member.

MR. BARBER: Well, again, I've tried to avoid discussing the content. What I talked about is the failure of this minister to do anything about it until the horse had left the barn.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that that could be better discussed during the debate on the bill in question.

MR. BARBER: It will indeed be discussed then too, but it occurs to me, Mr. Minister, but it wasn't until a former Socred MLA developer got caught in Central Saanich that this minister finally agreed to act. Only when it was crucially, excruciatingly embarrassing to his own party did he decide to move. Prior to that he did nothing at all.

Those, in our view, Mr. Chairman, are some of the failures of administration on the part of this particular minister.

Now I want to talk for a moment about some of the strange claims, some of the strange propositions that this minister has put forward to the people of British Columbia.

As the minister is well aware, I've spent a lot of time reading all of his old speeches, spent hours and hours on weekends reading back in the files. I love doing that kind of stuff.

One of the claims that this minister once made is something that I would like to read into the record, if I may, Mr. Chairman. I think it may tell us something about his present attitude towards the former government; his present attitude towards the Provincial Secretary and the Attorney-General; his present ability to perform in a believable and credible

[ Page 3482 ]

fashion as the Minister of Municipal Affairs. He was at this time a Conservative.

We read on June 7,1974, the first in a series of three strange claims put forward by this minister.

"Fears of a possible state police force and political intrigue in B.C. were voiced Thursday in the Legislature. Opposition members accused the government of trying to obtain powers that would enable it to set up a provincial police force. The excessive powers sought by the government, they said, were contained in the-, Police Act, which was given second reading in the Legislature. Hugh Curtis, PC. . . ."

HON. MR. CURTIS: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I'm not certain, Mr. Chairman. I look to you for direction as to how this relates to the vote which is presently before the committee. Perhaps you could indicate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm just waiting to tie that in myself, Hon. minister. Would the member please proceed?

MR. BARBER: I believe it relates....

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down!

MR. BARBER: Oh, come on, now - be polite.

I believe, Mr. Chairman, it relates very directly to the credibility and stature of this minister in the eyes of the public. I believe it relates very much to his integrity as a minister. I believe it's important that this House know some of the things that this minister said when in opposition. I'm sure the minister won't be embarrassed, because I'm simply quoting his own words.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.

MR. BARBER: I'll take my seat and hope to renew it in a short time.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): Mr. Chairman, I was just getting interested in the remarks of the second member for Victoria.

AN HON. MEMBER: It took a while.

MR. NICOLSON: I certainly did take note of one of the points that was brought up. I'd just like to briefly comment on that and I'll have other remarks later about mobile homes - not things that will be contained in the legislation but things that will have to be done without legislation - and other recommendations of the Audain commission.

There was no comment on this by the minister in his opening remarks, but I would like to touch on what seems to be a direction that I think is a wrong direction. Perhaps I should say not a wrong direction but an incomplete direction or attitude toward the problem, which is the problem of providing good shelter for senior citizens.

During my administration, Mr. Chairman, I sought not to undo everything that had been done by a previous administration. The Elderly Citizens' Housing Aid Act was brought in by the previous Social Credit government under the Department of the Provincial Secretary, who I'm proud to say was also the member for Nelson-Creston at that time. It was a good Act. In trying to bring in programmes and taking advantage of section 15 of the National Housing Act, which was the section under which the Elderly Citizens' Housing Aid Act was funded, we sought not to do away with that when we also chose to expand our activities to include housing under section 43 of the National Housing Act and using section 40 of the National Housing Act.

We embarked upon all three of these. Without commenting on legislation that's before the House, I would say that it appears that the minister is going to be undoing a lot of the good that has been done.

There seems to be an assumption that people who live in housing that is sponsored by organizations such as the Kinsmen and the Kiwanis and the Lions and Rotary and all of these service organizations, and by the Baptist Foundation and by various church groups and such around the province, are unhappy in this housing. I think that if that is the assumption, that should be backed up by some sort of a study and by some sort of facts. It's been my experience in visiting people in these projects that they are very pleased. Indeed, I recall one person in McBride saying that he was a pioneer of that valley. He had come into there in the first decade of this century. He was in his 90th year when I visited the place, and his comment was that this was the best-lined shack he had ever lived in. He certainly meant that as a compliment. I believe his name was Mr. Joharmsen. I hope he is still alive today - perhaps if the member from Fort George (Mr. Lloyd) were here he might be able to inform us of that.

The other legislation the minister has before the House and it's unfortunate.... I remember how the minister, when he was in opposition....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Legislation, Hon. member.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, I know about it. I'm just going to remind the minister that when he was in opposition and lie had a private member's bill, so that he wouldn't restrict the opposition he would quite often ask leave to lift a bill from the order paper. I would say that if a bill hasn't got into second reading, perhaps he should do that so that there would be no time loss. First reading could be done again very

[ Page 3483 ]

easily; it could be reintroduced and so on.

HON. MR. CURTIS: You see, I knew the former government was going to put thumbs down on any legislation I had.

MR. NICOLSON: But I would think that for some of these bills that haven't gone through second reading, perhaps the minister should consider extending that courtesy to the opposition.

I've just made those few comments right now and I would hope later the minister might comment on mobile homes. I was certainly interested by the remarks of the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) and I would hope to be hearing more from him during this debate.

MR. BARBER: Thank you, my colleague from Nelson-Creston.

In the second part of this debate - the first one being failures - I have been reading strange claims into the record. These are the strange claims of this particular minister when he was in opposition and it served his purposes to claim as follows: Colonist, June 7,1974, page 1:

"Hugh Curtis (PC, Saanich and the Islands) told the House he feared that Attorney-General Alex Macdonald had been, 'party to creating a monster which he will be unable to control.' The Act, Curtis, said, would reduce municipal control over police forces by creating a provincial police commission. Centralization of police, services, he said, was extremely dangerous and could eventually result in a ministry of police."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm waiting for you to tie this in to the present responsibilities of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

MR. BARBER: Well, as I think has often been pointed out in this House, Mr. Chairman, a great deal of the ability of that minister, or any minister, to exercise his responsibilities revolves around his stature, his recognized authority and honour as a member of this House and as a citizen.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that would be construed as a personal attack and that will not be permitted by the Chair.

MR. BARBER: Oh, quite the contrary, Mr. Chairman. I'm not attacking him at all. I have only one more paragraph to read.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, with new material.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Please, new material.

MR. BARBER: Well, what he went on to suggest, very briefly, Mr. Chairman, is that this Act would create police forces within the police force.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's all recycled.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that has nothing to do with the minister's present responsibilities, I must rule that out of order. Please proceed with new material.

MR. BARBER: In our view, that was a very strange claim, but claims by any of those members opposite of a secret police force have never stood the test of fact or documentation. I'm disappointed that that minister, when he was in opposition, decided to join the crew and make bizarre claims about a secret police force.

The second strange claim that I propose to discuss tonight, Mr. Chairman, is the claim of the minister, while a minister, to have observed in British Columbia that the housing crisis has been solved. That's a very peculiar claim, Mr. Chairman. He tells the people of British Columbia that the housing crisis is over and allows the happy implication to slide through that his government - his own ministry - is chiefly responsible for that.

Well, the chief problem, Mr. Chairman, is that we've seen, according to Canada Manpower, that in the first quarter of this year some 10,000 workers have evidently skipped the border and gone to Alberta; that business after business has skipped the border and gone to Washington state.

In my own city, 'Mr. Chairman, according to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, we may well expect an apartment rental vacancy rate of some 12 per cent to 14 per cent by the end of this fiscal year. Indeed, what we're seeing, Mr. Chairman, is an exodus from this province of some of the best minds and talents and skills we ever had. We've seen that people who want work can't get it. We've seen that they're leaving. We have seen mayor after astonished mayor say to Census Canada: "What? Our population has actually diminished? I don't believe you." What we've seen is mayor after astonished mayor say, "well, 1 guess you're right, " when the figures were shown to them.

So we have the sight, Mr. Chairman, of this minister claiming that a solution to the housing crisis has been found. In fact, what has happened, Mr. Chairman, is that we have an overabundance, through foolish practices by some construction companies, of condominia and other limited-interest housing developments. We continue to have a great dearth of good, clean, affordable housing for low- and middle-income people, and we have the sight of

[ Page 3484 ]

people fleeing the province of British Columbia because of the stupid, failing economic policies of this coalition.

The minister, however, trying to put the best possible face on it, says: "Well, we've solved the housing crisis. It's over." The truth is that people have been leaving; that's why it's over! The truth is that in some sectors construction has foolishly been overbuilding. In part, that's why it's over as well.

The truth is, Mr. Chairman, that this minister can take no credit whatever for the alleged solution of the housing crisis. If anyone can take credit, it's the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) . It's his fiscal policies that have driven people out of this province in such numbers that the population of our cities and towns has been reduced and the evident housing stock available has apparently increased. So 1 would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance for having solved the Housing crisis. He's the guy who did it; it's hardly the Minister of Housing at all.

However, he has managed to do a few things wrong. Now in one particular field, among the strange claims that the housing crisis has been solved, is the strange claim by this minister on other occasions in this House that the housing crisis for senior citizens has indeed been entirely solved. He's brought in a programme called SAFER. It's a bill that's been passed; it's an Act now. I understand one is at liberty to discuss it; it now exists.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, it cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply.

MR. BARBER: Well, all right. Perhaps it can be mentioned. He took credit for SAFER and said that it was one of the things ...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, it cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply and it is out of order.

MR. NICOLSON: You're ruining debate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that is an assault on the Chair and I would ask you to withdraw.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, with respect, I've been in this House a little bit longer than you. It's unfortunate that you haven't seen other Chairmen operate in the chair besides....

[Mr. Chairman rises.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, will you take your seat, please? Hon. member you are casting aspersions on the Chair. I am going by the rules of this House - the established rules - and I would ask you to withdraw.

Mr. Chairman resumes his seat.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, you're being extremely active tonight.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm asking you to withdraw, hon. member.

MR. NICOLSON: I think you're taking your duties a little bit over-seriously. We've got a quiet, orderly House this evening and....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm asking you for the third time to withdraw.

MR. NICOLSON: Well, if it's hurting your feelings, Mr. Chairman, I withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. BARBER: The minister has managed, however, to mess up the whole field of senior citizens' housing construction. We've already demonstrated, quoting from the budget, that capital construction funds have been reduced from $10 million to $4 million this year and free campsites have been offered instead.

What I'd like to talk about now are statements made in the press recently by representatives of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. They demonstrate, at least to their satisfaction - although presumably not to the minister's - that his administration has failed completely to understand, to use and to employ the federal funds that are available for senior citizens' housing in this province. Indeed, we see on page 1 in the May 13th edition of the Victoria Colonist this year a Canadian Press story which, if I may read in part, puts the case very well:

"A federal housing co-ordinator says about $20 million in provincial funds earmarked for senior citizens' housing in Vancouver and Victoria is sitting idle because the B.C. government will not share operating costs with Ottawa.

"Mr. Anthony Lloyd, the co-ordinator of social housing for the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, told a conference on senior citizens' housing this week that CMHC was in a period of 'planned inactivity' because of the provincial government's shelter aid for elderly renters programme."

that describes it accurately, I think.

"Lloyd said CMHC was willing to provide money to build new senior citizens' homes but 'we now find the province is unwilling to subsidize the operating losses of these homes, ' originally to be split 50-50 by the two levels of

[ Page 3485 ]

government.

"Lloyd said enough apartments were available for senior citizens, but more housing with nursing care was needed. He said the provincial government was unwilling to subsidize housing until it determined how effective the SAFER programme was.

"Anne McAfee, a Vancouver housing planner, told the conference that senior citizen housing policy was 'a bureaucratic scramble.' " That's high praise for the minister's performance, Mr. Chairman.

"The assisted rental programme, a federal-provincial programme which subsidizes builders in order to lower rents, often did not help those who needed it most. The rent charged in many of these buildings was about $350 a month, McAfee said, and out of the reach of people who rely on government assistance. As a result, the programme helped those who were not desperate or really poor tenants who are on their own."

Mr. Chairman, what we have seen demonstrated is the strange claim by this minister that somehow the housing crisis has been solved when what we know is that according to Canada Manpower, some 10,000 workers have left the province and that, according to the Ministry of Economic Development - both here and in the state of Washington - British Columbia businesses have been going south, and when Census Canada has demonstrated that the population of some of our cities and towns has actually been shrinking. We now further discover that this minister has failed, according to a representative of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to take proper and full advantage of the funds that are available for senior citizens' housing. So the second strange claim, Mr. Chairman, of this minister is that somehow the housing crisis has been solved. It's an odd claim, and at least according to documentation that we have, it doesn't stand up even for a moment.

The third strange claim, Mr. Chairman, which we've seen is chiefly one, I suppose, of pride. I guess it is a least partly understandable. The SAFER programme, which is now law, is something the minister was happy to stand up and take credit for. We were happy to point out that the real authors of that programme were Lorne Nicolson and Larry Bell, and I congratulated them. I think it is a shame that this government has failed to acknowledge the originators and the driving forces behind this creation called SAFER which we were happy to support. I think it is a strange claim by this minister that somehow his government deserves all the credit. The fact is that it was well on the drawing board before his government took office. The fact is that the credit should at least be shared. It is a strange claim.

Another strange claim made by this minister is one which has really become very famous lately. Somehow people have been led to believe that the Sea-Bus was created overnight by an enlightened Social Credit administration out to improve transit across the Burrard Inlet. The truth, Mr. Chairman, is that the real authors of the Sea-Bus programme were Jim Lorimer and Vic Parker in the Dave Barrett administration. We have seen that minister stand up over and over again to take all the credit for the programme and to give none whatever to its real authors, It's a strange claim that this minister of that government makes. It's one of the most successful and exciting programmes in the field of public transit and not once has this minister had the courtesy to acknowledge the participation, to acknowledge the creation in their hands of this programme by its real originators, Jim Lorimer and Vic Parker. So at least on behalf of this side of the House, Mr. Chairman, we'd like to take an opportunity to claim for them the real credit for this programme. They fought hard; they worked hard. They fought against opposition and ignorance; they fought against laziness and indolence.

HON. J.R. CHABOT (Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources): How about Casa Loma?

MR. BARBER: They fought against people like the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources.

HON. MR. CHABOT: You haven't mentioned Casa Loma yet. Why not?

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

MR. BARBER: I think it is a strange and unfair claim by this minister whose name happily appears at the bottom of all the advertisements and in all the press copy to somehow be responsible for Sea-Bus. The truth and the fact and the evidence is that some other people are responsible for it. The minister had the wisdom to carry it through and I'm glad he did that. I'm glad it wasn't cut back like so many other programmes have been cut back. I think it is kind of shameful that he is not giving credit where it is due.

The third large element of the debate which we propose to lead, Mr. Chairman, lies in the field of what we believe to be this minister's neglect of duty - his neglect of important duty in administrative and programmatic areas; his neglect of duty where a minister, enlightened and progressive, would be moving ahead, taking steps and taking action; his neglect of duty in a portfolio which is admittedly very large and very complex; his neglect of duty as a member of a coalition cabinet that has failed to honour a number of important campaign promises to the people of British Columbia.

I'll touch lightly on a couple of them, Mr.

[ Page 3486 ]

Chairman. The first is in the field of mobile homes. We continue to suffer tonight from the.... It's not in the Act, Mr. Chairman; I've looked. It's not in the bill, 1 should say.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I must caution you that you cannot discuss impending legislation or need for legislation. I am just trying to bring this to your attention; I'm trying to assist you.

MR. BARBER: No, I'm talking about a problem. The first illustration of this minister's neglect of duty is his failure to do anything at all about the situation in which mobile-home owners find themselves in this province in this Particular regard. There are homeowners who, not knowing in advance that such would be the case, move into mobile-home parks and settle down. They then decide, for some reason or another, that they want to move to an apartment or to a house or to some other place altogether and they want to sell their mobile home. They then discover, to their horror, that they're not permitted to sell their mobile home by the landlord of the mobile-home park in which it sits.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's not true.

MR. BARBER: To the contrary, I have letters upon letters to demonstrate that those landlords wish....

AN HON. MEMBER: Name names!

MR. BARBER: Name names? We did last time and look how unhappy you-were when that precipitated.

There are landlords of mobile-home parks in this province, Mr. Chairman, who are actually claiming they have the authority to set the sale price of mobile homes located within their parks, and to take from it a particular commission....

HON. MR. CURTIS: A point of order.

Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that the hon. member who has occupied virtually all of this debate so far in committee does not apparently understand that he cannot discuss, as I understand it, legislation which is presently before the House. He is discussing mobile homes, and that is clearly contrary to the rules, sir.

MR. BARBER: Speaking to the point of order, Mr. Chairman....

AN HON. MEMBER: What!

MR. BARBER: I believe that's my right do so so.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr. Chairman, 1 propose to discuss this minister's neglect of duty in the field of mobile homes. I'm not discussing this Act or any other. I'm discussing his neglect.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, may I read to you from the 17th edition of Sir Erskine May: "The administrative action of a department is open to debate, but the necessity for legislation and matters involving legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply."

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, the point of order raised by the minister.... 1 think he was saying that anything involving mobile homes could not be brought up. Certainly there is no legislation on the order paper involving such a thing as construction of mobile-home parks for mobile homes or, say, the government's activity or lack of activity. The government has in the past constructed mobile-home parks. So certainly there are things which can be discussed using the words "mobile homes." There are certain areas that would be very limiting to debate if we could not discuss mobile homes in any respect whatever.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, thank you very much for your observation. That is not the intent. The intent is that it is not only matters that are on the order paper, but if a matter requires legislation to be corrected or involves legislation, it cannot then be discussed in Committee of Supply. This is the instruction of the Chair.

MR. BARBER: With respect, Mr. Chairman, I haven't encouraged a bill, referred to another, or suggested legislation in this matter. What I've indicated is that some people, to my knowledge and according to their own writing, have been caught in a very miserable situation. I won't name at this time the solution. Perhaps, hopefully, we can do that when a bill comes forward.

What I'm saying is that this minister has failed to respond in any way to the position and the plight in which these people find themselves when they are told that they cannot sell their mobile homes except at a price to be determined by their landlord and except with a commission to be set by, the same landlord. It's not fair and it's not reasonable. That's a neglect of duty on the part of the minister.

The second neglect of duty that I wish to discuss, Mr. Chairman, is this minister's entire failure to understand the value and to support the progress of co-operative housing in the province of British Columbia. I don't think he knows anything about it. 1 think what little he knows inclines him to be philosophically opposed to it. In a few minutes I propose to discuss ...

HON. MR. CURTIS: Wrong again.

[ Page 3487 ]

MR. BARBER: I'm wrong again. Well, we'll see.

I suppose the proof of it might be in the pudding, and considering what he's done to the Norman Bethune Co-op, I think the proof of that is well on our side of the argument.

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that the kind of leadership, the kind of vision, the imagination and the wit shown by the previous Minister of Housing in the Dave Barrett administration has been repudiated completely by this minister. He's shown no interest; he's made no commitment; he's held virtually no meetings; he's trusted by virtually no one in the co-operative housing field as someone in whom they can confide any of their concerns about co-op housing; and he's exercised no leadership.

What we have seen in many areas by this coalition, Mr. Chairman, is an endless attack, by direct action and by neglect, in the field of co-operative housing in the province of British Columbia. I don't think that's fair; I don't think that's reasonable. Co-operative housing requires leadership. It requires technical expertise. It requires a minister to stand up over and over again and say that he believes in it.

He has managed to publish in his ads, Mr. Chairman, the phrase: "Brought to you by the people who believe in public transit." I've noticed the ad. I've never seen in an advertisement for him, I've never seen in any of his speeches since he became minister, I've never heard him even once in this Legislature do anything with vigour and commitment to identify his own support of co-operative housing and to indicate what further initiatives, if any, he is willing to take.

It's neglect of duty on the part of a minister who should recognize that in the province of British Columbia we have an important heritage - social and economic - in the field of co-operative housing.

He's not simply allowing it to wither on the vine, Mr. Chairman. He, together with the other members of that coalition, who are philosophically opposed to the co-operative movement in the first place, are actively hoping it's going to die on the vine. I think that's shameful; it's disappointing; it was probably predictable; and it's another feature of this minister's neglect of duty - at least, as we see it - in the role that should be performed by a Minister of Housing who recognizes the value of co-op housing.

The third instance of neglect of duty that 1 propose to discuss, Mr. Chairman, is this minister's failure to honour one of his own promises. When this minister was in opposition it served him politically to say to the people of British Columbia that the province should pay its fair share of property taxes on land and buildings it owns in the province of British Columbia. Indeed, I should like to read into the record a statement that appears in The Vancouver Sun on May 1,1974, at page 15. It's datelined Victoria:

"Members of the three opposition parties in the Legislature attacked Municipal Affairs minister Jim Lorimer Tuesday over the failure of, provincial Crown corporations to pay full taxes to the municipalities."

Who do we see speaking first, Mr. Chairman? The present Minister of Housing. What is he saying?

"Hugh Curtis (C" - Conservative at that time, Mr. Chairman - "Saanich and the Islands) said the taxpaying property owner is subsidizing the province for the loss of this revenue, a practice which has gone on too long."

The article continues for a moment. You may be interested in some of the other people who spoke, Mr. Chairman:

"Garde Gardom (L, Vancouver-Point Grey) said: 'Vancouver would have taken in an additional $500,000 in revenue last year from B.C. Hydro, B.C. Rail, the Liquor Control Board and the Insurance Corporation of B.C. if they had paid full taxes.' "

The same article goes on to quote the present Speaker, Mr. Smith, and gets back to Mr. Curtis, then referred to. The article says: "Why should the taxpayer be penalized because of... T'

MR. L.B. KAHL (Esquimalt): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, the second member for Victoria has continually, throughout the debate this evening, referred to members of the House by their own names. I believe that's contrary to the rules of the House. I think he should be brought to order on that, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I believe he is reading from a newspaper article. In so doing, it is permissible.

MR. KAHL: He can't read, so that can't be the case.

MR. BARBER: The problem with using the titles, Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of the member for Esquimalt, who may not have been listening all that closely, is that the titles have changed and sometimes the surnames as they appear in the newspapers are a little more straightforward than your own points of order.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair. ]

The article goes on to say:

" 'Why should the taxpayer be penalized because of some subsidy formula that has gone on for years? Curtis asked. 'The people are being ripped off by the province.' Referring to the Premier's statement, Curtis said that if it's not fair for private firms to be given tax

[ Page 3488 ]

concessions, then it's not fair for Crown corporations either.

"Mr. Gardom said: 'There has been a constant con by Crown corporations which have not been paying their fair share of municipal taxes.' "

Mr. Chairman, the third instance of substantial neglect of duty by this minister in his patent unwillingness, as a member of that coalition cabinet, to honour one of the most important campaign promises made by any coalition candidates in the last provincial election. They have refused repeatedly to answer questions in this House about when and how they will honour it, and they have indicated repeatedly that they will do nothing to honour it.

The neglect of duty on the part of this minister, Mr. Chairman, is absolutely shocking. He is on record, over and over again, as promising that the province would pay its fair share of property taxes if they got to power. He is on record, as a critic, as attacking the previous administration for having failed to do so. I support that attack; I wish our guys had done it. They promised to do it. They have failed to do it abysmally; they have failed to do it utterly. This minister is guilty of neglect of duty and of a failure to honour his own promises.

I have read into the record, Mr. Chairman, his own words. Either the minister will be man enough to stand up and say, "Yes, I said that and indeed will do that, " or equally man enough to stand up and repudiate his own words and say that he's had a change of heart. All that seems to have happened is that he's had a change of position - now he's in government and now it doesn't serve him to talk about those things anymore. That's the third instance of neglect of duty.

The fourth instance that concerns me is the present debacle going on among the islanders on Saltspring. This minister has known for years, and most particularly for the last several months, that there are major conflicts occurring right now within the community of Saltspring. There are charges of conflict of interest; there are charges of maladministration; there are charges that people have benefited from their position; there are charges that the Islands Trust and the regional districts have not been doing their business properly. These charges, only now having made it to the press, have only lately prompted the minister, at long last, to take a look at them.

The fourth instance of neglect of duty by this minister, Mr. Chairman, is this: he has known, or should have - he is, after all, the MLA for that area as well as the minister concerned - that these problems have been looming for a long time. For an equally long time his. inspector of municipalities, presumably his deputy minister, should have been in there seeking advice, guidance and consultation and preparing evidence and documentation and making a report to the minister.

Instead what we have, reported as recently as three or four nights ago in the Victoria Times, is the shocking situation where a property owner over there finds that opponents of hers, for whatever reason, are phoning the police with nonsense stories, not about secret police this time, Mr. Chairman, but about children, allegedly her own, kept in cages. It's an evidence of the extent to which the social situation on Saltspring has deteriorated.

The fact is it needn't have gone on this long, Mr. Chairman. The truth is that any minister sensitive to those concerns, willing to listen to his own constituents and not neglectful of his duty as the minister of the Crown would have taken action long ago.

Once again we see that only when the press gets hold of it does this minister act. I pointed out that that was the case with strata titles and the loophole; 1 point out again tonight that this is the case with Saltspring. It's doubly embarrassing, Mr. Chairman, because it's in his own riding, and as a competent minister he should have taken action long ago. It's a failure to act; it's a failure to get involved; it's a neglect of duty of an increasingly serious sort - but it's not the final instance. There are three others.

1 talked earlier, Mr. Chairman, of transit as a matter of important concern to that minister. 1 congratulated him for carrying on the programme of his predecessor, the Sea-Bus programme. I would like to congratulate him now for realizing that B.C. Hydro misled the public accounts committee last spring, Mr. Chairman, when they spread nonsense stories about the buses which the previous administration had purchased. The minister, to his considerable credit stood up to Hydro - or Robert Bonner, I should say - and criticized Hydro for misinforming members of this House. To his further credit, he actually stood up a few months ago and said that Hydro is getting out of control.

It's clear to us, Mr. Chairman, that the minister knows that at least within Hydro, and certainly within its transit branch, there are a lot of problems. Some of the problems are: no great interest, no great sympathy, no great commitment and ' indeed, a very great willingness to get rid of the whole system as much as they can. It's certainly a money loser, it's certainly an embarrassment, it's certainly something that they don't seem to have very much interest in.

The problem, Mr. Chairman, is that once again we have further evidence of this minister's neglect of duty. The minister has promised an Act.... 1 won't go into it, as 1 haven't seen it.

I've talked before about his failure to consult in greater Vancouver, and I would like tonight to discuss his failure to consult in greater Victoria. I should be very interested to hear, Mr. Chairman, of any steps

[ Page 3489 ]

this minister personally has taken or ensured will be taken to consult with transportation planning authorities in greater Victoria. What meetings has he held with the transportation committee of the Capital Regional District? What consultation has there been with the transportation division of city hall in downtown Victoria? To what extent, if any, has he alerted himself to the growing transit problems in the capital city? To what extent, if any, has he been involved in discussing with municipal officials the course and the conduct of public transport in this particular city?

I find very little evidence, Mr. Chairman, that the minister has done anything at all in the capital city. He's made no statements in this House, to the best of my knowledge. He's issued no releases on the subject, to the best of my knowledge. I have received no reports from his office on the subject, and his office is usually very good in sending them along. I've heard him do and say nothing, observed him do and achieve nothing in the field of public transit in greater Victoria.

It's the fifth instance of a substantial neglect of duty on the part of this particular minister, Mr. Chairman.

Now perhaps because Victoria may have made the mistake of voting for a New Democrat as well as for a Socred in the last election, he has decided he's not got any immediate use for the riding. I doubt it. He's pretty fond of Victoria, He's probably lived here. He went to Vic High - so did 1. 1 think what's happened, Mr. Chairman, is that the minister is in this particular instance overworked and hasn't the time in a portfolio that's vast and sprawling. By his own inclination and by the evidence which we've tried to put before this House, once again he is simply disinclined to consult with anyone about anything; he makes up his own mind on the basis of his own experience.

The problem is that that experience in some cases, Mr. Chairman, is simply old. It's tired and obsolete. It was born in the '50s and we're living in the '70s. The problem is that he has failed to exercise the kind of imagination which a minister committed to transit would be exercising. The problem is that in greater Victoria the work that he should be doing in transit hasn't happened at all.

The sixth major neglect of duty lies in the field of investigating the five reported scandals that lie at the hands of municipal and regional administration in this province, Mr. Chairman. You may recall that earlier this year during the spring we had a whole series of scandals and charges of scandal alleged by citizens in the province.

We had the alleged scandal involving Captain Harry Terry and the Meadow Creek racetrack. We had the alleged criticisms of peculiar dealings by municipal officials in land transactions in Surrey. We had the allegation by the chamber of commerce that the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District Board was not doing its duty properly. We had the allegations by local residents, farmers and businessmen that in Chilliwack, the Sardis Land and Development Ltd. was exercising a very peculiar influence over the course of sewer development and over proposals for deletion of land from the agricultural land reserve. We had in Matsqui the claims that two municipal employees had benefited from land deals, from knowledge before events otherwise would have taken place about decisions that were to be recommended to council.

This minister has a very particular problem, Mr. Chairman, and I kind of feel sorry for him. I'd like to remind this House that during the entire three years plus of the NDP administration, you never saw this string, this ugly necklace of charges of scandal and maladministration. During the entire NDP term of government, Mr. Chairman, never once did you hear over and over and over again all of these charges of peculiar dealings and bizarre practices in municipal and regional government connected municipally or regionally - connected, indeed, every so often to supporters of the Social Credit Party. What we see instead, Mr. Chairman, is that under this minister and under his government the ethical climate has changed *

Looking at this as logically as one can, the first observation you make is that if, over a period of, say, three-plus years, these kinds of scandals and allegations of scandals did not occur, were not present in their numbers or their magnitude, and are now present in considerable numbers and considerable magnitude, it is surely logical to ask what has changed. During that period, Mr. Chairman, the Municipal Act did not change in regard to any of these problems. During that period the Municipal Finance Authority, the sewer Acts and the governing bylaws for regional districts and municipalities did not change in any of these instances. During that period, Mr. Chairman, of the previous administration we did not hear over and over again of these charges and allegations of scandal, mishandling of information or impropriety.

What has changed, Mr. Chairman, is the government itself. What I believe has changed is the ethical conduct now expected of people in the development industry in this province. Under the previous administration, I believe that developers knew and that municipal officials, who might like to tamper with developers, also knew that this kind of behaviour was not to be tolerated. This kind of behaviour would be found out and attacked and cut off at the root. This kind of behaviour was simply intolerable to the government of the day.

If the laws haven't changed; if the Acts have not been rewritten; if the objective circumstances have not altered, then you have to look at some other

[ Page 3490 ]

cause that might result in all these allegations of impropriety. The only cause large and significant enough is the broad one that occurred on December 11,1975 - the government changed. This minister, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps unfairly saddled with the obligation of picking up the pieces and cleaning up the mess after developers and speculators and friends of the Social Credit Party decided now that their government is in power the ethical climate has changed and they can try to get away with this nonsense.

As far as I can tell, there's no other objective reason for it. As far as I can tell, the only thing that changed was the government. As far as one can reasonably and rationally presume, the thing that really changed was the ethical climate. Now some people think they can get away with it, whereas before they knew they couldn't. That's the only difference.

I'm concerned about these improprieties, or at least the allegations of them. I'm concerned that the minister to date has failed to report to the House on the outcome of any of the reports which he indicated were being made to him. As I mentioned, there are five underway at the moment, and later on in the debate I will be pursuing one of them particularly -the one at Matsqui. It concerns me a very great deal.

We've yet to hear from the minister about the inquiries into the Meadow Creek racetrack; into the allegations of peculiar land dealings in Surrey by municipal officials; into the criticisms of the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District board by its chamber of commerce; into the allegations of odd land dealings in Chilliwack by the Sardis Land Development Company and to the allegations that two municipal employees benefited.

I hope that the minister, before his estimates are through, will agree to table in this House the written reports of the various inspectors of municipalities and various sub-inspectors who assisted in the job -reports that the minister has announced have been underway. Indeed, some of them - indeed, the deputy minister whom I'm now looking at and smiling at - I was told, would be ready in March but we've yet to see them. We haven't heard about them. We want to know about them, Mr. Chairman.

I see the green light's on, and if my colleague will assist me, I will thank you for your attention and return to the debate in a moment. I have two more matters of neglected duty and then four proposals for improvement.

MR. C.S. ROGERS (Vancouver South): Housing, vote 195, minister's office: it's specifically on housing which I'd like to speak to the minister about, because the residential shelter house, be it a purchased apartment, a condominium, a single-family detached dwelling or a semi-detached dwelling, is the most important purchase that any family in this province is going to make - the average family, in any event.

The consumer is incredibly ignorant of the problems in housing. I sit beside the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) who's in the automobile business, and, you know, when someone goes to buy an automobile, be it a new or a used car, they're very thorough. They call the Automobile Association and have them come and do the $20 check, they check all the points and take it for a spin with their mother-in-law and all those things. Now while a new car is an important purchase and expensive - even a used car is - it's nowhere near as significant as a house. Yet the same person who would go out and buy a car on a Saturday afternoon and spend two weeks checking to make sure it's right, might on a Sunday, listening to one of those very slick radio ads, go out to Upper Moose Pasture in the mountains or some other place that's in the boondocks....

MR. G. MUSSALLEM (Dewdney): Say Dewdney.

MR. ROGERS: Dewdney! Sorry, George - I mean, Mr. Member. But they might go out and be taken for a walk through the bark mulch and the rhododendrons and into a nice little split-level condominium and, sure enough, by 5 o'clock they've signed on the dotted line and purchased themselves a lifetime worth of mortgage payments and a house which they know very little about. It's a fairly standard pattern. One doesn't have to read the Vancouver papers or any other papers for very long before realizing that every weekend very extensive efforts are made to sell new housing units, and people who are buying them don't really check into all of the variables.

For example, if we drive out on a Sunday and experience the traffic that is normal on a Sunday, the traffic patterns are very inconsistent with what is going to be the case on the Monday in the rush hour, and very seldom are such things as the location of libraries or shopping centres or schools or existing traffic patterns ever really looked into.

I have several suggestions for the minister. One of them is that in new housing we consider putting a specifications list. Any respectable manufacturer can do it. Have it included with the unit. When you go to buy a car, there's a sticker on the back window telling you all the little goodies that are under the hood and how expensive they're going to be. The same thing should apply in housing.

I'll give you an example. If you're building a speculative house, we have the national building code and CMHC insists that we build to this code. That code is a minimum. Most self-respecting contractors wouldn't build to that minimum; they build above that minimum. Unfortunately, we build everything down to that minimum - electrical fixtures and

[ Page 3491 ]

plumbing fixtures, all CSA-approved, of course. I'll get along to CSA in a minute and that could take me at least until I I o'clock.

So what do we have? We have minimum standards in drywall, for example. Well, is the drywall five-eighths of an inch thick or three-eighths of an inch thick? It makes a considerable difference in a condominium unit, for example, because density is the only thing that stops noise.

There's a minimum standard for roofing material. I think it's 180 pounds for residential roofing. Yet a shake roof will last you so much longer than a Duroid roof and it's a cheaper investment in the first place, and besides, it ends up using a product from British Columbia, which is a bit of a break.

Insulation standards are something else that we have been very, very neglectful of. I'm glad there are no ex-hotliners in here; perhaps there are - I don't know. But it seems that every weekend the hotliners on the radio shows tell us to replace our nice, old wooden-sash windows with these wider and more beautiful aluminum-sash windows. Not only are they hideous looking, in my personal opinion, but they are the biggest crime against energy that we have in this province. If you phone B.C. Hydro.... I know there are a lot of people in this House who think they're all bad, but I found a whole nest of nice ones and they're involved in the heating advisory service.

Interjection.

MR. ROGERS: B.C. Hydro. What they'll tell you is that it is better to have wooden-sash windows with a single pane of glass than it is to have double-paned windows with a metal sash. The metal sash is the No. I cause of our problems. Slippery Pierre, the Prime Minister of this country, will get up and tell everybody: "We've got a new insulation programme. It's terrific." What they forget to say is that once you've filled the attic up with insulation, really the next thing to do is not to drill holes in the wall and start stuffing foam in. The biggest heat loss is the window.

Now someone's going to use an airplane at night and take some pictures, but all you have to do is buy a roll of infrared for your standard 35-millimeter, go outside on a winter's night, take a photograph of your own house and you'll see the greatest heat loss of all is through the windows. That's the area we should be concentrating on - windows. They can never be done under AHOP for this, but windows should be double-paned with a wooden sash, and anything else is a sin. They should be triple paned in the north, if it's available.

Studding: if you're building a house for yourself, you're going to put fir in there. Guess what the others are made of? It's called hem-fir, but it's really hemlock with one fir in every carload to make it hem-fir. But some houses are metal studs, and people should know that because in condominiums it makes a difference with noise transfer. If you're in an apartment and there's a guy next door with a bloodhound and a stereo, you can move - there's. vacancy. But if you buy a condominium, you're there for life or you're there until you can sell it. The old myth that "they went up $1,000 a month anyway so you can always sell it and make a profit" is over. You don't have to go far in this city to realize that there are an awful lot of condominiums that are sitting there and people are cooling their heels waiting for someone else to do it. I'm told there are a few of those nice shylocks that are called second-mortgage holders that are going to end up with the keys because the down payments have been sufficiently small and some of the buyers are realizing it's better to take your losses and go away.

Wiring is always built to the minimum. What a shame, because we constantly keep adding electrical appliances. Now maybe that's not a good thing to say, especially with people being so energy conscious. But if we run into a problem where natural gas or oil are in short supply, everybody's going to go to electrical heaters on a temporary basis. What do we do with a house? We put in minimum standards. It costs no more to put in a 200-amp service than it does a 100-amp service in terms of labour. The diameter of the pipe on the way in is a little thicker, the wire is a little thicker, but that's all.

There's another absolutely hideous, sinful thing, and that's called aluminum wiring. It's approved by CSA, I might add, and the people in Ottawa know all about it. There's not much of it in B.C. but it is an extremely hazardous product if it's not handled absolutely perfectly. There are just a lot of people who put in their own little duplex receptacle down the line. Copper and aluminum don't mix and it's a potentially dangerous problem.

Furnaces - again, we should tell the people what they're buying. Forced-air furnaces are quick and dirty, easy to put in and certainly much cheaper than hot water. But if we want to talk about alternate energy forms or use of energy for the future, we've got to look at the availability, the supply, the small space and the quiet. For people who are suffering from any kind of respiratory diseases, hot water furnaces, of course, are much better.

As for built-in appliances, we build in appliances in all new condominiums now. They come with them and they're all minimum standards. In some cases they're standards you can't even buy in an appliance store, but they are standards that are there. As long as they've got the CSA sticker - that industry standard sticker - they're fine.

Hot water tanks - you know, you go down there and you're taking the tour through with that nice salesman and he says: "There it is. It's got a five-year

[ Page 3492 ]

guarantee." But last year they had a 10-year guarantee. You want to know when they'll go? They'll go on the 61st month. There is no doubt about it - right on time. When they say five years they mean get ready to replace it because it's going to go.

There's lots we can do about that. But the customer is fundamentally ignorant. Nobody would buy a car with an eight-cylinder engine when they wanted a six and thought they were getting an eight, but we buy houses and literally go out and do it.

Do they know what subflooring is? The only way they're going to find out is with a spec list because the shag carpet in the demonstration unit is so thick you couldn't tell what the subflooring was anyway unless you know how to take the carpet up, which isn't very difficult.

The Canadian Standards Association is a Toronto-based company, so right away there's room to be suspicious. The Canadian Standards Association is an industry-based organization. We talk about citizen representation on various boards, whether they be any kind of board. There we are with the Canadian Standards Association, and who wants to sit on the brass advisory, board of Canadian Standards Association? You're not going to join it and drop that name at a cocktail party or say: "I'm on the cast-iron committee of the Canadian Standards Association." But those people cost every house purchaser in this country $500 minimum on every new house for that wretched little sticker they put on.

The perfect case in point is there's a foundry in the city of Bellingham that makes odd castings that are used in certain plumbing fittings. Those castings have to go down to Toronto to get the sticker on to come back to Vancouver to be sold. A 4-in. Boston Y in Bellingham.... I told you the story because I bought one at $3.95 and they're $12 in Vancouver. They went to Toronto in a truck to get the sticker put on them.

I guess we have to say that government shouldn't be involved in the business of approving things, but should industry be? These are the same people who approved aluminum wiring and burned houses up.

I won't talk about smoke alarms and why they should be mandatory because I know there's a bill on the order paper and that would mean that I would be out of order so I wouldn't do that. You might consider that even if it is out of order.

In your own constituency, let's talk about building inspectors. It costs more to build in Central Saanich than it does in North Saanich, and you know why? Because ' you've got really crackerjack building inspectors in Central Saanich, really good people. They're a little fussier. Most developers would rather build in another part of the constituency. We have inconsistency across the board. Now if we told the people when they bought their units what it was actually going to cost - what the lifetime payments amount to - not only would they think twice about whether it was a really super investment, they might want to sleep on it for 48 hours before they sign on the dotted line, because the myth is over that there's no more housing being built. They would actually know what the costs are and they would want to be a little fussier.

You know, I could go on about standards. I've gone through more houses and looked at gunnysack operations.... The standard manual tells you, I think, that there's supposed to be 32 nails in a corner stud. I've seen them put together with as little as six. You can't expect the building inspector to be there. You can't blame the developer, because the customer doesn't know what they want. They're not fussy about it. When they go to buy a car here from my friend, if they had snow tires on the back in summertime, they wouldn't accept it. But in a house, they go and they walk through. There are shag carpets, and the stereo is on and there's a double-hole stainless-steel sink and a dishwasher and where do I sign? It's nonsense. At some point, we have to say it's not just caveat emptor. We should be making a checklist for people.

There was a time two years ago in Vancouver when people walked into the house and they were in a queue of interim agreements because everybody was in a panic, but that's over with and now it's time to give it a really good'inspection.

Another thing that we haven't considered is the operating costs of a house. In the past the hydro bill came through and it was $12, $14 or $18, so.when people purchased new housing they never really gave that much consideration to what it actually cost for the monthly operation. They knew what the taxes were and what the water was ... and I don't suppose that water will be going up a great deal in the next 10 years - probably it will double. Telephones should go down. Mind you, the telephone has technological advantages of all of the computers and things that they're running through.

We know for a fact that it's going to cost more to heat houses. It's going to cost much more to heat houses, and therefore we should be building to these standards. Of course, if you could wave a magic wand and put all those people who make those wretched aluminum windows out of business, then we would save ourselves a lot of money.

If you really want to talk about fuel saving, we would stop looking always at the bottom minimum line. Everything from solar bronze glass in the right quarters to.... Windmills aren't the way to heat houses. We know what we're going to have to use to heat houses. We can talk about solar heating and heat pumps and other things, but it's not practical unless we build our units properly. Hot water, of course, is the way to build the units. Hot water heating is great

[ Page 3493 ]

stuff. Not many, people do it, but it's great stuff -not only that, but it can be done by the homeowner. If you want to, 'add a room on you can do it yourself. Nobody has a basement where they can make sheet metal stuff, but anybody with a tube cutter and a piece of stainless steel can easily go ahead and add a couple of zones onto a furnace.

Another standard trick that all the developers use is that they build a house and they leave the basement unfinished so that the purchaser can finish the basement. The studs are up and the wiring'sin, and generally that's because the way they would want to finish the basement doesn't conform with the building code.

For example, where it's a slab basement - in Richmond, Vancouver South and lots of other areas - the building code says no bedrooms in the basement. You've got to have the bedrooms upstairs. So the contractor never finishes the basement. It's part of the sort of image of "We'll let the man do it himself." So they leave them and sure enough up comes the $3-a-sheet mahogany plywood from Taiwan and some curtains, and we're in business.

, it's not really fair. We're not telling them what they're doing. We're inviting people to violate our laws. The housing regulations are there for a reason. There is inconsistency.

I witnessed a very tragic situation in Port Moody. The plumbing regulations in Port Moody are different from what they are in Vancouver. There's no provision for a no-stop return on the sewage line. In the lowest condominium in this particular unit, when the sewage backed up two doors down it came up through his basement toilet. That's just a standard thing. We don't have consistency throughout the province.

My suggestion is that we have a list of specifications. If it is septic tank, they should know what kind of drain tile, what kind of field, what kind of tank and the location of the tank, because the septic tank is not going to bother you until the guarantee and the developer have gone out of business. Then it's really going to bother you. They should know what kind of tile is used in the drain tile, what kind of weeping rock, and what kind of Duroid is used over the tile. Building inspectors are not the answer; I guess it's customer awareness. But for all the thousands of pamphlets that this government cranks out I think the most important purchase people make is homes, and I think it is up to us - and your department - to give them a little guide to go by. Lead them by the hand, because you know who they are going to come crying to, and they will.

I was going to talk about land costs but I want to stick to housing. I might discuss land costs later. I think I've left you with enough. It's not just caveat emptor - we have a problem.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, I think those remarks were really very well taken and I should like to congratulate the member for Vancouver South and to express the amazement of this opposition that the member for Vancouver South is not in the cabinet and the member for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) is. I wonder if the government might want to consider a trade. He really belongs in there.

I've been discussing, Mr. Chairman....

Interjections.

MR. BARBER: I think he should be in the cabinet, don't you? Don't you think he should be in? I'm sorry, Steve, I take it back now.

The minister, in our view, has been guilty of eight instances of neglect of duty. I've run through six of them. I'd now like to talk about one of the most spectacular. Again, we'll be getting into it in greater detail later on.

It is a decision which this minister has obviously taken for purely ideological reasons. The decision he made regarding what was previously called the Norman Bethune Co-op, and is presently called Quesnel Green, cannot be explained in any other terms except raw, miserable ideology. The decisions that this minister has taken make absolutely no economic sense. They make no bureaucratic sense and, as is obviously becoming more and more the case clear to the people of B.C., they make no political sense either.

Near the Lougheed Mall in greater Vancouver there now exists a housing development presently called Quesnel Green. It has 282 units. As of the first week in June of this year, Mr. Chairman, 17 of those 282 units had been sold as condominia. I believe the figure has gone up slightly since, but that is the most current that I have been able to obtain. Of the 282, those 17 which were sold by the beginning of June were selling at prices ranging from $39,000 to $47,000. The other 265 units, Mr. Chairman, have been empty, unused and unavailable to the people of British Columbia for almost a year.

What happened, Mr. Chairman, is that under the previous administration those units were committed to a properly constituted co-operative housing society that calls itself the Norman Bethune Co-operative Housing Society. What happened, Mr. Chairman, is that when this minister got in he discovered on the table 282 units which were destined to become co-ops. What he has done, Mr. Chairman, is to renege on the previous government's promise to that co-op. What he has done is put those 282 families - or 300 in all, I understand, were on the waiting list - out in the cold and instead, for reasons that are neither economic nor political, merely ideological, has turned his back on yet another co-op and has tried to turn it into a condominium instead.

[ Page 3494 ]

Now that has been a very expensive ideological choice for the people of British Columbia, Mr. Chairman. It has cost, in interest charges alone, many thousands of dollars. Later in this debate we intend to put forward information, which hopefully the minister will agree is correct, which will demonstrate that several tens of thousands of dollars have been wasted because of this minister's ideological opposition to co-ops. The money and those units of housing have stood idle and been otherwise unavailable to people because of his foolish decision to try and flog them on the market as condominiums.

However, when the minister is talking about the housing crisis, Mr. Chairman, you may recall my discussion of that claim that it's been solved under the strange claims chapter of this debate.

The minister is reported in an article that appeared in The Province, on May 30 page 21: "Vacancies Show Housing Crisis Appears Over." It went on to say within the article that indeed, there's an oversupply of condominia and an undersupply of land and smaller parcels which would be available for smaller housing developments. Indeed, the minister has said, I believe, on a number of public occasions, that the development industry in this province has overbuilt condominia. Now if the minister wishes to repudiate that statement, I'd be happy to hear it, but I don't think he will, because I believe he has said it on several occasions.

The truth is just that, Mr. Chairman. There are far too many condominia on the market right now. There are far too few apartments available at rents that people in the lower- and middle-income ranges in this province can afford right now.

The truth is that this co-op was ready to go a year ago. This co-op was ready to move and house some 282 persons or families at Quesnel Green near the Lougheed Mall. The truth is, Mr. Chairman, that for reasons that made no economic sense and no administrative sense, the minister said, "I wish to break the promise. I will not honour the commitment. I am not prepared to move ahead with it as a co-op. Everyone knew it was going to be a co-op. I've decided otherwise. I'm now going to turn it around and try and sell it as a condominium. Please forget my speeches that tell people that we already have too many condominium units on the market. Please forget all of my speeches that say that we need affordable housing for people of low incomes. Instead, please tell me that it's justifiable to flog on the market condominia that sell from between $39,000 and $47,000."

As of the beginning of June, I'm told that 17 of the 282 units have sold. If I may quote from The Vancouver Sun of June 4,1977 - I don't have the page number:

'The agent for the Housing Corporation of B.C., which is the marketing agent for Quesnel Green, Mr. John Brigham, said that only 17 units of the 282-unit Quesnel Green subdivision near Lougheed Mall have been sold.

He went on to make some other comments about the costs and monthly payments that amount to $349, not counting upkeep and utility costs.

" 'Sales are going slower than we anticipated' said Brigham. 'Every realtor in the business is experiencing lesser sales. There is a larger inventory of condominium units on the market because of large construction during 1976.'

"Brigham said Quesnel was competitive in price and quality to similar apartment-type projects but the trend seemed to be toward townhouses. He went on to say: 'However, we have hopes the market is improving.' "

This, I presume, is another example of the businesslike administration of this coalition, Mr. Chairman. For ideological reasons they refused to proceed with a co-operative development that was ready to go. For ideological reasons they turned it into a condominium instead. For reasons that no one can comprehend, they did so when we already have a market in this province too full of condominiums that cannot be sold. For reasons that make no sense whatever, this minister is costing the people of British Columbia, by virtue of his foolishness, thousands and thousands of dollars in interest charges alone on vacant apartment units that should be full right now of families who need them, that would be paid for over time by those families who need them. At the moment they're sitting idle and vacant because of the minister's foolishness and because of the minister's ideology.

It's dumb, Mr. Chairman. It's bad government, it's bad administration, it's neglect of duty.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame!

MR. BARBER: The minister will have to stand accountable to this House for that neglect. He cannot justify what he's done to that development. He cannot tell us that when they've only, as of the beginning of June, sold 17 out of 282 units, it's a wise market decision. He cannot tell us that when only 17 have been sold it makes good business sense. He can't tell us any of those things, because none of those things are true. It was dumb from beginning to end.

I hope the minister might be willing to reconsider and allow those units that do remain available to operate in the co-operative sense that they should have. There is a market for those units, Mr. Chairman. There is a demand for that accommodation. There is a waiting list of families to go in there. There is no waiting list to buy those condominiums. It's the

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seventh, but not the last, example of neglect of duty on the part of this minister.

The final and most serious neglect is the minister's failure of imagination. It is the utter poverty of imagination and wit and hope and promise in this minister's view of his own responsibilities. We have never heard from this minister one stirring speech that talks about the hope and the promise of the great cities of the world. We have never heard from this minister any remarks that indicate any sense of sensitivity whatever to the problems and the dilemmas and the value and the achievements of the great neighbourhoods of our own province.

We have never heard expressed in any way at all a vision and a dream of what city and urban life could be like in this province. We have seen endless tampering with structure, endless tampering with marketplaces, endless repudiation of sound decisions made by the previous administration. We've seen no vision, no imagination, no display of anything novel or vigorous, authentic or exciting at all. It hasn't been there.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

The eighth and final neglect of duty of a most profound sort is the failure of this minister to discuss, with any creativity at all, the role and the powerhouse nature of cities as the storehouses of civilization on this planet, of cities as the great centres of learning and action, as the great centres of discipline and strength, as the great centres of creativity. The minister doesn't talk about those things because, we suspect, the minister and his colleagues never talk about those things either.

His most profound failure, his most serious neglect of duty is that neglect to be a Minister 6f Municipal Affairs and Housing who appears to be concerned with ideas and thinking and imagination, and new approaches and new challenges and new tests for the problems of urban life in North America, particularly here in British Columbia. He's shown no leadership in the province as a member of a confederation responsible for housing and municipal affairs. It has taken no leadership across Canada. That is a most serious neglect of duty.

We want some exciting ideas. We want some interesting, challenging, new points of view. We want some argument and criticism and debate about what cities should be like. We get none of it from this minister, none at all. It's very disappointing, it's very enervating for those people in British Columbia who are concerned about urban affairs. It doesn't happen. To say the least, the people in this province who are interested in some wit, some dreaming, some vision in new ideas and new purposes for urban life have received none of it whatever from the leadership of this minister. That's the failure of vision. That's the neglect of duty for which this minister has to stand accountable.

The fourth and final part of the debate that I should like to lead this evening, Mr. Chairman, if 1 may, consists of making a set of three proposals to the minister for some positive action which he may be willing to take.

The first of them concerns the Municipal Finance Authority. The Municipal Finance Authority Act, which is an Act of this Legislature, was put forward by the previous Social Credit administration to provide, as I'm sure the Chairman knows, in effect, a common pool of investment to be made available to districts, which at their will, to municipalities which at their own behest, choose to involve themselves in it. It's an opportunity to allow local government to obtain jointly what they might not have been able to obtain individually, which is better rates of interest on the loans and the bonds which they must obtain in order to provide the capital and other services that they wish to provide. It makes good sense, Mr. Chairman. A Municipal Finance Authority is an enlightened move.

The minister tonight, and indeed his deputy, have been long involved with the Municipal Finance Authority. The Municipal Finance Authority is participated in, I believe, by virtually every municipality and city in British Columbia except the city of Vancouver, which 1 believe floats its own loans and bonds and does its own work. I believe almost all the rest, without exception, participate in it. It's a major financial institution in the life of local government in this province, Mr. Chairman.

It seems to us it's about time to begin to review some of its basic purposes. It seems to us that it's time for the minister to re-examine the Act, to re-examine the performance of the Municipal Finance Authority. The minister is well aware that the Authority lost a fair amount of money as the result of some interesting adventures in foreign borrowing which, because of foreign exchange losses....

HON. MR. CURTIS: Are you sure of your research on this? Are you really sure of your research? You've been pretty badly off-base tonight. Now are you really certain... ?

AN HON. MEMBER: He's always off base.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Are you certain of this one? You said "lost money."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. BARBER: Well, do you wish to take your place? I'll happily hear from you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Would the second member for Victoria continue?

[ Page 3496 ]

HON. MR. CURTIS: I think we'd like to give you a little bit more rope, you know, because....

MR. BARBER: Okay, well, if you'll be quiet, I'm sure I'll take the rope. Wouldn't that be smarter?

The Municipal Finance Authority has obviously, because of its magnitude, because of its weight in the borrowing market for municipal government in British Columbia, become a major - indeed, almost a uniquely predominant - financial institution in local government in this province.

We think it's time for a second look, Mr. Chairman. It well may be time for somewhat more direct an accounting by the Authority to this province to committees of this Legislature. It may well be an opportunity for this minister to examine whether or not there are changes and improvements that should be put in place which will allow the Authority to compete with more sophisticated municipal finance authorities for borrowings on what is increasingly an international market. The minister himself went to Europe to assist in obtaining borrowings for the Municipal Finance Authority and I'm sure he's aware of the international nature of the role of this.

The late John Mitchell, who was famous in the United States as a salesman of municipal bonds, established a number of practices which obviously have led to supremacy on the borrowing market of American local government over Canadian. They seem to know more about how the market works and, according to information which I've received from a house in New York state, are able to obtain on frequent occasions more preferential rates of interest and more preferential discounts than our people have. Maybe that's because the objective situations here don't obtain as well as they do there and do not require such preferential treatment. Maybe it's because the Municipal Finance Authority here does not at the moment possess enough of the expertise and leadership and experience in the market to bid and act as competitively with other borrowers of money for municipal purposes in the North American borrowing market.

Maybe it's time to take a second look at the Municipal Finance Authority. I'd ask the minister about that particular one. If the minister wishes to demonstrate that indeed there have been no losses of any sort as the result of foreign exchange transactions I'd be happy to hear it. It's certainly not a common opinion right now.

The second proposal which I'd like to make, Mr. Chairman, is that it's time for - I hate to use the term but it's the only one that applies - a royal commission on local government in British Columbia. The minister and his predecessor have both frequently admitted in this House that the Municipal Act needs substantial revision. I agree; it does. It's an

Act which has almost 900 sections. The sections don't follow in any particular logical sequence. They've been added on one to the other and amended one to the next over a period of many years. The minister has often said that if he had the time, and presumably the staff and the money, he would like to initiate a major overhaul of the Municipal Act.

It seems to us, Mr. Chairman, that's only half an answer to a much larger problem. What I am proposing is that the minister consider recommending to cabinet the creation of a royal commission on local government which would have, among others, these terms of reference. It would examine the role now and in future of local government within the context of a

Canadian constitution that is obviously changing. It would examine the role of local government within the constitution of a British North America Act which is obviously under substantial criticism and is going to endure substantial change. Local government at the moment is the child, the puppet, and the often unwilling servant of provincial government in this province, and to a very considerable extent that's because of the unique provisions of the British North America Act.

It seems to us that the first term of reference for such a proposed royal commission on local government would be to examine, if any, such constitutional changes as may be required to the British North America Act to bring local government here in British Columbia - and obviously, by consent across Canada - more adequately into the 20th century to give local government the power and the authority and the choices they need in order to make the decisions with which they're faced. It seems to a lot of us they just don't have that right now.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: Well, that is what we're asking such a royal commission and local government to do. It's an enormously complex field and other provinces obviously have other interests. I don't propose, personally, any major constitutional changes because I don't know enough to do so. I do know enough to know that we have a problem and that leadership in this province, by examining local government in a thorough and intricate and detailed way, would help. I think a fair-minded and well-established commission could help us all to do that a little bit better.

A second proposed term of reference for such a royal commission on local government that the minister may care to consider would be entirely in the field of revenue-sharing - provincial, federal and local. Now I appreciate some of the initiatives that this minister , has taken regarding revenue-sharing, and I know we'll get into that debate later on.

The minister is, I'm sure, 'as bitterly aware as we of the false promises made by the federal government in

[ Page 3497 ]

the last federal election. The minister will recall commitments made by the Liberal Party to make available hundreds of millions of dollars for public transit purposes across this country. They made, specifically, proposals in Ontario which have proven to be outlandish and which they absolutely refused to accept and pass on. They've made proposals for federal, and thereby provincial, cost-sharing in the field of transit which were important at that time and which have been neglected utterly since. They were campaign promises, false and unbelievable, which simply don't have a hope.

We think, Mr. Chairman, that the minister as well might instruct such a proposed royal commission on local government to examine revenue-sharing in the broadest formula that might be available, to us vis-à-vis our relations with the federal government. Specifically, one of the most particular problems within that area of revenue-sharing is funding for transit. No municipal government has the money; many provincial governments don't either. Certainly the kind of transit which the minister has been talking about - light rail in Vancouver - is enormously expensive as a capital investment. It's hard to borrow that money; it's hard to allocate that money when you have other, perhaps higher, priorities. It's somewhat less difficult to make those choices, Mr. Chairman, when you have a rational federal formula for sharing revenue directed toward such purposes of local government as transit includes. There are obviously other purposes, but it seems to me that a commission on local government might well be able to examine some of those too.

A third term of reference that this proposed royal commission on local government might want to consider is the whole field of metro or amalgamated government. It's a source of endless political heat and hostility, no matter who proposes it. The idea of amalgamation becomes the threat of amalgamation; the idea of metropolitanization becomes the bogeyman of metropolitanization. There are new forms of local government that our people in British Columbia seem often unwilling to consider because what frightens them is not so much the theme or the principle as the label. They don't understand it, it's not well known, it's not much comprehended. It is known that the anxious, endless enduring fear of now forms of local government has kept almost all provincial governments from experimenting with any of them.

The last major change that occurred in this province occurred now 10, going on I I years ago under the previous Social Credit administration when the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr. Campbell, began ever so slowly and cautiously to create regional districts. He did so in a very clever way. He did so by starting one small step at a time, he did so realizing that had he started in a larger and more visible way lie would have frightened everyone and got nowhere. He did it very cleverly, and now we have regional government in the province of British Columbia.

I suggested last year that it was time for a look at regional government because it was now a decade old in this province. The minister agreed. He made some statements, We've yet to see much action. I would propose that another term of reference for this suggested royal commission on local government be the examination of new forms of local government -new forms of local government that include ward systems and neighbourhood systems; that include amalgamation; that include metropolitan government; that include varieties and hybrids on those themes.

It may well be that municipal government, as we know it, has no future. It may well be that municipal government, as we understand it, has already become obsolete and that we're going to end up by the turn of the century, at the beginning of the 21st century, with forms of neighbourhood and regional government, and nothing in.between called municipal government as we now know it. That may be the future of local government in Canada. It may be a desirable future. It's certainly something we should take a look at, and it's something that's not much looked at so far.

There's a fourth aspect for a royal commission interested in problems of local government. That aspect is generally the financing of all services to other than property. Once again, on both sides of the House, we've paid endless lip service to the principle that property should pay for itself and all the other services to human beings should come from taxes on human beings; that property as a source of revenue makes no sense when finding ways to pay for one's cultural institutions, one's police services, sheriff services, libraries, roads, and so on. It hardly makes any sense at all. Most people agree in this country, Mr. Chairman, that the income tax is the most equitable means of taxation we have at hand. Many people have concluded that that's the basic form of tax, personal and corporate, that should fund services to human beings and that the property tax should eventually be reduced to nothing.

Indeed, 1 have quotations from speeches made by the present Premier when he was the Leader of the Opposition which said, literally: "Property taxes are obsolete." What he recognized was that the property tax, as we know it, is a kind of dumb inheritance from the 19th century which may have served then, but does not serve now, and has no future in the next century.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that a proposed royal commission on local government might examine the whole theme and aspect of property tax as a funder of anything, and might ask the obvious questions: should it fund anything other than simple services to property - garbage, lawn mowing, water,

[ Page 3498 ]

and so on?

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10: 5 8 p.m.