[ Page 4189 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions

Unauthorized payments to MLAs. Mr. King –– 4189

Hog producers' problems. Mrs. Wallace –– 4190

Food service on B.C. ferries. Mr. Wallace –– 4191

Hiring of deputy ministers. Mr. Gibson –– 4191

Benefits to children of war veterans, Mr. Nicolson –– 4191

Revelstoke Dam highway contracts. Mr. King –– 4192

Four litre milk cartons. Mr. Levi –– 4192

Cost of hotel study. Mr. Barrett –– 4192

Plans for Wilkinson Road jail. Mr. Wallace –– 4192

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Labour estimates.

On vote 203.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 4193

Mr. Barrett –– 4193

Mr. Wallace –– 4198

Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act (Bill 82) Hon. Mr. McGeer.

Introduction and first reading –– 4200

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Labour estimates.

On vote 203.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 4201

Mr. Wallace –– 4205

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 4205

Mr. Shelford –– 4206

Mr. Lea –– 4208

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 4209

Mr. King –– 4209

Mr. Barber –– 4210

Mr. Gibson –– 4216

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 4220

Apprenticeship and Training Development Act (Bill 76) Hon. Mr. Williams.

Introduction and first reading –– 4221

Metric Conversion Act, 1977 (Bill 78) Hon. Mr. McGeer.

Introduction and first reading –– 4222

Privilege

Committee of selection meeting. Guidelines by Mr. Speaker –– 4222

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): I have two guests. First of all, I'd like the House to welcome young Peter Stankovic from Vancouver East. He's 13 years old and to celebrate his birthday today, he rode his bicycle all the way to Victoria. We hope that his trip is a success and that it's not marred by too much friction here in the House. I'd say happy birthday to Pete.

Mr. Speaker, every year a certain guest comes over and causes me to be anxious about our behaviour. My mother is with us again today. Along with my mother is my favourite aunt, Mrs. Hyatt from Los Angeles, and a friend of theirs, Mrs. Kaplan. I'd ask everybody in the House to give them a welcome.

HON. P.L. McGEER (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, there are a number of distinguished guests in the gallery today from the field of education. If I may, I'd just like to read quickly through the list, and perhaps the members may conclude from this that there may be an event later on today.

There are: Mr. Fred Smith, who's president of the College Faculties Federation; Mr. Eric Green, who's the director of research for that organization; Mr. R.H. Buckley, who's the president of the B.C. Association of Colleges; Mrs. Beryl Bennett, who's the vice-president of that organization; and Mr. Frank Beander, who's the executive director.

Then we have today in the galleries some principals of the colleges: Mr. Rubridge, who's the acting principal of East Kootenay; Dr. C.M. Opgaard, who's the principal of Malaspina; Dr. L. Blake, who's the principal of Fraser Valley; Dr. Paul Gallagher, who's the principal of Capilano; Dr. J. Denholm, who's the principal's representative of the Vancouver City College; Dr. Don Porter, who's the principal's representative of Douglas College; Dr. F.J. Speckeen, of the College of New Caledonia; and Mr. Gordon Thom, the principal of BCIT.

More than that, Mr. Speaker, we've got some representatives of the councils of these colleges: Mrs. Lavinia Greenwood, who's the chairman of Camosun College; Mr. Doug Hamilton, who's chairman of the Fraser Valley College; Mrs. Avis Mitchell, who's the chairman of Malaspina College; Mrs. Ruth Rushant, who's the chairman of the College of New Caledonia; Mr. John Sutherland, chairman of Douglas College; Mr. William Brown, who's the chairman's representative of the Vancouver City College; Mrs. Eileen Madson, who's the chairman's representative of East Kootenay College; Mr. Ron Isaak, chairman of the board of governors of BCIT. I'd ask you to bid them all welcome.

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): Mr. Speaker, with us in the gallery this afternoon is an old and cherished friend of mine, Mr. John Blunt, and with him are his sons, Charlie and Dan. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. H.J. LLOYD (Fort George): I'd like to join the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) in welcoming to the House today Mrs. Ruth Rushant and Mr. Fred Speckeen from the College of New Caledonia in Prince George.

I also have some other guests in the Speaker's gallery: Mrs. Marguerite Fox of Prince George with her mother, Mrs. Gladys Fox of Vancouver-Point Grey, and her daughters, Jennifer and Pamela Fox. Pamela was the provincial winner last year of the B.C. schools debating competition. I'd like to ask the House to bid them welcome.

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, there are two guests from the constituency of Richmond today in the House, on vacation in Victoria: Bob and Donna Ferguson from Richmond. I'd like the House to welcome them.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): Joining us later in the gallery this afternoon will be my oldest son, Sean, and his friend, John linytzky. I hope the House will bid them welcome.

MR. G. HADDAD (Kootenay): The Minister of Education only named one of the representatives from the East Kootenay, Mrs. Eileen Madson, but there are two others. First of all, I think I should introduce Mrs. Eileen Madson. She's from Invermere and she is the district representative of the college council for the East Kootenay Community College. Then we have Mr. Nick Rubridge, director of programmes for East Kootenay Community College, living in Cranbrook. Last but not least, we have Mr. Norm MacEvoy, bursar. As I understand it, he's the fellow that pays them all when the minister sends over the paycheques. He lives in Cranbrook. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming these people here today.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Just on the remote possibility that somebody is in the gallery who hasn't been introduced, I'd like to introduce those anonymous people and have them welcomed into the House today.

Oral questions.

UNAUTHORIZED PAYMENTS TO MLAS

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): I have a

[ Page 4190 ]

question to the Premier, Mr. Speaker. It's been revealed to the House that three members of the House, namely the member for Boundary-Similkameen (Mr. Hewitt) , the first member for Victoria (Mr. Bawlf) and the member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) have received unauthorized payments for certain activities. My question to the Premier is: has the Premier taken any steps to investigate whether any other member of the House has received similar payments, either directly or indirectly, for expenses or other activities?

HON. W.R. BENNETT (Premier): First of all, I would take issue with the statement made by the member for Revelstoke-Slocan as to the position and the circumstances surrounding these three members; that is to be determined. Unfortunately, he stated it as a fact.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): They've admitted it!

HON. MR. BENNETT: Now, Mr. Speaker, I would have to say that the determination of whether other MLAs may be in contravention would be subject to each minister and the comptrollers in each of the ministries making such a check in light of recent events.

MR. KING: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I'm sorry if the Premier takes exception to my question. It was my understanding that the Minister of Municipal Affairs, who paid the expenses, had apologized for so doing. I took it that it was therefore unauthorized. My question to the Premier was whether or not he personally, as the First Minister of this government, had taken any steps subsequent to that information being revealed in the House which would prevent similar payments to any other member of this House, and if, in fact, any other payments have taken place.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, through you to the member from Revelstoke, I don't take exception to his questions, I take exception to his statements when they are not correct.

Mr. Speaker, I have taken no steps, but I would have expected that the comptrollers in each of the ministries, in light of events, would make such investigation because the responsibility for payments must pass through their hands.

MR. KING: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Has the Premier asked the departmental comptrollers for any report with respect to such payments?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, through you to the member for Revelstoke, I would expect the comptrollers to pass such information through the ministers. I have specifically not sent a memo to a minister, but I would expect, should such information be delivered, it would come from the comptrollers.

MR. KING: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, hon. member.

MR. KING: Why final, Mr. Speaker? That's interesting.

Mr. Speaker, has the Premier received any such report from a departmental comptroller or any other minister of the Crown?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I have received no report from any departmental comptroller and no report from any minister of the Crown.

HOG PRODUCERS' PROBLEMS

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transport and Communications. I'm sure that the minister is aware that in recent weeks there has been a very serious problem with the hog producers in British Columbia. This has resulted, in the main, from the ceasing of the only federally inspected plant to slaughter hogs in British Columbia. Now there is really very little difference between provincially and federally slaughtered pork.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the hon. member please state her question?

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I'm leading into this. There's little difference between federally and provincially inspected pork. Yet, while some provincial organizations take provincially inspected pork, B.C. Ferries is one which does not accept provincially inspected pork. My question to the minister is: is he prepared to issue an instruction to B.C. Ferries, asking them to purchase B.C.-inspected pork, rather than only federally inspected pork?

HON. J. DAVIS (Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I'll certainly make inquiries. It's a matter I would refer to the directors of the board of B.C. Ferries, if any action seems desirable.

MRS. WALLACE: A supplemental to the Minister of Health. Is he prepared to undertake similar action on the part of the hospitals of British Columbia?

[ Page 4191 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, are you directing a similar question?

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, the same question. Is he prepared to issue instructions to the hospitals to purchase provincially inspected pork?

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health): I'll take that question as notice, Mr. Speaker.

FOOD SERVICE ON B.C. FERRIES

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications, with regard to the new food service available on the Queen of Vancouver and the Queen of Saanich, which is available on sailings from I I a.m. to 9 p.m., offering the same menu at $6.50 per person. Can the minister tell the House whether he has decided against the suggestion by the assistant traffic manager, Mr. Bouchard, that the lunch menu would be considerably less than the dinner menu, especially in view of the fact that restaurants are three-quarters empty at lunchtime?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, this is an experiment. The directors of the Ferry Corporation are watching it closely and after we've had some experience, further decisions will be made,

MR. WALLACE: During the experimental period, Mr. Speaker, it's quite obvious.... For example, in the 9 o'clock sailing last Sunday evening, there were exactly three people in the dining room. Can the minister tell the House what is done with the food that is not consumed, in view of the fact'that health regulations prevent re-freezing or re-serving of many foods.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, I'll take that question as notice,

MR. WALLACE: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, the supplementary question that you have just posed was taken as notice.

MR. WALLACE: But I have two supplementaries on the same subject from the first question.

MR. SPEAKER: If it is in any way related to your previous supplementary, it would be out of order.

MR. WALLACE: No, it's related to the first question, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister tell the House whether the B.C. Ferry Corporation is still in the process of negotiation with private catering firms which have expressed an interest in providing food service on the ferries? And what is the state of these negotiations?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, some inquiries are being made, but I wouldn't characterize them as negotiations.

HIRING OF DEPUTY MINISTERS

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, a question to the Premier. I wonder if the Premier could advise the House of the procedure which is followed in the hiring of new deputy ministers, and who in the government makes the final decision on that.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, it is a question for the minister involved and the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GIBSON: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of the position of the deputy minister, and the necessity that the individual be non-partisan, provide continuity and have respect of all parties in the House, would the Premier give consideration to referring any future vacancies in deputy-ministerial positions to an all-party committee for discussion? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. BENNETT: No.

BENEFITS TO CHILDREN

OF WAR VETERANS

MR. NICOLSON: This question is to the Minister of Human Resources. Serial letter 521425 of July 19 announces school start-up fees for 1977 for school children of families in receipt of income assistance. As this is silent on grants to children of war veterans on social assistance, I ask the minister if he has reversed his undertaking given to me during estimates that the benefits of the former Education for Soldiers' Dependant Children Act would be continued through the auspices of his ministry.

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources): Mr. Speaker, that particular legislation or regulation was rescinded during the last administration. However, I will take it as notice and provide further information to the hon. member.

Also, if I might table while I am on my feet the answer to a question asked by the hon. member from North Vancouver-Capilano on July 21, 1 think it would save the House a lot of time, because it is very lengthy.

[ Page 4192 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Could the hon. member table the answer following the question period?

REVELSTOKE DAM HIGHWAY CONTRACTS

MR. KING: A question to the Minister of Highways and Public Works, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister tell the House whether or not any highway contracts or any day-labour work was undertaken on the relocation of the highway incident to construction of the Revelstoke Dam, and if so, when?

HON. A.V. FRASER (Minister of Highways and Public Works): Mr. Speaker, to the member for Revelstoke, I am not aware of it, but I will look into it.

FOUR-LITRE MILK CARTONS

MR. N. LEVI (Vancouver-Burrard): I have a question to the Minister of Agriculture regarding the four-litre milk carton. Last Thursday the minister said that it was up to the industry to resolve the problem. In Friday's Colonist in the editorial, they quote the minister as saying: "We consumers have the right not to buy the product if we don't like it." My question to the minister is: how is the consumer who wants to use the four-litre carton going to be able to buy it if the minister won't allow it to be sold?

HON. J.J. HEWITT (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, to the member, the conversion to metric was set out in August, 1976, showing the one-litre and two-litre quantities of milk to be sold in a carton and the four litres to be sold in the pouch pack. It was the unanimous decision of the dairy council for that type of packaging. The conversion costs to bring a four-litre carton on stream now would be a decision to be made by the industry, and they may well do that.

MR. LEVI: Has the minister had any discussions with the dairy industry, the dairy council or the Milk Board recently in view of the feelings by consumers that they are not happy with the pouch?

HON. MR. HEWITT: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker.

MR. LEVI: On a further supplementary, is the minister prepared to initiate any discussions on behalf of the consumers in respect to this matter?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, why not?

Interjections.

COST OF HOTEL STUDY

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the hon. Provincial Secretary a question. Last week, the hon. Provincial Secretary informed the House that she would bring to the House a report on the cost of the hotel study that has been repudiated - or at least confused in repudiation - by a number of sources. I would like to know if the minister has that information now.

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): Yes, Mr. Speaker, the information provided by the firm is provided at no charge to the Ministry of Travel Industry.

MR. BARRETT: On a supplementary, is the firm on the subscription list or were they designated by the government to do this study?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, for the information of the Leader of the Opposition, several consultant firms who get statistics for the hospitality industry - be it the restaurant association, the hotel industry, or service industries of any kind - usually make, and very often make, their studies known to the Ministry of Travel Industry, and we use their statistics along with those which we have also gathered on our own.

PLANS FOR WILKINSON ROAD JAIL

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, this question is to the Attorney-General with regard to the subject of jail escapes. Last week we had another escape - this time three prisoners from Wilkinson Road, including one who had escaped before and been recaptured a month ago. Since these recent escapes usually involve sawing through bars or breaking down old walls, does the Attorney-General have any plans either to upgrade the existing facilities or to expedite the replacement of Wilkinson Road jail?

HON. G.B. GARDOM (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, insofar as The specifics are concerned, I'll have to take the question as notice. I'll be reporting to you shortly.

Orders of the day.

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

[ Page 4193 ]

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF LABOUR

(continued)

On vote 203: minister's office, $131,284 -

continued.

HON. L.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Chairman, reviewing the questions that were posed to me last week, I find there are two unanswered. The first member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) posed a question which dealt with the matter of elevator safety and the relationship to the elevating devices branches of this ministry and Chief Koenig of the Vancouver fire department. Since my correspondence with the member, Mr. Moser, who is the director of the branch, has had a number of meetings with Chief Koenig. The problems do not appear to be those related to inspection or safety of the elevators themselves, but principally to the abuse, if that's the proper word, by people who seek elevating devices during periods of fire.

What has happened, Mr. Chairman, is that we are developing with Chief Koenig an expanded educational programme because one of the serious problems involved with elevator use generally is lack of understanding of the limitations of that particular method of conveyance. Now this has just begun but the officials of the ministry have been requested to pursue this. Chief Koenig has some very particular ideas about the subject. Of course he is discussing it with the city of Vancouver in connection with the inclusion in their bylaws. In that regard he will be supported by the elevating devices branch and in any way that is necessary.

The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) raised a question about the administrative processes related to the employment opportunities programme this year. Yes, there have been some administrative problems, but not as many as a year ago. We hope that we are gradually establishing an administrative programme which will have the least number of administrative problems. I might say - and this is not by way of excuse - that the number of problems with which we are confronted each year is significantly less than is found in the federal programme. That's probably by reason of the nature of their programme.

Also on the question of expenditure, it is not anticipated that there will be any over-expenditure. To date, $22,288, 000 has been committed, which is just under the total budget. But 99 per cent has been committed and no over-commitment is expected.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, this is my first opportunity to participate in the minister's estimates. I just have a few comments and then some questions.

First of all, I want to echo the concerns expressed by members of all sides of the House about the severe unemployment situation that exists in this province. I am deeply concerned that the figures that have been given to us latterly indicate that we are in for a very severe unemployment problem over the next few months.

The minister has talked briefly about the job creation programme of the summer months. I'm sorry that the former minister is not here because it was the former minister who pioneered this effort of returning some of the funds of the citizens of this province back to them through work projects that assisted especially students and marginal wage earners an opportunity to do two things: one, to return to university and otherwise, to at least supplement their income beyond unemployment insurance.

Mr. Chairman, it has come to my attention that essentially what draws the line down the middle of this floor between the two groups that really represent political polarization in this province is a commitment by that group over there to what I describe as laissez-faire capitalism. For in actual fact, it is obvious that this government has no philosophical commitment whatsoever in attempting to create employment opportunities beyond licking their finger, holding it up to the wind, turning in that direction and hoping for the best.

This is perhaps the most conservative government that has been elected in the history of this province. In terms of economic leadership to provide employment, there is nothing but a vacuum, and we have had less than adequate statements or direction by the government. It appears that the government has embarked upon a committee-style approach to solving problems of unemployment. Put it to a committee, whether it's a cabinet committee, a deputies' committee, a civil servant's committee, a citizens' committee - anything, but put it away, put it aside and don't act on it.

Some months ago I spoke in a general debate about the concerns I had and I made the historical analogy between the Weimar Republic, the unemployment situation and the Canadian economy, and similar social structures related to that unemployment. In the spring of this year, I predicted that there would be semblances of violence or near-violence around the competition for jobs in a ruthless capitalist society that is based, by this government's philosophy, on nothing more and nothing less than laissez-faire. When I made the prediction, I did it on the basis of an accumulation of readings of history, the understanding that human behaviour has altered very little over the last 300 or 400 years, that the veneer of society that we view

[ Page 4194 ]

as civilization is thin indeed. When a social structure, in terms of employment, appeals to people on a one-to-one ruthless basis, there are bound to be problems.

The first manifest demonstration of the problems that I'm concerned about in terms of competition for limited employment, Mr. Chairman, unfortunately took place, as I predicted, in this province some weeks ago when young people lined up to get jobs for two or three weeks at the Pacific National Exhibition. The citizens of this province were treated to a demonstration of young people who were responding in terms of employment to everything that is held out to them in a successful society if you only work hard. Those of you who have avoided the work-hard syndrome have been fortunate enough to inherit wealthy parents. But the great majority of people and young people of this province are looking for work. They want a chance. They want to survive. They don't want welfare; they don't want unemployment insurance. They want a job, a job that means something.

So when the PNE put an ad in the paper, despite the efforts of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) through PREP, they found that over 1,500 to 2,000 young people appeared at the gates to apply for 200 jobs. It was not an amicable crowd. It was not a crowd based on sharing, or loving, or co-operation. They were there to compete out of the labour market for a handful of jobs that they hoped they would be able to acquire for themselves because they are driven by a laissez-faire capitalist society that says: "All those good things out there , -an be yours if you only work, " and that's what they wanted to do. They wanted to work.

So what happened when all these young people showed up in line with the competitive, ruthless, dog-eat-dog attitude fostered by the kind of capitalism that is really a hundred years old by any normal standard, but still believed in in simplistic terms by this government? Young people started shoving each other, pushing and fights even broke out at the line waiting for a chance to compete for jobs. Minimum-pay jobs - an opportunity to make 2- or 3 or 4-weeks' payroll, and that's all - and they were prepared to fight each other for those minimal jobs that were available. In a so-called Christian society, it becomes a question of wonderment as to whether or not we have been focusing on the wrong things with our young people. Certainly those who are doing well in our society would be relieved to see that kind of aggressive competition taking place for a handful of jobs amongst the young people of this province.

Those young people said that they wanted to work. They showed up and put in an application for the job and they were ready to punch their way through the lineup to get there to the right to put their application in. It doesn't augur well for the future of this province. It is a warning-signal flag to this government and other administrations in this country that we have severe social unrest just below the surface, ready to be scratched, around the question of unemployment.

Now what's to be done? We have a government that says we have to restore investor confidence to the province of British Columbia and to Canada. That's a cliche that is absolutely meaningless, Mr. Chairman, because unemployment is not going to be resolved by mythical appeals to investor confidence. It is a known fact that investment now is not geared by individuals or largely by multinational corporations. My colleague, the member for Vancouver-Burrard, pointed out that the private corporations in North America are in hock to the pension plan schemes close to $700 billion. The private corporate investor, as such, really no longer exists.

Within a short period of time, every major capital investment will be directed by governments throughout the whole world. Any idea that government stay out of the economy and hope for the best is absolute nonsense. The policies of the present administration, or the non-policies, are going to lead to severe unemployment problems that will be chronic, that will breed social problems and that will give a headache to the Minister of Labour unlike any he's had in the last 18 months.

Laissez-faire capitalism is a myth in terms of surviving. Even our greatest neighbour next door, the United States, which is the bastion of free enterprise, abandoned laissez-faire capitalism in 1936 with the Roosevelt move to social security. Had it not been for social security and the funds generated through that to provide unemployment for the American people, the same kind of violence that was exhibited in a regional basis, especially in the Appalachian area and spreading to the west coast, and as was evidenced in this country during the Depression, would have spread right across North America as a general trend. I believe that our society has fostered through philosophies such as this government's false aspirations and hopes to young people of this country without providing them the opportunity by government policy for meeting those aspirations or hopes.

At last count we had over 95 PhDs unemployed in Vancouver. Hundreds of university graduates with Master's degrees and perhaps thousands with Bachelor's degrees across this country are looking for work: These are good young people who have followed their parent's admonition to "stay in school, don't use drugs, cut your hair, be decent, be nice, work hard and you'll get a job." The whole emphasis on that kind of middle-class education was to get a good education and get a good job and become a good citizen. All of that fabric is beginning to rip

[ Page 4195 ]

away and there are no simple short-term answers. I'm not suggesting that government has all the answers, but patchwork programmes, unless there is some method of direction to investment to long-term development of jobs, will only delay the social explosion that will take place eventually amongst the unemployed.

We had a small view of that kind of tension with the young people lined up at the PNE. But it will go beyond that, Mr. Chairman, when you reach into unemployment figures of 20 or 30 per cent in the construction field, where you reach unemployment figures of 40 or 50 per cent in the shipbuilding field, and you find established middle-class working people unemployed for a long period of time, no longer able to provide for their families.

I know that this problem besets the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) to the point that he's in deep meditation over the problem. Some would say it was sleep, but I know better than that. Meditation is what he evidences in front of us, so if anyone's reading Hansard, let it not be said that the minister fell asleep; he was meditating. He will reap through his ministry the consequences of the lack of action by this government regarding the unemployment problem, and the fostering of the conditions of unequal distribution of wealth will be continued by the government rather than have a redirection of capital funds from duly collected taxes, such as succession duty. The rich have become richer under this government, and the poor have been told, in effect, in terms of unemployment, to root, hog or die. Harsh words - as a prediction in the spring, a guess; as a result of the last few months, a reality.

I warn this House, and I warn this minister, Mr. Chairman, that anyone who is a serious student of history can see the same signs of social unrest and violence around the insecurity of unemployment that plagued West Germany existing in this nation today. The Canadian dollar has now dropped to 72 cents. It gives temporary relief to employment in the forest industry of this province because it falsely makes our timber and lumber economically viable for the American market. However, that 7 per cent and 8 per cent drop on the Canadian dollar is, in effect, a subsidy by every taxpayer in this country toward that one industry. It's luck; it's not by design. It's luck; it's temporary, but it will affect our balance of payments as a nation in the long run, and have more consequences that are negative in the long run, than the present temporary benefit.

Now we hear all kinds of speeches, especially by laissez-faire capitalists, who are really nothing more, in economic terms, than escapees from the pharaohs' tombs of Egypt. Who else believed in laissez-faire capitalism other than the pharaohs? They built monuments that are still being examined by archaeologists. But little did I think that in my lifetime the same kind of mentality would return to government in British Columbia. While they attack the trade union movement, and while they attack labour as such in asking for fair wages, and while they attack the fact that the minimum wage, as they view it, may be too high, the fact is, Mr. Chairman, the unemployed pay the same for a loaf of bread. as the Premier does. There is no discount for the Premier and there is no discount for the unemployed. Rent, food, clothing - all of it, on a relative scale, costs the poor more than it costs the very wealthy of this province.

But when it comes to rewards, it's different, Mr. Chairman. The unemployed are limited by vicious competition to a limited number of jobs, while the rewards are diminished or used in cliches by a government that has not invested in the industry of this province as a reason why the economy is not going. There are more unemployed we're told, Mr. Chairman, by the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) , who has difficulty sometimes remembering what he said. That happens sometimes. That minister was saying that we have to be more competitive, and labour costs are one of the things that are more competitive.

I want to present to you, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons why there are unemployed in this province. While hotliners are talking about huge pension funds, let us understand that every working person - every working woman, every working man - contributing through a pension scheme is doing more to solve the unemployment problem than any millionaire who saves taxes on his estate inherited. There will be $35 million drawn out of the economy that could go to providing jobs in this province if this government had not lifted the burden of paying that $35 million in taxes off the backs of the millionaires. That's right, Mr. Chairman. It is a fact that $35 million of employment is not taking place in this province simply because that government, with the stroke of a pen and the force of its majority, said that we will no longer tax the millionaires that amount of money through succession duties. Thirty-five million dollars could provide a lot of jobs.

Then we hear the cliches about the working people and the contribution that they make through unemployment insurance and through pension plans. Well, let's just examine what an employee is striving towards so we understand exactly what the Minister of Labour is faced with, both with working people and with unemployed people. The federal old age security plus supplement maximum total is $250 per month. The provincial supplement brings the maximum to $289 per month - $289 per month for the over 50 per cent of the working people of this country who do not belong to a pension plan of any kind that is held either by the job that they work at in terms of the labour union that represents them, or

[ Page 4196 ]

by the unorganized area.

The last statistics we have, Mr. Chairman, show us that of the working people of this country covered by labour agreements, only 40 per cent of the work force has any kind of pension plan at all. Those are the latest figures, from 1970. Many of those people move on an itinerant basis, even within the industry, and they do not have the portability of those pension plans. Now who is it who says the workers are getting too much money or the unemployed are asking for too much? The industrial leaders of this province, who essentially back this laissez-faire capitalist coalition over there.

Let us examine what a trade union worker or a waitress or a handicapped person looks at when they go and look for a job, and they understand that they have to bargain for their income. How would you like a job that lasts from 1971 to 1974, as the president of a company, and for three years' service you get $120,454 a year?

AN HON. MEMBER: I'll take it!

MR. BARRETT: You take that?

AN HON. MEMBER: I'll take one!

MR. BARRETT: There are two. Any other takers?

AN HON. MEMBER: Here's one.

MR. BARRETT: Number three. And after three years of service, my friend.... You might as well hear the rest, because if you were a trade unionist asking for this condition, you would be called a Bolshevik, a radical, a disturber. But this is a free-enterprise capitalist, who is essentially responding to the economy created by ordinary people, not by any effort of his or hers.

That person was none other than Robert Bonner, the head of MacMillan Bloedel, who was given this job because he's not unemployed. For three years he earned $120,000 a year. I don't blame him for that; I didn't want to see him unemployed. But for $120,000 a year, and after three years' work, he is guaranteed for life a pension of $62,000 a year. A $62,000-a-year pension! And those kind of people have the nerve to go out and make speeches saying that the working people and the unemployed must restrain themselves because they will get fat at the trough.

Well, at $62,000 a year on pension, he is now serving on Hydro. That's some trough. The slops are licking right over.

MR. GIBSON: Is that a federal or provincial pork inspection?

MR. BARRETT: I want to tell you, that's provincial pork inspection. Even 1, who am more confined to corned beef, understand that kind of pork.

So they talk about working people and they say: "Oh, ordinary citizens or people on welfare or the unemployed are asking for too much." So I give you another example, the gentleman who preceded Mr. Bonner, Mr. J.B. Clyne. When he retired he received a pension of $90,000 a year, plus a $100,000 lump sum. How many times have we heard that esteemed citizen of British Columbia extol the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism and say: "Oh, mixed economy and socialists are dangerous." They certainly are. They want to share some of this money around with the unemployed who are waiting in line looking for jobs. My friend, Mr. Timmis, the former president of MacMillan Bloedel, his salary was $220,000 a year. That's not greed, my friends, that's hard bargaining. You see, if a trade unionist asked for that kind of money that would be vicious greed demanding what is far beyond the capabilities of the economy to provide - this kind of money for ordinary working people. But when it comes to the heads of industry, it's $220,000 and a pension - hold your seats, gang -of $62,000 a year for the rest of his life.

MR. KING: Poor Dennis!

MR. BARRETT: This money should be directed to providing employment under the Labour estimates of this province. The last two examples I want to give of this most generous company are none other than Mr. Currie - his salary was $150,000, his pension is $62,000 a year - and Mr. Cal Knudsen, an American who comes up because us Canadians obviously don't know how to fill these jobs. He's an American who comes up and takes away this kind of plush job from my friends who put up their hands in this very chamber, who wanted a chance at that job. The Liberal leader, the Tory leader, and the first member for Vancouver East were in line as Canadians to be given consideration. They were not even asked to submit their - circum vitae, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Curricula.

MR. BARRETT: Curricula? No, no. That's when you go to school and don't get a job! (Laughter.) Mr. Cal Knudsen, that famous American who drove 154 miles up from Seattle, receives a salary of $250,000 a year. My dear friends, if he falls on the wayside as the former presidents did, tripping on their way down from the 19th storey of the MacMillan Bloedel building, he knows when he falls that his pension for life will be $125,000 per year.

So let's hear it for the poor rich. Let's hear it for the rich poor. While these people and this government, which protects that kind of investment

[ Page 4197 ]

in terms of individual rewards based on who you know and what you know, have the nerve to go around saying that the unemployment problem will solve itself if we can only return investor confidence.... Bunk, Mr. Chairman! It's bunk! We're going to have severe unemployment in this province. It is doubletalk when it comes from this government, when they protect a vested interest of the extremely wealthy people of this province. There'll be $35 million in taxes that will never be collected off these people when they go on to their other reward beyond this earth. I know of no one who has taken any money to the grave with them other than the pharaohs, and when we open those tombs we find the gold around the pharaohs, if robbers haven't found it first.

Even our own major religions tell us that when the day of reckoning comes, we're all going to be naked in the eyes of God, the same way we were when we came into this world. But the judgment is going to be made on the basis of what you did for mankind while you were here. And that is what I am talking about in terms of employment, Mr. Chairman. You know better than most members of this House about that kind of judgment and I pass it through you, Mr. Chairman, that this Minister of Labour is not providing the leadership necessary to create jobs in this province.

Now I want to deal very briefly with the argument that this is laissez-faire capitalist government. It is. Why, even the United States is socialist! Oh, I know it's a shock to hear that word for my friend the Premier. He just about dropped his pen. It went dry with the shock of the word "socialism." In the United States democratic socialism was pioneered first through the 1936 Roosevelt administration as a plan to help save capitalism. Had it not been for the democratic socialist movement of Harry Hopkins, an adviser to Roosevelt, the serious unemployment problem in that country would never have been resolved, and I think, knowing the American nature, there would have been revolution in that country.

Now what has been the consequence of government intervention in the economy? It is absolutely essential, absolutely necessary. It has staved off the kind of violence that will eventually lead to the breakdown of our society unless we are prepared to move too.

Just to make the analogy quickly, the lights went out in New York just a few weeks ago. During the time the lights went out, did we have a civilized community representing the greatest nation in the world demonstrating its ability to cope with the fact that the lights went out, and was there love and co-operation and understanding and sharing until the lights went back on? Not at all. As soon as the lights went out, everything goes, and everything went -looting, stealing, violence and mayhem in that major

American city. When people were interviewed on television, many of them were unemployed and they were asked: "Why did you do this?" They said: "Because it was there for the taking." The thin veneer between social responsibility, individual conscience's place in acts, was eliminated by turning out the lights, I submit to YOU, MT. Chairman, that laissez-faire capitalism only has that same veneer right across this country too.

We saw the example at the PNE of people waiting in line for jobs ready to fight each other in broad daylight. They didn't wait for the lights to go out. It's a time bomb ticking away, not only in the consciousness of theorists in this country, Mr. Chairman, but a real time bomb ticking away at the very social structure of this country we live in called Canada. I might say that the lack of action by this provincial government is matched by the federal government in terms of dealing with unemployment. The federal government has found Rene Levesque to kick around rather than the unemployment statistics.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we must keep our debate close to vote 203.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate what you say and I thank you for your direction. Unemployment is directly related to that minister, and I want to make a couple of positive comments related to actions made by governments with a mixed economy. Although this government is deathly afraid of the word socialism, just the other day the Premier had lunch with a socialist.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Two minutes.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He had lunch with a socialist. West German Chancellor Schmidt broke bread with the Premier and I don't think the Premier even wore a red tie. He enjoyed Chancellor Schmidt's company and marveled at the economic recovery of West Germany but failed to recognize that West Germany's economy is based on democratic socialism with direct government intervention and involvement. The United States through the Jones Act has a mixed economy and is directly involved in the field of shipping. There has to be a direct leadership role by a government to provide jobs for the young people of any nation if you want to keep some semblance of sanity and commitment to the social and democratic structures we have.

I believe that the laissez-faire capitalism is more danger to our fabric of democracy than any other approach to the economy, and unless governments led by this Minister of Labour and the Premier begin to demonstrate that they are concerned about the unemployed we are in for deep trouble.

Mr. Chairman, I have some more remarks to make

[ Page 4198 ]

later on. I want it to be clear that this will not be the major debate reported in the newspapers tomorrow, but I want to repeat my warning of this spring. Unemployment is a time bomb that demands aggressive government action including a mixed economy, direct government investment and direct participation in the economy. I find it ironic that after three and a half years when we were in power the major capital investments we made in the forest industry are the ones that are sustaining the economy of this province. Had it not been for us in Can-Cel, Plateau Mills, and yes, the little Princess Marguerite out here, and Ocean Falls, you would have had thousands more unemployed.

Mr. Chairman, I will now take my seat by saying to this government that regardless of all the debates we may have in the ebb and flow of daily debate in this House, the one measure that this government is being held up to is the argument it used about solving unemployment. It hasn't solved any. It has created more, and that will be the death knell of this government more than anything else.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, if the Minister wishes to respond now I mean to move on to a different subject. If the minister cares to respond I am quite willing to defer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to return very briefly to the area of human rights, which I made some comments about last week.

I wonder if the minister would take into consideration the question that there seems to be no time limit in regard to actions that are taken after a complaint has been investigated, particularly where it has gone all the way to a board of inquiry. The legislation specifies time limits within which the individual has to register a complaint once it is alleged to have occurred. It would seem to be only fair that there should be some time limit in regard to the handling down of decisions.

The kind of case I could cite, Mr. Chairman, is the case of one person.... I was personally involved and gave evidence during the hearings on February 13,1976, and it was well into March, 1977, until a decision was handed down. Now I know the minister cannot be responsible for the individual performance of members of a board of inquiry, but it does seem an unreasonably long time for a complainant to wait to hear the outcome of what the individual may believe to be a justifiable complaint. If it helps the minister, the case I am referring to is the Anne Bremer case. I am not here to pass judgment or interfere with the decision that was handed down, but simply to make the point that there should surely be some attempt to impose the same kind of time limits on handing down a decision as there is imposed on the individual who must register the complaint within a certain time.

I also wonder if the minister has any concern or wishes to comment on the need for a wider definition of reasons which constitute discrimination. I am particularly thinking of the handicapped. Again, I have no wish to transgress on a case that is now under appeal, but it seems to me that a handicap is being used to deny a person employment when it's quite obvious that the handicap itself does not impair the person's capacity to do the job. If we are going to prevent discrimination on the basis where you're born or what the colour of your skin is, it would seem to me that you should not be discriminated against simply because you're handicapped if you can do the job for which you are employed or seeking employment.

The same applies in the area of medical conditions or situations where a person has applied for a job and received a job, and then it's discovered that he or she has a medical condition, which again in no way relates to the capacity of the individual to do the job. The employer tells that individual that the job is no longer available or that the person is being laid off from that job. It seems to me that these are not reasonable causes for which to discriminate against a person, and I wonder if the minister would care to comment on that.

The other issue I raised, interestingly enough, earlier on in the debate was the fact that industrial relations officers have been doing approximately 50 per cent of the inquiries of complaints. I just want to bring to the minister's attention that I was made aware as recently as this morning of a case where an industrial relations officer was allocated to investigate a complaint by an individual. This woman discovered that she ended up answering all kinds of questions as to whether she suffered from a neurosis, or if she had ever been considered by her friends to be paranoid, and questions of this nature, which seem to me to be ranging far away and beyond the preliminary kind of discussion that should take place when a man or a woman wants a complaint investigated by the human rights branch.

Because of lack of time, I don't have all the details on this particular case but I understand that the lady concerned feels that she has been most unfairly dealt with, and is getting in touch with me to see if we can straighten that one out. Now I don't know whether that's because of the fact that an IRO is investigating, or a human rights officer, but it does seem to give emphasis to the point I raised last week that this is a very sensitive area, as the minister himself acknowledged the other day, and the fact that a great deal of education is required.

It seems to me that education is required both of the staff and the L) public. I know the public's need to

[ Page 4199 ]

be educated as to what the human rights legislation provides and how it should best be utilized, but it would seem to me that there are some flaws on the other side as well. When a person lays a complaint within the terms of the Act, there should be strict care taken to ensure that the very investigator doesn't invade the individual rights of the complainant by inquiring about such matters as their mental health and whether their neighbours think they're paranoid. This seems to me to be a very out-of-order kind of investigation to be undertaken.

Now I want to move on quickly, Mr. Chairman, to the matter of Indian affairs because this minister is responsible for Indian affairs, and I presume this is the only vote under which we can ask a few questions. The minister met in March with federal representatives and with representatives of the Indian people. I just wonder if the minister could give us some update on what is going on in these discussions with regard to one or two specifics.

Chief Philip Joe said that the discussions would get into high gear on May 11, and that meetings so far had centred on laying out general terms by which possible settlements will be discussed in May. I take it from that that there was to have been a meeting held in May, and I would like to know if that meeting did take place and what progress was made. The minister, Mr. Chairman, is on record as saying that the meeting with the federal representatives established some basic principles for settlement. In making these comments I an really repeating what appeared in the press mainly, but it was my understanding from press reports that the minister's basic principles of settlement were to the effect that cut-off lands which have not been developed could be returned to the Indian people, and that the other approximately 8,000 acres - and I'm using approximate figures since I don't think anyone knows the figures precisely -would be paid in cash. Now I also understand that the minister met privately with the federal minister, the Hon. Warren Allmand. My second question is whether in these discussions any kind of approximate figure was reached as to the total cost of compensation for the land which has been developed and cannot be returned to the Indian people.

I'm not asking specifics, Mr. Chairman, but I think this whole matter has dragged on for such a long time that the optimistic note which came out of the minister's meeting with the federal representatives in March entitles us to ask in this House: have the negotiations at least reached the point of knowing approximately the number of dollars involved in compensating the Indian people for the cut-off land which cannot be returned per se to their ownership?

Secondly, can I ask the minister if in his discussion with the Hon. Warren Allmand any tentative agreement was reached on which government should pay what percentage of that total estimated cost? In other words, if the cost would be $100 million, how would the federal and provincial levels of government... ? I shouldn't throw out a figure. Let's say that if the cost is to be X millions of dollars, is that amount to be split 50-50 or by some other agreed formula? Or could I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether in fact any such formula has yet been reached? It may well be that further meetings are to take place. I would be very interested to know just what amount of progress has been made and with what degree of definition. Has the government decided on the total figure that may well have to be paid, and how will that figure be split?

Now my last question on Indian affair's, Mr. Chairman, relates to a matter which has been brought to my attention by a concerned citizen. It concerns the Pacific North Coast Native Co-operative. First of all, let me say that the Pacific North Coast Native Co-operative was set up in October, 1973, and was intended to provide employment for Indian fishermen as a self-help type of project. The initial sum of money allocated by the NDP government at that time was $3 million. Since then, the co-operative has had several grants and loans by special warrant, and I'll just read them quickly into the record.

After the original $3 million in October '73, half a million was allocated in December '73, $1 million in January '74, and $3 million in August, 1974. In February, 1976, the new Social Credit government entered into discussions on this matter and allocated another $2.5 million, plus an agreement that a government-appointed committee would manage the co-operative. I have order-in-council 783, dated March 4,1976, and that order-in-council spells out the fact that the $2.5 million will be provided by the government in return for this agreement. The agreement is dated February 27,1976.

That agreement was between the Ministry of Economic Development and the Pacific North Coast Native Co-operative. Paragraph 8 of that agreement designates the Minister of Labour responsible for the administration of that agreement. Paragraph I appointed a management committee to oversee and implement the agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development.

Now the point that I am trying to get to as quickly as I can, Mr. Chairman, is the whole question of the financial state of the co-operative. It is my information that. . . . I tried to explore the questioning in question period when I asked the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) , and I did have the page from Hansard to pin down the date. But I can't find it at the moment. Any rate, Mr. Chairman, a few weeks ago I did ask the Minister of Finance if he was in the process of exploring the financial status of the co-operative. It was my information that the Minister of Labour, in his responsibilities as the minister designated under the

[ Page 4200 ]

agreement to be responsible for administration, had asked the Minister of Finance for a financial report. As I recall - and I apologize that I've mislaid the question I asked the Minister of Finance but at any rate - I think the Minister of Finance acknowledged that such a status report was being prepared.

Mr. Chairman, the issue which an individual has brought to my attention implies - in fact, it goes beyond implying - that there are some serious conflicts of interest involved in this whole situation of the co-operative and various persons who are involved in it. The allegation, Mr. Chairman, is to the effect.... I hope I haven't distracted the minister, because this is a very important statement I am about to make.

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that it has been brought to my attention that various ships have been purchased and/or refitted by a co-operative and resold at a price far below the original purchase price. Now I just would like to know, since the minister has asked the Minister of Finance for a report, if the minister can tell me if he is aware of the number of vessels, where, in fact, they have been sold to or refitted by the co-operative and then resold at prices much below the original purchase price. Now I have had one vessel mentioned in my communications with this citizen, which was bought by the co-operative for something in excess of $60,000, and resold a year later for $30,000. Now I just would like to know if the minister's inquiry into the financial status of the co-operative has gone beyond simply the figures as such. Has there been any inquiry into why it would appear that such transactions took place or, first of all, to confirm if they took place?

I am certainly not making any accusations against individuals; I am simply trying to inquire further into some information which has been submitted to me in writing and signed by the person concerned, but who wishes to avoid his name being used publicly. But he is greatly concerned that some very unusual business decisions have been taken. Since, as I pointed out earlier, Mr. Chairman, the total amount of money which has been made available to the co-operative adds up to $9.5 million, and since it would appear that the Minister of Finance has been asked to conduct a financial inquiry into the status of this co-operative, it would naturally be of concern if part of the financial difficulties of the co-operative relate to the fact that they buy a ship for $60,000 and, within a year or so, resell it for $30,000.

1 just feel, without going into any more specifics at this time, that I would be interested to know from the minister what scope of inquiry is he now conducting. Is it simply a matter of determining the red or black ink on the balance sheet? Or is it a matter of determining the findings of the management committee, which was set up under the agreement I just mentioned, and of seeing if the management committee has explored the kind of bad business practices that I have suggested? If so, could the minister report on their findings?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I don't wish to delay my response to the member for Oak Bay. I am ready to respond on those questions, but I would like, for just a few moments, Mr. Chairman, to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

COLLEGES AND

PROVINCIAL INSTITUTES ACT

Hon. Mr. McGeer presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Govern or: a bill intituled Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act.

Bill 82, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Committee of Supply, Mr. Chairman.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the opposition are naturally as gracious as can be but we would like the minister to ask leave for this kind of situation.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I don't need leave.

MR. COCKE: Leave is important. We don't want any precedents set.

MR. SPEAKER: In responding to the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) , it is not clear in my mind that leave is even required. On occasion we have had bills come in during the course of the afternoon by leave and at other times just by general agreement among the parties. However, I will check into it closer and see if I can find an authority.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF LABOUR

(continued)

On vote 203: minister's office, $131,284 -

continued.

[ Page 4201 ]

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to deal with the questions posed by the member for Oak Bay, perhaps in reverse order. The Pacific North Coast Native Co-operative was a venture in the nature of an enterprise designed to assist the native people on the north coast of this province by the government providing certain sums of money for the construction of a cannery, core fleet vessels to be used by fishermen who would take their catch to the cannery, and certain associated buildings, equipment and supplies.

First of all, let me say that the moneys were first made available with the authority of legislation. I think that if the member will refer to that legislation he will understand the distinction between my role in the enterprise at this moment on behalf of the government, and that of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) . The Minister of Finance is the minister charged with the responsibility under the legislation, while my responsibility arises only out of the agreement, to which the member referred. I was given that responsibility because of my general responsibility for matters relating to Indian affairs in this province.

I think the member's list of figures is short by $2.5 million. I think that the people of the province of British Columbia have given, by way of loans and grants to this enterprise, $12.5 million, but the actual specifics I don't have before me at the moment.

The establishment of this cannery was one which had been under consideration for a number of years. The national government had been asked to give its assistance in the establishment of a cannery, but for various reasons the national government declined; they believed that the cannery was located in the wrong place, among other significant factors. I am not certain that the events which have transpired have not proven the view of the national government in that regard to be correct. At any rate, it was established and successive management groups were given the responsibility of constructing the cannery and bringing it into operation.

When we became government in December, 1975, 1 was given the responsibility for Indian matters. One of the first major tasks that confronted me was a request from the co-operative for about $2 million in financial assistance. With my staff we then began an intensive and necessarily accelerated inquiry into the background of the need for this kind of money, because we were at the same time told that if the cannery wasn't to miss the opportunity of the herring season for 1976, and all of the revenue potential that that had for that co-operative, a decision would have to be made very quickly. In the time that we had to make the decision, a significant amount of information became clear, the principle of which was the fact that while the government in the establishment of the cannery had made large numbers of dollars available very generously, they had not taken the care to ensure that the co-operative was equipped with the management advice so essential to handle large sums of money and to bring such an enterprise as this into fruition.

In effect the government had decided that there should be a co-operative structure used for this enterprise without concerning themselves as to whether the natives who were directly involved could make that co-operative structure work and whether they had the necessary skills of management and accounting ability required to ensure that the moneys were adequately expended and, indeed, without even taking enough time to concern themselves as to whether the Indians who had been involved understood the concepts of co-operativism so essential for this enterprise to have even the slightest chance to succeed, given all of the other problems which confronted them in the early days of the venture.

It would have been possible at that stage for the government to have said this was another Indian enterprise which had failed, washed our hands of the whole matter and advanced no further funds. However, the examination that we made disclosed that in the management of the co-op's affairs, the then directors of the co-op had incurred very significant expenditures which had not been paid for. A lot of people had supplied services and materials on the strength of the co-op being an ongoing operation and one which obviously had the support of the government. Cheques had been issued and were bouncing all over the coast, the amount of which we could only guess at because the accounts were in a chaotic state, to say the least. It was estimated that the total mount required to discharge the outstanding obligations would be in the neighbourhood of $2 million to $2.5 million.

The government then moved to make this sum of money available, and at the same time the government moved to give to the co-operative management assistance which we believed they should have had in the first place. I announced in the spring of 1976 the appointment of the management committee, consisting of people who are knowledgeable in the fishing industry: Mr. Leif Nordahl, who had been and is still connected with the Central Co-op; Mr. Frank Millerd, from the private sector of the fishing industry and a man of long years of experience; Mr. Frederick Graham, who for years had been associated with the Prince Rupert Co-op; Senator Guy Williams of the Native Indian Brotherhood; and subsequently Mr. Wylie Brillon, who is a fisherman, a member of the co-op itself and a person highly experienced in fishing in the north coast of the province. That group went to work, put staff into the Port Simpson operation and gradually were able to meet all of the outstanding obligations

[ Page 4202 ]

of the co-op. During the same period, 1976, they carried on a successful herring roe operation, which produced a contribution to operating expense for 1976.

I'm afraid, Mr. Chairman, that in the fishing business it is difficult to speak of profits and losses because of the periods which are covered by the fishing seasons, the uncertainties that are so often met in determining what the fish catch will be, what the prices will be, and what the expenses will be. But certainly in 1976, with regard to the herring operation, a contribution to working capital was made by that operation. It also enabled the fishermen who fish for the co-operative to engage in the salmon season during 1976. It is questionable whether or not that was an economically sound move, but the only other alternative was to allow the cannery operation to lapse. Now during this time, it was possible to assess the cannery itself and some of the attendant facilities. I can say that the cannery is a very modern plant, well equipped, and well able to handle far more fish product than is presently made available to it.

With regard to the attendant facilities, the camp at Port Simpson, it was found that while the original intention was to bring natives from several areas to Port Simpson to take part in the cannery operation and therefore it was necessary to provide accommodation and victualing services, this did not work out. Therefore certain of these facilities became redundant to need.

The most serious concern, however, Mr. Chairman, was that of the core fleet - the fishing vessels that were employed in this operation. I think it was a blunder on the part of the previous administration to get themselves involved in a core fleet. That means the co-op owns the vessels. The fishermen, by some method of selection, are given a vessel to fish. They go out and fish, they bring the fish back, and when the season is over the vessels are tied up at the dock and the fishermen walks away and says: "Fine, it's the co-op's responsibility." So the refitting, the repair, the maintenance, the insurance - all of those matters normally taken care of by the fisherman himself -were left to the co-op. Well, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, the co-op couldn't have cared less. We had vessels sinking at the dock and falling into bad repair because no one had the interest in the individual vessel to make sure it was kept repaired.

Therefore, in discussion with fishermen who were members of the co-op, anxious to fish for the co-op, the plea was: "Sell the vessels to co-op members and tie those members to the co-op for a period of how many years may be required in order to pay off the purchase price of the vessel to ensure that their fish will always be delivered to the co-op." In this way, you do two things: you attract the fishermen and therefore you get the produce from the sea that they have garnered; and you get rid of the expense of looking after the vessel. The fisherman gradually improves, maintains, and cares for his vessel because it is his own. I suppose if there, is any one clear instance when private initiative, private ownership, and I suppose private enterprise, is shown to function, it's with regard to fishermen.

Anyway, this is what was done. All the vessels were appraised and they were offered to the members of the co-op to purchase at the appraised price - or more, if such offers would be produced. The first opportunity was given to members of the co-op. In the event of there being more than one offer for the same vessel, a selection would be made based upon the fishing record of the proposed purchaser. In this way, virtually all of the core fleet was disposed of. Terms were offered of at least 20 per cent down, the balance financed by a mortgage on the vessel itself -the mortgage period was five years - plus a commitment from the fishermen, by fishing agreement, to fish for the co-op for the period of five years. In the event that there was any breach of that fishing contract, then the mortgage would automatically be callable. Insurance was provided for each vessel. That insurance, in turn, was assigned in order to provide security for the repayment of the indebtedness. In that way, the vessels were placed in the hands of co-op members.

It's too soon to tell whether the initial gamble -and it was a gamble - taken by the government, or by this government in 1976, will be justified. The management committee, at the urgings of the government, has started on what we consider to be the second, and probably the most important, phase of what will hopefully be the road to viability for this operation. The first was essentially a clean-up operation - seeing whether we couldn't get the cannery in a situation where it could be viable. Now the second phase is underway.

An arrangement has been made with B.C. Central Credit Union through the facilities that they offer to work with the members of the co-op in instilling in them the concept of co-operativism and in trying to bring them into a position whereby they can fully undertake the management of this total cannery operation. How long that process, which is an educational one, will require, it's too soon to say. But it is a necessary exercise, or else the operation of the cannery will continue as it has since early 1976 -ostensibly owned by the co-op but really run by somebody else.

The government and the management committee are as anxious as anyone, Mr. Chairman, to be able to turn over. the management of the co-op to members of the co-op for their own destiny. But we will not undertake that step until we're satisfied that the members of the co-op, or a significant number of them, are skilled enough to handle the management of the affairs of the total co-op, because to do

[ Page 4203 ]

otherwise would only set us back on the road that was experienced in 1975, a road downhill to the eventual economic disaster which surely confronted the co-op at the end of 1975.

I'd say that I have had given to me today a report on the current situation of the cannery. The cannery this year will have its best operating year ever. At present, 21,000 cases of salmon have been canned; last year, 15,000 cases was the total. Already this year, we're 6,000 cases over. In addition, 150,000 pounds of frozen product have been sold. The cannery is presently employing 180 persons on two shifts. Of the total number of employees, 168 are native Indians.

During the herring season this year, the cannery processed 1,200 tons of herring, yielding 240,000 pounds of roe. Negotiations are taking place with regard to a demand in Europe for 1,200 tons of food herring this fall, and that's a new operation for this cannery. As well, the cannery is moving into the crab business, having this year processed 100,000 pounds, and we may enter into the clam market as well. So under the management committee's guidance, with the active support of the workers in the co-op and with the renewed incentive made available to the fishermen, this year is looking very favourable.

Now one of the problems, Mr. Chairman, as you may well know, about the fishing industry is that if the fish runs are good, then the possibility of catches being returned to the cannery are good. If it's a bad year for fishing, it's a bad year for everybody. It's impossible to assess with any degree of accuracy what the future may hold in subsequent years, but we do know that the cannery itself is efficient, that the Indian workers and members of the co-op can do the job efficiently. Whether we can overcome all the other difficulties that I have described, I am not sure. The cannery is situated very far north, with the result that if the fish are running in the southern waters on the coast, it's a long pack from the fishing grounds to the cannery itself. Whether this can be overcome by co-ordinated efforts with other operations is something which has yet to be explored.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

I make my remarks in this regard, Mr. Member, without casting criticism which would be so easy to cast upon other decisions which have been made. But I see no future in that. I could castigate some of the people who had a role in the development of this enterprise, in government and outside of government, but the purpose of that would not contribute to the future or to the success of this venture and, after all, that's what's important. It is one of the major initiatives for Indian enterprise in this province and, quite frankly, this government wants to see it succeed.

Now the member talked about meetings that have been taking place between this government and the federal government concerning the settlement of the cut-off land situation. He started with the meeting here in Victoria in March with the Hon. Warren Allmand and representatives of the 22 bands which are involved in the cut-off land problem. That was, as the member well knows, not the first of the meetings; the meetings have gone on since the spring of 1976, first with Mr. Buchanan, who was then the federal minister, and subsequently Mr. Allmand. But this was the first meeting in which the Indians were involved with the two governments.

Subsequent to that meeting, three meetings were held between a committee of the Indian bands and officials of the Ministry of Labour and of the officials of the federal department. The purpose of that was to achieve agreement, if at all possible, on the basic principles to be adopted with regard to the resolution of this long outstanding problem - some 65 years now, I guess. The meetings at the officials' level were, I think, successful but not conclusive. A number of principles were settled, but some of the more difficult ones were not.

As a consequence - and this was not a breakdown in discussions, I wish the committee to understand; there was no breakdown of discussions at all - of an impasse in propositions that were being put forward by the representatives of the federal department on the subject of compensation, the Indians indicated that they wished to meet with me to discuss this government's point of view. 1, with my officials, met with them and I told them what I was prepared to recommend to the government of British Columbia. I made it quite clear that the decision was not mine but I made it quite clear what my recommendation would be. My recommendation, and this is currently under consideration by the government, is as follows: first of all, having achieved a basis for settlement involving the national government, British Columbia would immediately return just over 30,000 acres of cut-off lands presently held by the Crown provincial which have never been alienated in any way. These are lands that are in exactly the same position as they were back in 1912-1916, when the cut-offs were first visualized.

Secondly, with respect, to any moneys that the government of British Columbia had received before the disposition to cut-off lands - those will be returned to the bands with interest at the average rate over the period from the time the dispositions were made. I am advised that rate is something between 8 and 10 percent.

AN HON. MEMBER: Phew!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: We would give back every cent that we have achieved, because under the

[ Page 4204 ]

arrangements, as land sold, half of the money went to the national government for the Indians and half of it was retained by the province. We say, "We'll give you the money back, with interest."

Lastly, for any of the lands which may have been used by the government - and this would involve the establishment of matters such as rights-of-way across some lands or, in some cases, there have been some gravel-removal operations conducted by the Department of Highways - the provincial government would compensate the Indians for that use.

We would also wish to discuss with the Indians the retention by the government of those cut-off lands which, by reason of their use over the years, have become a recognizable part of the public domain. I'm thinking of those cut-off lands which have been used as provincial parks; in one case, a municipal park; a sewage treatment plant; a Department of Highways works yard; and other matters of that nature. I notice the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) taking an interest; he will certainly be aware of some of the areas which I'm speaking about. If the Indian bands involved are prepared to allow those properties to remain in what I refer to as the public domain, then the government of British Columbia would negotiate with them for their purchase at current market value, either in dollars or in making available other lands which the bands might be prepared to accept in exchange.

I don't comment upon the Indians' reaction to what I considered would be recommendations; I think that they were favourably disposed towards them.

But they advised me that they were arranging to meet with the federal minister to discuss with him their views on the state of the negotiations, and how they believed they should progress. That meeting was held in Edmonton last Friday. I have not had a report. I didn't have a representative at the meeting. It was between the Indian bands and the federal minister and his staff.

Between the time I met with the Indian bands and last Friday, I traveled to Ottawa to discuss with the federal minister a number of subjects. The question of cut-off lands was raised briefly, but I deferred any questions on the subject until after he had his opportunity to talk to the Indians.

MR. WALLACE: Has the cabinet discussed your recommendations?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: The member for Oak Bay has asked me if the cabinet has discussed my recommendation. It has been discussed by me with a senior committee of cabinet and I expect in the next 10 days to have a full cabinet discussion on the matter, depending on the availability of the reports that we are preparing and a time on the agenda.

Now that will leave, of course, the balance of the lands that were cut off and which have been alienated. There are something less than 3,000 acres. It is my view that the responsibility for whatever compensation may be due to the Indians in respect with those lands rests with the national government.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You've been 30 minutes in your answer, hon. minister.

Interjections.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I am sorry to be so long, but it's a subject which involves an awful lot and I only hope that I will have the opportunity some time.... I would be prepared to meet with the members once we make our decision, and go fully into the basis for the recommendations which I've made.

The member in raising the question of human rights said that he was concerned that there was no time limit within which certain action should be taken. I have considered this prospect, but in view of the mediative attitudes which I think are so essential to the success of the human rights complaint resolution and the necessary educational aspect that goes with it, to set arbitrary time limits is not a good idea.

So far as handling the complaints themselves to boards of inquiry and the eventual decision from the board of inquiry, we face the same problems that are faced by the courts of this land. First of all there has to be investigations. In some cases it's very short; other cases take a long while. Sometimes there's only a couple of people to talk to, sometimes maybe dozens. So you can't limit the period of investigation.

Once you get to the settlement aspect, it sometimes takes a longer time to convince some people of the rightness of the position that's being put forward than it does others, and that is therefore aiding flexibility. Once you have a board of inquiry recommended by the staff and a decision made by the minister to empanel a board of inquiry, there is a process there which is unfortunately time-consuming. We have a list of panel members from which we can choose but the availability of those members varies. Some person you may want for a particular board or board of inquiry because of his experience or knowledge and you can't have him this week, but maybe two weeks from now. Holidays, sickness and other job demands make it difficult. So sometimes it's better to delay the board of inquiry by two weeks and have the board that you want, rather than a board that you think perhaps wouldn't do as good a job.

Then once you embark on a board of inquiry, you give everybody notice and they have to get their

[ Page 4205 ]

witnesses together. Some want to be represented by a lawyer and you run into all the problems that that produces - getting the witnesses to the hearing, suiting their convenience, suiting the convenience of counsel. Then when that's all over you hold the hearing. Then comes the period for deliberation and decision and we certainly wouldn't want to hasten that. I think all things being equal, while I'm as distressed about the time it takes as the member is, the quality of the process would be diminished if we were to place arbitrary time limits.

As for a particular case in which a member was involved, I know one of the reasons it was delayed. Counsel for the school board was engaged for many weeks in a most difficult yet important labour relations problem involving Nanaimo and he had to absent himself from that board of inquiry. So the resolution of the problem in Nanaimo delayed resolution of the problem to which the member refers. And that's a problem that no one has yet found how to overcome.

Handicapped persons - reasonable cause. We are considering this whole aspect of reasonable cause. As I said last week, I don't anticipate opening the Human Rights Code in 1977, but we will be in 1978, 1 trust. This question of reasonable cause - and the value there may be in defining it more than is presently the case - may be before the House for consideration. There are two points of view. One is that by being more specific in definition you tend to limit, and perhaps it is better to leave the breadth of reasonable cause so that it can be more encompassing. On the other hand, if you leave the possibility of it being more encompassing but because the words aren't there people won't read into it what should be read in, then we simply leave someone out. But as I indicated, the legislation of the federal government is being studied, as well as the recent report in Ontario. Some recent decisions in Ontario and in Manitoba are under consideration, and they'll be taken into account in producing, I believe, some worthwhile amendments to the Code.

MR. WALLACE: I'll be very brief, but I just wanted to get back to the question of the Pacific North Coast Native Co-op, Mr. Chairman. I want success for that co-operative, as we all do. I realize that there have been troubled times that relate to some of the management shortcomings that the minister has referred to. I'm trying to be very responsible in raising this issue because the kind of information that has been put before me is disturbing but by no means proven - namely, that some of the vessels which the minister referred to were purchased at a substantial price and resold to individuals at a very much lesser price, sometimes of the order of 100 per cent. The minister mentioned that some of them deteriorated and were refitted and so on, and part of the evidence that's been before me relates.... As I again caution, Mr. Chairman, I have made inquiries and cannot confirm or deny these costs, but I'm disturbed enough that somebody would write to me, make these statements, sign their name, ask for my confidence and quote figures such as one ship which was purchased for $320,000 and sold for what the writer agrees he doesn't know the exact price, but around $110,000.

I want the native co-operative to get on the right rails and establish itself successfully. As the minister suggested, there's no point in looking back to 1973, when wrong decisions were made which have brought us to this point. I just wondered if the minister is to receive a report either from the Minister of Finance or elsewhere, itemizing those kinds of costs that I'm asking about. How many vessels were purchased by the co-operative, how many of them were resold, and what were the respective prices? If this suggestion that's been made to me is inaccurate, it would be very helpful if the minister could provide the figures to show just how many vessels were involved in these transactions and what the dollar figures were.

Maybe the minister might consider tabling some of the information in the House. I think it is an MLA's responsibility to explore this kind of information, which may have a very valid explanation but which on the surface seems somewhat unusual. Would the minister just mention whether or not there is a report being prepared by the Minister of Finance, when he expects to receive it, and whether he would consider tabling that report from the Minister of Finance with the House?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I don't expect to receive any report from the Minister of Finance. The report that he has received, or is about to receive, is a copy of the financial statements of the co-operative. I would remind the member that this is co-op business, not ours. Under the statute, the Minister of Finance is entitled to have the information, but we haven't taken over the co-op; it still belongs to its members.

We have, in our wisdom or otherwise - and you may criticize the position taken by the government -made certain moneys available to it. We were faced with one of two propositions: either we as a government receive representations from those to whom money was owed - "you've allowed this enterprise to go down the drain, therefore you better pay us" - or we make the moneys available to the co-op and try to get it to float. But remember, it's the co-op's business. My role and the management committee's role is only to assist the co-op and its directors in the discharge of their responsibilities.

So far as me receiving any reports from the Minister of Finance about these bills, I've had those reports for months. When the management

[ Page 4206 ]

committee decided in their wisdom to dispose of the vessel, there were continuing discussions between them and my office as to the advisability of making the dispositions - how it should be done, how we should test values and so on. As a result, every one of the vessels was appraised and then it was offered once the appraisal figures were known. No vessels were refitted; they were sold on an as-is basis.

I was as shocked as the member, but you mentioned one vessel which was purchased for $325,000 and I think it was eventually sold for $50,000. That was the famous or infamous Mary Lou, a former tuna vessel acquired for purposes of conversion into a packer. I understand it was very unsuited to that purpose. So maybe the co-op made a bad buy in the first instance and maybe it spent far too much money converting it into a packer, but all of that is of little consequence when you recognize that it was sunk and virtually all of its engine and equipment rendered useless. When it was eventually sold, it was sold for the value of the hull. That's according to my information. So that's the kind of thing that happened.

Yes, it was disastrous - I'm well aware of it. There were many vessels that were allowed to deteriorate, some of them to be half sunk at the dock. When they were appraised, the appraisal figures were extremely low. That's one of the reasons we made the decision, because with a further year of deterioration there'd be no fleet at all. They had to be saved for whatever could be resurrected from them.

MR. C.M. SHELFORD (Skeena): I appreciate the minister's remarks with regard to Indian cutoff lands. I think he helped the members of the Legislature quite a bit this afternoon in understanding this issue.

I also hope that the Indian land claims themselves, which are far more important to us up in the north country than the cutoff lands, will be settled soon because an awful lot of development in the north country at the present time is being held up due to the Indian land claims. Companies simply refuse to take a risk and go in until these claims have been settled. I hope the government will be able to save the Port Simpson cannery and I know the minister will do his very best to do this.

He was certainly correct in saying that the core fleet really is the key to the success of any cannery. I might point out to the members that I worked for over two, years on this Port Simpson cannery, back in 1971 and 1972. I'd just like to quote from a letter I wrote on April 10,1972, which outlined my position to Frank Howard and the federal government at that time:

"With regard to the final paragraph of your letter in which you suggest the provincial government underwrite the complete cost of the project, you must surely be aware of the complications that would ensue.

"In the first instance, the project could not be financed by the British Columbia Department of Agriculture, as my department is responsible only for joint projects such as ARDA agreements. Secondly, the project could not be successful unless it receives the co-operation from the federal fisheries department. The matter of boat licensing and their general control of the fisheries resource could, without their co-operation and support, doom the project to collapse and failure."

Of course, this is exactly what happened, and it's unfortunate that this point was lost in the change of government in 1972. 1 think all of us want to see this cannery stay in operation, because, as the minister pointed out, it does employ quite a number of people and it's far better having them work there than be unemployed. So I don't think we should especially fault anyone, but we should try and make the whole thing work so that it will keep these people employed.

We've heard a great deal in the last few days about unemployment, but I would say generally there has been very little said about the cause of unemployment. In studying inflation during the last few months, it's interesting to see how all western countries have wrestled with this situation, but none so far have found solutions. This is true no matter what type of government happens to be in control. However, a few things become very clear. I recommend that all members read this book on how to halt inflation and still keep our jobs. I don't say I agree with it altogether, like lots of other books I read, but there is quite a lot in there that I think is worth reading. One thing that becomes clear in all reports is that if wages and salaries go up more than productivity, the nation finally ends up in trouble. I think that's something we all know.

For instance, if productivity goes up 2 per cent, then the country can properly afford a 2 per cent increase in wages and salaries. In Canada, of course, we're arguing about 8 and 10 per cent increases in wages and salaries with productivity only up 1 or 2 per cent. Of course, the country simply can't live with that. The only place where productivity is up to what I'd call satisfactorily is in agriculture, where it's up more than 6.5 per cent over the last number of years.

With increases such as this and productivity so low, it's no wonder we're in trouble competing, and it's the main reason that we have high unemployment. If wages and salaries go up without productivity, then you might say it's robbed from some other group. In fact, they are subsidizing the subsidize d-by -some one-else. All efforts so far to help those on low incomes, either by governments or by unions, I would say, generally speaking, have failed.

[ Page 4207 ]

In study of the minimum wage increases over the years in various countries all efforts to narrow the gap between low incomes and high incomes have failed. I say this is general in all western countries.

As far back as the turn of the century, and today, the relationship between the low income and the high income have remained approximately the same. All of us can find good reasons why the minimum wage should be increased. We hear it every day in this House, because there's no question people on a minimum wage do suffer. But so far, all it's done is to start a chain reaction, because all others above the minimum wage tend to go up, including right up to the level of top management. They all strive and finally succeed in maintaining the same relationship they started off with in the first place.

With a percentage increase, of course, it is quite common that those at the low end of the scale can be even worse off. Another interesting point put forward in various books is ... they point out that you can go back as far as 1870 - this is something that surprised me a great deal - and you'll find that prices have always, in the long run, followed wages. The relationship, again, has remained constant all during that time.

There are examples of short-term changes, naturally, which we can all point to, where powerful groups - the Teamsters as an example - can get an increase and get ahead of others. During that time, of course, they pass the increase on to all those in society who still haven't got their increase. So those others, are, in fact, worse off.

Again, I must point out that this does not carry to the long term. Others get their increases and the relative position is restored to the way it was before the increase. Again, I must point out that prices go up following the increases to maintain their traditional position - or, you might say, the end of a complete cycle - once all have received their increase up the line.

Some people will say that this sounds as if no one really gets hurt. Well, of course, the answer is totally wrong. Everyone gets hurt - and the country itself is a loser. Marginal companies no longer can compete in the world markets and unemployment increases. Enough companies this year have already left Canada for lower-cost areas, companies which would, in fact, hire 120,000 people. The reason they left was simply that our costs got higher than our competitors.

I think the one thing that comes clear in the various books also is that we certainly shouldn't blame the unions alone for this problem. As we have seen this year, management salaries have been even more inflationary-, the unions are mainly trying to maintain their traditional position.

As I said before, democratic governments right across the western world so far appear to be powerless to really bring a change from the low income to those in the high income class. Now the main cause of inflation is that free enterprise is not allowed to function. In other words, it's not left free any longer. We have pressures up and up but we don't have any pressures down on either side. With the closed-shop union contracts and professional groups, the movement is always up, never down.

Again, on the other side, you have monopoly-controlled industries o r oligopoly-controlled industries. Again the pressure is always up and up and not down. In fact, they actually hold production down to maintain prices. So in fact, you have a whipsaw action up and up, when a proper system should be working up and down to be what we consider free.

The only place where this happens is in non-monopoly independent groups. Of course, quite often it does actually work but they've become quite small nowadays as most major industries are controlled by large monopoly groups. Most employers in industries such as the building trade, with industry-wide unions, have no incentive whatsoever to resist high union demands. Why should a manager, for instance, of a Safeway store, resist an increase and get into a lengthy shutdown when he knows that his competitors will finally be saddled with the same cost, and he will retain his traditional position? There is no incentive at all to resist increases to the people of any province of the country because the cost is only passed on to the consumer, and he is finally the one who has to pay. Again, it starts another spiral up.

Again, I mentioned that this sounds okay as house prices or food prices, like all other prices, have followed wage increases ever since 1970. However, the problem comes home to roost when the wages in the wealth-creating industries such as forestry and mining [illegible] the export industries follow the pass-on industries like the building trades, or the wealth-spending industries, which naturally is the government. I would say the government over the years has been guilty of excessive spending more than any other, but certainly the pass-on industries have set a very, very bad trend. Countries like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Germany and others have all tried price control, as mentioned in this book, some since as far back as 1960 and 1970.

They have all made vigorous efforts to protect their wealth-creating sectors by attempting to keep wages in other sectors in line without excessive increases. They, like us, have not been completely successful and have lost sales to low-wage areas of the world. Unemployment has gone up for them the same as for us. It is interesting to note all efforts have failed in all countries mentioned without the co-operation of labour. Marginal success with labour co-operation has been achieved in some countries. All

[ Page 4208 ]

agree in our society to restraint, but restraint for someone else.

It is interesting to note in all of these countries both management and labour can and do scuttle the actions of government, which in fact is trying to save the groups that are scuttling. Both would rather die than lose their traditional position in society. It appears in most countries governments and pass-on industries as I mentioned earlier are the worst offenders for lack of restraint.

Another interesting fact seems to be that industries with well-organized unions, normally with above-average pay, tend to automate a lot more than other industries. Of course, they automate more but fire less people. Now industries with either weak unions or non-unions tend to automate less and of course hire more. But what this really does in all countries is that the population has less high-paid workers and more lower-paid workers, which is not a satisfactory direction to go on.

From these studies in various countries it appears to me that there is a need for a council of export development made up of unions, management and government to help protect the wealth-producing export industries. If nothing else, it would expose the all-too-harsh economic realities of international trade. I again want to stress that we shouldn't blame any one group, because I think everyone in society is a certain amount guilty for getting our costs higher than what we can sell on the international market.

We simply have to face the facts of life on programmes such as DREE and various other projects - ARDA and quite a number of other projects. Even though they are needed a great deal and even more today than ever, they are nothing more than subsidies to industries where we have let our costs get out of line with the realities of foreign trade. None of these projects will actually cut unemployment a great deal. I think we have to face up to that.

We have to go a lot further and plan a lot further ahead if we are ever going to really lower unemployment. Only a healthy, competitive industry with costs and productivity, with co-operation of labour and management which can keep in line with foreign competitors, can raise the actual standards of living and lower the unemployment rate. I hope that during the coming year there will be a great deal of discussion on this whole question, because we simply can't continue to subsidize our industries and hope to compete in the foreign markets, because there won't be anyone left to pay the subsidy.

MR. LEA: I have just one brief reference to the speech by the member for Skeena (Mr. Shelford) . He read from a letter that he wrote when he was a cabinet minister, prior to 1912. 1 wonder if he got that from Gary Lauk's basement or his own. It seems that all cabinet ministers keep their files.

Mr. Chairman, a little earlier the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) replied to a question that I had asked about the summer employment programme and whether all was going well administratively within that programme. He mentioned that yes, indeed, there is a report - or one or two reports - on the summer employment programme, but he said it was an internal report and therefore he wouldn't table it in the House. I was hoping that he would either table it or explain it a little more. Maybe he has explained it in detail and fully, but I have information that not all is going well in the summer employment programme, and that's for sure.

I would just like to share with the committee some of the information that I have been told is contained in a report the minister has. The summer employment programme isn't just administratively not running well; it's run amuck. There are reports that there are moneys going to firms that it should not be going to; that one restaurant chain is getting money it shouldn't have gotten; that a railway is getting money that it shouldn't have gotten, I would imagine this is on the sharing of payment of wages through a subsidy from the government for summer employment. I was told that if that report was made public, it would be rather embarrassing to the government. That's why I asked the minister if there was anything not going that well administratively within the summer employment programme. That was when the minister said that it was an internal report and therefore wouldn't be made public.

My information is that it is a report that was only placed on the minister's desk within the last two or three weeks, or less, and that the information in that report would be embarrassing to the government, I heard that about 25 per cent of the money had gone to the wrong people. I guess that would be a report that would say that all wasn't going that well administratively. I can't prove it, Mr. Chairman. All I know is that someone told me a person who I believe was in a position to know the minister has that report and the report would be devastating to government if made public. So I asked the minister if there was a report and, if so, could he make it public? He said, yes, there was a report but he couldn't make it public because it was an internal report.

Mr. Chairman, what has that got to do with it -whether it is an internal report or not? Surely internal reports that show that administration is not going well should be made public to this House. After all, it was taxpayers' money that paid for the report to be done, which was dealing with money that was being spent that was also taxpayers' money. My question is: is there a report that can be made public? Has 25 per cent of the money gone astray? Has McDonald's hamburgers been getting money it shouldn't have been getting? Has the BCR been getting money it

[ Page 4209 ]

shouldn't have been getting?

AN HON. MEMBER: Stay turned for next week's episode.

MR. LEA: Is there a report? Has the minister got a report on his desk that was done? Is it going to be made public? The minister said sit down and he'll tell us all about it. Okay.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I know of no such report. I just spoke with my assistant deputy minister and he knows of no such report. We're going out to make a few phone calls to see if such a report exists. No report has come across my desk with regard to the youth employment programme, either of a general nature or of as specific a nature as the member referred to a few moments ago. If I misled the member last week, I'm sorry. We do an internal ministry evaluation of the programme every year. It was done by the former government; it was done by this ministry in 1976; it will be done again in 1977. They have already started. It is an assessment of the total programme. But that's ongoing and nowhere near ready to produce even an interim report. I have seen no report, Mr. Chairman, but I'm having the matter looked into right this very moment.

If there is such a report, I'm as interested in it as the member. I want to know who did it, who authorized it, who delivered it and, if such a report exists, I'm happy to let you see it. If you tell me that 25 per cent of $22.5 million is being frittered away, I want to know. If that is the case, there may be some changes in the administration, staff-wise or otherwise. There may be some heads that will roll if we have wasted, in this short period of time, 25 per cent of $22.5 million.

MR. LEA: I appreciate the minister's remarks and I didn't say that the minister tried to, or did, mislead the Committee. If the minister is checking into it -the minister says it hasn't come across his desk and he hasn't seen it - I believe him. If he does come across the report, I would like to be informed of that report.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I would just add, Mr. Chairman, if the member comes across it before I do, I wish he would give me a copy.

MR. LEA: I might!

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I just want to make a few brief remarks. I have difficulty letting the member for Skeena's (Mr. Shelford) comments and analysis go by without at least some comments from this side of the House.

I was intrigued, Mr. Chairman, to hear the member for Skeena state as a matter of fact that the inflation problem and the price-increase syndrome that has plagued the western world, indeed, since 1870 - at least this nation since 1870 - has been the result of a cost-push rather than a price-pull inflation. The member also said he was surprised to find out that was the case. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to get in touch with John Kenneth Galbraith and Samuelson and many of the other notorious economists in North America who have debated this question, certainly for the last hundred years.

AN HON. MEMBER: I didn't know Galbraith was that old.

MR. SHELFORD: Read that!

MR. KING: I find it absolutely intriguing that the member for Skeena reads a book and comes to a solution that economists have been unable to arrive at for the last century. So perhaps, Mr. Chairman, he will see if he can find another book on the same subject and then temper his views with respect to this very imprecise and imperfect discipline of economic theory.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out to the member that everyone is concerned about productivity. Everyone is concerned about this province's ability to compete on world markets. But I want to suggest to the House, Mr. Chairman, that there are a variety of other considerations that go into the competitive position of industry and our whole economy. There are a variety of other considerations that go into the making of a climate where inflation runs rampant and productivity may be impaired. I want to say to'the member that it is riot only the salary demands of 40 per cent of the work force in this province - a little over 40 per cent, about 43 per cent. Of that 43 per cent, many of those workers are not in the primary productive areas of the province. Many are in the service industry, where I certainly don't think the member would suggest there is a cost-push in terms of prices. I would estimate. that of the productive work force in the province of British Columbia, there is about 25 per cent of the total involved in the primary product area.

Is the member seriously suggesting to this House that 25 per cent of the work force is the prime and central culprit in the problem of inflation and the problem of price acceleration? Yet, Mr. Chairman, I find a preoccupation - almost a phobia - on that side of the House with that suggestion. Now, certainly it's a factor. I find a preoccupation, and I find that as the central core of presentations made in this House, not only by the member for Skeena but by others also.

I want to suggest to the member that that's one dimension. But certainly the current retooling of

[ Page 4210 ]

plants is extremely important, in addition to automation. I agree with the member that where there is an organized labour force, productivity tends to increase commensurate with the organization and the demands for the workers. In many ways, it is held by economists that that is a healthy and a productive thing. I'm surprised that an adherent of Social Credit, coming from the old roots of Aberhart and Major Douglas, would have neglected to mention the money supply in terms of the inflation problem. I'm appalled that he didn't even mention the supply of money, because all it is is a medium of exchange, a measurement of the productive wealth of the nation. I think anyone who seriously looks at what has happened over the last 1 0-year period, when we have almost averaged a 20 per cent annual increase in the money supply, would be looking elsewhere for a culprit in terms of a scapegoat in this inflationary problem that we face today.

Mr. Chairman, these are some of the things the member should be looking at. What about those firms right here in British Columbia, those foreign corporations ...

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: What about my estimates?

MR. KING: ... which have been granted vast tracts of our resource wealth? Instead of pouring the profits back into production in British Columbia, they have directed those profits to the development of plants in almost slave-labour conditions in other undeveloped countries. Is that the kind of corporate citizenship the member is prepared to live with? Instead, the finger....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member....

MR. KING: We're talking about unemployment, Mr. Chairman, and I think the view....

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: You're not talking about unemployment at all.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I would like you to get back to vote 203, if you would. It's a very interesting speech, but we could....

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I resent your interjection. I believe that I am talking about government policies that are conducive to the development of employment in this province. The members have certainly held sway on the government side without instruction from the Chair and I would appreciate doing the same thing, Mr. Chairman. Besides, I'm just about finished.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I promise to be quiet.

MR. KING: Thank you so much. I have accomplished something today, Mr. Chairman. I've accomplished something worthwhile. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to draw to the members' attention that certainly a rational policy for the development of industrial growth and employment in any modern state requires some control in terms of the dollars generated from any corporation, be it foreign or be it domestic, in terms of where that profit should flow and to what purposes. Any modern state, most modern states, require that there be money poured back for the further development, further fabrication if possible, of resources in their own country. That is modern; it is a customary tool of government, be they democratic socialist or be they the most reactionary capitalist government in the world. I don't know where I would place the current coalition in British Columbia in terms of that spectrum. But that's not the question. Many of these tools are used and recognized.

It distresses me when I hear too heavy an accent placed upon the effect of wage demands. Where did the trade union movement come from? It is an outgrowth of the abuses of unchecked capitalism -complete outgrowth - and the trade union movement in some cases have learned to be better capitalists than the corporations are, to extract the last pound of flesh regardless of the social consequences; and that's a problem. That's a problem.

What is very intriguing and interesting to me is to hear a government, who say they stand for free enterprise, get up with tacit suggestions that we should interfere with the free market flow when it comes to making wage demands but completely back away and pay tribute to, in fact, the right of corporations to earn their billions out of our resources and our workers' sweat and then channel the profits into development in Brazil. They are the kind of policies that the government should be talking about in terms of securing employment opportunity for the workers in British Columbia. And until they start coming to grips with those basic principles, we are going to have a boom-and-bust economy foundering on the rocks of unemployment and inflation for generations to come.

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): I would like to address my remarks to the general subject of industrial democracy and worker participation. I'd like to examine the proposition that strikes and lockouts have become obsolete. I'd like to talk about the possibility that those instruments called strikes and lockouts have become as obsolete and crude as the Zeppelin and the crossbow. I'd like to talk about some of the examples we have presently and successfully available in our sight in the world, where nations have tried forms of labour management

[ Page 4211 ]

relations quite different from our own and apparently with a great deal more success than our own -certainly at least in the case of this country.

I'd Re to preface all of those remarks by saying, Mr. Chairman, that I speak for myself. I do not stand here as a representative of my caucus or of my party in regard to this specific policy. This policy, like a number of others, is very much under discussion in my own party and my own caucus. We have reached no agreement on it at the moment, nor indeed to my knowledge has any other political party.

The idea of industrial democracy or worker participation is new to this continent, but it is old and established and obviously successful in western Europe. It is an idea to which I have been devoting a great deal of personal time in the last couple of years and which I would like to discuss if I may now, Mr. Chairman, in particular regard to the role of leadership and initiative that should be taken by this Minister of Labour in order to create the new spheres and forms and procedures of a very different kind of labour-management relationship than the one that we have seen so far.

I think it is useful to start out by pointing out to the House the discussions that many members of this House have no doubt had privately with business and labour leaders. In my own case, since elected in December, 1975, I've heard repeatedly from business and labour leaders, at least in private conversation, who have had the courage to say that the adversary system that we now employ is a dead end. It has no future. The adversary system based on confrontation and hostility and conflict hurts both sides and hurts the whole people. It is a system that reflects the economic system in which we live, certainly, Mr. Chairman. It's very much a statement of the economic system that governs this country. That statement itself is obviously that you have the right to get from the other guy as much as you possibly can. We call it free enterprise and everyone adores it. So reasonably enough, the system of confrontation that exists within the labour-management field derives properly but not necessarily from the economic system of private enterprise where it is also considered profitable and reasonable to choke the other guy until he can't speak any more and then tell him that you've reached an agreement.

In my view, Mr. Chairman, the system we have has been enormously improved by the previous Minister of Labour. I think the creation of a uniform Labour Code which is even-handed and just and fair in this province was a tremendous step forward. It's no secret within my own party that the previous Minister of Labour is the subject of my very considerable personal admiration. I think he had guts and courage, and he especially had guts and courage when willing to take on the trade union movement in this province. I think we have seen, Mr. Chairman, in my view, that the trade union movement in some quarters has become at least as conservative and defensive and self-protective as business has in many other quarters.

I'd like, if I may , to read a very brief statement into the record. It was made by a former prime minister of the United Kingdom and I think it talks very subtly and very sensitively to one of the principal interests in this debate we call industrial democracy. He said a number of years ago:

"No progress in labour relations is possible while the worker is treated as an inconsidered cog, a depersonalized number in a vast industrial machine which he has no power to control, to influence, or even to understand.'

I think the remarks of that former Prime Minister are absolutely accurate. The case for industrial democracy or worker participation, as I see it, Mr. Chairman, is simply this: given that what we've had does not work on all fronts; given a system under which many of us suffer right now, that has led to among the highest rates of strikes and lockouts in the western world; and given a number of other conditions that I propose to deal with in a moment, is it not possible that some experiments, some other forms, some other opportunities, should be tested? If it's possible that what we're doing right now is simply not very successful, is it not also possible that what some other people have been doing in some other places might be a little more successful?

No one argues, Mr. Chairman, that the theme, the concept, the principles of industrial democracy or worker participation offer all of the answers to all of the problems, offer all of the cures to all of the diseases, offer all of the remedies to all of the conflicts. I don't propose that. No one proposes either that industrial democracy means merely one thing. The fact is that it has taken 10,000 forms in the several nations where it has been tried; that in some nations it has. been the direct result of intervention on a federal level, particularly in West Germany since 1952, with the first federal laws that were introduced in that country that imposed very arbitrarily and very powerfully a point of view on labour and management.

In other nations - typically Norway - the industrial democracy movement, the worker participation movement, came from the ground up. It came from factories that were failing. It came from trade unions that were in disarray. It came from communities that demanded a different and a higher standard of performance.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

What I think we have to observe, Mr. Chairman, is that worker participation takes many forms and has achieved many results. But consistent among them

[ Page 4212 ]

are a number of important themes, a number of conclusive observations which, in the last decade, have been made by most competent authorities in the field.

In my view, Mr. Chairman, the economic system that we presently employ in our country has no future. It goes nowhere that's promising or rewarding. I think it's possible, if you'll pardon the cliche -which is all the same brilliant, thanks of Buckminister Fuller who dreamed it up - that living on the spaceship Earth, as we do, with fixed and diminishing natural resources, the ability of a country like our own to trade internationally on those resources is also becoming fixed and limited. I think it's possible, Mr. Chairman, that people like ourselves have begun to become prepared for the restraints and the limitations for the new demands and the new retrenchment that will take place in the next 20 and 30 years. The Leader of the Opposition talked a few moments ago about the brownout in New York. Brownouts on a global scale will occur on this planet by the end of the century because we are living at a standard to which we may have become accustomed but which we simply cannot afford.

I think it's possible, Mr. Chairman, that the economic institutions and assumptions and systems that we created in the last century may not serve us in the next. Let me be more specific. One of the forms that our economic system has taken is that particular device that we call a strike or a lockout. It's a form of economic warfare that was inherited by us and that grew up in the 19th century and which, I propose, may not serve us in the 21st century. I hope to be alive for many years in the 2 1 st century and 1, for one, am quite convinced that if something that worked in the 19th, that was questionable in the 20th, is still in major force and major employ during the 21st, then there's something really very wrong with our thinking, our philosophy and our assumptions. I think it's possible the tools which may have been necessary then will simply not be necessary in the future.

I want to talk about some of the problems that we have in this country and about the possibility that other nations' successful experiments with many forms of worker participation might teach us something about our problems and the possibility of our own solutions.

Between 1968 and 1972, Sweden lost, through strike or lockout or industrial disruption of one form or another, an average of 62 days per 1,000 workers. In the same period in West Germany, they lost 74 days; in Britain, 968; in the United States of America, 1,534; and in Canada, 1,724. In 1974, in West Germany, the loss per 1,000 man-days was 90. In 1974, in Canada, it was 1,732. In 1974, Mr. Chairman, Canada had the worst rate of strikes and lockouts in the western world, second to only one other country. That country was, of course, Italy. Among all of the nations in the western world, such was the achievement of our system of adversaries and conflict that we had the worst record of strikes and lockouts of them all except Italy.

In 1975, what happened? Mr. Chairman, I'm not happy to report that we came in first. We beat Italy. According to the international labour organization, our record in 1975 was actually worse than theirs. Figures for 1976 are not presently available.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that it is possible to conclude from that broad, crude evidence from the typical instruments by which we measure industrial success - productivity, strikes and lockouts, wildcats, absenteeism, safety records, and the rest of it - that it is just possible that in other western democracies they have learned some things we haven't learned yet. I'd like to read as well, if I may, Mr. Chairman, a statement from Mr. Lynn Williams, regional director for the United Steelworkers of America, who, in 1976, talking about industrial democracy, said:

"But I use a European example to underscore an important point. In those countries whose low time-loss figures from strikes are the envy of our labour ministers, the labour movement is not a pariah, but a full and respected partner in the economy, in planning and implementing economic decisions."

That's another of the themes, Mr. Chairman, to which we must return when talking about industrial democracy. We observe that the systems we presently employ lead us to the worst rate of strikes and walkouts in the Western world. We observe as well that in a world like our own, in a country like our own trading on natural resources, we cannot afford it much longer. The system will not hold. The structure will not support. Restraint, conservation, and those principles of survival are required if we're to make it into the next century.

What we thirdly observe, Mr. Chairman, is that in those other great western democracies the trade union is treated with respect, its interests are treated with competence, and its advice is sought at the chief economic planning levels of each of these nations. I think that's a third principle that's really very important, and one that no government, in any kind of wisdom at all, should ever overlook.

No one argues, if I may repeat, that any other country has a blueprint for ours which we can simply purchase via some fancy consultant and bring over to this country and impose on our people. That won't work; it doesn't work; no one proposes it. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, none of these western democracies which have achieved, after the economic ruin following the Second World War, such remarkable productivity, such low losses due to strikes and such absenteeism. None of those countries would even argue that they themselves have a blueprint. To the

[ Page 4213 ]

contrary, they tell us that those achievements have taken many forms and possess many faces.

I think one of the duties of this chamber, Mr. Chairman, and of the citizens in our province who think it's an important problem, is to examine the several forms and the several achievements. West Germany has taken a very specific, a very arbitrary -and perhaps consistent with their culture - a very definitive approach to the subject of industrial democracy. It's very clear that in considerable measure, they have succeeded.

The government of West Germany proposed some nine or ten months ago yet another step forward in the battle to achieve worker participation in the major industries of that country. That step has not yet been successful. To the contrary, the trade unions and businesses alike have resisted it and to some extent resented it. They're not prepared yet, and indeed the government at the moment, I understand, has withdrawn that particular bill. The debate, however, remains active and the principles remain strong.

What we lack in this country, Mr. Chairman, is not even the principles; we lack the debate. It's only been in very recent times that people have become aware of the principles, the themes and the possible achievements of worker participation. It's happened hardly anywhere at all that we've observed here in our country some of the possibilities for success.

Let me quote, if I may, a remark made by Mr. Charles Connaghan, previously a consultant to the federal Department of Labour, who conducted a pretty thorough examination of the West German system of industrial democracy. He talked about a fourth principle. He said:

"German workers do not consider the strike as the most effective inducement with which to enforce their demands on management. Instead they regard the power to intervene in day-to-day management affairs as more important for the protection of their members."

Now that brings me to the next argument that I think is really very key to anyone who is concerned about the work force in this country. I was previously a member of the Alcohol and Drug Commission, Mr. Chairman. In that capacity, among other things, we conducted a study of the phenomenon known as industrial alcoholism. This phenomenon is simply this: in those kinds of factories where the jobs offered to most workers are utterly repetitive, mindless, demeaning and crushing to the human spirit, we see over and over again the phenomenon of alcoholism, of drug abuse, of brutality, of beatings of one's children, of high absenteeism, and of indeed, typically, a very poor safety record in the industries where that's often the problem. I am personally concerned about the alienation of workers from their work. I am concerned about the fact that in our economy people seem to lack pride and honour. They seem to lack any pleasure whatever in much of the work they do in most of the factories and principle engines of industry where these people are located. The ideals of craftsmanship, competence and testing and challenging and enlarging one's skills are not present in most of these factories. To the contrary, these workers are given jobs that diminish them, that make them smaller and less hopeful and less promising as human beings.

Another argument, it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, in favour of the idea of worker participation is that as human beings it is possible by allowing workers themselves to enlarge and change and reshape and redesign their own jobs, and their own work places, to be better workers, quite happily - and incidentally, to make better products - and as men and women to live more happily and more healthily in the kind of world in which they find themselves.

Let me give a particular example, Mr. Chairman. In Sweden, the experiments in industrial democracy are now almost 40 years old, after that famous conference at Upsalla between labour and management leaders during the depths of the Depression. The Volvo automobile plant, which makes a car that most people consider fairly reliable and of fairly good quality, has been experimenting for the last seven years with the idea that workers should have the right to choose their own foremen. They've been experimenting with the idea that the foremen should have the right to choose their own shop managers and with the idea that those managers should choose their own bosses, and that the bosses should sit on the board of directors of the company.

They've been experimenting with split shifts. They've been experimenting with creating groups of men who would build, as a group, a car. They've been experimenting with a possibility that what happens when for 40 years you do nothing but put windshield wipers on a Volvo every day, like a machine - it might just turn you into one of those machines - can be overcome by new forms of organization on the shop floor. So sure enough, Mr. Chairman, for the last seven years, as I am informed, they have been creating right on the floor, by the design and the intent and at the initiative of some of the workers themselves, groups or modules or teams of factory men who one day might individually put a tire on, another day might adjust a timing chain on an engine, a third day might put the windshield wiper on, a fourth day might install a lock on a door.

They have been, in one of the most highly automated industries of them all, Mr. Chairman, finding ways to humanize and sensitize the environment and the workers themselves. Indeed we see, Mr. Chairman, that Volvo has been one of the most profitable automobile companies in the western

[ Page 4214 ]

world, that by the conventional yardsticks -employee turnover, absenteeism, wildcats, strikes, lockouts, industrial alcoholism, and a poor safety record - by those seven conventional yardsticks, that particular plant works better than most plants that exist, say, in Detroit or in Oakville or in Windsor. By those conventional yardsticks alone, Mr. Chairman, we see that the principles with which they have been experimenting appear to have had at least somewhat more success than our own.

The alienation that we've seen, especially in the United States, Mr. Chairman, hurts us in many powerful ways. Tardiness, high turnover, accidents and inattention on the job, sabotage and assaults on the job that are hardly unheard of in Detroit, appear to have been overcome to a very major extent by those enlightened automobile manufacturers in western Europe, particularly in West Germany and Sweden, who have experimented with these new forms.

Now I think, Mr. Chairman, if it's possible -reviewing quickly - that what we've done in a system that has led us, at least as of 1975, to the worst rate of strikes and lockouts in the western world, a system which privately labour and business leaders alike admit has no future, a system which dehumanizes, a system which limits and diminishes the human beings as workers in it, a system which in the view of the global economy cannot be sustained much longer, and a system which finally, for a lot of human reasons, most of us believe is worth a try, all adds up to the suggestion that isn't it possible we should experiment, then it's reasonable to ask what form those experiments could take.

Now I'd like to talk, Mr. Chairman, about a couple of forms that those experiments might take. One of them is already taking place in this province and I think it's worth our while to examine it. At the initiative of the previous administration, when Columbia Cellulose was purchased, turned into Canadian Cellulose and Kootenay Forest Products was obtained, one of the things that happened as I understand it was this, Mr. Chairman. The then minister responsible, Mr. Williams, together with the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) , approached workers within the IWA at the Kootenay Forest Products plant, and basically their message was this: "This is an old plant; much of its equipment is obsolete; our markets are in some jeopardy; our product is not that secure; your jobs aren't that secure either. Isn't it worth considering that we try some new approaches?"

Specifically, Mr. Chairman, what was offered were two places on the board of directors of Kootenay Forest Products, a public corporation. Specifically what was proposed is that the workers have a hand through their own union, the IWA, in reshaping and redesigning various aspects of the work environment on the floor at Kootenay Forest Products.

It should be pointed out, Mr. Chairman, that initially management and trade unions alike were hesitant. It should be pointed out that in most circumstances where old ways are challenged and new ways proposed, most people are hesitant. That's no surprise; that's no big deal. It appears to be human nature and I think that's kind of sad. These guys as well were afraid of change, but all the same - to their credit - they took a risk; they took a chance. Now, three years later, management and labour both at Kootenay Forest Products are insisting that the experiment be maintained because what we've observed at Kootenay Forest Products are the following: productivity is up, profits are up, absenteeism is down, turnover is down, industrial alcoholism appears to be down, and as far as one can tell, Mr. Chairman, this plant is more successful an industrial operation than it was before.

According to the trade unions themselves, Mr. Chairman, who are among the chief sources of resistance to some of these ideas, one of the principal reasons for it is the fact that the workers, by being on the board, have learned some things that they never knew before. They know some things about the financial capability and problems of that company they never knew before. They know some of the things about the limitations of the market that they never knew before. In turn, Mr. Chairman, the management of that company has become enormously more sensitized to the problems of the ordinary working guy there on the greenchain or whatever else he may be doing in that particular plant. They've both learned, they've both gained, and we as a province have gained as well. I think it's important that this minister consider examining the apparent success of the experiment in industrial democracy at Kootenay Forest Products, that he determine whether or not that success, if real, might be applied in some other of our corporations.

The first principal argument that I'd make, Mr. Chairman, about the solutions is simply this: if one of the fears of management is that they're going to lose their trade secrets because workers are on the board is a real one, and if one of the fears of trade unions is that their traditional powers and rights and prerogatives and the traditional adversary system that they've become so accustomed to is jeopardized, then surely it's reasonable to start the experiments in British Columbia in worker participation not in the private sector at all, but in the public sector.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that if the Crown corporations which are already owned by the workers and by management and where there are no trade secrets to protect, where there are no other than natural monopolies to be obtained and where no one has anything directly to lose because there are no copyrights pending, and the New York wolf isn't

[ Page 4215 ]

breathing down your back.... If the Crown corporations could be advised by this Minister of Labour to take a look at the apparent success of Kootenay Forest Products then we may very well be a very substantial way on the road to progress regarding industrial relations in this province.

I'm absolutely persuaded that we've got nothing to lose. I don't know why workers shouldn't be present on the board of directors of the B.C. Rail, B.C. Ferries, B.C. Buildings Corporation and the B.C. Steamship Corporation. I can see no good reason why at least that symbol of worker participation should not be made available to the workers themselves. These are public enterprises. The ordinary conditions of private enterprise do not apply and there's nothing to lose. To the contrary, Mr. Chairman, what is to be gained is the statement by this or any other government that they're willing to consider the possibility that the old systems just might not be working as well as we'd all hoped. To his credit, the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications has already suggested that there may be a place for workers on the board of the B.C. Ferry Corporation. I hope he meant it. I'm sure he personally did. I hope this government concurs with him and concludes that that would be a proper step to take.

I think that it's one of the responsibilities of the Minister of Labour to create a group competent to study these local experiments in British Columbia and others in the western world and advise his own government about the possibility of experimenting with worker participation right here and right now in this province with the Crown corporations that we already own. Why shouldn't these experiments be tried at hospital boards? Why shouldn't they be tried at library boards and police boards too? I see no reason why the police should not be represented on the police board, say, in the city of Victoria. They have a great deal to offer. They have experience and understanding that members of that board might not otherwise have available.

I think as well, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister of Labour has another responsibility, and that's to begin to inform the people of British Columbia about this kind of thinking. It is a new debate-, for the Canadian people these are new ideas. They frighten and intimidate people with old-fashioned ideas and obsolete points of view. They intimidate people who believe that what we did in the 19th century somehow might serve us in the 2 1 st - that goes for business and labour alike.

In June of last year, I went to the Victoria Labour Council, and I proposed to them the possibility that strikes and lockouts have become obsolete and that new forms of relationships have to be experimented with and that we might have something to learn from the principles of success apparently achieved in western Europe. I proposed to them that they name to a committee, which I was then in the process of establishing, representatives to study the question of industrial democracy.

I should point out, Mr. Chairman ' that the reception was, to say the least, cool. Other words might be applied, but I'll be diplomatic. It was cool. All the same we persisted, and in September of last year I was happy to announce that we created in Victoria an industrial democracy committee which represents business, labour and the University of Victoria.

Specifically the members of our committee from labour include Linda Baker, representative of the B.C. Government Employees Union and the first vice-president of the Victoria Labour Council; Mr. Ross Cameron, the president of the Victoria firefighters' union. From business they include Mr. Bob Henderson, who was then the regional divisional manager for B.C. Tel on Vancouver Island, and is now with ICBC in a very senior executive position; and Mr. Bruce Johnson, who is the greater Victoria manager for IBM. From the University of Victoria we have representatives from the faculties of law, economics and social work. I myself also served on that committee.

As the minister is aware, because we hope he will be there at the panel, he and the leaders of the Liberal, Conservative and the New Democratic Parties have been invited to participate in a seminar which has now been organized and is scheduled for September 30, October 1 and October 2 at the University of Victoria. The purpose of this seminar, Mr. Chairman, is straightforward and simple; it's to educate. It's to provide some basic definitions; it's to provide a frame of reference for debate of the subject of work participation.

The seminar will have at it people like Don Watson, formerly of PWA and Jack Munro of the IWA. It will have people like Mr. James Matkin, with whom the minister may be familiar, Mr. Hugh Keenleyside and others.

This will be the first - and in my view, as far as one can tell, potentially the most successful -province-wide seminar of its kind that I'm familiar with in Canada. It's certainly a major step forward in British Columbia. It's invitational. Only 300 people will be invited to the seminar: 100 will come from business; 100 will come from labour; and 100 from the public at large on a first-come, first-served basis. I very much hope that the minister is able to make it. I understand that he is going to be there and I hope he will comment on that. I am happy, Mr. Chairman, to tell the House that the federal Department of Labour has made a substantial financial contribution to the seminar. Several thousands of dollars have come forward, and they themselves will be participating in it.

It seems to me that the second major duty of the

[ Page 4216 ]

minister, apart from advising his own government of the possibility of experimenting with worker participation in a Crown corporation which we, as the people, already own, is the possibility of creating through seminars and workshops like these, and other forms that are available to him, educational opportunities for business and labour alike. For our people it's a brand new field. For most politicians it's a very grey area, about which most of us, including myself, really don't know a very great deal. It is something which I believe personally, Mr. Chairman, holds in it the whole future for the industrial economy of this country.

I'm one of the youngest members of this Legislature. I didn't fight in the trenches during the Depression or during any other war, and I don't personally feel a lot of those things that friends of mine in the trade union movement feel or friends of mine within business feel. It is my belief, Mr. Chairman, that especially from young people within business and within labour we're going to see a willingness to forget and cast off old and obsolete ideas. I believe from young people we will see a willingness to experiment with new dimensions. I think especially from young people we will see the recognition that what has worked elsewhere just might be worth a bit of study here. We will see the possibility that some of the principles of their success might be applied in our form in our own country. I think it is worth the struggle; I think it is worth the effort. I very much hope that the minister will agree to consider some of these points and I would be happy to hear his response.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before I recognize the member for North Vancouver-Capilano, I'd like to remind all hon. members that we've listened with interest to the speeches being made, and some of the innovative ideas are very welcome, I'm sure. However, I must remind the members that when these ideas encroach upon legislation as it now exists or demand amendments to the Labour Code as it now exists, those matters are not open for debate. I'm sure the minister would concur.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, in dealing carefully with the administrative responsibilities of the minister, I would like to commence by congratulating the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) on his excellent presentation, which I take it in no way occasioned the Chairman's remarks. I found it a very excellent presentation on a question which is important to our society now and one in which that member has invested a great deal of effort and obtained a considerable amount of expertise. I want to assure him, standing here now, that either I will be at his seminar or I will be represented there, because I think it is a good initiative.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. member would agree that it does anticipate legislative change, though.

MR. GIBSON: Oh, no. We've been talking, Mr. Chairman, about the extraordinary degree of difficulty in labour relations in British Columbia and in Canada generally, without wishing to place blame on one side or the other. I have in front of me a report put out by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association in May of this year, which I will be citing later, which indicates that not merely in the year 1975 but in the decade 1966 to 1975 the average annual number of working days lost per thousand employees in Canada was the highest of 18 industrial countries, marginally leading Italy. There's a problem here, there's no question.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: This year it will be the lowest.

MR. GIBSON: I hope it will be, Mr. Minister, particularly in British Columbia.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Consider the reasons why. It's not an industrial democracy at all.

MR. GIBSON: Let's get on to that for a moment. I suggest to the committee that we should not put it all down to labour-management relations. We should put a certain amount of what happens in this country and in this province to the people that are in the system rather than the system itself. Just to illustrate that point in passing, I would point out to the committee that we in this House follow a system known as British parliamentary democracy. But the way it operates in this House need not have too much reference to the way it operates in, say, Westminster or Ottawa or other places with the same system. The point is that the people that are in the system make a difference.

In our society, while we may be operating under the same labour relations system as other parts of the continent, there is perhaps a little more in British Columbia of the feeling of something for nothing, which has been bred to a considerable extent by our politicians, and I think we should all accept an equal kind of blame on that of not being ready enough to say to people that there is no Santa Claus and there are no increases available for people in our economy generally beyond what is produced. Productivity is the limit, plus inflation.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: I'm talking about the wealth that is available to be divided up, Mr. Member. All that is available to be divided up is what there is, what has

[ Page 4217 ]

been produced. Some segments are creating it more than others; it's a question of division.

There is something of this something- f or-n o thing feeling that breeds unrest in all categories of the society, not just among workers but among people who are not fortunate enough to be part of our work force and who feel that they too have entitlements rising more quickly than our productive capacity. Some of it is fostered by our media. Particularly our electronic media and television foster the feeling that "the other guy is doing better than me and I deserve more." You look on television every night and you see the average family with the silly dad and the mother who practises witchcraft or something, but they all live in nice split-level houses with two or three cars and shiny-faced kids. The average guy says: "My house isn't that nice and my car isn't that new and I deserve something better."

Some of it is "I'm all right Jack." Some of it is a general failure to see the fabric of our society and how the interest of one must be the interest of the other if we are to work together, if our society is not to break down as it did in New York in that night of looting a few weeks ago, when thousands of people felt themselves so alienated from society when order did break down momentarily because of a technological failure. They saw fit to take what they saw as their right, being restrained by no appreciation of the worthiness of the society and the relationship with others.

The only point I'm trying to make here is that part of our problems in labour relations in British Columbia, to the extent that they remain - and I'm glad to hear the minister say that they have been greatly reduced, and they clearly have been in 1977 -are not due to an absence of industrial democracy, but that's it. I think there is a strong case for asking how we can improve the system and concentrate more on co-operation and less on confrontation. As the committee knows, one of the groups that has been most concerned, most ambivalent about any such change is organized labour. Organized labour, through its central spokesman, the B.C. Fed, has committees working on this problem. They are ambivalent.

There is a good reason for believing that too much co-option of the labour movement and labour representatives by the employer will weaken their will to do what has been considered traditionally the job of the business unionist in North American society, which in the words of Samuel Gompers is: "What do you want?" The answer is "more." Will that ability, that perspective, be compromised if the trade union movement gets too involved in industrial democracy and therefore inevitably caught up with the interests of the employer? The employees' organizations in the past have traditionally and perhaps understandably seen anything that's been held out by the employer as something that must be for the employers' economic advantage, one way or another. Perhaps one of the encouraging things as far as industrial democracy is concerned is that if organized labour is concerned about it, so are the employers; they are at least equally reticent.

I referred to a report by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association which some of our forest officials from British Columbia - I don't mean governmental, but industrial - had a part in producing. I just wanted to read three key recommendations. On page 14 it says:

"Since local bodies representing employees' interests already exist in most locations, the works council would not seem to have much application in Canada."

There's one point rejected by that employers' organization. At page 15: ...

MR. BARBER: They were only looking at the German model of the works council. There are lots of other models.

MR. GIBSON: In fact, I think they looked at several countries in this particular report, Mr. Member. I'll send you a copy; it's quite interesting. At page 15, recommendation (b):

"In the current North American context, having worker representatives on boards of directors should not be an objective."

Again, it's an employers' group rejecting this particular suggestion. On page 16, recommendation (c):

"Governments should avoid legislation which imposes either the European works council system or the principle of worker representation at the director level on companies within their jurisdiction. They should also avoid establishing these concepts in Crown corporations, because this would create, in essence, para-legislation.".

Well, there we have it, members of the committee. We apparently have some harmony of view between employers' and workers' organizations on this particular question. If we took it all at face value, I guess we could say, "Well, we'll stop debating this subject right now."

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: There's something strange here, isn't there, Mr. Member? To me, we have to look always for ways to improve co-operation. I know the minister has examined this problem, and I would say myself that there are three basic directions in which he can go on encouraging people, if you like, in this province, both worker and management, to look at these possibilities. But let me say at the outset that I think in general these questions are not fit subjects

[ Page 4218 ]

for legislation, at least at the moment. I think they are more subjects for experimentation. I don't think we know enough to consider legislation in this area.

The first of the three areas I would suggest is that of enhancing common interests, the general theory being that if employer and employee can share a greater degree of interests in common, they are more likely to wish to co-operate and get along. The usual techniques in this regard have been first of all the traditional ones of profit-sharing or various incentive plans which may be related to productivity or profits or other indices. Some of these have been very successful. There is no question, for example, but what the combination profit-sharing and stock-ownership plan of Simpson Sears has been a very successful one, both in this country and in the United States.

MR. BARBER: Dofasco is doing just that.

MR. GIBSON: Dofasco is doing that as well? I wasn't aware of that, Mr. Member.

Going beyond that, there's a new sort of instrument, if you like, being utilized increasingly in the United States. By new, I mean it's of recent parentage; it's 15 or 20 years old, but it's only recently burgeoning. That's the so-called ESOP, the employees' stock ownership plan, which basically finds ways for the employees to obtain a loan; to make that loan to the subject company for capital improvement or whatever useful corporate purpose; to receive a share interest in return; and to receive repayment of the loan in return as well. Over a period of years the plan is typically harnessed to a tax-deducibility in terms of corporate income tax which in effect becomes a public incentive, a dollar incentive, for employee ownership of companies.

Mr. Chairman, I think that this is an excellent kind of direction to be pursuing. I have been unable to obtain statistics for Canada, but I take the word of Peter Drucker from the United States that something like one-third of the United States equity shares are now owned by employees' pension plans - one-third of U.S. corporate equity is owned by employees' pension plans. That's quite an amazing statistic. I don't know if we're at anything like that level in Canada, but I think it's the kind of thing that should be fostered.

To me, the appropriate situation over the life of a firm as it matures is that it would normally be commenced with very few employees at a high-risk, entrepreneurial stage, and the equity there at that stage would be entirely owned by the entrepreneur, singular or plural. As time goes by - as a firm typically becomes established or fails - it gradually matures in the marketplace and acquires a certain continuity. As that happens over the years it seems to me very appropriate that our economic system should have within it the kind of device which routinely encourages the employees of that particular firm to gradually acquire the totality of the ownership in due course, leaving the entrepreneurial funds to go on to other new areas, thus continuing the revitalization of the economy on one hand, with more capital investment than we would otherwise have, and that has to be one of Canada's strong suits in this world. At the same time, I would suggest it would also bring better productivity, which is in the interests of the employees, since they themselves become the owners of these maturing companies. So that's the first main thrust, if you like - the idea of measures to enhance common interests,

The second area, and perhaps the one that is more commonly thought of when one speaks of industrial democracy, is the area of decision making. The specific suggestions generally made are the placement of persons on the boards of directors of companies, or the formation of more effective shop-floor committees than have traditionally been the case in British Columbia industrial relations. But I should say there are some industries where there's a good working day-to-day relationship, particularly in areas such as safety. But unquestionably it can be expanded.

I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that this is something for a careful, case-by-case experimentation, expansion, depending on the feelings of the union concerned and depending on the feelings of the company concerned. The companies bear a greater burden, in a sense, because less than 45 per cent of our labour force is unionized, so in the unorganized area, it's the companies that must take the entire initiative, unless there happens to be a ginger group of employees who come along and say: "We want a works committee of some kind." In that case, it could very well be the embryo of an organized union in that outfit, and I would hope the companies would not resist it, simply for that reason.

This second general thrust, which is greater involvement in the field of decision making, I think can't be forced. It's regarded with suspicion by both sides. I think it can only be encouraged. I would hope that the minister, in the fullness of time, will come to the point where he will feel able to advocate that, not necessarily across the board, but in certain limited situations to start with. As the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) pointed out, certainly he is in a position to do some case-example experimentation in the Crown corporations.

The third general area that everybody seems to agree on, even this pulp and paper industry report - I shouldn't say "even, " because I don't mean to disparage their recommendations in any way ...

MR. LEA: Sure you do.

[ Page 4219 ]

MR. GIBSON: No, I don't.... is the concept of information sharing. For example, on page 10, recommendation (b) , it says: "A group of economic advisers should be appointed to produce short-term economic forecasts and assessments of current economic matters."

MR. BARBER: They do that very well in Germany.

MR. GIBSON: Yes, they do it very well in Germany. It's one of the central features of the Connaghan report.

We seem to be trying to grope in that direction somewhat at the national level, though I have to confess after a careful reading of the decontrol document and other documents, I don't understand quite what the government has in mind with this new forum they are talking about and the concept of tripartism. It's all pretty vague so far, but the general concept is that there should be a meeting of minds on the economic opportunities, the economic difficulties and the economic forecasts - all the problems of British Columbia in particular. This one seems well agreed. That's why I have suggested for years in this Legislature an economic council of British Columbia which, it seems to me, could be the nucleus for this kind of economic agreement and information sharing. Once you have that baseline; once you've got a more-or-less agreed forecast that over the next year the British Columbia economy is going to do thus and so, and our problems for the next five years in the forest industry, let's say, are something like this-, and once you have an agreement into which economists and representatives from labour and industry and government have all had their input, and hopefully, after enough talking, have arrived at a consensus; once you have that as a benchmark, then you have something important to start with in terms of your industrial relations. So on your information sharing, one thrust relates to this business of general economic data.

But another piece of information sharing - this will not make me popular with the businesses of British Columbia, I suspect, but on the other hand, it's the right thing I feel - is that there should be far more disclosure of corporate information. It's all too frequent that management, not simply of small private companies, which is one thing, but of large public companies, jealously guard information which ought, as a matter of right, to be available to the people sitting across the bargaining table from them. If it isn't available as a matter of right, then it becomes an item of suspicion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is the member suggesting new legislation?

MR. GIBSON: No, Mr. Chairman, I'm referring to the discomfiture in the forest industry labour relations - for example, about the salaries of Mr. Timmis and Mr. Currie. You recall that was revealed. Fortunately, new legislation wasn't required in that case because the Securities and Exchange Commission did a job which the province of British Columbia should be doing. As it happens, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States is causing a good deal of this information to come out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that in the administrative responsibility of this minister?

MR. GIBSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, it affects the bargaining climate. I suspect you can see that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed.

MR. GIBSON: Thank you. As the HON. member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) said earlier, I was finished with that point anyway.

HON. J.R. CHABOT (Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources): Aye.

MR. GIBSON: There's that former Minister of Labour saying "Aye." I can hardly believe that. He above all people should know the problems in this department, the opportunities in this department for jobs.

MR. LEA: He needed a bodyguard when he had the job.

MR. GIBSON: Wasn't that a terrible incident in New Westminster? I still remember the pictures of that.

Mr. Chairman, there's one thing that I can't agree with and that is that industrial democracy, however it may advance, is going to eliminate the need for some means of dispute resolution, and that some of those disputes are going to advance to the stage where they're going to be strikes. Mediation arbitration techniques can improve things. We perhaps should experiment a little bit more in British Columbia with the fact-finding technique that has been used in some cases in the United States, which gives rather more attention to publicity and publication of results than does our system of industrial inquiry commissioners.

These devices are working well, and nevertheless in the end you're going to have some strikes. I don't think we should regard that as a failure of our system, Mr. Chairman; certainly we should if they are too numerous and if too much damage is being done to the economy of the province.

I have to quote from the minister here somewhere. I don't know quite where it is, but he was talking in

[ Page 4220 ]

essence about the effect of strikes upon third parties. I agree with him - and I don't want to put words in his mouth - that when the effect of strikes becomes too serious on innocent third parties, the government has to take a position, sometimes as far as legislation. But how can we restructure things so that short of that the strike weapon, when it is employed, is employed in a more balanced context? It's perhaps too simplistic, but we have large companies, we have medium-sized companies and we have small companies. We have strong unions, we have weak unions and we have unorganized workers entirely. We don't always have a situation where the strong bargainer on one side is matched up with a strong bargainer on the other side. That all too often leads to settlements that in some cases may lead workers in unorganized or relatively weakly organized industries to be underpaid, and employees in other areas to be overpaid relative to the general effort that is put forth.

The request I am making of the minister here is to find ways to improve the balance of power in the bargaining structure of this province, and it's not easy. There are very few practical suggestions I can give him to do that beyond the very rough analysis I just gave. Any tinkering with the Labour Code in this regard has to be done very carefully, but the balance of power is not all that it should be in the dispute resolution situation in this province.

One other thing I want to say about confrontation before I sit down has to do with the alliance between official labour in the province of British Columbia and the New Democratic Party. I think, Mr. Chairman, that that has acted as a conduit to import some of the confrontation we see in our labour field into politics, and as a conduit to import some of the confrontation we have in politics into our labour relations. To me, that is an unfortunate thing.

It's not my business to look after the interests of the New Democratic Party, certainly, but it's an alliance that, I suggest, is not healthy even for that party, let alone for organized labour. I think it reflects the NDP as a special-interest mouthpiece when it would not wish to do that. Insofar as the interests of the trade union movement are concerned, in days when the NDP is in government, they have to pull their punches, or if they don't they can see their government go out of office more quickly than they would wish. So that's a difficult situation. Then when the NDP's not in office, the trade union movement faces a political party in government that they themselves have defined as being an adversary. I don't think that's a useful thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Two minutes.

MR. GIBSON: I would just like to make a practical suggestion in this field. I think it would be a good thing if both the corporations and the unions took the decisions as to the contributions to political parties out of the hands of their executive and put them into the hands of, on the one hand, their shareholder and, on the other hand, the individual union member, through some kind of a trust account administered through an anonymous means, and the same thing with the shareholders. To me, it's not right that the board of directors of MacMillan Bloedel should decide which party gets their money when the shareholders might decide something quite different if they had that option. It's fine for the board to say there should be so much given, but then leave the distribution up to the vote of the individual shareholders in a card that comes out to them. The same thing, it seems to me, should apply on the trade union side.

Mr. Chairman, the one-minute light being on now, I thank you for your indulgence and will return to the fray in due course.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) and the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) for raising the subject of industrial democracy. It gives me an opportunity to perhaps put the subject in some different perspective. The ministry has been engaged by the minister, and I know before that time, in considerations of industrial democracy. It seemed to reach prominence in this province when Mr. Connaghan returned from Germany and made his report to the federal Minister of Labour. I very much suspect that a lot of people, having had an opportunity to read the Connaghan report, thought: "Terrific, we've got a great panacea. All we do is just establish a whole bunch of work committees, put people on boards of directors, and our problems are going to be solved." Well, I agree that further continuing serious examination is absolutely essential if that's the view that people have, because that's not the way you're going to solve the problem.

During the last year there was one phrase I heard more often than any other in my office, whether it came from a trade unionist or from somebody on the side of management. That was: "There's got to be a better way." I think we all must agree with that. But at the same time, I think this whole question of what is now called industrial democracy should be put in its proper perspective. You know, the first attempt at industrial democracy was collective bargaining. That was the beginning of the whole thing. What we are seeing today is, in my view, a significant refinement of that process, in the same way that final-offer selection is a refinement of the arbitration process and the raw kind of justice that that has been in the past.

So when we're talking about work committees and

[ Page 4221 ]

people on boards of directors and changing attitudes of management, worker participation and job selection, job planning, grouping of workers together so that no one is doing the same mindless, repetitive, endless task to which the member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) referred.... He was talking about the press gallery, I think, when he mentioned that. So they move the tasks around and there is some real opportunity to enjoy one's place in the work force, but it is just a refinement.

We will always have collective bargaining. Even in Germany, where apparently the indications are that industrial democracy is seen at one of its highest points, they still bargain collectively. Mind you, it's interesting that the work committees solve most of the problems in the work place, and in fact in many cases, the trade unionists are not allowed in the plant at all. They do their job separately with regard to the resolution of the larger problems of wages, remuneration and so on.

But we have that here. This year, 1977, the construction industry is signing with their employers contracts which call for a jurisdictional assignment plan, which means that the employers and the workers are going to get together on a predetermined basis and determine who's going to do what job. Well, that's another example of industrial democracy. It just takes people a little while to get used to the idea that maybe you can sit down and communicate.

Job planning, group planning - when my deputy minister and I were in Terrace speaking with the Skeena Manpower Development Committee organized in that area - and I've mentioned this before - we found that this is going on at Alcan. They recognize the problems in that smelter operation, and that they can reduce, if not relieve, some of the boredom of smelter jobs by sitting down with groups and saying: "Can't we handle these particular tasks in a slightly different way?"

At Kootenay Forest Products, this has been examined by the ministry. Mr. Allan Portigal of the research branch of thy Ministry of Labour has done an exhaustive study at Kootenay Forest Products and one of the things that we find is that the success of Kootenay Forest Products is in no small measure due to the management that's there. They're receptive to the ideas.

You can put some management into a situation, but two workers on the board of directors with some management and you would have nothing but constant quarrelling and bickering and it wouldn't work at all. Put somebody else who understands the process, who recognizes that the workers who were put on the board of directors in the first instance perhaps have to be trained for the job. It's new to them; they're a little bit hesitant about making the decisions and taking the role they should. In some respects they may be scorned by their fellow workers for having taken this opportunity. It takes a while to work with them and make them train.

This is what Jack Zagelut did at Kootenay Forest Products and did with great success. Many problems have been solved there. I think the management has to do some serious adjusting in approaching some of these new techniques which, I believe, are only an outgrowth of the industrial relations system which we have. The American unions went over and looked at the Volvo plant and they weren't that impressed by what they saw. Why? Because obviously, the style of unionism which you would find at Volvo is not the North American model, which is what we have in Canada as well. I'm reminded that when Chief Justice Nemetz returned from Sweden, after making his examination and his report to the government of British Columbia, he pointed out that the system there was based on custom and attitudes. I don't think that we easily import either of those two from one society to another. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I think there are a lot of ideas we can borrow and a lot of people have got to do a lot of shifting.

Now what is this ministry doing about it? I had hoped that this Legislature might be closer to being finished by now, because this fall I was proposing to announce what I hoped would be an exciting programme involving government, management and labour in discussions such as this, and with the assistance of those two groups, to embark upon some detailed studies of what is taking place in Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. My deputy minister in his visits to Japan finds that their system is one which bears some very careful analysis by we people in Canada. Again, you can't import it all, but they do things in a different way and they achieve a lot more stability than we do here. Whether you could gain anything out of it doesn't matter. At least we can see that it is done in different ways in some different places. And if we would rise and report progress, maybe we could get closer to doing that job and I so move.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

APPRENTICESHIP AND TRAINING

DEVELOPMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Williams presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Apprenticeship and Training Development Act.

Bill 76 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[ Page 4222 ]

METRIC CONVERSION ACT, 1977

Hon. Mr. McGeer presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Metric Conversion Act, 1977.

Bill 78 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, before we adjourn this evening, I have a report now on discussion which took place in the House last Wednesday. On Wednesday last, a number of points of order and matters of privilege were raised relative to a report made by the hon. Provincial Secretary as chairman of the special committee of selection. I indicated to the House that while it appeared at first glance all of the issues raised should be dealt with in the committee, I would give further consideration to the various matters and report my findings.

On Monday last the House adopted the following motion: that this House instruct the committee of selection appointed on the 13th day of January last to name a special committee to decide whether or not the hon. first member for Victoria or the hon. member for Boundary-Similkameen or the hon. member for Coquitlam had sat or voted in the Legislative Assembly when he was disqualified from so doing in consequence of his participation in the UBCM provincial housing study instituted by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and to which recent reference has been made in the Legislative Assembly, and to report its findings to the House; and that the special committee be authorized (a) to commence sittings forthwith and to sit during sittings of the Legislative Assembly and during any period during which the Legislative Assembly is adjourned, and (b) to request, if it deems necessary during its hearings, the opinion of a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on any question of law, and be authorized and required to allow representations of any person by counsel and examination and cross-examination of witnesses.

It is apparent that the committee of selection was thereby fixed with the obligation to name the members of the special committee and without further reference to the House, the special committee in turn was fixed with the obligation imposed on it by order of the House. This procedure was identical with that adopted by the House on November 5,1973, as disclosed by the Journals of the House, 1973, on pages 15 1 and 152. It will be seen then that the report of the hon. Provincial Secretary was in fact for the information of the House as to the member named to the special committee, and was not a report in the usual sense. Upon completion of the hon. Provincial Secretary's report, the following objections were taken, and I quote from Votes and Proceedings of July 27 last.

"Mr. King rose on a point of order, namely that members have been named to the special committee without notice or consent and those opposition members would not participate in this committee.

"Mr. Gibson rose on a point of order, namely that as a member of the committee of selection he had received no written notice of the meeting when members of the special committee remained.

"The Hon. Grace McCarthy made a statement relating to a meeting of the committee held on June 26 when it was confirmed that a further meeting would be held today to finalize the work of the committee.

"Mr. King rose on a further point of order, namely that he had given no undertaking to meet again.

"Mr. Barrett rose on a point of order relating to standing order 69 (2) and stated that notice had been given on behalf of the official opposition that in principle none of the opposition members would serve on the committee.

"The Hon. R.H. McClelland requested Mr. Speaker, when considering the effect of standing order 69 (2) , to take cognizance of the fact that one member of the official opposition and the leader of the Liberal Party attended two meetings of the committee of selection with proposals as to the makeup of the committee, thereby indicating that they were prepared to serve on a committee which was of their construction and therefore could not be heard now to say that standing order 69 (2) is applicable.

"The Hon. W.R. Bennett, Premier, rose on a point of order, namely whether there is a duty on members to serve on committees of the House.

"Mr. Cocke rose on a point of privilege and stated that his principles would not permit him to serve on the committee."

In addition, I note that the hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) also raised lack of written notice as a matter of privilege and has since directed my attention to sections 6 (h) and (i) of the Legislative Assembly Privileges Act.

Standing order 119 requires that notice of the time and place of meetings of any committee on private bills shall be affixed in the lobby, but our standing orders are silent with respect to notice of meetings of any other committees of the House.

I have been unable to find any ruling of a previous Speaker of this House on the point of written notice of meetings. I note that Record of Parliamentary

[ Page 4223 ]

Debates, Westminster, 1871, at page 205, records that Mr. Speaker expressed the opinion that it was not irregular for a committee chairman, after a day had been fixed for the meeting of a committee, to alter the date without having consulted all of the members of the committee. This ruling simply reflects that steps taken by a chairman in good faith do not ordinarily give rise to any question of breach of privilege. Drawing upon my own experience as a member, and I am also advised, no past objection appears to have been taken when, upon adjournment of a committee meeting, the time for a further meeting had been fixed without any written notice being later delivered.

In the present circumstances, I am bound to accept the statements of all hon. members and can only conclude, because of the apparent conflict between hon. members as to what had been agreed upon, that a misunderstanding has occurred. I cannot conclude that the hon. Provincial Secretary has prima facie, in any way, breached any of the provisions of the Legislative Assembly Privileges Act or otherwise acted improperly in light of her understanding of what had been agreed upon relative to the time and place of the meeting in question. I can, as I have said, only conclude that all hon. members proceeded in accordance with their respective understandings of what had been agreed upon.

Although, as has been previously ruled, procedural matters arising in committees of the House shall be resolved in the committee, I offer the following observations which may be of assistance to hon. members. First, from the various statements of hon. members, there appears to have been a misunderstanding as to whether or not a meeting of the selection committee was scheduled by general consent for immediately after the 10 o'clock photograph of the House on July 27. 1 suggest that notice of meeting to approach afresh and complete the committee business should be given in writing. Secondly, as to the duty imposed on members to serve on committees, the starting point is standing order 8, which applies equally to committees as a part of the House. It reads as follows:

"Every member is to attend the service of the House, unless leave of absence has been given him by the House."

Sir Erskine May, 16th edition, page 614, states:

"A member cannot relieve himself of his obligation as a member to obey the commands of the House by declining to serve on a committee."

Sir Erskine May, 17th edition, page 117, states:

"Neglect or breaches of duty by members or officers of either House, other than corruption in the execution of their office and cognate offences, may also be treated as contempt.

"As instances of misconduct on the part of members or officers of either House which would be regarded as contempt, the following may be mentioned:

"The refusal of a member to serve on a committee when his attendance, as in the case of a private bill committee, is made compulsory by standing or other orders.

Bourinot, 4th edition, page 462, states:

"Every member of a legislative body is bound to serve on a committee to which he has been duly appointed, unless he can show the House that there are conclusive reasons for his non-attendance. If a member is not excused and nevertheless persists in refusing to obey the order of the House, he can be adjudged guilty of contempt."

Three, as to the operation of standing order 69 (2) , which reads as follows:

"It shall always be understood that no member who declares or decides against the principle of a bill, resolution, or matter to be committed can be nominated on such committee."

I have been unable to find any previous occasions when a Speaker of this House has made any ruling with respect thereto. There is little assistance to be found from the practice of other jurisdictions, because the House of Commons at Westminster appears to have no similar standing order and the House of Commons at Ottawa appears to have dropped its standing order 65, formerly 78, which was the same as our standing order 69 (2) .

However, Bourinot, 4th edition, page 461, under the heading "Members Exempt From Serving" says:

"The question arose in 1877 as to the precise meaning of this rule, when the appointment of a committee on the coal trade was under discussion. The Speaker decided that no member who had expressed himself as opposed to consideration of that question ought to be chosen. It appears that the rule was always in force in the legislative assemblies of Canada and is derived from ancient English usage. But a member must be totally opposed and not take simply exceptions to certain particulars of a bill or motion in order to be excluded from a committee. It has also been decided in the Canadian House that a member who opposes merely the appointment of a committee cannot be considered as coming within the meaning of the rule."

Perusal of the House of Commons, Ottawa, standing orders of 1880 shows that standing order 78 is analogous to our standing order 69 (2) . As stated by Bourinot, the rule is derived from ancient English usage. The case cited by Bourinot is to be found in Debates of the House of Commons, 1880, volume 1, at page 102. The circumstances of the case were that

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a motion was made and passed for the appointment of a select committee. Immediately after a division on the motion, a member drew attention to the rule, which he described as "the rule that members named on a committee of this kind who vote against such a motion cannot serve on that committee. I ask, Mr. Speaker, for your ruling on that point."

The Hansard report of the proceedings continues as follows:

SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD: The subjection ought to have been taken before the vote was recorded.

MR. CASEY: But these gentlemen had not declared themselves in any way before they voted. I think Mr. Speaker will have to give direction to strike them off, according to his ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: What I meant by the ruling I gave was this: that any member speaking against the question to be investigated by a committee cannot serve on that committee. I had, however, declared the motion carried, and it was too late for my honourable friend to call my attention to the subject. The hon. member for Chateaugai, while he stated the committee was inopportune, did not declare himself against the question to be considered.

It will be seen, then, that this ruling is the basis of the interpretation of the House of Commons, Ottawa, standing order 78, our standing order 69 (2) , as stated by Bourinot - namely, that a member who opposes merely the appointment of a committee cannot be considered as coming within the meaning of the rule. In other words, merely to vote against the formation of the committee is insufficient.

Further, it appears from Mr. Speaker Blanchet's ruling that after he had declared the motion carried it was too late to call his attention to the subject. Applying this ruling to the points of order presently raised, the result appears to be that members who expressly or by necessary implication declared themselves during debate on the motion to be against the principle involved are exempt under standing order 69 (2) from what would otherwise be their duty to serve on the committee.

Those members who did not so declare themselves prior to the motion passing are not exempted under standing order 69 (2) . Accordingly, I can only suggest that hon. members could peruse Hansard to determine their status in relation to standing order 69 (2) . Having made these observations, which I trust will be a useful guide to hon. members, I reiterate that it is for the committee in question to complete its business within the committee.

MR. BARRETT: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, what you're doing is not ruling on, the House, but clarifying some questions raised to you. In other words, you're giving some guidelines without making any ruling. Is that correct?

MR. SPEAKER: That is correct, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that.

Hon. MR. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:08 p.m.