[ Page 1177 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply; Executive Council estimates. On vote 5.

Mr. Macdonald –– 1177

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 1182

Mr. Macdonald –– 1183

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 1186

Mr. Macdonald –– 1187

Mr. Barrett –– 1189

Mr. Barber –– 1191

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 1192

Mr. Barber –– 1193

Mr. D'Arcy –– 1194

Mr. Nicolson –– 1195

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 1198

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

(continued)

On vote 5: executive council, $753,760 -continued.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I have a few questions to the Premier.

MR. BARRETT: The first one is: will you answer?

MR. MACDONALD: I'll start with a minor matter but one that involves a question of principle. That is the case of John Arnett working upon the partisan - it's partisan for all of us - MLA report to the constituencies. Oh, somebody claps and thinks it's a good idea to have a member of the Public Service Commission

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Arnett is under the Public Service Act. He is not one of the many political assistants that the Premier has. He helps to compile the MLA report. The Premier's constituency secretary, by the name of Jan Duncan, says about that report: "Do you direct your inquiries to a civil servant under the Public Service Act?" She is either badly misled by the course of conduct that has been followed or she does not understand the constitutional principle that people who are on the public payroll and are in the civil service have no business devoting their time to partisan politics at all.

MR. BARRETT: Order-in-council is different.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, as I say, if it was an order-in-council appointment and the Premier had availed himself at public expense, maybe that can't be complained about too much. People like Mr. Tozer, who are his political assistants

MR. KAHL: It's a great story, Alex.

MR. MACDONALD: It's a great story and it means nothing to that pin-headed Who said that?

MR. BARRETT: It was one of those pin-heads.

MR. MACDONALD: I want to know whether that is parliamentary or not, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll have to refer to the text to see if it is parliamentary. But in any event, would you please address the Chair and, if you are addressing the Chair, it is unparliamentary.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I wasn't. The member I was speaking to recognized himself right away.

This is not the biggest thing that is happening in the province of British Columbia. But there is a constitutional principle which the Premier of the province of British Columbia treats in a very cavalier way. When it is agreed that the Premier's MIA report, which is admittedly partisan, has been assisted, in part at least - this is the Premier's admission - by Mr. Arnett, who is a civil servant and press secretary to the cabinet, what does the Premier say about it? He says that it is stupid and silly to make that kind of an allegation.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, he's right there.

MR. MACDONALD: All right, let the record show this: the Minister of Education considers that it is stupid and silly for anybody to complain that a member of the civil service of the province of British Columbia engages in partisan activities. Have I got you right, Mr. Minister of Education? Is that your position?

HON. MR. McGEER: It's characteristic of your debate. You've been a week and you haven't said a thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. Please address the Chair.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I think the Minister of Education has made a valuable contribution to the debate. He reveals that after falling into a government with his fractured principles, it is perfectly all right to use the civil service for politics.

Interjections.

MR. MACDONALD: Not for politics, because that is constitutionally wrong and it's morally wrong. If you violate that line between the public servant under the Public Service Act and the political appointee, then you

[ Page 1178 ]

have violated one of the constitutional principles. All that this government - which has spent, I say, public money on partisan political purposes to an extent unknown in this province - has in answer to that is the answer of the Premier: "It is silly and stupid to raise that kind of a point."

HON. MR. McGEER: It's picayune.

MR. MACDONALD: It is not picayune.

All right, let's see where these people are at and where they live. When the Minister of Education was in opposition, he would never have said that.

HON. MR. McGEER: I would have tried to make some decent debate.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I know. Let them eat cake, says the Minister of Education.

Let me say this: if , when the Minister of Education sat on this side of the House, a public servant was being used for partisan and political purposes, he would have been the first to object. Once you check your political principles, that's it, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: It's picayune. In opposition, we never used to bring up trivia like that.

MR. MACDONALD: It's trivia, is it? To use people appointed under the Public Service Act for partisan political purposes is trivia -that's the statement of the Minister of Education. It should be remembered exactly what that minister has said. And that's exactly what the Premier of this province was saying when it was pointed out by the constituency secretary of the Premier.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: That's entirely different and you know it. It's entirely different with an order-in-council person. You just make a joke about this whole thing while you are busily using the taxpayers' money for political purposes.

My question to the Premier is this: In view of the fact that your constituency secretary said to direct all inquiries about the MLA report to Mr. John Arnett, who is press secretary to the cabinet, and in view of the Premier's admission that he was at least compiling material to be used in a partisan political newspaper - and he was a civil servant -does the Premier condone that kind of activity? Is he willing to make a better statement than he made previously - namely, that to raise the matter was silly and stupid? Is he willing to point out in his estimates that there is a clear division between those order-in-council people on the public payroll who engage in partisan political activities and those who are in the public service? I want that question answered. I would like the Premier to explain to what extent Mr. John Arnett is engaged in that kind of activity.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bierman.

MR. MACDONALD: In the case of Bob Bierman, who was a draftsman in the Ministry of the Environment, a cartoonist....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Not a good one.

MR. MACDONALD: All right, let's get all this on the record. The minister says he was not a good cartoonist, but he was a cartoonist. Bob Bierman was on his hours after work.

HON. MR. CHABOT: How do you know?

MR. MACDONALD: The Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources says that he was presumably doing this work on the....

HON. MR. CHABOT: I didn't say that.

MR. MACDONALD: Are you making that allegation? If you are, have the courage to stand up and make it in the House or don't make it at all.

HON. MR. CHABOT: He's a twisting lawyer.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I'm twisting you as much as you deserve to be twisted in the wind, my friend. You're the one who said that those exploratory coal licences that you were giving away under section....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Perhaps you could address the Chair, hon. member.

MR. MACDONALD: The Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources - and this does come under the Premier's estimates because we've been discussing coal - is the one who said that the exploratory licence under section 15 of the Coal Act that we would be given would be for a duration of one year. You know, when somebody is starting to give away this province in terms of its natural resources and he makes a statement like that and he happens to be Minister of Mines -and Petroleum Resources, it is not only giveaway, it is stupidity beyond

[ Page 1179 ]

all reason.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: No, you said that. That minister said those coal licences were only for a year. Don't get excited, people of British Columbia, they're only for a year. I challenge him to get up in this House and repeat that statement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we're on vote 5.

MR. MACDONALD: My question to the Premier was a very simple one about standing up and making proper statements, instead of the statements he's making about "stupid" and "silly" and that kind of thing, as to what the dividing line is between those in his office who assist in the partisan political process and those who are public servants. I think the answer that he has given to date is most unacceptable to this Legislature and to the people of the province. There's a constitutional principle involved there and the Premier should no longer treat it in an arrogant, supercilious way. Of course they fired Bob Bierman, and yet in spite of what was said across the House, he was working in his own time.

They didn't fire him but they forced him; they threatened him and made him cease his cartooning activities. There's a distinction there. Okay, maybe it's fine, Mr. Premier, but constitutional principles are important.

MR. KEMPF: Where's your old executive assistant, Alex?

MR. MACDONALD: Well, if you mean an order-in-council appointment - to the member for Omineca - you don't understand the principle I'm talking about in the slightest. Nor does anybody on that side of the House. I don't think you know what you're talking about or what I'm talking about. You have not the faintest idea.

Talking about the use of the public's money for partisan political purposes, you've got here he publication of the B.C. Government News. You print that at the taxpayers' expense and you send it to all the homes in British Columbia. It not only contains, I think, propaganda, Mr. Chairman, but is contains direct misstatements of fact. Reading from the latest issue, it says this. It is supposedly describing the budget speech of the hon. Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) . It says: "A coal policy has been enunciated to provide the basis for future development of our vast coal reserves."

Now to begin with, that wasn't in the budget speech at all. That was not in the budget speech at all, and we've seen the most amazing flip-flop in terms of giving away this province, in terms of coal, because no coal policy has been enunciated. In June of last year the Premier said that there would be a bidding system for coal licences. In February of this year that policy was abandoned. In May of this year the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources said, "Well, we're considering applications for coal licences, but after all, it's only for a one-year period, " a statement that is totally inaccurate under the Coal Act.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

MR. MACDONALD: Because when these applications are granted - and I've got in my hand the list of the current ones; they're in the B.C. Gazette of May 4.... There has been a flood of applications appearing on the minister's desk. On pages 693 and 694 and 695 we have a whole host of coal licences which, if it had not been for the pressure of the opposition and the points raised by the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Gibson) , would have been granted. You know, when you print a false statement, as has been printed in the B.C. Government News, that a coal policy has been enunciated and you do these flip-flops when your act is found out - oh, it's going to be a bidding system: no, it's first-come first served at $1 an acre....

The Minister of Mines made that crazy statement that after all, let them go, it's only for one year, when under the Coal Act it was obvious that if somebody came in for the first year and got the exploratory licence and found coal, they were entitled to apply for a production licence. When you have that kind of thing and then you send propaganda out to the province of British Columbia, something that wasn't stated at all by the hon Minister of Finance.... If he can say where this was, Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to .... Where was it - in the budget speech? No coal policy has been enunciated. It's sheer propaganda issued while the basic resources of this province were being given away.

You know, I happen to have the privilege of being born in this province. You have to give resource rights. You've got to work out a resource development policy. You've got to provide for employment. You've got to provide for a fair return to the public, but what this coalition government has done in terms of coal and oil and natural gas defies description. I'm glad, Mr. Chairman, that the Premier has

[ Page 1180 ]

admitted in his estimates that he's going to hold things up until there is a new Coal Act in place. Some of the media reported that he was just going to hold it up until we had a debate, and then he would go along with his merry giveaway policy of doing things which would not be tolerated in any other country of the world. But what is happening in this province is something that should not happen in any part of Canada. It is a giveaway of astronomical proportions.

In May, 1976, the Premier went down to an energy conference in Ottawa. He said this, and it was the most disastrous statement that any Premier of this province has made in terms of the giveaway of resource rights and resource revenue. He said: "Surely oil should be at least $10 a barrel." The current price at that time was $8, Mr. Premier, through the Chairman. He said that the price should rise to the international price of about $13 a barrel, and to quote his exact words at that interview, he -said: "Oil at $13 a barrel is a bargain."

If that Premier, who made those statements about a B.C. resource - I'm talking about energy now, and that comes under this vote -had been saying that we should increase the price of oil to bring something back into the public treasury, or if he had said that we should increase the price of oil but at the same time protect the consumers of the province of British Columbia of which he was the Premier, then I would not be so disturbed by that statement. But in spite of what the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) mutters, the Premier was talking about a total giveaway at the $13-a-barrel price to the oil companies.

I want the record to show - because we're talking about serious matters, and we're also having a bit of fun tonight in a way - that the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources thinks this is a big joke, that under this Social Credit government the price of a barrel of oil....

HON. MR. CHABOT: You're a big joke.

MR. MACDONALD: All right, I'm a big joke.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, you're a little joke.

MR. MACDONALD: That gang over there is giving away this province and giving away a fantastic.... I've been in this House for quite a few years, and do you think that under Premier W.A.C. Bennett the oil companies would have been able to get away with this? Not on your life!

HON. MR. MAIR: Calm down, Alex. Calm down.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm not going to calm down. I'm talking about a giveaway, and I'm going to keep on talking about a giveaway. If there is any way that I, along with my colleagues or anybody else who joins in, can save some of the natural resource rights of this province for future generations, I intend to do so.

Mr. Chairman, we have had the most incredible profiteering in British Columbia resources, particularly the old oil. I make that distinction because we're talking about the old oil that comes down to the coast from Fort St. John at about 40,000 barrels per day, 16 million barrels per year, where the wells have been in place now for 10 or 15 years. The pipelines have been amortized; the hardware has been in place. There is no additional cost to the companies who have those resource rights. Yet this government not only watched an increase in the price of a barrel of oil going to those companies, but they reduced the royalties.

If you are going to have a price rise and you say: "Oil is a scarce commodity in this world; let the consumer at the gas pump pay more for it; let the person who owns a home and is using home heating oil pay more for it.... But if you give all that profit to the oil companies, as this government has done, that's a sellout.

Mr. Chairman, when the NDP was in government we were trying to safeguard the consumer. We were trying to safeguard public returns from a resource which, once gone through the door, had gone forever - oil and even coal, although that's got a long way to go, and natural gas, which has quite a long way to go. But we tried to safeguard the essential public interest, which was fair return to the companies but which was a return to the public treasury commensurate with the profits the companies were making. That was protection of the consumers. The Premier of our province goes down to Ottawa and he agrees with the Arab oil price of $13. He didn't say at that time, but I'm asking him to explain himself now. Did you mean, Mr. Premier, when you went down to the energy conference in May, 1976, and when you spoke in favour of the price going up to $13 a barrel, that it would be a bargain? Were you saying at that time that all of that increased profit should go to the international oil companies? Were you saying that? Because that's exactly what your government has done. You know, we've never had a giveaway on these proportions in a period of little more than two years.... It's almost two and a half years now, and we've seen the kind of giveaway that I'm talking about.

The Premier even, through the Energy Commis

[ Page 1181 ]

sion, abolished the incentives that we had built into the price of a barrel of oil. We had provided, Mr. Chairman, that part of the price that the oil companies in the Peace River would get from the production of old oil should be in the form of an incentive bonus, because we did give them an increase. The increase, in the amount of 75 cents, was to be cashable when it was reinvested in this province, because we know very well what happens in the timber industry in terms of cut-and-get-out - rape this province and then get out with your profits, and you never see them again. That's been the history of the province of British Columbia. So we built an incentive into the price of a barrel of oil, just as we did with natural gas.

Yet, Mr. Chairman, the Energy Commission, with totally new personnel under this government, and without any reasons given in its annual report.... If the Premier's making a list of the questions I want to ask him, will he put this one down: Why does the Energy Commission, when it refers to these increases in the price of natural gas and the price of oil that should be granted to the oil companies, which are international, not give reasons for their decision and file a report? Was there any report? I have been able to find no public report justifying the continual increases that have been given to these producers of old oil, which has netted them....

I'm not talking about regular revenue, I'm talking about the additional. When you take the royalty structure that has already been reduced by this government, which has netted these companies - and there are not too many; you know, it's only 40,000 barrels a day - an additional $38 million a year.... Why would the Energy Commission just report in its annual report and recommend that lower oil royalties should apply? This government, in spite of the companies getting the increased prices, which have gone up $4 since this government came into office and, as I say, have netted the companies an additional $38 million, and the government already having reduced the royalty on old oil from 47 per cent to 40 per cent.... Yet last December they bring in a report and it says, among other things, that oil royalties should be reduced.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Three minutes.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm asking the Premier specifically: where are the reasons of the Energy Commission justifying that kind of a recommendation, and what is the extent of the further reduction of royalties to take effect November 1,1977, which is referred to by these words, which go on to say: "All of the pricing recommendations have now been implemented."?

Mr. Chairman, if I've only got three minutes, and if I'm talking to a lot of members from the outback or the cities - I don't care where it is - who do not care about the giveaway that is taking place under this government ....

MR. KEMPF: Don't waste your breath.

MR. MACDONALD: The member for Omineca thinks it's a big joke that we give the....

MR. KEMPF: You're a big joke.

MR. MACDONALD: And let it be recorded, Mr. Chairman, that the members for Burnaby think it's a big joke that we're giving away to the oil companies who are producing old oil, with no guarantee whatsoever that British Columbia will ever see it again, an additional $38 million a year.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much tax revenue?

MR. MACDONALD: You reduced the royalties, you idiot. You don't understand what I'm talking about. You've no idea of the rape of this province that is taking place.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I'm getting fed up, because....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I must ask you to withdraw your unparliamentary remarks.

MR. MACDONALD: All right, I'll withdraw that. But, Mr. Chairman, the additional revenue to the natural gas companies that produce natural gas in this province is $120 million a year, after allowing for all adjustments -that's my best calculation. All of these oil increases that I'm talking about - that $38 million a year - are being passed on to the consumer. You know, it was not at all necessary in terms of employment or activity or drilling or exploration. There's a surplus of natural gas and yet you give them an additional $120 million a year.

I'm just talking to deaf ears on the other side of the House, I know that. I don't think you even care what I'm saying. You don't take the trouble to listen. But I'm telling you that this province is being raped by the international companies in terms of its resources. It's not just coal - it was stopped by the commitment the Premier made in his

[ Page 1182 ]

estimates to at least a temporary respite -it's oil and gas as well. I don't think there's another province in Canada that would stand for it, and I'm sure there's not another country in the world that would stand for it.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Before the dinner hour -two and a half hours - some members asked some questions. One of them was to do with solar heating. As an addition to the answer I gave the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) on solar heating, I would like to refer him to a release from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing dated May 8, which states that the provincial government has approved in principle a $75,000 high-impact grant to pay 15 per cent of the construction cost of a solar heated housing project in Vancouver.

This is in addition to the $2.2 million that has been allocated to the B.C. Energy Commission which has moved in to a number of areas in studying energy conservation and variable energy sources. The commission operates independently of the politics of government, provides advice to government, holds hearings on a number of issues and also carries out a mandate in a number of areas regarding energy.

If I could just quote from this news release, it says:

"The provincial government has approved in principle the $75,000 high-impact grant to pay 15 per cent of the construction cost of a solar-heated housing project in Vancouver. The solar heating for the Kitsilano Housing Society project at Broadway and Vine is funded by the National Research Council, and would mean lower heating costs. The eight new solar-heated townhouses will be constructed adjacent to an older nine-unit apartment building which has recently been rehabilitated. The two buildings will share a central courtyard and underground parking."

What this means is that a number of ministries are going to be co-operating and trying to encourage varied energy conservation and a search for new energy sources to replace those that are of a depleting variety. The government is also working with the government of Canada and is co-operating with their programme to conserve energy. They've done a programme on insulation in a number of areas. So I add that to the answer to the member.

Another was a question on health care. I bring this up to point out the problems that provincial governments are having elsewhere, perhaps because they have not handled their financing or are not able to finance at this particular time, recognizing the difficulties the country is in. One of the members brought up not only the Minister of Human Resource's (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm's) estimates during mine, but also fudged into health. I have a clipping here which clearly shows the problem that other provincial governments are having which I alluded to before dinner. This one is from the Globe and Mail-, April 19. It says: "Budget Is Forcing Sick Children's To Close 80 Beds." Now this is in the province of Ontario.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm referring to other provincial jurisdictions.

MR. COCKE: You don't know what you're talking about.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm quoting an article. It says: "Budget Is Forcing Sick Children's To Close 80 Beds. The Hospital for Sick Children is closing about 80 beds to stay within the 1978-79 budget allowed by the Ontario Health ministry. The hospital's budget for the coming year is $52,215, 000, an increase of only 4.5 per cent over last year." And the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) , in his usual high-minded fashion, has now accused all other members of being dumb. That is in keeping with the high standard he has maintained in this debate.

The hospital began closing wards on April 7 and expects to complete the process by May 1, when the hospital will be down to about 700 beds. We had some debate here today, but here is a government and a Health minister who for the first time in co-operation are undertaking a major project to construct a new children's hospital. In contrast, the province of Ontario is closing beds in the sick children's hospital, and they're attacking a government that's building a hospital that they never undertook when they were government. I can't believe that even the politics they play could be played so loosely that they would try to get away with a story like that when in contrast with other provincial jurisdictions in this difficult economic time in Canada, B.C. is one of the few areas where expanded services, increased services and even existing services are being maintained.

Now surely, Mr. Chairman, in some minds and in many cases there'll never be enough in many areas. What we've tried to do this year is maintain those services and increase in this one area of children's services, a contrast with Ontario where they're closing beds. Yet at the same time the emphasis, as it must be at this time in this province and in this country, has got to be that to maintain those

[ Page 1183 ]

services and guarantee their continuation in the future we must build a sound economy and we must create the job opportunities to get people working. The thrust of the government's programmes this year and the buildup in the economy that we've experienced, and that buildup has been substantial.... Again, measuring it with the growth in the Ontario economy or any other economy in Canada, our growth has been substantial. We still have a great task because there are a large number of people without jobs, and that is why a priority of the budget was not only to allocate the thrust of the budget towards encouraging economic development out there in the private sector through tax cuts, stimulation and aid from government, but also to take a leadership role to harness the surplus from our first fiscal year - not hoard it or save it, not even attempt to start paying back the old debt from the last government, but to use it in job creation programmes this year and in economic stimulation where we can help.

I want to say that this isn't being done at the expense of the children. I only say that the Minister of Health is committed to and is undertaking the construction of a children's hospital. I bring this up to show the contrast to what's happening elsewhere in another "have" province. I could just as easily have selected provinces in the Maritimes, but I selected an area that is considered another "have" province to indicate to you how the policies of this government are continuing to accent services and provide those services. We are even constructing new hospital facilities that were not entertained or constructed by the last government or any other government. We're building them now. We've undertaken some major hospital projects beyond the children's hospital that will impact in other areas. Some of them have been controversial, but at least we're getting on with the job of projects that have been stalled or delayed for many years.

Again, we're undertaking it at what is this difficult time in Canada when other governments, to meet their obligations of agreement that they made at the First Ministers' Conference to hold their spending under the expected growth of their gross provincial or gross national products, are curtailing services. Here's British Columbia with sound financial management expanding services, planning new projects for services. Here are other govern-ments with heavy deficits and they are closing services and closing hospital beds for sick children. You know, I would have a difficult time standing in this Legislature defending that. But I certainly can defend the fact that here we are, maybe the only province constructing a major new sick children's hospital facility in Canada during these times. Mr. Chairman, let the members opposite stick to the facts and let them relate them to what is happening in Canada.

Those areas, along with a number of other areas, which I'll have to answer tomorrow, which are coming from other ministries .... I've had my office prepare a detailed list of questions that were presented this afternoon to do with many other ministries. They're being circulated to the other ministries, and as soon as I get the answers back.... Many of them Were very complex and dealt with a number of detailed areas, and I wish to be able to bring those answers to the House. I'll bring them when those answers are received. I intend to bring them back to the House. A number of the questions that the member for Vancouver East asked I will be answering a little later this evening or perhaps tomorrow.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the Premier has approved these increases in the price of oil and the reduction in royalties by order-in-h council. The Premier has approved the increase in the price of natural gas to the producers of old and new gas in this province twice during his term of office. The Premier is telling us that while this has happened, he's not familiar with the.... All right, tell us how you can justify those increases.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Any increases we've had have been at the recommendation of the B.C. Energy Commission.

MR. MACDONALD: What are the reasons?

HON. MR. BENNETT: They're very similar to those for increases that were given by the former government when the Energy Commission of that day let them give increases in the wellhead price. I remember that very well. I'm having them check now - I've only recently taken over that portfolio - to see if they're using the same procedures and the same method of reporting. So I'm seriously considering the request made by that member for Vancouver East, who was a minister in that portfolio before. The question has gone out to see very seriously how they develop and how they handle their hearings and the information and the study that goes into it, and whether they changed the procedure and the reporting system from when he was there. So I'll be bringing that answer to the House.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, just a supplementary. 1 find it absolutely astonishing that

[ Page 1184 ]

the Premier of the province of B.C. says now he's going to find out why we gave away the store last year. It's exactly the same with those coal licences. Nobody over there knew anything about the kind of thing that was happening right under your eyes until it would have been too late. And then you flip-flop the policy and finally say you're going to bring in a new Act. And when I ask you why is it that you've already - never mind, you've passed the order-in-council - given away an additional $120 million a year to the natural gas producers of the province of B.C. when there is a surplus of gas at the present time, now you say: "I'm going to send out now and find the reason." That is irresponsible trusteeship.

Sit down. I have the floor and we're talking about resources. "I'd better send out now and we're going to find out whether your procedures were the same as ours, " and so forth. Well, Mr. Chairman, they're not.

HON. MR. BENNETT: We'll find out if you are inconsistent.

MR. MACDONALD: No, you're sending out to find out why we did this.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, I didn't say that.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, you can't give the reason now.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm finding out how you did it, Alex.

AN HON. MEMBER: Watch your blood pressure.

MR. MACDONALD: Never mind my blood pressure! I'm talking about the province that belongs to all of us until we've sold it all. We may have to throw an anchor into the Pacific Ocean to save some of it from the international speculators that swarm around that government.

On December 31,1977, an order-in-council was passed by cabinet and it did this: for the second time it reduced the royalties on old oil. All the capital expenditures had been made, so the companies had no more. At the same time, the companies were getting . the escalating Arab price which has gone up in the term of this government, and which means for every dollar another $128 for every average motorist in this province. That's a lot of money. We're not talking about peanuts.

At the same time you took out the incentive part of the price whereby they had to reinvest in the province of British Columbia as a condition of getting an increase. These are international companies. And the Premier says: "I'm going to find out. I'm going to send out and find a reason as to why last December I made that tremendous giveaway and imposed on the people 'of this province those additional costs."

Well, Mr. Premier, you happen to be at the present time Minister of Energy, Transportation and Communications. You happen to be that minister. You happen to be the Premier who put the Minister of Human Resources into welfare in your first elected government. Are you listening, Bill? I remember this when former Premier W.A.C. Bennett demoted P.A.G. Gaglardi. Where did he put him so he would not be a political force who might shake his throne? He put him into Human Resources. When the Premier put Mr. Vander Zalm into Human Resources, does anybody think that idea was not in his head? Of course it was. He thought: "Oh, I'll put him in where he's. a political loser."

And then the Premier played musical chairs and he made a statement offstage. He said: "No minister serving under me will have his cabinet post a second time." They would be one-time ministers, the minister of this and the minister of that. The Minister of Mines would only be a one-time Minister of Mines and then something else. Did you all listen to that? Did you hear how the Premier said across the Legislature at the beginning of his term that it takes him three weeks to train a dog. Do you think he's not training his cabinet? "I'll show them who's boss." All of you ministers over there under this Premier are one-timers, and the only one who could be a two-timer is the Premier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, please.

MR. MACDONALD: All right, I'm straying. It's musical chairs and he controls the gramophone because he's frightened.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. As you know, I canvassed the subject earlier about the fact that the discussion of who should be minister should not be discussed in Committee of Supply. We are on vote 5, which is the Premieres estimate. Discussion as to which members should be cabinet ministers or whether they should be changed is not in order during Committee of Supply.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, with all respect, I was discussing a statement of the Premier, in which he said a little bit off stage, but undoubtedly just to crack the whip a little bit over his cabinet ministers: "None

[ Page 1185 ]

of you will have the same job the second time around." Do you remember that?

And there's no doubt about why you made Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Premier. We all understand that, and the game of musical chairs you are playing. You are by the gramophone, eh? You can stop the music whenever you like.

The reason I am saying this, Mr. Chairman, is because the Premier is now also the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications. He is telling this committee that he is going to go out and somehow find an answer as to why the natural gas producers are receiving an additional $120 million a year after allowance for taxes. I'm not talking about their total prof it at all. He said: "I am going to go out and find the reason, even though I approved that last December."

One of the duties of the Premier of this province - and it's not the easiest thing in the world, because we are a natural resource province - is to stand up for the people who own the resource. It is not easy. It isn't the easiest job in the world.

Do you think it is only workmen who go on strike? Do you think that trade unionists are the only ones who go on strike for more wages? Don't kid yourself for one minute.

We were faced with a strike from the companies producing old oil from the Peace River. They had equipment failure and they had mechanical breakdown. They said to us, "Give us the Arab price; that's all we're asking. It's your oil. All we want for it is the Arab price, " which was going up and up. They're costs weren't going up. All the working people of B.C. were under the AIB. They said: "All we want is the Arab price, and you'll be surprised how quickly these equipment failures will be solved." Well, this government just gave them the Arab price. It not only gave them the Arab price, but they reduced royalties on two occasions. We straightened it out. You know, in a sense it's a proud boast we can make that never once did the owner of a car in British Columbia or the owner of a home in British Columbia or an industry in British Columbia go without either crude oil or natural gas. Never once!

When you have resources you've got the international companies coming in to cream them off, take their money and, they're off to Indonesia. They're off to wherever they can make more money off somebody else.

It's the INCO story, and that's the story of Canada. A country makes $50 million net or $60 million year after year, and then there comes a rainy day when they say: "Indonesia is cheaper." Are we going to let that happen in British Columbia?

I've never seen anything like what has gone on in the past two years in this province.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: I don't think it matters what the Premier says from now on, because he says he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He doesn't seem to care what I'm talking about. He seems to think that that's good for EXXON is good for the the people of B.C., regardless. I think that is unfaithful trusteeship of the resources of B.C.

Coming back to that Energy Commission, whose personnel you changed, if there are public reasons to support new gas at $1.03, then I don't know what they are. I've tried to guess and I can't. That price of $1.03 is twice what it used to be when the NDP was government. We had good prices and a successful drilling season.

All I get is an annual report saying that we recommended this, this and this. This is the last recommendation. And it concludes by saying that all of the pricing recommendations have now been implemented. There are no reasons there to justify that immense giveaway of profits and resources to the international companies.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Read the report.

MR. MACDONALD: Read what report?

HON. MR. CHABOT: The one you have in your hands.

MR. MACDONALD: That's the minister who said that when you give a licence for coal it's only for one year. My first question is: where are the reasons? The Premier ought to file the reasons of the Energy Commission with this committee. My second question is: why did you eliminate our incentive grant? My third question, Mr. Premier, is this: When you say that, for the second time - because there was a reduction earlier, under your government -you've accepted a recommendation for lower oil royalties, how much are those royalties reduced? What's the percentage that you gave them the second time around? When their price was going up, how much did you further reduce the royalties? That's what I want to know.

I think that somehow all of the members in this House ought to look at the resources, especially the depleting resources of the province of B.C., and see if there's not some way - in spite of this government - we can safeguard then for the people of this prov

[ Page 1186 ]

ince.

So those are three specific questions, Mr. Premier. Where are the reasons of the Energy Commission that justified an increase on March 1,1977, in natural gas, then again on November 1,1977, in both natural gas and oil? Where are their reasons, such as we used to get under Professor Andy Thompson when we established the field prices for natural gas? There's a report - I can bring it into this House - in which he justifies what those prices should be in terms of protecting British Columbia and a fair return. Now I haven't seen that from that Energy Commission. All I see is that what Lulu wants, Lulu gets. What the international companies want, they get. That's the picture, that's what we see. So those are the questions. Where are those reasons? Why did you eliminate the incentive grant whereby they'd have to spend some of the additional money in the province of British Columbia in reinvestment, drilling and exploration? And how much has the royalty been reduced the second time around?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, as you well know, every June the Energy Commission holds hearings to do with gas pricing, and they later make recommendations to government. These hearings are held, and the member for Vancouver East has suggested that somehow he was threatened directly, or had personal conversations with the oil companies. I've never had to entertain them in my office to either offer them or be threatened by them, and I'm surprised at his comment that he dealt directly. It brings to mind the suggestion of the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) , who this afternoon asked what I offered the CPR to maintain the inland service. I said that we don't offer to kick the "censored" out of them, as some people might do in their office. We don't threaten them; we don't offer them anything. We expect them to live up to their obligations.

What is the policy on exploration? Well, it's national policy that was agreed to by the First Ministers at the national energy conference, at a time when our reserves of petroleum products were not considered sufficient for the future. And it was considered in the national interest to have an aggressive exploration policy. Now I know who agreed to that policy. I can remember Alberta agreeing to it an aggressive exploration programme; I can remember the Premier of Saskatchewan agreeing to it. I remember them agreeing to the aggressive policy of proving up reserves for to the benefit of Canada. It's more than just today. We're talking about proving reserves to take away our dependency on foreign oil and foreign petroleum resources in the future, to get greater self-sufficiency, to have a better and more certain economic future in this country.

Now these hearings are held every June and, if the member for Vancouver East is attacking the integrity of the personnel on the Energy Commission, I would be interested in that, because he made some statements saying: "Our people that we had are better than your people." As far as I'm concerned, I have confidence both in the former chairman, Andy Thompson, and in the current board. All of them have the same mandate to deal with energy matters and provide advice to government, and they are given the staff to carry that out. The minister responsible and the government of the day - under the mandate of searching for new reserves - have accepted those recommendations.

Because the member for Vancouver East is concerned about the reporting basis or the detailed amount that's contained in the public report - as compared to the detail given to the government, to the ministry, in the report that helps them deal with the recommendation -I've sent out to see how the ministry has dealt with that in the past, and to compare it with how the ministry dealt with that when he was the minister.

But as far as policy is concerned, it is national policy to develop a self-sufficiency. You know, the whole reason the government of Canada has an agreement with the Americans on the Alcan pipeline is to provide a means of transportation to make gas from our northern areas available as part of our energy supply for the future. It's not worth anything unless you get it out, and have a means of taking it to the market. It's not enough to suspect it's there; you must know it's there. No industry can develop on an uncertain energy supply; no community can develop on an uncertain energy supply.

The national policy of the government of Canada, in concert with the 10 provincial governments - this agreement was made two years ago - was to have an aggressive programme of exploration to prove up the reserves in our petroleum areas, both gas and oil, to give us greater sufficiency. We have cooperated with that policy. We have also utilized the facilities of the B.C. Energy Commission, and I have the highest confidence in the members of that commission, and I will deal with that.

The member talked earlier about world prices and moving to world prices and what it meant. What we have had in Canada, of course, is a

[ Page 1187 ]

very difficult situation where the government of Canada has put on a 10 cent a gallon tax at the pump. This impacts more on some provinces than it does on others, until they have time to equalize those prices. What has happened, and what we have fought - I'm sure the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) will agree with me - is that as the necessity for that tax decreases as price levels change, the federal government should move out of that tax field, which they haven't done. That is impacted into their revenues to the detriment of the consumers of Canada. I would speak out quite vigorously in support of our consumers because we should have that tax reduced as energy-level costs have changed.

We want self-sufficiency in this country. One of the things that we have been concerned about is any national policy that may direct that British Columbia would have to seek our petroleum supplies offshore, when our traditional markets have been Alberta and the limited supplies we've been able to find in the north of our own province, although we have had, because of this new aggressive policy of search, the first oil find since the '50s. I stand to be corrected on this, but I will get the exact dates. There has been an oil find in B.C.'s north because of the aggressive policies. We only have to look at the number of rigs working. You can go up there, to the people working there - Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Dawson Creek, and others.... We shouldn't be searching for oil and we shouldn't have this aggressive policy. But our aggressive policies for searching out oil and gas and by preparing to have the transport&tion mechanisms to carry that gas to market, such as the Grizzly Valley line, have aided the successful exploration policy in this province. We now have in reserve for our benefit in the future much greater proven reserves of gas, and, as I say, some additional oil now.

No one would be happier if we could find a major find in oil so B.C. could be sufficient in that area, which we are not. We are sufficient in natural gas. The additional reserves are a storehouse, a proven inventory for our future. We recognize that our future a ' s part of Canada is that we have an inventory of energy as part of the national policy. There are parts of the country that aren't blessed with petroleum reserves. They count on the western areas and the northern regions, then, to be the primary producers. There again is the reason for an international agreement on the Alcan gas pipeline, and the reason now for a suggested oil pipeline from the north to be a common carrier for American and Canadian oil.

MR. LEA: Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Yes, I do

MR. LEA: You don't know what you are talking about.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I certainly know what I am talking about. The member for Prince Rupert wouldn't know if he was listening, which he isn't. He sits there gossiping with his seatmate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps you could address the Chair.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I am telling him why we supported the national policy and what British Columbia's policies have been and why we have accepted the advice of the Energy Commission.

The only thing the member for Vancouver East has brought into question has been the reporting system that was there when he was government, and what changes have been made. But as far as the hearings and the commissioners and the staff, I have the highest regard for their professional competency. No one has yet suggested directly to me that they are incompetent in their jobs.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, there are two stages to the process. First, the Energy Commission makes a recommendation and by order-in-council that has to be considered and either implemented or rejected. If the Energy Commission recommended some of these things, there should have been reasons known to the Premier before tonight as to why these recommendations should be accepted.

There are two stages, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The results are there. We found it.

MR. MACDONALD: You found what? "I found it." Born again - is that what you are saying?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. BARRETT: It was never lost in the first place.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Attack us. Don't attack religion. You know, he thinks it's funny. Your leader is laughing at you. He doesn't believe it.

[ Page 1188 ]

MR. MACDONALD: I thought, Mr. Chairman, for a moment the Premier was mocking some of those who had found themselves a second time. I was a little concerned about that.

But there are two processes, Mr. Chairman. You don't have an Energy Commission making a recommendation involving huge sums of money.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'd like to call your own benches to order and I would remind all members in the House that the first member for Vancouver East has the floor. Perhaps we can allow him to continue.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, we should all be called to order, including the Chair.

There are two stages when the Energy Commission recommends something, and they're under.... You know, the companies come to them and say, "Oh, it's awful out there; we're losing money and we need all this extra money, " and then the second stage is the elected representatives of the people assembled in cabinet.

Now I say that from the Energy Commission, as in the time of Andy Thompson, there should be reasons as to why we have heard such-and such evidence and why such-and-such a release should be given or such-and-such an incentive programme should be instituted. And that should be public. But we've had nothing except an annual report filed in March, I think it was, telling us what's been done. The Energy Commission recommended; the government accepted. That's all we know.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if this was a case in the small claims court of the province of British Columbia - if somebody was suing another person for $120 and it was a contested case -there would be reasons for judgments - not always, but usually. If there's a dispute as to the evidence and so forth there'd be reasons. But when you come to give an additional $120 million to the natural gas producers, there are no reasons. It's all done under a shroud of secrecy. That's unbelievable, and the Premier obviously doesn't know it's happened.

MR. BARRETT: Why did he sign the order-in-Council?

MR. MACDONALD: Why would the Premier, Mr. Chairman, who used to be in the hardware business ... ? Can I get his attention this way? He's learning about oil.

Mr. Premier, you used to be in the hardware business. Supposing you had some old stock that you had purchased in 1967, and it was lying around. In the meantime the prices of the kinds of newer and different brands that had come in had gone up two or three times over. So you say to yourself . "I will then sell my old stock at these new prices and we'll all join in the rush. On the old stock I'm going to make 300 per cent profit, and on the new stock I'm only making 40 per cent prof it."

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I think in the commercial world you can get away with it. Fine, but when you talk about old oil that's been found for years and it's just pumping out like this, eh, from the pumps in the.... You know, you've seen them. Not far from Fort St. John they're going up and down like this, and that's old stock. They paid off their capital investment years ago and then the OPEC nations begin to bargain for a new price and so forth, and they said: "Let's get the new price for our old stock. after all, the only people who are going to pay are the government, through the B.C. Petroleum Corporation, but then they can pass it on to the people of the province of B.C." So there's no problem there.

Now for the Premier to say that this was a policy agreed to at the national summit Energy Commission meetings is ridiculous. The Premier suggesting to this committee that the idea that all of this additional money on old stock should go to the oil companies, was agreed to by all of the Energy ministers of Canada is patently absurd. Have you seen the Saskatchewan royalty structure? Did they agree to that? They agreed that prices should rise because you need the reinvestment, but they agreed that a certain amount should come back to the treasury of the province of B.C., and they agreed to protect their consumers. In Alberta the government of Alberta is protecting its consumers of gasoline by the very large amount of $4.75 per barrel. That is, they're selling to Canada - which is kind of wrong - and the world - which is kind of right, because you get the international price, which is now around $11.75.... But they're selling to the consumers of Alberta at $4.75 a barrel less. That's why their price of gasoline is so low.

Now I'm not sure in tonight's debate as to how much of that should come back into the public treasury for services to people and how much should go to the motoring public at this time of potential oil shortage in the long run. That's not the point. The point is that this government gave it all away. They gave it all away to the oil companies without any reasons being shown, and that was not the policy decided at any national energy conference. And if the Premier says that, let him produce the

[ Page 1189 ]

minutes of any national energy conference. They talked about a national price, but they didn't say: "Throw all the additional money from the Arab price at the oil companies and hope for the best."

Throw the money at the ceiling and hope some it sticks there and comes back to Canada -that's what we're talking about. So I say the Premier has got to justify what I think is a tremendous giveaway in this province.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Just before the other members get a chance to question, to correct the member for Vancouver East, when I referred to national policy, I said just that - "for an aggressive exploration." I wouldn't want him to inadvertently revert to his former profession of being a lawyer and attempt to twist my words. So let's get that in.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Yes, it's national policy for an aggressive exploration programme.

MR. BARBER: We heard you. You said "national policy."

HON. MR. BENNETT: I said "national policy for an aggressive exploration programme." That's exactly what I said, Mr. Chairman, through you to the member for Vancouver East who attempted to say I was talking about the difference between old oil and new oil and old gas and new gas. I was talking about the rea sons for an aggressive exploration policy, which is the national policy to search out petroleum products, both gas and oil, to supplement the reserves that Canada had.

I'll be responding to the other questions a little later after other members have had a chance to ask their questions.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, would the Premier table with this House any minutes from a National Energy Board hearing or from a national energy conference that he attended that in any way directed as part of a policy of stimulating exploration that old gas prices be brought up to current Canadian prices and that the increase in profit remain in the hands of the oil companies?

The Premier is trying to tell us that a policy that allowed oil companies to get away with tens of millions of dollars is British Columbia was given some sanction in Ottawa. At every conference I attended, the person who fought vigorously against that approach was none other than Premier Lougheed of Alberta, who told the federal government that it was none of their business to mess with the province's rights of determining what those prices were. The Premier of the province of Alberta is a Conservative but he made it very clear that at no time would he brook any federal interference with the province's right to establish those prices.

I know of no federal conference in the last 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years where any Premier of any province that's producing non-renewable energy resources has allowed the federal government to tell them how to dictate policy in terms of exploration effect. They've said wistfully: "Yes, we want more exploration. Yes, we want more Canadian oil produced. Yes, we want to try to bring up our production to meet our own needs."

The Premier mentioned that we may have to bring oil offshore in British Columbia. You heard him say that tonight. Does the Premier not know we already do that and have done for years? What has been exposed tonight by my colleague for Vancouver East is that the minister who is speaking to us tonight, who has represented British Columbia at the energy conferences, doesn't know what he's talking about.

The member for Vancouver East (11r. Macdonald) pointed out that there are two stages in dealing with this pricing. The member for Vancouver East pointed out very clearly that when the oil wells were producing, the original price was fixed. Some of the oil wells were capped and others continued to produce. When it was necessary to increase production to meet increased demand, the cap was taken off some of the capped wells and the price that was agreed to was the price that was in place when that well was discovered.

Negotiations then began to increase that wellhead price to bring it onstream, to make it more attractive to bring it onstream. During those negotiations the federal government has absolutely nothing to do with the pricing structure, the incentive, the direction or anything else. As a matter of fact, it's something that I regret very much that the federal government doesn't have. I believe that in an industrialized nation such as Can&da, we should have a national energy policy that includes federal participation in developing and participating in developing those coal and oil and natural gas fields. But we don't have. It's a matter of great debate.

When we first set up the Petroleum Corporation, we said, yes, w were going to move into this field, even though Social Credit fought tooth and nail against it. We said we would

[ Page 1190 ]

not allow the international oil companies to take off those massive profits into the United States and into the international money markets and leave British Columbia with nothing but dry holes in the ground. The member who sits next to the Premier now boasts about the half billion dollars that the British Columbia Petroleum Corporation has produced for the people of British Columbia. He says it's not socialism; it's just a tax-collecting mechanism. Call it what you will, it was the first device in the history of this province that got a fair share from the pricing of those resources.

How was Premier Lougheed able to develop those heritage funds? Premier Lougheed has moved in his own fashion to ensure that when there is an increase at the wellhead of natural gas that has already been discovered and oil that has already been discovered, a share of that comes back to the people of Alberta. He's put it in that massive heritage fund.

What the member for Vancouver East has exposed tonight is that the opportunity for the people of British Columbia to have lower ferry rates, an earlier reduction in sales tax and more medicare premium was abandoned by the inadequate handling of the increase of those prices at the wellhead, which allowed the oil companies to get away with $128 million.

We're not talking fantasy, we're not talking theory, we're talking reality. While Alberta has established a rational, logical plan for returning a share of the increase of that wellhead price to the public purse - while they established that formula and that pattern - and while British Columbia had the mechanism to do the same through the Petroleum Corporation, since the election of Social Credit there has been no sharing of that increased price at the gas wellhead or the oil wellhead. No reasons have been given why there was no sharing, and the Premier says he's got to send out for an answer to tell us why we lost $128 million.

Now if you could dismiss it as stupidity, perhaps it could be forgiven, but I don't believe that this government is that stupid. There is also no policy enunciated by this administration as to what the incentive was, in terms of allowing them to have 100 per cent access to those profits. Did they say to them: "Okay, you can have all the profits, but you've got to put 50 per cent of it back in British Colombia."? No. "Ten per cent"? No. "We hope and pray that you'll put some of that money back in the ground."

The member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) brought up the possibility of what could take place in coal. What the member missed is that exactly that has already taken place in oil in the last two years under Social Credit.

What is worse is the analogy given by my friend about the hardware store. It's true my friend espoused the possibility of having some old stock and, as the price raised, taking the stock off the shelf and pushing it up at the increase in price. But how would the hardware store owner feel if he paid for rakes and hoes a year ago and the wholesaler came back in and said: "I'm sorry, last year's prices that you've already paid do not count. I'm going to double them, and you've got to pay the money even though you already own them."? That's the analogy with the oil. The price was agreed to when those wells were capped and any increase in that price did not include one single penny of increase of cost to the oil companies in terms of exploration, leasing fees, taxation or production costs. They just took the top off the well; they took the cap off the pipe. And for taking the cap off the pipe - and for not following Alberta's formula, or Saskatchewan's formula, or at least using what we already had in place in British Columbia - you blew $128 million in one year, and you have not got the answers right here to tell us why.

To say, to suggest, to intimate that you have to send out a note to find out why this happened indicates to me that there's some numbskullery there in terms of giving reports to cabinet, or that you have lacked the basic philosophy and understanding that we own those goods in the ground. That was established years ago in this province under other Premiers. It is the biggest giveaway in the last - I don't know how long - in the province of British Columbia. And every minute we sit here, and every time that old gas is pumping out and every time that old oil is pumping out, we're losing money.

The mayor of Peachland sends a telegram and says: "We need some more money for schools. We cannot understand why it's been cut back." My colleague for Vancouver-Burrard gets up and lists off 38 services that have been cut back. Every one of the ministries fights Treasury Board to get some money. The municipalities are having a tough time meeting ends. We've got 110,000 people unemployed. Just imagine how far that $128 million would have gone to solving some of these problems.

Now to ask the advice of the man who said that these applications were for one year only will compound the folly. I'd suggest to the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Chabot) that he'd better read what's being said in the Gazette before he makes pub

[ Page 1191 ]

lic statements about what's going on.

AN HON. MEMBER: Read the Act!

MR. BARRETT: And read the Act, as my colleague says.

Despite the catalogue of everything that's been described tonight, the most disgraceful thing is that the man who must fix his name to the order-in-council has to know why his signature is going there and, when faced with questions about why his signature went there, he said: "I'll have to send out for the answers." Humbug!

MR. BARBER: Would the Premier care to answer now? I'd be happy to take my place.

HON. MR. BENNETT: He didn't ask a question. We just heard a political speech. You ask a question.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, when the House began sitting in committee this evening, and my colleague for Vancouver East began his delivery of a brilliant speech on the necessity to guard and protect the great asset that lies in the ground of British Columbia and is owned by all of us, even by those guys over there, he started out by talking about the particular, peculiar relationship in the Premier's office between a political person - the Premier himself - and a non-partisan public servant, Mr. John Arnett. Not surprisingly, I suppose, the Premier declined altogether to give answers to questions raised by the former Attorney-General (Mr. Macdonald) regarding possible abuse and contravention of the Public Service Act by Mr. Arnett, in particular regarding his alleged preparation of the Premier's own MLA report. That material itself was presented in The Vancouver Sun, as a result of some digging by a good journalist some time ago. The Premier has never once sought to defend the actions of his employee, Mr. Arnett. Rather, he sought to explain and excuse them in a fashion that is completely unacceptable to this opposition.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You are wrong.

MR. BARBER: In January, 1978, Mr. Chairman, on stationery imprinted "Province of British Columbia, Office of the Premier, " with the Great Seal of the Province of British Columbia, the following letter was sent to persons resident in the province, typically, I understand, in the Okanagan Valley. I'll read it into the record:

"As leader of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, I would like to thank you for recently renewing your membership. Your commitment to again actively participate in our party, along with 75,000 concerned citizens throughout the province, is very much appreciated. An active and continually increasing membership is the key to the success of any political movement. And in the never-ending task of attempting to keep our unity, free enterprise government at the helm in British Columbia...."

AN HON. MEMBER: Table it!

MR. BARBER: I will, later, when we are out of committee. I suppose you have already received your copy.

"I would like to ask you to be part of my own special membership drive. Perhaps you know some friends or relatives who would like to become members. For this reason, I attach five membership applications imprinted with my signature, which I hope you will use to bring fellow British Columbians into membership of the party. This special drive will be aided significantly if the completed forms could be re turned to me, to the address below, by the end of February."

Extracting from the exact quotation from the letter, the address below is: Parliament Buildings, Victoria, British Columbia.

"Thank you for your renewed membership. I would welcome your advice and suggestions on present government programmes, and your ideas on future courses the government should take. This contact could be by letter, or when we have the opportunity to meet personally.

"Yours sincerely,

"Bill Bennett, Premier."

MS. BROWN: Premier!

HON. MR. BENNETT: Devastating!

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, this gang takes pride in the strangest, lowest things.

Attached to the letter, and I have it here for tabling later after we are out of committee, is apparently an application form in the Social Credit Party, signed by its agent - in this particular case, Bill Bennett. The signature matches the signature on the letter itself, which in turn matches the signatures of the Premier I have had from letters from him myself. I presume it is a legitimate document. Let me say for the moment, Mr. Chairman, that if this is not a legitimate document - if it

[ Page 1192 ]

is a forgery - 1 should like to hear so from the Premier. If the Premier denies authorship of this letter, then I should be glad to hear of it. However, knowing full well that he will not....

HON. MR. BENNETT: Do you want me up?

MR. BARBER: I would like just for a moment to talk about this. We have talked earlier in debates in this House about abuses of office and abuses of power. This is, at best, a minor abuse of office. It is not the kind of thing that ordinarily would lead one to call for the resignation of a Premier, and I don't do so. It is, however, a minor abuse of office that makes the office of Premier itself just a little bit disreputable. It tends to cheapen and degrade the office of Premier just a little.

The idea of a Premier conducting what he calls "my own special membership drive!' out of his office, on his stationery - the Premier nods; he knows the letter is legit - and inviting people to return their membership cards, or five, or more, to the Parliament Buildings, Victoria, British Columbia, is not - the government paid the postage - the kind of thing that one could assume would add greater respect or stature to the office of Premier.

Again, it's not a great scandal. It's not great corruption; it's a minor abuse of office that degrades and cheapens and makes just a little more disreputable the office of Premier.

In the judgment of this opposition, using the office of Premier, to which the highest standards should apply and not the lowest, is really not acceptable. If the Premier had some proper respect for the office which he holds, he would, I expect, attempt to divorce as much as he humanly could from that office its partisan aspects. Now obviously all of us hold offices that have partisan connotations. I expect every one of us in private correspondence, from time to time, hear from people who like what our party is doing, say: "How nice. We're glad you do." It's a perfectly reasonable event. I assume from time to time all of us - and I have - will receive membership cards ripped up from people who are not happy with what our party has been doing, and that's fine too. We've all done that, and so has the minister of mine closures. I'm sure he's received those cards.

It's reasonable, as well, to refer in passing in a letter, one supposes, to people who have an interest in your own party or in another party, but the idea of taking that so many steps beyond - to managing and manipulating and arranging a Premier's own "special membership drive, " home address Parliament Buildings, Victoria - is just a little bit disreputable, and we reject it. If the Premier wanted to conduct such a campaign, which is certainly his right, surely he could have done it as leader of the party. He could have used the party's main address at 4219 Main Street, Vancouver, and had the party pay for it. There's nothing wrong with that: we have no complaints, no objections. I am informed by the previous Premier that he himself never used his office or his stationery for these purposes. I'm further informed that the Social Credit Premier before him never did the same either - never. Neither W.A.C. Bennett nor David Barrett ever saw their office in quite so partisan a light as this Premier does.

Again, let me state, Mr. Chairman, it is not a major scandal. It's not a piece of abuse, I suppose, that will live much longer than this evening, but it carries a significant message which our party is concerned about. The Premier, as First Minister, should follow the highest standards and not the lowest. When it comes to using the facilities and authority of his office, he becomes a greater Premier and that office has a greater stature, to the precise extent to which he can divorce it from its otherwise partisan affiliations. Running a special membership drive with five membership cards attached, signed by Bill Bennett, is a bit much.

HON. MR. BENNETT: It's signed by Gerry Scott.

MR. BARBER: Was he the Premier? We're talking about the only Premier this province presently has, and the necessity for that Premier to respect his office and to go just a few more steps down the road to elevating it into something that doesn't end up at taxpayers' expense, no doubt, running a special membership drive.

It's a cheap little practice; it should be discontinued. It shouldn't have been done in the first place. To the best information I have at hand neither of the two living Premiers before this Premier ever did the same in their office. Personally, I think it degrades the office just a little, and that's a little too much. It's a practice that should be discontinued.

HON. MR. BENNETT: That sounds very reminiscent of the first speech he made when he hoped we wouldn't be political in this chamber. Then he's gone on to become the most political member - why, he even uses children politically.

[ Page 1193 ]

He uses them in parades to further his own party's political career.

I get letters from people renewing memberships. I get letters from people who want to buy memberships. I don't have a number of letterheads. We do run our memberships through our party, but I respond to everybody who returns a membership to me, and renewals....

MR. BARBER: This is a special drive. You were soliciting memberships.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Would you listen to me? I listened to you, Mr. Squeaky Clean. I want to say that I am political. I came through the political process. The greatest compliment I can pay anyone is to invite them to join me in my view and fight for something we believe in, and fight against what I believe you would do to this province.

I respond to letters like this that say: "Dear Mr. Bennett: In 1971 my family and I moved from that socialist haven of Saskatchewan to British Columbia. To our horror the NDP won in 1972." They go on to ask me to send them a membership, and you know what? They talked about going to Alberta and Ontario. I sent them one and I said: "Invite your friends."

This just happens to be in the mail I've got with me for signing, as I always have. I can have a number of them brought in which people actually write in. But I wouldn't want to say the things in this Legislature about you as a party and individual that they say in their letters. People ask to renew memberships; they ask to join. Do you know why? They want to be part of the political process, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is the finest thing they can do.

I don't run off some other thing. I only have one letter. I respond to letters, I respond to mail, and I say: "Yes, you've asked me and you've told me you want to join. Get someone else with you in my special membership drive and join with me because this province is too important to be left to voters , ho don't care enough to participate."

Let me tell you, certainly I'm political. Certainly I respond to those. I don't want to embarrass you, as I say, by reading the letters and saying what they say about you when people write in to join. It's by no accident that there are about 80,000 members in the British Columbia Social Credit Party. It isn't just that they're following us. You know what really started that drive off? How bad that group was in government, that's really what started it.

I encourage people to join. They write to me. I encourage them in the legitimate aims of being part of a political party. I do that. If you want to go and take the extension of where politics ends and a role in here, you wouldn't use children to further your political career by organizing them in a parade. What is that? It's all part of a personal campaign to get re-elected, using children. What I would say is that we are political. I recognize that. I'm surprised that after some of the things you've done and said, Mr. Member, with all due respect - because you're political too - you would even suggest this.

Yes, I respond, and I respond in a number of ways to a number of letters. As I say, people want to participate and they write to me as Premier, and I answer them as Premier.

Interjections.

MR. BARBER: The members opposite should be aware that the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) and I share an office and have done so for two and a half years and are the best of friends.

It is in part a question of degree that I have tried to raise this evening. I said in my own remarks that all of us from time to time, in reply to correspondence, will refer to our own party to those people who write in and show evidence of some support for the party of which we ourselves are members. I don't object to that and I don't raise that as an issue. We all do that.

The difference, however, is of degree. The difference is of stature and standing and public expectation. The public expectation of the office of Premier, in my judgment anyway, is that it should adhere to the very highest standards whenever and wherever possible. That means, wherever possible, divorcing that office from strictly, narrowly partisan considerations.

Let me repeat. We're not referring to casual correspondence. The Premier himself says it's a regular reply. We're not referring to a once only event. The Premier says he's done it often. We're referring to a letter which asks people: "I would like to ask you to be part of my own special membership drive. Perhaps you know of some friends or relatives who would like to become members. For this reason I attach five membership applications with my signature, " et cetera.

The Premier has tried, in way that is patently envious, to connect this minor abuse of office with my own recent and proud participation in the Kaleidoscope Theatre children's parade at the beginning of April. Kaleidoscope - if I may now make a plug be

[ Page 1194 ]

cause the Premier himself raised the question - is the finest children's theatre company in this province, bar none. They do better and more important work with children in teaching children to express their artistic and cultural and theatrical drives and gifts more powerfully than any other group in British Columbia. I am proud, for one, to have been asked, together with a small friend of mine, to act as the parade marshall in that particular parade. Besides, the Premier is jealous. He didn't get a front-page photo that day.

The Premier is trying somehow to compare that with what is, in my personal judgment, a minor abuse of office, using his stationery and the government's stamps to flog on behalf of his own special membership drive not one, two or three, but five membership applications for the Social Credit Party. It's a bit much.

Anyway, for the benefit of the minister of mine closures, who may want to see a copy of the letter for his own purposes, I will later, when the committee rises - I'm told that's the rule - table a copy of the letter.

I ask the Premier to reconsider. If you want to do it, that's fine - you're political. Every member of this House is political. But do it as the leader and not as the Premier -that's the difference - and make the Social Credit Party pay for it while you're at it.

MR. D'ARCY: On vote 5, in replying to a couple of remarks by the Premier, I would suggest that perhaps when he's writing to some of these 80,000 members of the Social Credit Party he should invite them down to the Frying Dutchman's - I think he's in Oak Street, in the heart of Little Mountain, which in the last election was Social Credit - and suggest that they buy a few hamburgers, because these 80,000 people and all these people who are writing to him aren't doing him too well on the hamburger poll. They're somewhere else. They're obviously not buying hamburgers in the middle of a Social Credit riding in Vancouver - or what was a Social Credit riding. I don't know whether it still is.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No wonder your leader's putting on weight - he ate 100 hamburgers.

MR. D'ARCY: The other item, Mr. Chairman, is that I can't help but comment on what I think to be rather childish and infantile remarks of the Premier to my colleague from Victoria about leading a children's parade, particularly since that First Minister was recently giving a speech in a northern community in B.C. -I think it had something to do with the threatened railway closure - when he said absolutely nothing of significance about the closure when the crowd tried to ask him a few reasonable straightforward questions. He assured the House last week that he always faced the public and wasn't afraid of them, but here it's documented by TV, radio and the press that when the crowd tried to ask him a few questions, he said: "Oh, no, I'm sorry, I have an urgent luncheon meeting - I have to rush away." The crowd accepted it. They know the Premier is a busy man and they know that Fort Nelson is a long way from Victoria, and they accepted what he said. They believed him and they began to disperse. But a few who weren't quite in their cars or their pickup trucks yet looked back and they saw the Premier signing autographs for children. Oh, no, he wasn't playing politics; no, he was signing autographs for children and he had 40 minutes to sign those autographs for children, but he didn't have five minutes to answer questions from the adults of Fort Nelson. Yet tonight at an unofficial meeting he stands up and talks about my colleague from Victoria taking part in a children's parade at the invitation of an organization that asked him to lead that. I find it very irresponsible.

Now, Mr. Chairman, getting to energy, I was shocked tonight to hear the Premier say he was concerned about the consumer. I was surprised - no, I shouldn't say I've been surprised to see him slipslide around, slither away from the question of natural gas prices to the consumer having been doubled during his term in office. Oh, he tried to do his usual number of blaming someone else - blame Ottawa, blame the other Premiers, blame the former government, blame the Energy Commission, take no responsibility for it himself when in fact he is the First Minister and the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications who is responsible, who was responsible and signed those orders-in-council which allowed those price increases to the consumers of British Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, when I talk about the consumers of British Columbia, I'm not just talking about the homeowner or the apartment dweller who have seen the same amount of gas that they bought for $15 two and a half years ago now costing them $35; I'm not just talking about those residential consumers. I'm talking about the commercial and industrial consumers of this province as well - the ones whom the Premier says he is the friend of, the ones whom he says he's so concerned about. Mr. Chairman, you should know well yourself, in the industry which you worked in before you came into this House, that the chief increase in costs over the last few years for the airline industry

[ Page 1195 ]

isn't wages, taxes, repairs or capital costs; it's fuel. It's fuel, Mr. Chairman, and fuel price increases caused by the Premier and this government, and yet he wants to blame somebody else and say: "Well, gee whiz, shucks, I don't know how those price increases came about -I'm just going to have to find out from somebody else. I just agree with everything that they put through. I have no responsibility for policy or what my ministers do." Nonsense, Mr. Chairman - he has total responsibility for all policy and everything his ministers do.

There are industries in this province that have also seen their costs double. We have sawmills in this province that absolutely depend on natural gas to fire their boilers to dry their lumber so that they can compete in international markets. There are pulp mills, particularly in the interior and north, that rely on natural gas to fire their line kilns and to provide much of the power for their boilers to drive turbines for barking logs and for running the vacuum systems on their paper machines and other operations throughout their mills. These mills were tooled and designed, Mr. Chairman, to handle natural gas, not to handle bunker C or coal or any of the other fuels which are available. They were designed to handle natural gas because natural gas was available, it was the best value for Btu. And then - after you've spent $100 million on a plant, there is no turning back - they find that the cost has been doubled. Even Cominco Ltd. in Trail, which employs 4,000 people, have operations which are designed to use natural gas. They are one of the largest single consumers of natural gas in this whole province, and they have seen their costs double.

The Premier tells us about how his brave new economic policy is supposed to make industry in this province more competitive internationally, but he socks it to them by agreeing with the international oil companies who don't give a darn about the province of B.C. They're only concerned about their international profits. Yet he has done that to the industries of this province, to the industrial employers and to the commercial Employers.

What about the truckers? They're the people who haul the material and the lifeblood of this province. They have seen their costs for fuel go up 30 to 35 per cent during the tenure of this government.

The natural gas companies will tell us: "Well, we haven't put up our price. Our markup is the same as it always was. Our costs have gone up, but we haven't passed those on to the consumer. We haven't put in for an increase. The only increases we have put through to the consumer have been those in the wholesale price, and those prices have been approved by the Energy Commission, by the Premier, by the executive council."

I simply cannot accept, Mr. Chairman, that the Premier does not know how and why those increases came about. At a time when we're being asked to hold the line, when we're being told that we must watch how much we spend, we must conserve our funds, we must show restraint, that government has allowed concerns based outside this province to put up prices and allowed those price increases to go through. They have doubled the cost of energy to many important basic industries in this province. They have taken, as has been documented by the member for Vancouver East, over $120 million out of the pockets of the consumers of British Columbia, money which is not available to be spent, to be returned to the economy of British Columbia in either retail sales or investment. And the Premier says: "I'm going to have to get the answer from somebody else."

Mr. Chairman, I think that is disgusting and I simply can't tolerate it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 5 pass? So ordered.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There was no member on his feet.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I will recognize members, but there were no members on their feet.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, I am Chairman of this committee. There were no members on their feet when I called the vote. I will recognize members but I will not accept a challenge to the Chair.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, is the government side ever touchy this evening! Here we've caught the Premier with his hand in the cookie jar, using public 12-cent stamps to sell the message of Social Credit, as if they weren't getting enough from the international oil companies.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Premier to answer some questions. We've heard almost every member from that side of the House in the debates this year get up and praise the Premier for the fine job that he's doing and

[ Page 1196 ]

the work that he's done, and all of the recognition he got for his fine speech back in Ottawa where he went to lecture the other governments of Canada about how they should run their affairs.

He stated that governments should limit the expansion of their spending to a figure tied to the growth of the gross provincial product less I per cent. Using that guideline, he then came back and discovered that his own budgets would be over, if it weren't for the fact that he was going to hide $116 million of spending in the B.C. Buildings Corporation, by 20 per cent if he didn't do so.

Mr. Chairman, the Premier didn't take his advice there. But I would like to bring something to the Premier's attention. Along this line he talks about the growth of the gross provincial product, and I don't know if his guideline for increase of budget in accordance with that figure is supposed to be 4.3 per cent or 3.4 per cent. But I would like the Premier to explain to me the tremendous increase in budget figures for advertising and publications if he really does intend to keep the growth of government within the guidelines of the growth of the gross provincial product or the growth of the economy less I per cent, as he has of ten said. I'd like him to answer whether or not he has looked at the increase in advertising and publications budgets in the votes in all of the different ministries for which he is responsible under the executive council to see if they fit that guideline and rule of thumb which he holds out to other governments in the province.

Is the Premier aware that in Agriculture the increase in advertising and publications was from $262,700 to $294,550, a growth of 10.2 per cent in excess of his guideline?

In the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs it went up from $364,000 to $391,500 -a growth of 7.5 per cent, which, I believe, is in excess of his guideline.

In the Ministry of Education, it went up from $457,150 to $737,025, a growth of 61.2 per cent. That is more than 10 times what the Premier has suggested as a guideline for growth in government spending.

I will allow, Mr. Chairman, that in the Ministry of Economic Development there was actually a decrease of 3.3 per cent; in the Ministry of Forests, a decrease of 0.4 per cent; in the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Resources, a decrease of 18.8 per cent; and in the Ministry of Recreation and Conservation, a decrease of 13.9 per cent.

In the Ministry of Energy, Transport and Communications - up 57.1 per cent for advertising and publications.

In terms of his personal philosophy, this is a Premier who just uses the first two initials of his title: PR. He surrounds himself with about $250,000 worth of PR in his own office. Obviously, this is what the Premier thinks is the proper direction for a government to take.

Environment - up from $236,000 to $320,000, an increase of 35.5 per cent.

Finance - up $208,000 to $245,000, an increase of 17.6 per cent.

Health - up $286,700 to $559,000, an increase of 94.9 per cent for PR. Advertising.

Highways and Public Works - up $239,000 to $342,000, an increase of 43.2 per cent.

Those are some of the modest increases, Mr. Chairman.

Human Resources - where programmes and funding are being cut - PR up from $168,530 to $472,460, up 180 per cent.

Ministry of Labour - up from $160,000 to $427,000, an increase of 166.9 per cent. That's taxpayers' money - PR to bolster a sagging Premier's image.

But, Mr. Chairman, I don't know which one is really the best of all of these figures. Which ones haven't we mentioned so far? I mentioned Education. Just guess where the real big PR bucks would be. The Premier, other than his quarter of a million dollars in immediate staff that surround him, doesn't show an advertising and publications vote in his estimates. We'll look at the winner of the biggest percentage increase and then we'll open the secret envelope and we'll find the winner of the biggest dollar increase.

First of all, in the classification of the biggest percentage increase - the Attorney-General. He must be in trouble; he's up from $83,100 to $434,122. The Attorney-General has to get the nomination and Dianne is out there signing up members. What do they charge for a membership? Four dollars for five years. It's up 422 per cent.

Mr. Chairman, that is 100 times the guideline that the Premier has suggested for growth of government budgets and government spending. He has said that we should keep government spending one percentage point below the real growth in the economy. Then he uses the figure of gross provincial product for his province here. This figure shows that he's exceeded his own figure by 100 times.

But the grand winner.... And now the moment we've all been waiting for....

MS. BROWN: It must be Human Resources.

MR. NICOLSON: No, we've had Human Resources. That was just a pale 180 per cent increase; that's just going from $168,000 to $472,000.

[ Page 1197 ]

They could have funded a lot of programmes with that amount of money.

MS. BROWN: They could have built a ramp in Sidney at the Human Resources office.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, there could have been a ramp in Sidney. There could have been child abuse programmes. There could have been a lot of things that could have been spent on.

But in terms of straight dollars - not in terms of percentage - the really big grand prize will have to go to the Provincial Secretary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BARRETT: Smile!

MR. NICOLSON: Up from $3,498, 742 this year it is $6,183, 730, for an increase of 76.7 per cent - by and large the biggest increase in dollars. The $6 million PR woman.

Mr. Chairman, this represents in one year an increase in advertising budget.... Mr. Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) , you'll have to add up quite a few of those figures in the votes. You won't get them all done in one night, I'm sure. Mr. Chairman, this is for a grand total increase from $7,951, 613 to $12,546, 097. That's an increase in PR in one year of 57.7 per cent. That means that the First Minister of this province has allowed his guidelines to be exceeded by more than 10 times.

When the Premier talks to other provinces about keeping government spending at a figure of one percentage point less than the growth in the economy, I suggest that he look in his own backyard, and that he not hide the real growth of government in Crown corporations, when his budget has actually increased 20 per cent.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: There's my friend for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) and I trust I'll see him at the B.C. Wildlife Convention next weekend over in Chilliwack. I'm sure he'll be there and he'll repeat his speech for those people who make the same speeches he made to the Western Guides and Outfitters.

Mr. Chairman, that member speaks so eloquently from his seat but as soon as he gets up on his feet his mouth won't work.

Interjections.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I'm being attacked. Will you protect me from that member over there? He's getting violent.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the Premier will get up and reconcile this difference between what he extols as the bottom line and explain to us why it should be that we have percentage increases as high as 422 per cent in one minister's advertising budget and why it should be that another advertising budget goes from $3.5 million to over $6 million in one year, when, according to the Premier, provincial budgets should not grow faster than one per cent less....

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Now there's a member saying that the Premier's policy is garbage. He doesn't believe in the Premier's policy, Mr. Chairman. The member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Mr. Loewen) says that the Premier's policy is garbage. He doesn't believe in this policy of restricting growth of budget to one per cent less than the growth in the economy. But, Mr. Chairman, it appears that the Premier doesn't believe in it either because here we have a case where the budget for PR under this government in one year has increased by 57.7 per cent when in many, many areas we're experiencing a time of cutbacks and wipe-outs and cutoffs. Now that sounds like something out of a surfing movie. Cutbacks are when you get out of the curl and have to go back up in the wave and get some altitude. Wipe-outs are when you get detached from your surfboard, and cutoffs, I guess, are what you wear.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you please relate this to vote 5?

MR. NICOLSON: A great number of those programmes are small programmes: $12,000 programmes, $15,000 programmes, $20,000 programmes. They could have satisfied a great number of those programmes for a matter of approximately $4.5 million. What we are talking about is an increase this year of about $4.5 million for PR.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair, hon. member.

MR. NICOLSON: It's very confusing, Mr. Chairman.

I would hope that the Premier would get up and explain this very inordinate increase in the advertising budget.

[ Page 1198 ]

HON. MR. BENNETT: Just to deal with that area under my own responsibility, but first of all I'll deal with the guidelines for provincial spending which were in global budgets. This year the increase in the budget over last year's spending in the revised spending budget is 9.8 per cent. With the projected growth in gross provincial product and with the inflationary factor, that's well within the guidelines that we have imposed and agreed to with the First Ministers in Ottawa.

I must say that some of my colleagues would not agree to the 1 per cent cut. The would only agree to spend less than the total of the inflationary factor and the real growth in their economies, and that was part of the statement. Our expenditure, then, will be well below our own guidelines for this year of the inflationary factor and real growth in the economy. In fact, it will be much better than 1 per cent; it's over 2 per cent under. So we are within those guidelines.

When you talk about public information and advertising, I can deal in one area where I have some responsibility to report, and that is in Energy, Transport and Communications. The big jump there is that some of the money is allocated to the Energy Commission over the amounts that we talked about this afternoon for those programmes on energy conservation. The other area is the motor vehicle safety programme.

Now there is a jump in those two areas because I've been urged - we've all been urged -to encourage conservation and money has, through this budget, been made available for the Energy Commission. That is a big jump there; one particular programme is $141,000 for energy conservation. If the member is against that then you should talk to his colleagues. One of the reasons of having estimates is so that we don't get up and get this sort of foolish, blanket statement. You get a chance to go through the detailed estimates in each ministry and find out what these programmes are designed to do, and then the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) wouldn't get caught looking like he's speaking out against this increase in favour of energy conservation that his party has been advocating.

Tonight he stands up and he's against that. He says he's against these expenditures for advertising, but a public information programme on energy conservation is very important. We're committed to it, so the very nature of the way they're treating estimates makes it impossible for them to get detailed answers because they're trying to, in a global way, deal with a broad area of information in which they arrive at a false premise. They talk as if there was something wrong with this information. Yet when you get into the programmes, the one I'm dealing with, which is in the estimates of the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications.... There is a major new programme; the major jump to $141,000 just in the Energy Commission is just for that - energy conservation.

Mr. Chairman, it shows the folly of this approach to estimates. They can't possibly get that type of information. What happens on the other side is that they leave a false impression. I know they wouldn't want to do that, you see. They might leave the impression that there was something wrong with this advertising money and it was going to something mysterious other than government information programmes or encouragement in some areas for the safe-driving programme, or encouragement for the Attorney-General's accelerated programme to get the drinking driver off the highway. When you get into the various ministries, you'll be able to have them identify those programmes.

But, Mr. Chairman, the difficulty of doing it this way is.... I've already noticed a split. Obviously the member for Nelson-Creston is against the Ministry of Energy, Transport and Communications giving $141,000 to promote energy conservation. Obviously he doesn't want the money spent. Yet members in his party stood up and the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) wants more spent on energy conservation and on that programme surrounding energy options. There is the very real situation or problem that develops with the unspecified type of generalized statement the party has been making over there.

The other area, as I mentioned, is in dealing with global budgets and government spending. We were dealing in a global way and British Columbia again is well below the anticipated growth in the gross provincial product, which we think again will be approximately double the Canadian economy and an inflation factor which would be an average for the country as a whole. The inflation factor last year, the cost-price increase in Vancouver, was 7.2 per cent. As the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) would know, Mr. Chairman, for the first time this was the lowest inflation rate in the country. He would also remember, because he was a minister in a government, when British Columbia previously had the worst inflation rate in the country. We are now dealing with an inflation rate that is based on our experience of that year of having achieved a lowering of inflation. While price increases may still be unacceptable and difficult for many people on fixed incomes to

[ Page 1199 ]

handle, we still have the best recent record in the country, and we have gone from the worst record.

I can remember that member, when he was a minister, trying to explain to this Legislature why we had the highest inflation rate in Canada. I am sure it was him. They were embarrassed about it, and I know they would have attempted to do something about it. I am sure they would have. We were elected, and we did. We have recorded that 7.2 per cent in Vancouver, which was part of a report in November, I think it was, saying that the rise was only 7.2 - the lowest in all of Canada.

Earlier someone mentioned my constituency report. You have got to remember that the press secretary they talk about wasn't hired by me. He was hired by the former Minister of Education, the present member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) , who sits among the NDP, as part of a public service competition. He was transferred to my office. As all of my office appointments, it was made order-in-Council, even though he has moved over. All appointments to the Premier's office have to go through order-in-council even when they are public service. Even the secretaries, who are permanent public service, become part of the order-in-council process. I find it strange that a member over there was concerned whether he was a public servant.

The other night, along with people who are deceased, people who weren't appointed to anything, this man was part of a long list of what they called political appointments. You can't have it both ways.

So there is a split in that party over there, one member saying he's a civil servant who's been abused, another saying he's a political hack who was hired. Well, neither. What he did do - what my constituency secretary has been told to do - is to collect answers to any requests for information concerning the Premier's office. These requests automatically go to my information officer and my press officer, no matter what information is requested.

NIA's report is nothing more, nothing less than a collection of government press releases, which had been made in my own area concerning projects in my own constituency. Now this is, as are all HLA's reports, paid for by the government. There is nothing much political about this, except identifying....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The postage and the printing are paid for by myself. And here is what it is. Now what a contrast it was. Perhaps reports that other members.... Cheque for Safety

Village - this is a collection of something that had already gone out. My own staff - yes, Mr. Tozer in my office - was in charge of collecting this information, and the press secretary was asked to give him the collection of press releases from my own constituency that we had. Some of them had to come back from my constituency office because they were on file there. Now here is how political they are: cheque for Safety Village - it doesn't mention anything about Social Credit or attacks on the NDP. It's just a government programme- that has aided a safety training programme that's being sponsored in the area by the Association of Commercial Travelers.

Again, Indian council receives $53,274 -nothing against the NDP, nothing saying "Social Credit." It's a copy of a press release which said: "Westbank Indian council has received a $53,274 grant from the British Columbia First Citizens Fund and it's to help them develop a five-acre park."

I go on down here, out of press releases that have already been done, reporting a number of things that had been done by the MLA in response to local organizations and citizens: Rutland Lions to develop a park. And all of these agencies and all of these people have been very appreciative, and they haven't been used in a political way. This is a true report of an MLA's functions and activities and what he's been able to achieve in his constituency.

It goes on: "Cheque for the City." "What We're Doing on Sewage." "College Work on Schedule." "$1.1 Million in School Construction in Two Months." "Recycling Society Gets a $10,000 Grant, " "$13,000 Grant to Symphony Society." Now this is a report, a collection of the reports the HA did during the year, and that's what I did. That's what I achieved among other things in the year. It's an MA's report.

Now here's one that is put out by a member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) . This is what he did for the people of his constituency. Now there's nothing to say of any of the things he did in a concrete way, but there's a great attack here. "Socreds Make It Worse." "A Misleading Balancing Act." "Social Credit Costs You $110 a Month." "You Have Less Money to Spend." "Sound Economic Solutions are Ignored." "B.C. Needs More Than Slick Accounting." What it really is is the type of political pamphlet that that group is used to Putting out. It's not a report of doing anything for his constituency, not a thing.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: There it is. I just read

[ Page 1200 ]

what it said. And there is the difference.

Now I say again, Mr. Arnett did not have to do anything. All he had to do was collect the statements for us.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

MR. BARBER: In the committee I referred to a document, a letter written by the Premier on the Premier's stationery, dated January, 1978, which I gather he has confirmed is authentic. I ask leave to table this document with the House.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:01 p.m.