[ Page 1607 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Human Resources estimates.

On vote 152.

'Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 1607

Ms. Brown –– 1610

Mr. Cocke –– 1615

Ms. Brown –– 1615

Division on motion that Mr. Chairman leave the chair –– 1618

On vote 152.

Ms. Brown –– 1618

Mr. Levi –– 1619

Ms. Brown –– 1624

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES

On vote 152: minister's office, $145,890.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM; Mr. Chairman, I first want to take a few moments to introduce the subject and tell the House just a little about the ministry, particularly what has occurred over the past year.

Work is generally the accepted norm in society and most people take regular employment for granted, yet the opportunity to work, for a variety of reasons, is still denied many people. Disability takes various forms, including physical and mental impediments, emotional upset, age factor, social constraints and diseases. There's also lack of work history and job skills that inhibit job seekers' chances of obtaining a place in the regular workplace. No work, no pay-cheque. A dependence on welfare brings many pressures and stresses other than the deprivation of many items, luxury or otherwise, that we all desire and strive for, but also the unnaturalness of sitting about, not being able to participate in the normal way, and no hope of obtaining some of the things we take for granted. These pressures can well lead to other socially required helps.

We have developed a large number of good programmes to respond to these needs. Not programmes for the sake of programmes, not programmes to provide just employment for those involved in the service delivery, but real programmes to help people, accountable programmes and, Mr. Chairman, we are not afraid to alter those programmes, as we have done, nor to cut programmes or change priorities of such programmes if they don't deliver the commitment.

Our audit team has done an excellent job in surveying a large number of service delivery systems all across the province, and while by far the large majority are truly providing a good service, there are those who put forth a false, perhaps convincing, front. But under careful, non-biased scrutiny they show up to be far from honest with us, and we're not afraid to change priorities.

We in the ministry have directly promoted the value of the earning allowance. We developed a community involvement programme to provide still further opportunities for a still greater number, but more importantly, Mr. Chairman, we were the first to actively negotiate and lead the way with the provinces in trying to convince the federal government to develop a guaranteed income supplementation programme. This unfortunately had been ignored up until we attempted these negotiations. The federal government has not yet accepted the proposal, but one of our priorities this year is to develop an income supplementation programme they can't refuse.

Our present system inherited limiting the amount people can earn, and $50 for a single person or $100 for a couple or a family and a handicapped person is ridiculous for a number of reasons. I don't think I need to outline these, but certainly we've all heard of the examples where people are discouraged through this system in taking employment which might offer them just slightly or sometimes considerably more than $100, because there is a dollar-for-dollar deduction. We're certainly going to get at this particular programme very quickly and very effectively and I think we can put forth a good case to the federal government.

In keeping with our attempts to provide opportunities for people other than income assistance, we want to give some further outline of our PREP programme. I was a little discouraged and disheartened to hear the charge this afternoon from the member representing Comox (Ms. Sanford) that the PREP programme was dealing with people in anything other than a forthright, honest and desirable manner. The hon. member went on to say that there was this quiet, unassuming, shy, innocent lad who was forced to work 12 hours and that PREP was to blame for this. She failed to say how perhaps the parents might have been or might not have been involved since obviously we do not provide income assistance to a person 16 years of age. This is nothing new; it's always been that way.

The question occurred to me then and I'm hoping perhaps later the member for Comox might provide some information on that, but obviously our PREP people, as was shown ' to be the fact when we checked with our PREP office in Campbell River, went out of their way to help a young person. Perhaps, in all respects, it didn't turn out quite as it was wanted by all concerned. But I'd like to give a little information on that particular instance to show you how very often information can be twisted, perhaps with no intent of malice, possibly just by accident or the fact that it comes through a variety of sources.

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This particular young fellow, according to the people contacted this afternoon, a 16-year-old boy, was referred to PREP by the probation officer after several breaking and entering offences. There was a considerable problem. This young fellow had been involved with the law a number of times and the probation people felt that hopefully PREP might be of some assistance. While, as I said, normally PRFP would not be charged with providing for these young people, they did in fact agree to take on this particular young fellow's problem and attempt to resolve it in some way.

The young fellow, I'm happy to say, was very anxious to in fact become involved with a job. His attitude was: "Get me a job, any job." Finally after some considerable effort - because his reputation was well known in the area - our PREP worker was able to arrange for a cook's position with a small logging company. This is a family operation. According to the information provided me later today, he was not, as was suggested by the member in the House, expected to cook for a dozen people. As a matter of fact, the information given to us would indicate that it was one or two people for whom he was cooking. The arrangements were made and the young fellow was provided the opportunity to work as a cook. Apparently - to the best knowledge of our people in PREP -there was no discussion about wages. Possibly this was a mistake on somebody's part, but I don't think that we can fault PREP for not becoming involved with wages. This would certainly seem to be something between the employer and the employee or the parents - or some other guardian representing an employee in the case of a young person.

While the boy was working arrangements were being made through Canada Manpower for a training grant. However, before the training grant negotiations with Canada Manpower -which were almost complete at the time - were finalized, the boy quit. This is unfortunate. I think there might have been an opportunity for this young person to have received some training and to have been given a chance that might otherwise not have been available to him. Certainly in this particular instance PREP attempted to do something which they felt best for a young person.

The PREP programme has a history of successes and I can give you many examples; I have them here. Hopefully later I'll be questioned about PREP and I can then cite some of these examples of people who have received various helps. These are people who otherwise would not have been assisted through Canada Manpower - and understandably so, because Canada Manpower is geared to provide opportunities, should jobs be available, to people who are readily employable. Unfortunately or otherwise, Canada Manpower has not historically been equipped to provide for people who are in any way handicapped, be it socially or be it physically. The history of PREP very clearly indicates that it fills this very great need of providing assistance to those people who sincerely want it but who are unable to find it for themselves. As I said, I've got a whole list of examples here, but I won't go into them now. If later you question me on it, I can cite the examples then.

Our inspectors have also made a very considerable contribution to our programme in Human Resources. They have helped to make our programmes far more accountable. Contrary to what has been suggested time and time again by the opposition or other members who have understandably, or perhaps not, criticized the programme, our inspectors have not gone out like detectives or police officers spying and prying. Instead they have developed a very wonderful rapport with social workers throughout the province. That goes not only for the outlying areas, where some of the members would suggest we perhaps might obtain the greatest success. We are finding the very same level of success in Vancouver, where we're getting excellent co-operation now from the social workers, from the offices, from the managers, in making our inspector programme work as an assist to social workers. I certainly think social workers do agree - and should agree - that if they are given this assist through the inspector programme, if they are able to refer questionable situations - and there are many - to the inspectors, then the social workers can go on with their duties and with their chosen profession in providing counselling and other assists to people, assists for which they have been trained.

About a month ago the ministry established a manager committee to review all income assistance rights. Naturally - and it won't end, I'm sure, but will always be a question of priority for a good many people - the whole matter of rights is constantly being referred to me or people within the ministry. Normally, I suppose, it has been the practice for the minister to at some time in the year, or after a considerable length of time, make some decision as to where an increase might be given or how it might be given or to which category. We've taken what I consider to be a very democratic and very innovative and, I'm sure, a very promising approach in dealing with rates - through referring this to a committee of managers. These are people who are working with it every day in the field.

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This committee, a very able group, again with representation from all parts of the province, including representation from the Vancouver manager group, is looking at all aspects. They're not only looking at rates, they're looking at all of the benefits, because we've seen over the years a variety of benefits established. In addition to income assistance, they must look at special needs, diet allowances, clothing allowances, medical benefits and the like, because there are a number of other assists along with the income assistance. Unfortunately, however, many of these additional assists or benefits have in a good many instances created further inequities. I'm sure again that you're aware of some of them.

For example, where you find the utilities included in the rent, people are able to receive a portion of those utilities paid because the sum of money including the utilities is considered for cost-sharing, whereas in the northern parts of the province, where people have had the utility bills and they're generally not a part of the rent, they are burdened with additional costs and don't receive these helps. So we're looking at all of these additional benefits, and hopefully by this review which is being managed through the committee of managers we can come forth with a far more equitable approach from which all will benefit considerably.

The committee is bringing in interim reports from time to time, and I'm very pleased to know too - or perhaps "pleased" isn't the word, because possibly this indicates that we have something much larger than a provincial problem when we're dealing with the amount of income assistance provided to our people -that certainly, considering the income assistance and what other benefits are available, when compared to all of the other provinces in Canada, British Columbia ranks No. 1. As I said, in all fairness, perhaps that should indicate to us too that we ought to be looking at this more from an interprovincial perspective when dealing with rates and benefits in that we, I'm sure - including the members in the opposition - would want to see a fairly equitable rate between our provinces. I'm hoping to see this report completed by the end of the summer and, hopefully, then we can take some action on it shortly thereafter.

I'm also proud of the many advances made in the area of services to families and children, and the family support programme is a very effectivenesses of getting services to areas and people in need. Apprehension, I'm sure, as I know you are aware as well, has been overplayed too long, and our new approach has not only been lauded well by all organizations involved in the delivery of services but also by the social workers and all of the people involved within the Ministry of Human Resources. I think there is a statement in one of these reports which points out very clearly the value of this --Approach:

"Treatment in the home, since most family problems occur within the home, helps best to treat them there. The therapists see situations first-hand, not relying on someone's description of them. As a result they can suggest treatments or programmes that fit the specific situation and suggest new approaches immediately if the first idea doesn't resolve the problem."

So the whole concept of family support workers as opposed to a programme of apprehension has an enormous value and, as I said, has been lauded by all quarters.

Our child-abuse prevention programme has advanced enormously with the establishment of new teams and new strength in various parts of the province, particularly, of course, in the lower mainland area, where a good part of the problem occurs. I'm also encouraged - though again, perhaps when you view this in the overall, there is something to be considered once more for the whole of the nation - at least for our part by the statement which was made very recently by the manager of our family and children services when, following a federal-provincial consultation on child abuse held in Toronto on April 12, 13 and 14, she said that British Columbia was the only province giving top priority to prevention and treatment methods. I'm sure, once more, that all hon. members could agree that this is the route to go.

I'm pleased with the new team presently being trained at Woodlands School - and this is a first once more - to combat autism. Certainly I've become very familiar over the last several years with the agony and the problems that develop from having an autistic child in the family. It affects not only the child but it affects the family and the community. We need to tackle this problem and tackle it vigorously and we expect to do so through this new team which is being established there which, in turn, will go out and train other people throughout the province.

The project LIFE is receiving full government support. We are dealing now very effectively with a community living board in providing every opportunity for those in institutions who are able to care for themselves or be cared for with the appropriate assistance in the community. We have identified at Wood-

[ Page 1610 ]

lands School alone 200 people who could very well, given the appropriate resources, be provided for in the community. If we don't tackle that, these people will go on spending the rest of their days within that institution. While the institution certainly provides many good services, I am sure that everyone can agree that the community can offer them something that they are deserving.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would welcome the questions. I hope and trust that the debate will be very fruitful. We will provide whatever answers we can and certainly I hope that the members of the opposition and government alike might make suggestions for change that could be considered as we review our programmes and proposals from time to time.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to say that I certainly hope that this is the last occasion on which we're going to have to deal with the estimates of this ministry under the present minister. He's a millstone around the neck of the poor people of this province, and we've just got to get rid of him.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: That's very nasty.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, he stands up for 15 minutes and he mouths off myths and fantasies. He knows absolutely nothing about what's been going on in his ministry. He tries to bore us into a state of submission, quite frankly, and everyone knows out there that the poor people of this province have suffered under this minister in a way they've never suffered before.

Mr. Chairman, he likes to brag about his ministry. He's saved so much money. The one person in the government who is dealing with people in need stands up and brags about saving money. How does he save this money, Mr. Chairman?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Aye.

MS. BROWN: I know that the Minister of Economic Development doesn't want to hear the truth because he too is embarrassed by the Minister of Human Resources.

He saves money, Mr. Chairman, by cutting back on services. He saves money by not keeping promises made in the budget speeches. You read the budget speech and the throne speech of the government and it says all the great things they're going to do. The minister never delivers, the ministry never delivers.

He saves money by shifting the responsibilities of his ministry onto the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) , the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) , or anybody who will take responsibility for his actions. That's how he saves money - by shifting responsibility.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, he saves money by manipulating his ministry, using half-truths in reporting facts and figures...

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Well, he didn't ask me to withdraw it so it must be true.

... relating to the organization, the accounting and the staffing procedures of his ministry.

Mr. Chairman, the questionable methods used by that ministry in drawing up their estimates have resulted in inaccurate and almost fraudulent reporting of the work of his ministry, varying from the serious to the petty, and I am going to deal with those inaccuracies in speaking about this ministry.

The first thing that we've had to learn to do in the opposition is to ignore any statement made by that minister if it has to do with the staffing of his ministry.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Look, relax. You're going to hear it whether you like it or not, and you're not going to like it. I think the Premier should be grateful to me because I may be saving him his job as leader, that's what I may be doing.

HON. MR. BENNETT: As long as you're there.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, when the minister talks about the staffing of his ministry and how he has tightened up the organization and cut back the staffing, we should know how he does this. He does it by using front organizations. In fact he does it by doing his hiring through other organizations so that they do not show up under the estimates of his own ministry.

When the Vancouver Resources Board was in existence, the VRB was his front organization. That's what the VRB was. He could do his hiring and his accounting through the VRB, and it never showed up under the estimates of his ministry. Now that the VRB is no longer in existence, he uses the Community Care Services to do this job. It's a front organization for the Ministry of Human Resources. He did not invent the Community Care Services. They were always there, but they have never been used this way before. It has never been used in

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this fraudulent manner to help that minister cut back and show that he is underrunning and underspending and underhiring in his ministry, because it is just not true.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, to say "fraudulent manner" is unacceptable to the House. It is unparliamentary language, and I would ask that you consider the restrictions that we have on debate in this House regarding parliamentary language. Please continue.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the word "fraudulent" and substitute "inaccurate" instead.

Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of Human Resources ran an ad in The Vancouver Sun for an executive director for the Handicapped Industries Guild, and it said that anyone who was interested in applying for this job should send their application to the Community Care Services Society. That's this front organization. It advertised for a marketing coordinator, again, through the Community Care Services Society.

For his project Life, anyone who was applying for that job had to send their applications into the Community Care Services Society. This way they never show up under the staff complement of his ministry. So the minister can stand up in this House and say he's cutting back on staff. He's not cutting back on staff. He's hiring through a front organization. He's union busting as well. That's what he's doing with the Community Care Services Society.

In any event, who are the people who make up this Community Care Services Society? The president is the Associate Deputy Minister of Health from Mental Health, Mr. Porteous. The vice-president is consultant in mental health to the Ministry of Health, Dr. Tucker. The secretary - Mr. Cook of the Ministry of Health, the director, Dr. Bland, consultant in geriatrics for the Ministry of Health. Mr. Collins is the personnel officer for the ministry of health.

What does the Community Care Services Society do? The Community Care Services Society uses its offices as a means of hiring people to work in the Ministry of Human Resources, but they are never, ever recorded in the estimates of the ministry. Maybe when the minister is responding he would like to tell us, first of all, what amount of government funds he channels through the society. He is channeling funds through the society and we have no way of checking up on that because it doesn't show up in his estimates. How many staff are employed through the society? Where can we check that out? Because they do not show up in his estimates. In what way do any of these staff differ in any way from the staff employed by his ministry?

One of the interesting things that the Handicapped Industries Guild does, Mr. Chairman, which is hired by this front organization which the minister uses to hide the facts about his staff complement is to publish something called The Guild Gazette. The only reason that one can find for publishing The Guild Gazette is to show on one page three pictures of the Minister of Human Resources.

MR. BARBER: He has McCarthy fantasies.

MS. BROWN: That's right, he has McCarthy fantasies. There are three pictures of the Minister of Human Resources on the back and one on the front. The interesting thing about The Guild Gazette is that only one copy has been published, and that copy was published just in time for the PNE so it could be handed out at the handicapped booth at the PNE. I understand, in checking, that another copy is in the process of being printed to be handed out at this year's PNE as well. Other than that, no one ever sees or knows anything about the Handicapped Industries Guild and it doesn't do anything but talk about the minister and show pictures of him.

Mr. Chairman, the first thing that we have to do is demand an investigation into the running of the Ministry of Human Resources. These estimates are a fraud. I'm not calling the minister a fraud; I'm saying that the estimates are a fraud. There is absolutely no way that we can seriously look at the estimates put out by this ministry and say that they in any way accurately reflect what's going on in that ministry, because it's just not so.

Mr. Chairman, the minister even involves himself in some really very petty things indeed. The annual report of the Ministry of Human Resources for 1976, which we had to wait something like three years to finally be given to us, has a chart in it - figure 4 - showing children receiving subsidized day care. In 1975 the subsidized day care is very low on the chart, in 1976 the graph shows it's very high. Yet when we read the numbers, Mr. Chairman, we find that there were more people subsidized in 1975 than in 1976. This is the kind of petty fraudulence that the ministry involves itself in. The minister stands up and brags about the great things that his ministry is doing when it involves itself in even that kind of petty involvement.

Talk about the broken promises, Mr. Chair-

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man. If the Minister of Human Resources isn't more careful, he could become known as the minister of phony press releases. It's ludicrous for anyone to pay any attention to the press releases coming out of that ministry because they absolutely have no basis in fact. Last year, Mr. Chairman, a press release was issued promising a new $30 million programme for families and children. The budget came out and we looked everywhere and there was no $30 million. It wasn't included in the budget. The press release was released. The minister made a big speech about his great programme which lie was going to spend $30 million on. When the budget came out, the $30 million was nowhere in sight.

Last year we were promised emphasis on foster homes. Again, when the budget came out there was no sign of this increase in the budget. The budget highlights promised expanded community health service. Yet the Minister of Human Resources is reducing services to health and human resource centres right around the province everywhere. Where he's not cutting back, he's shoving off, he's shifting off, he's putting on the different ministries, such as the Ministry of Health. He's totally not accepting responsibility for his responsibilities but passing them on to other ministries. Of course, I have no idea why the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) allows himself to be used in this way by the Minister of Human Resources, but he does.

The False Greek Handicapped Co-op has been told by the Ministry of Human Resources that, whether they accept the designation of longterm care or not, the people living in that co-op are going to have to pay that $6.50 a day. That's the way in which that minister cuts back and has his great accountability and his great organizational skill.

In reporting on his office, the minister tells us that he's reducing his office expenses. When we check it out we find that the reductions only appear in the category of temporary salaries. That's the big reduction: he stands up here and he makes his big speech about cutting back on his office expenses and we find that the big cutback is only in the area of temporary salaries. These services, of course, can be supplied from other parts of the ministry so as to make his office look good. And, in fact, when we do an in-depth investigation, we find increases in all other categories in his office, including his office furniture. Everything is up by more than 10 per cent.

When lie talks about administration and community services, again under this vote, he tells us that the vote is supposed to reflect the elimination of the Vancouver Resources Board - and you will remember the debate in this House. He was going to eliminate the Vancouver Resources Board and cut back on staffing. This was going to result in a great saving to the people of the province. What do we find instead: he's cut out the Vancouver Resources Board and there is an increase in his staff positions.

The vote, of course, also shows us some very strange accounting schemes used by the Minister of Human Resources. In this, as in everything else in his ministry, nothing is straightforward, nothing is up front. There are all kinds of manipulatings and shiftings around going on in that ministry so that the minister can stand up on the floor of this House and tell us that he is saving the taxpayers' money, that he is cutting back on staff and that tie is running his ministry in a more organizational way, when he's not doing any of those things. All he has done is to change his system so as to avoid accountability. When we come to debate the votes, it will become very, very clear under each vote how this minister has been manipulating the internal workings of his ministry. Again I demand that the auditor-general has to take a look at the way in which that minister is manipulating the accounting systems and the organizational systems and the personnel systems within his ministry. He has changed the system of votes so as to avoid accountability.

I would like to help him by putting the pieces together for him. In the 1978-79 vote for administration and community services many changes other than the absorption of the Vancouver Resources Board are included. The 197879 vote has been changed so as to make it absolutely impossible to compare it with the 1977-78 vote under the same topic of administration and community services. It's not just difficult; it's impossible. That's the result of the kind of manipulation that went on in that ministry. The entire Vancouver Resources Board budget was moved from the 1977-78 vote 189 for community services to the 1978-79 vote 153 for administration and community services. The entire thing was moved. While no specific services were shown for Vancouver in this year's budget, we would like to have an accurate comparison with last year, and that is not possible because of the way in which this minister juggles his books.

A similar distortion has been Employed in describing the Island Youth Centre and the Guthrie Centre, which have been closed as treatment resources, as well as the Royal Victoria Group Home, which has been cut - it no longer exists. In the 1977-78 budget these

[ Page 1613 ]

facilities appeared under vote 186 for services to families and children. The 1977-78 vote 186 should compare with this year's vote on the services to families and children. Instead we find cutbacks and eliminated services moved to a different vote altogether, on to administration and community services. Of course, we know what this means. It means that the Minister of Human Resources is eliminating services to families and children, and transferring those funds to increasing his administration. And he stands on the floor of this House and tells us that his ministry gives the best services families and children in all of Canada.

He doesn't realize that he is not dealing with people who know absolutely nothing about social work - as he does. He doesn't know what's going on in his ministry. He thinks that he can play these manipulative games and that other people reading his estimates won't be able to pick it up too.

But the double accounting, Mr. Chairman, for VRB funds and for the transfer of children's services to administrative costs is not the only distortion that we find in these estimates. Honestly, I don't know why we are debating these estimates because they are so distorted. I'm using the word "distorted" because if I use the word that I want to* use, I'm going to ruled out of order. So I'm using the word "distorted." The estimates are so distorted....

MR. NICOLSON: Would you like to use "twisted"?

MS. BROWN: They are so twisted, Mr. Chairman, that to involve ourselves in debate of this estimate is just to participate in some kind of fantasy game with the minister. That is the reason why I'm making it absolutely clear to him right from the beginning that he has not pulled the wool over anybody's eyes.

It : en pulled over his. He may be [illegible] being without recognizing distortion when he's involved in distortion, but everybody else who looks at these estimates can immediately pick up the distortion.

AN HON. MEMBER: Aye!

MS. BROWN: You know, I recognize that the Premier has asked the back bench to attend to sit in this House, to see if they can learn something. Mr. Premier, release them, please. Let them leave; they are unlearnable. Let them go, please.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're free to go. You'll learn nothing tonight!

MS. BROWN: That's right, let them go. I don't think the minister is going to learn anything either, Mr. Premier, because in fact he's a very accurate reflection of what you want him to do.

Mr. Chairman, the double accounting for the Vancouver Resources Board funds is just one of the distortions that we find in vote 153. The family and children service division with a staff of 75 is shown as a programme administration expense of $1,464, 449. According to the vote, this is an increase from a staff of 63 and a budget of $1,166, 781 in 1977-78. In actual fact no such division was ever reported in the 1977-78 budget.

I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, and you can tell me if it is it allowed for a minister to publish a 1977-78 budget and a 1978-79 budget and put in it things that didn't really exist. Because what we find when we go back and check the 1976-77 with the 1977-78 is that he is showing things in this year's budget that were supposed to have existed in 1977-78 budget and do not. They do not, and that is downright dishonest. They did not exist, and I am not convinced that that is allowed. I do not believe that it should be allowed that estimates should be permitted under those kinds of circumstances. In the 1977-78 budget, there was no such division. It just didn't exist whatsoever. Yet we see it turning up as a comparison figure in the 1978-79 budget. Once again the minister has avoided accountability by changing his accounts. He has eliminated less powerful but more important social services on the mere suspicion of such distortion.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Of course he wouldn't be able to get away with that if he were running a business, but because he's dealing with people's lives, he can.

Mr. Chairman, in this case the minister has actually increased the centralized bureaucracy in programme administration while reducing, if not eliminating, the important role of the superintendent of child welfare. This is the minister who stands on the floor of this House and brags about his great concern for the children of the province and the kinds of services that he is offering. He had the gall to do that tonight again in his introductory remarks. He has centralized the bureaucracy, while at the same time he has been reducing and eliminating services to children.

Mr. Chairman, you would have thought that such a change would at least involve a debate on the floor of this House. Instead, we find

[ Page 1614 ]

it disguised under a change in a vote. That's the way in which this information comes to the floor of the House. In his vote dealing with services to families and children, the minister has given lip service to the importance of the foster home programme. Yet the 1978-79 budget reveals that this programme has been frozen at its last year's state. It has been frozen. With inflation, this actually means a decrease in real dollars and in real funds to the foster home. Programme expansion and rate increases are required but-are forgotten. The emergency homemaker services have been reduced, again from the 1977-78 figure to the 1978-79. These services which provide household management and child care services to keep families together in times of emotional, mental or physical stress have been cut back.

This programme should not be confused, incidentally, with the homemaker service which is provided by the Ministry of Health under its long-term care programme. They are two different services, in case the minister is getting them confused. The long-term care programme will not and does not provide homemaker services for family crises involving the minister's responsibilities under the Protection of Children Act. And I'm really glad that he's got his deputies with him because I can see they're giving him all sorts of information that he really should have. He certainly needs all the help he can get if he's going to continue.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Good people.

MS. BROWN: They're very good people, there's no question about that. It's just unfortunate that they have to deal with you as the minister.

While part of this reduction is a legitimate transfer to the health programme, it is also a loss of emergency child-care services. The loss of the service will reduce the ministry's ability to deal with family violence and family breakdown.

The real problem with this department is the difference between what the minister says when he speaks about the family, his concern for the family and for children, and what actually is reflected through the actions of his ministry, where he's continually cutting back on services, continually eliminating the kinds of vital services that are needed, particularly in this time of economic and social crises.

The vote absolutely represents the opposite of the minister's stated position. It represents a shift away from services to the family and an increase in institutionalized special treatment care for children after removal from their families. It's tied in with the whole development of containment centres, and building more containment centres rather than having preventative services at the family end, that's what it's doing. While you are saving money, or you're alleged to be saving money, the Attorney-General is spending it because of the kinds of really bad decisions that you have been making as minister of this department.

This particular vote is most notable for what is missing. We're still waiting to find the $30 million expansion which w were promised and is nowhere in sight. Despite promises in the budget speech for more dollars for community health needs, when the estimates come out we find cutbacks on the Human Resources. After the death of the Vancouver Resources Board we must express alarm at the 1978-79 cut in the budget for Health and Human Resources centres. We're wondering whether they're the next to go. First the resources board; then the Health and Human Resources centres. Inadequate funds have been provided for community grants. Without even allowing for the cost of inflation we will see the loss of more and more programmes like the list which I read out on the debate of the Premier's estimates.

Residential care and work programmes for the handicapped do not make up, for example, for the drop in the handicapped pension. It doesn't. A promised $20 increase does not cover inflation, and I'm going to be talking about the handicapped in more detail later.

How much of this money, anyway, is going to turn out this kind of slick nonsense, with three pictures of the Minister of Human Resources on the back. There is one picture of the Minister of Human Resources on the front, in focus, and everybody else out of focus on the thing. Mr. Chairman, the money spent on this four-page production would have been better spent in direct services to the handicapped.

In the health services vote, again, we find that Pharmacare funds are being used for TV ads starring the minister, running for leadership at the expense of the old people of the province. That's what he's doing. Wouldn't that money be better spent to ensure that the senior citizens could have the vitamins and other things which were eliminated when the minister changed this programme?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, time under standing orders has expired.

MS. BROWN: It has?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Just for the edification

[ Page 1615 ]

for all the members, we're having some difficulty with the lights so I'm taking the calls from Hansard.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I find this incredible. I want the member for Vancouver-Burrard to continue. Having had an intervening speaker, I'm sure now she can.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Burrard. I might remind you that we're in committee and not in the House. If she would refer to me as Chairman rather than Mr. Speaker, I think it would probably be correct.

MS. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. BARBER: She's thinking of your career.

MS. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know what your ambitions are, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, I may be a little bit ahead of my time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think you're anticipating something which I'm not anticipating, hon. member.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, we have suffered one and a half years of punitive attitude. We have seen phony fraud, audit and job programmes. We were promised that the "suffering was to enable more money to be given to those in need. The minister has admitted that punitive UIC regulations will force more people into dependency on his ministry. We find the bottom line in this story after one and a half years to be a $25 million cut in payments to those most in need.

Administration has had its budget increased while people in need have had their cheques cut. We know there will be more people needing help this year. We know that inflation is increasing. The budget ignores these facts and promises another $25 million cutback. Woodlands, Tranquille and Glendale have been promised - and had the promise broken - $30 million for community programmes. It is no wonder that these institutions are limping along. Of course, I am not going to deal with the fact that things like building occupancy charges are going up, as well as computer services.

I want to deal with another area of manipulation in the ministry. That is the shift of some of his responsibilities to Education and to Health.

Mr. Chairman, I got something in the mail which I want to read to you. I have no idea, what the source is, but it says:

"There are two issues that I think should be raised at the next meeting. One is that the question of who pays for the non-educational support for handicapped children is of increasing concern to senior officials in the Ministry of Education. There is a growing trend of public schools and teachers in particular having to assume services that traditionally were provided by the Ministry of Human Resources. Woodlands School is scheduled to close down in four years. But who will pay for the special assistance needed by some of those children once they are back in the public school system? Should teachers, who are, after all, experts in education, have to become experts in therapy and become custodial and medical personnel? It appears that the Minister of Human Resources' rumoured $100 million surplus this year is at least partly to be blamed for higher school costs."

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: I'm going to table it so you will get a chance to read it yourself.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: What's wrong with a handicapped child at school?

MS. BROWN: There is nothing wrong with a handicapped child at school except that you have shifted the cost for that child's education on to the Ministry of Education, and you go around bragging that you are saving money. That's what's wrong with it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Misleading.

MS. BROWN: That's right - distorting, misleading. I'm being parliamentary when I use those words.

"It will no longer be Human Resources that pays for a therapeutic pool for handicapped children. It is the local school board who will pay through an increased mill rate; that seem to be the current strategy."

We have to find out where the actual costs are coming from because you don't save costs. Somebody is paying for it somewhere. All that you are doing is either shifting it on to another department or putting it behind some kind of a front organization that you are using to hide your policies.

It goes on to talk about the new policy of the Ministry of Human Resources to require that every person asking for services will be be income-tested. But I want to deal with that at a later point.

[ Page 1616 ]

It ends by saying:

"To leave this policy unexplained to the public will backfire on the BCTF because increased school budgets are inevitably blamed on teachers' salaries. This policy seems to victimize particularly places such as Vancouver. Perhaps we might be able to get some actual examples from those people in the Vancouver system to illustrate this." It goes on to talk about it.

This is just an indication of haw at least one group, the B.C. Teachers Federation, is concerned about the way in which the Ministry of Human Resources is abrogating its responsibility and shifting it on to the Ministry of Education.

The other is Health: whether it is the Mental Patients Association, which is having its drop-in centre no longer funded under Human Resources but being told that it should be funded by Health, or the seniors, who are having their drop-in centre funding cut back and told that they should go to Health; or the False Greek Handicapped Co-op, who are told that, whether they allow them elves to be designated long-term care or not, they are still going to have to pay that $6.50 long-term care rate, which will mean that, instead of being able to pay $75 a month for their rent plus whatever it costs for food, they will now find they have to pay $201.50 out of their $265.

Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about another area of distortion; I'm dealing almost exclusively with distortions in that ministry. I really wish I could use the word "fraud, " because it is a fraudulent comparison of the provincial rates, but I'll use "distorted" - I don't want the Chairman to get upset. The ministry issued something called "18 Months of Progress in the Ministry of Human Resources." If it weren't so serious it would be funny. If it weren't so tragic, if we weren't dealing with people's lives, we could just discard it and throw it in the garbage. It is so inaccurate, it is so manipulated that it is unreal. What the minister has tried to do is a comparison of all of the provinces which shows that British Columbia is supposed to be the best in all areas. Well, I got curious about this because I have worked as a social worker in other provinces besides B.C. I happen to know that in 1972, when the previous administration became government we had one of the worst records in all of Canada. In three and a half years of government we were trying to at least catch up with the rest of Canada. And it's since the end of 1975 when this government took aver that we have started to fall back again. There is absolutely no way that, in a comparison with the rest of the provinces, we could ever be seen as being No. 1.

So I contacted all of these provinces and I got their rates and I got their information. Again, there is another instance of distortion, inaccuracies and a lack of correct information on the part of that ministry. We are not No. 1, Mr. Chairman. We are so close to the bottom it is pathetic.

When he talks about the single-person assistance, the basic maximum support for British Columbia is $175 a month. If you want to compare that with Manitoba - and I received their letter today with their latest figures in it -it is $236.80. It costs more to live in British Columbia, because I have the statistics here about what it costs to live in British Columbia. Ontario is $190, and it costs more to live in British Columbia. That deprived little Maritime province of Nova Scotia is $267, and it costs more to live in British Columbia. Saskatchewan's basic rate is $170 and they pay full shelter costs - no phony formulas. They pay full shelter costs, and it costs more to live in British Columbia. That minister stands upon the floor of this House time after time after time and makes these erroneous statements. They're picked up by the press, bandied around this province, about our being No. 1 in Canada. We 'are not. We should be No. 1, because we certainly can afford it. We can afford to allow rich people not to pay death duties when they die and leave more than a quarter of a million dollars; we can afford that. We should be ashamed of ourselves and that minister should hang his head in shame instead of walking around this province, spreading that kind of fraudulent statement - and I withdraw the word "fraudulent. "

MR. BARBER: Merely "hang" will do.

MS. BROWN: He should merely hang his head in shame.

Then we have another one about this 18 months of progress in British Columbia. He again does a comparison of people between the ages of 60 and 64. Again, Mr. Chairman, we find that on this phony sheet which is supposed to tell us that we are No. I in all of Canada, British Columbia comes up with a figure of $265. This is from the minister's department. I've got a copy of it and had it xeroxed and the Xerox doesn't lie. The Xerox is as accurate or as inaccurate as the information put out by his ministry. What does this 18 months of progress show for the 60- to 64-year olds? British Columbia's basic maximum is

[ Page 1617 ]

$265. Alberta is $303, and it costs more to live in British Columbia, because first we had to live with that 7 per cent sales tax which that government gifted us with, and at that time they were still living on $265 a month. Manitoba is $325, and it costs more to live in British Columbia. Ontario is $305.42, and it costs more to live in British Columbia. It embarrasses me to compare British Columbia with the Maritimes; it is an embarrassment to do it.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're an embarrassment.

MS. BROWN: Your minister is an embarrassment, your government is an embarrassment and your refusal to be embarrassed is an embarrassment, that's what's an embarrassment.

New Brunswick is $242, plus they pay any kind of average. The social worker has the discretionary power to pay any amount of overage that is deemed necessary. Prince Edward Island is $330, and big, fat, rich British Columbia is $265, and you have the gall to stand on the floor of this House and say that British Columbia has the best system of support for people in all of Canada. It is the worst. It's disgraceful, it's criminal, it's dishonest. I hope once and for all we will not have to listen to these phony statistics, this manipulation of the facts coming out of that ministry. Withdraw every copy of this 18 months of progress that you can put your hands on and recycle it - make it into craft board or something - but don't leave it out there giving people this kind of false information. It is fraudulent stuff, and I withdraw the word "fraudulent."

AN HON. MEMBER: No, that's a good word.

MS. BROWN: Oh, I can use the word "fraudulent"? okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I have been relatively patient, but since I'm being coached by your own members to bring you to order on this matter, perhaps I should remind you that we cannot say something by a secondary method that we're not allowed to say by the first method, and I'm sure you're well aware of that rule.

MS. BROWN: And I won't use a tertiary method either, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. member.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I'm getting a little bit hoarse here. Let us look at the handicapped on this incredible comparison sheet which was published by the ministry about 18 months of progress - this inaccurate, incredible sheet. Can you think of any other words for "fraudulent" that I can use?

MR. BARBER: Simply Socred.

MS. BROWN: Right, this Socred sheet.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: The Premier is embarrassed by the information I am giving.

Mr. Chairman, the handicapped get $265 a month. If you even take into account that as of July 1 there's going to be a $20 increase, we find again when we look at Alberta the figure is $303. The minister likes to compare with Saskatchewan, but again I point out that Saskatchewan has $235 plus the full cost of shelter. No strange, devious little formulas that nobody can understand - full shelter cost. Ontario - $270. Prince Edward Island -again, Mr. Chairman, that poor, little maritime part of the country, without any of the natural resources and any of the wealth that we have in British Columbia, can afford to pay its handicapped people $330 a month. Newfoundland, with the highest rate of unemployment in all of Canada, one of the most deprived parts of this country, can afford to pay its handicapped $309.50. Even the strange comparison sheet which came out of the ministry showed that figure for Newfoundland. Wealthy, fatcat British Columbia - $265 from your own sheet; poor little Newfoundland - $309.50 from your own sheet.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Your figures are incomplete.

MS. BROWN: They're your figures! They're not my figures - $265, that's your figure; $309.50, that's your figure. Now don't tell me that even when you look at your own figures they come out distorted. These are your figures that I'm quoting because I didn't get in touch with Newfoundland. These are your figures - $309.50 for Newfoundland, and they haven't got anything near the kind of budget that we have in British Columbia. It costs more to live in British Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, all I'm trying to do is bring it to the minister's attention that the province is not fooled by those inaccurate statements of his when he stands on the floor of the House and tells that a comparison with the rest of Canada will show that we have the highest rates in all of Canada. We do not have

[ Page 1618 ]

the highest rates for anything. We come up with some strange, weird formulas. If you want half of this and you take out a quarter of that and you stay behind this door and open that window-and you get $10. If you don't open the window you get $5. Nobody can understand, including your own people who have to deal with these strange formulas of yours. So, Mr. Chairman, I hope we've heard the end of this statement about the best rates in Canada. I hope we've laid it to rest once and for all.

Mr. Chairman, for the minister's benefit, I went to a lot of work to get the information and the comparison and I'd be very willing to help the Ministry of Human Resources bring its figures up to date. I can make this information available to you.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Chairman do now leave the chair.

Motion negatived on the following division:

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

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, in case anyone forgot, I just want to run over very quickly what I've been doing, and that is I've been trying to illustrate and demonstrate ways in which the minister has deliberately distorted first of all the organization, the accounting' and personnel in his ministry, then the comparisons that he's done with other provinces in terms of the services delivered and the distortion which shows up in his annual report, even to the very pettiness of the graphs illustrated in the report. I've also tried to show how he shifted the cost of his ministry onto other ministries and other departments, and how he's used front organizations to hide the true facts about the number of people in the employ of the ministry and the true costs of the running of the ministry.

I want to talk about one more area of distortion, and again I want to preface what I'm saying by 'saying that I'm using the word "distortion" because that is the parliamentary way to do it, but distortion is not what I'm really thinking about it.

Mr. Chairman, in the House, I guess it %, as in February, I asked the Minister of Human Resources if he would give me the exact figure of the number of people who were in receipt of welfare in the province. He came back and he said that there were 112,636. On prompting from the member for Delta (Mr. Davidson) , who asked him to compare that figure with other figures, he pointed out that there was a difference between 1975 and 1978 of about 16,000 people. He left that up in the air. He gave no explanation of why there was that difference, and I'm assuming that it's because he didn't know. He did not know why there was that difference in the two figures. I'd rather believe that he did not know than believe that he was deliberately distorting the information in terms of the difference in those figures.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MS. BROWN: It has been ruled that "distortion!' is a legitimate parliamentary word. You may not have heard it in Coquitlam, but it exists.

In 1975 the department changed its computer system. There was a switch in the city of Vancouver's welfare computer system to the Vancouver Resources Board computer system, and the next six months reflected the change in that system until the computer had worked its bugs out and had made the adjustment to the different way of counting these figures. I can illustrate this by saying, for example, if you look at the cost of the delivering of the service between 1975 and 1976, there was no change in cost despite the fact that there was this great decrease in the number of people who showed up on the computer system.

If you look, for example, at January, there were 125,044; February, 121,540; March, 120,580; April, 119,006 - and you see the gradual decline as the computer adjusted itself to the different way of doing it - May, 118,651; June, 113,362; July, down; August, down, 111,716; September, 109,033; October, 107,786. The computer shook itself down and adjusted itself to being switched over to the

[ Page 1619 ]

different way of computing and adding. It took six months to do that, and that is the period within which that 16,000-people difference occurred - just within that six-=nth period. The cost was $15,307, 000 in November, 1975, and in 1976 the cost was $15,667, 000. There was no appreciable difference in the cost.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No, a difference of 16,000 people should have shown up in the cost.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No, you didn't. There was no difference in the cost because there was no difference in the number of people. You left a distorted impression out there, Mr. Minister, through you Mr. Chairman. There was a distorted impression left out there that as soon as the minister assumed the portfolio on December 15,1975 - zoom! - 16,000 people disappeared overnight from the Ministry of Human Resources. That is just not true. There is a reasonable explanation for it and, again, if the minister does not have the figures, they exist because I got them from his ministry. I have all of the figures here and the ministry is very good about it. When you request information they're very kind about sharing it with you, and if you haven't got it yourself, Mr. Minister....

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Nothing to hide.

MS. BROWN: Of course, this is the reason I cannot understand why you have to resort, Mr. Minister, to distortion, and why you have to deliberately leave out their information which is incorrect, because it is just not true. There was not a drop of 16,000 people between 1975 and 1976 from the welfare rolls.

In fact, as you yourself have pointed out in your answer to the question, the drop was more in the nature of 1,000 people. That's all that it was. So all of these brilliant statements that you are making, these irresponsible, irrational statements about how you have cut the rolls and cut the costs, are another example of deliberate distortion on your part.

I will deal with other than the distortion in the ministry at another time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before we go on to the next hon. member, I would ask you if you could withdraw the words "deliberate distortion." While the word "distortion!' is in order, the words "deliberate distortion!' are not.

MS. BROWN: I would like to withdraw the word "deliberate" and allow the word "distortion!' to stand.

MR. LEVI: Mr. Chairman, I see the minister has two of his staff there. You introduced them, didn't you? No, he didn't introduce them. I'll introduce them. Sit down.

He's got his deputy minister John Noble and the first, and so far only, comptroller of the ministry, Martin Cook. Sitting up in the gallery is Vic Belknap, superintendent of child welfare, who has done great service to this province. Unfortunately my glasses aren't good enough to see all the other staff members who are up there.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Are they NDPers?

MS. BROWN: I thought they were civil servants.

MR. LEVI: Oh, that was a vicious attack, Mr. Chairman. Now, can we have that?

I think that what my colleague from Vancouver-Burrard did tonight was to lay down many of the facts that really put into question the credibility of the ministry. I will deal with the minister in a minute.

One of the major things that the Ministry of Human Resources has to overcome in the public is credibility. The only way that you can meet that credibility in the public is by making a sufficient amount of information available so people really understand what is going on, how money is being spent, what programme are being developed and what programmes are not being developed.

I heard the minister say, for instance, in talking about Woodlands, that there is a need to remove some 200 people. That is certainly an excellent idea. I point out to him that it's not a new idea. It's something that has been going on for some years. It actually started way before the previous government and had been kept on by the previous government. But I guess his statement really ties in with what the first member for Vancouver-Burrard was saying, that he tends to gloss aver things, make statements, and yet really not put any flesh on some of the bare facts that he's reciting in the House. It is important that the public understand exactly what is taking place in the ministry and how much money is being spent.

It's always been my feeling, and certainly my experience as a minister was that if you've got any good news, then by all means tell the

[ Page 1620 ]

people what's going on. The only good news that we've heard from the minister in the past two and a half years was the $100 million underrun that he had in the ministry. We have yet to understand, mind you, because we haven't got the public accounts yet, where the savings were made and what effect this has had on various programmes. It's certainly my feeling from traveling around the province and talking to people in the ministry and in the communities that there is something very seriously wrong in the ministry in terms of its credibility.

First of all, the major statement that I hear is that there is a greater degree of centralization. When one views the administrative structure that has been developed, I think that is the case. The indications are that when you have that kind of centralization the underlying factor really has to be that somehow you want to know exactly and continually just how much money is being spent. Even with the setting up of the information retrieval system in the ministry, it is still probably difficult to get the basic information from the field to find out exactly what is going on.

I am not particularly impressed with caseload numbers. I'm more impressed with how much money it costs to take care of single people on welfare, families on welfare and children in the day-care system. It's the costs, and then somehow you can put some true value to what kind of figures are being put out.

It's my opinion and it's an opinion that is shared by many people around the province that services have in fact declined, that the service base is not as broad as it was. Certainly there is no indication in the budget that it is going to broaden anywhere.

One of the principles that I know you have to operate that ministry on is the basis of what is going to be the future effect on people, whether it is children or whether it is families or whether it is single people, if you fail to provide the kind of programmes that are needed at this time.

We know from 20 years of experience under another administration that failure to provide programmes at that time led to an enormous expenditure by a government that was prepared to expend money on people's needs. So what you really have to concern yourself with is the whole question of future costs. It's all very well for us to say that we mustn't spend too much money on welfare because it makes at least 49 per cent of the population unhappy. That's true.

We know from the last election that one of the issues was the welfare issue. Yet at that time nobody would say that the old people were getting money they were not entitled to or the handicapped were not getting money they were entitled to or the families and children on welfare were not getting the money they were entitled to. The only people who were apparently getting money they were not entitled to under the system were all of those people between the ages of 18 and 21 who had hair all the way down their back and simply wouldn't work. That was the whole basis on which the discussion and the debate took place in 1973,1974 and 1975. In the election and after the election there was the question of how the money was spent.

Yet when you reduced it all down to the fact that you cannot deny children and you cannot deny families and you cannot deny old people and you can't deny the handicapped, where was all the money going? It would seen that to spend, as was spent in 1975, approximately $16 million on that single employable welfare group, a group that rolled over at the rate of 50 per cent, was represented to the public as being all of the money that was expended - not $516 million, as the last budget was, but $16 million was all that was allocated and was not spent. Yet it was represented as being all of the budget.

What did we get? We got an enormous reaction in which there was going to be a cutback. The first people to be affected by the cutback were the very people whom everybody agreed should not be affected. Those were the people who were 60 to 64 and the handicapped. They were the first people to be affected. Why? Everybody had agreed that nobody wanted to deny them any money. Yet for almost two years - in fact it's more than two years - the handicapped have been denied the increase. As I understand, they are going to get one on July 1. For two and a half years they were denied an increase. Why? Was that a reaction to the people out there who believed that far too much money was being spent on welfare? The opposition of the day, the present government, said: "These people are entitled. These people are entitled." Yet they were the first people who were not given any assistance: the handicapped, the 60 to 64 age group.

Then there was the discussion about day care. But let me just first stay with the handicapped and the 60 to 64 age group. What were we trying to do? We were trying to make people's lives better at the expense of the taxpayer. Many of those people in the category of 60 to 64 were contributors into the system and had paid income tax in the work force for years. They were sick or they had made no adequate provision for their future income in

[ Page 1621 ]

terms of retirement so we brought in that policy. It was new, it was different, and it took up a lot of slack where there was a lot of pressure. The same with the handicapped. We went from $139 to $265 because it was the human thing to do. The only thing that the government had to do at that time when they took over was to continue that approach to humanness and continue to give them the money. If you've got to find a scapegoat don't do it to the people who are 60 to 64. Don't do it to the people who are handicapped. In fact, don't find human scapegoats at all. That's one of the great tragedies.

What has happened in two and a half years? The person in the most difficult position at the moment is the minister. For two years he was riding high. But he certainly must be having a diminishing return politically in terms of the government. For two years he made outlandish statements starting with, "Pick up a shovel, " and on from there into some of the greater indecencies in terms of statements. But in terms of those statements, politically there has to be a point of no return for the government, and they have already achieved it. There is a diminishing return. People out there in the community are convinced that this is an inhuman government in terms of its attitude towards people. That's what has happened.

As a result, that whole attitude has affected the credibility of the ministry. It's difficult if you work in the ministry to say that you want to do certain things, to maintain certain programmes, when you know that you do not have the full confidence of the people who are running the ministry, in terms of the minister. That's a difficult situation if you're working with people.

I have listened very carefully over the past two and a half years to the minister to find out exactly what is new and innovative in the programmes that he's brought in since he's been the minister. I can find only one and that is in respect to the handicapped and the workshops. Let's give him credit. We'll give him credit for continuing with the medical benefits in terms of people going off welfare and into the work force, okay? Those two things in themselves are innovative and new. But what else? There's nothing in relation to families. After all, that was there; Special Services to Children was in place in 1973. Therapeutic foster homes were in place in 1973. The alternate schools were in place. The attitude towards foster parents was in place. The resource boards were in place.

So there were a large number of programmes. What the minister had an opportunity to do was to build on those programmes. But it seemed that the political decisions that were made were to dismantle those programmes. That's been a great tragedy because what's happened now is that the ministry has gone back to the time prior to 1971-72. It's gone back to the whole business of disregarding future costs for the failure to keep up with the programmes, and that's a tragedy.

We had great discussions in this House about fraud and fraud hunting because those are the headline grabbers. If the press happens to be snoozing on the job and somebody mentions fraud, somebody wakes up. After all, it's a bit of a headline grabber. You know, on a cold day when you've got nothing to do in this House and you want to get a headline, you say something about fraud and it usually winds up in the newspapers. We might learn something from the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) . One day he had nothing to do so he got up and said there were juvenile delinquents in the Empress Hotel. He said that and the press covered it. They didn't cover the beneficial effects of Mincome or Pharmacare or alternate schools or foster parents - that's what they covered.

So where are we in all of the things that the minister says that he has done? He's got to be very candid with us. He's got to tell us what it is in his ministry that he has done that is new and innovative beyond the two things that love mentioned. For instance, I'd like to give him notice of a question that I want to ask him. Why is it that in his estimates his computer and consulting services have gone from $599,000 to $3.8 million? Yes, it's in there. That's something on the order of 500 per cent. Now we'd like to understand just what that increase means. If he's going to tell us that that kind of service is going to be for information retrieval, for making more information available to the public, or he's going to get more consulting services, then we'll understand something. I'm giving him notice now because somewhere down the line when he gets to the last vote in terms of his estimates, we would like an explanation from him.

MS. SANFORD: We'd like it now.

MR. LEVI: Well, I don't want it now. I just want him to sit there, keep quiet and not say anything until tomorrow, because when he gets up he doesn't say anything anyway. My father used to have a saying about people speaking but saying nothing and he's a classical example of that because he does not underlie anything. He does not table reports.

For instance, here we have the 1976 annual

[ Page 1622 ]

report which we got, I think, at the beginning of the session. Now I don't know whether the minister is aware or not, but the ministry went to great effort in terms of information gathering to be able to put out a report of the ministry that would give the members of this House an up-to-date, factual statement about the operations of the ministry up to December 31 of the previous year. We used to meet in those days and when we met in January or February and we tabled the report in March, we knew that we had information right up until December 31 of the previous year. Here we have information that takes us to the calendar year 1976. We don't have up-to-date information. The minister has published a newsletter which I haven't seen which relates to 18 months of the operation of the ministry. We would be much better aided if we had one of these reports which brought us within at least three or four months of the actual operation, and that would be until December of the calendar year. We don't have that. One has to wonder why that's the case.

Then we have another very serious issue which I think must rest squarely on the head of the minister. What is happening in respect to legislation and children? Has the department completely lost its role in terms of what's going to happen to children in this province? Is it now going to become the bailiwick of the Attorney-General? Or is it not something that the minister feels confident enough to talk about? I'm not interested in whether there's legislation coining down. It's not there. But we do need to hear from the minister some philosophical statements. Let him think out loud to the public and tell us what he sees and what he would like to see in terms of legislation for children. We went through a very exhaustive study in this province on the Berger commission - the family and children's law commission. There was a great deal of detailed work done. There was a lot of legislation left in place when the government took over. Here we are two and a half years later and we still don't have the legislation.

We've had no real discussion from the minister about what his thoughts are on this new legislation. If the legislation is to mean anything, the minister who is going to bring in that legislation - and I presume it will be the minister; it will be him - will articulate to this House some of his feelings about what is going to happen and what he would like to see in terms of the legislation. We can talk about it; we have no legislation before us, but we're not pre-empted from talking about that. We need to know that kind of thing, because part of the business of running that ministry is communicating with a lot of people in this province about the kind of hopes and aspirations they have for a number of people in our society - and particularly children.

New year is the children's year. What is the province planning to do? They seemed to have got very exercised about Captain Cook. What are they planning to do next year in respect to children? The government will have an opportunity to focus in a real way on the whole question of the rights of children and the needs of children. And we need a statement now - not just from this minister but from the government, because the role of the whole business of attending to the needs of children spans three or four ministries, at least four - in relation to what kind of legislation we are going to be seeing in terms of the rights of children and what's going to happen next year in terms of focusing on children. It's not just for the children in this province or in Canada, but it's also for children in other parts of the world. We have a leadership role that we can take because we are somewhat unique in this province of having taken the trouble to do a very detailed investigation of the needs of children. It's based on a great deal of study, and it can be of use not only to this province or other provinces but to many other countries of the world. And people were looking when these inquiries were going on.

I would have hoped that if the minister was serious about the kind of legislation that he was looking to bring down in terms of children, he would have given some work to the Standing Committee on Health, Education and Human Resources. That would be where some of that legislation could go in terms of starting a dialogue. I know that we've had the discussions in terms of the Berger report for pretty close to two years, but that's already three years ago. We need to be brought up to date on this. And if the government is serious about doing something about the rights of children, there should be some work for that committee, because that's what brings focus and interest. At the moment we have one or two groups that are trying very, very hard to stimulate this kind of interest in the community, but what we're going to get, I'm afraid, is the kind of fait accompli situation where the legislation is tabled and that will be it.

There should have been the practice, as adopted by other ministries, of tabling legislation in a white-paper form so that the public can have a look at what the government has got in mind. It's important to take the public with you, and there's been a failure on the part of the ministry to do that. I can only

[ Page 1623 ]

conclude that the failure by the minister to do this is that he doesn't pack the necessary clout within cabinet; or, if that's not the case, then he obviously doesn't have the interest, because I'm not suggesting for one minute that you should do this to make the government look good and to make other people feel good - it's rather to give the public a much better understanding of what the issues are in relation to children.

One of the other things that I'd like to deal with is that I begin to wonder what happened to the juvenile delinquency problem. It seems, to have disappeared, it's no longer an issue in this province, it doesn't appear in the newspapers. We do not, apparently, have - or maybe we will have tomorrow - children who rape, loot burn and murder, as has been suggested by the Vancouver Province over the years. All of a sudden that kind of dialogue has stopped. What is even more remarkable is: what's happened to the services? Perhaps the minister will tell us when he gets up. He has closed down Brannan Lake; he's closed down the Guthrie Centre. Now where are these children being housed? If Willingdon is closed down because the legislation was badly written and is thrown out, again, where are the children being housed? What is happening?

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: Is it really happening? Is the minister going to tell us that what they're really doing is dealing with children in their communities? If that's what he's saying, then I will applaud him, because that was what the policy was when the previous government was in. Now if that's what's happening - that the onus is being put on the local communities to look after their children - that's fine. But he hasn't said that. Nobody's said anything. All we've seen is a succession of places closed down. For some reason it was always meat and drink to the press to say, when the NDP government was in, that they closed down Brannan Lake. Interestingly enough, we never did. The only two places we closed down were New Denver and the Willingdon Girls School; the others continued to operate. They were enhanced by the development of group homes and wilderness camps, all of which presumably are in place but not presumably expanded in terms of their service base.

So the minister should tell us what is happening to those children who previously went through the Island Youth Centre, which was formerly Brannan Lake. Who is doing the diagnosis and the assessments that used to be done at the Guthrie Centre? There was a coeducational programme. What is happening to the children who were operating out of the Island Youth Centre, who were part of an alternate school setting under the school system in Nanaimo? Where have they gone, how are they being looked after, or is the whole programme just scuffled?

It isn't sufficient for us to have to extract information out of not one minister but several ministers, and then we were faced with what seemed to be the most incredible situation where the Minister of Highways and Public Works (Hon. Mr. Fraser) said that no decision had been made to turn over Brannan Lake, and the Minister of Health's official made an announcement in the press saying it had been taken over, and these were the plans, and it was quite evident that the Minister of Highways and Public Works didn't know what was going on. But more importantly in terms of services to children, how are those people being taken care of that previously were in the Island Youth Centre?

I want to talk for a minute about the issues of centralization in terms of the ministry. We would like to hear from the minister why it is that there has been a gross attempt - and it's gross in its attempt - to this highly centralized Victoria-based decision making. Why is that happening? It's been happening pretty close to 18 months. Why is this taking place? Why has there been a failure to allow more autonomy in terms of the regional directors? And why is it necessary to have two and three levels of authority below the minister before the information gets down to the regional directors? What has happened? Why has this become necessary? Is this the philosophy of the minister, the centralized operation ... ? Because this was the government, this is the minister who has articulated that he wants to see decentralization. He wants to see a freedom of movement. They talked about this, and what we really have is an incredible stronghold by the people in Victoria over all of the policy-making that takes place.

It took us aver three years under the previous government to break this hold. It was felt it was necessary because if you're going to give some decision-making in the community, then you can take the community with you and you're going to have less flak as a department, if you've got people in the community -particularly in the role of the resource boards that we've developed - where they are prepared to understand and interpret it to the rest of the taxpayers. So what do we have? We have a continuing amount of complaint from various voluntary groups who are complaining that they can't get money, that their grants

[ Page 1624 ]

have either been cut back or cut off, and that everything is being run from Victoria. Perhaps the minister will tell us - he may not, because he hasn't told us previously - any of the reasons he does anything.

In terms of cutting back and saving money, that was something that was political or desirable for that party. They wanted to be able to show that they could do far better than the previous government by underspending $100 million, and then interpret to the public that everything is okay, everything is the same and everything is improving.

The minister knows as well as I do that you can't cut back $100 million, maintain the same programmes, and then every year think that you're increasing. It's the same kind of argument that we've heard time and time again from the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) . It's all very well for the Provincial Secretary to tell us that the tourist rate is up 25 per cent when they chopped it by 30 per cent. That's the same kind of thinking. You cannot talk about increasing programmes if you spend two years cutting programmes back. We can only deduce that these programmes have been cut back (a) because of the information we get from people who are affected, and (b) because the money that was being spent is in no way appropriate to any programme that would be expanded. I guess the best example would be the day care programme, where there has been a severe reduction in the amount of people who are receiving the subsidy. We just have to look at the number of empty places in the day care centres, and then we have to question very seriously whether in fact suddenly there is a declining need for day care as a preventive service, or if it is because of the policies of the government. It's my contention that it's the policies of the government.

They've cut back the eligibility in terms of the subsidy rates. Therefore the people are not putting their children in the day care centres, and as a result of that day-care centre places are empty. In the Vancouver area there are some 300 places. Yet it was well recognized almost eight years ago that one of the most valuable preventive programmes in terms of children was the day care, the early identification and the need for children with parents - particularly single parents - who are under very stressful situations to be in day care. That's why the programme was broadened to the extent that it was.

That's why the subsidy programme- was brought in. It was important to do that. We were able to convince the federal government of this need and that it was important that they cost-share on this kind of programme because it was preventive. It was one of the early preventive programmes. It started in a very small way some 15 years ago, it was increased, and by the end of 1975 there were some 22,000 children benefiting from this programme. That is not the case today.

Those figures are down to 16,000, and yet it has been adequately demonstrated that if we were to meet the total need in the province, we would be looking to make some 45,000 places in this province. Here we are with 22,000 places made and only 16,000 children in the centres. What has happened? It's a change of philosophy.

The government no longer believes that day care is a preventive programme, so they brought in the financial hatchet men and they've chopped it away. That's very unfortunate because there ums one attempt to deal with the whole question of future costs in terms of dealing with people, particularly children.

Nobody has articulated that. It's all very well that the minister may get up and tell us that there was some ripoff. That's the easiest word to explain everything. That's never been demonstrated. What has been demonstrated is the incredible value that that programme was to working women, for getting women off welfare. It was beneficial to children because it was attempting to operate on the principle that day care was necessary to children regardless of their economic circumstances. That has to be a principle that one has to bring in.

But we have a different principle coming in, which we will talk about a little later on in the minister's estimates - this pay-as-you-go system. We not only have pay-as-you-go with the ferries, and pay-as-you-go with the roads but we're now going to have pay-as-you-go with social services. That, Mr. Minister, will be a first in Canada. If that's something that you want to brag about, well, you go ahead and brag about it: because all you are going to get from this side is one heck of a lot of agony.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to just quote from a pamphlet, "Bill Bennett Talks About People and Policies." It says: "Mincome will be improved by directly linking benefits to the increase in the cost-of-living index." That is one of the many promises. The legislation was introduced, the GAIN Act. It's in there that benefits are to be indexed. It's never been proclaimed. We're still waiting.

I don't know why it's never been proclaimed, but I suspect that when the minister was addressing the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce he gave the answer. When he was asked

[ Page 1625 ]

why he wouldn't give that extra $100 million he was saving to the poor, despite the fact that he was even being urged to do so by some of his own staff, he explained that high welfare payments would have a negative effect. You can't give the poor too much money, you know, because it has a negative effect.

He said: "When you have these higher welfare rates, first of all you receive a great influx of people from other provinces." Now you tie that up with statistics that show that we are way down the list when it comes to benefits, and this is really an irresponsible statement on the part of the minister.

Mr. Chairman, he goes on to say: "But despite that, the poor of B.C. do not suffer." Despite the fact that he doesn't give them the extra money because it would have a negative benefit, the poor of B.C. do not suffer.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's right. The minister really believes that. You know, poverty breeds initiative and drive, right? The minister really believes that.

What is his definition for poverty, I wonder, Mr. Chairman? The definition I would like to use is the one used by the Westview Special Studies and Applied Social Research. "Poverty should be defined in terms of those who are denied the minimal levels of health, housing, food and education that our present stage of scientific knowledge specifies as necessary for life as it is now lived." That's what poverty is. "Poverty should be defined psychologically in terms of those whose place in society is such that they are internal exiles who almost inevitably develop attitudes of defeat and pessimism and who are therefore excluded from taking advantage of new opportunities." That's what poverty is all about.

When the minister was questioned, he told us the truth. As far as his ministry was concerned, there were at least 112,636 people who met that criteria. And who are these people?

Mr. Chairman, if we look at his figures, we find out that 58,701 of them are heads of households. Women made up 9,000. Single women were 9,254. Single men were 16,018. Dependents were 58,701 - dependents are children usually. Heads of households - and usually those were single-parent households - were 28,663. These are the people to whom he could not give additional welfare benefits and for whom he will not index the GAIN legislation because it would have negative effects on them if they had an additional income.

Mr. Chairman, a study which has just been completed by the C.D. Howe Institute tells us that the poor are getting poorer, despite income redistribution programmes, and that the gap is widening. In fact it is not being closed. One of the reasons, of course, is the minister's attitude that if you use the money and give the poor more, it will have a negative effect and therefore they shouldn't be given any more. That is one of the reasons.

A woman wrote a letter to The Vancouver Sun , Mr. Chairman, and this is what she said.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Talk about distortion!

MS. BROWN: Well, look. I'm quoting and if anyone's distorted it, it's been the newspaper that reported it. I'm very happy to table it. It's a direct quote from the press because I was not present when you spoke to the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce. It's a direct quote from November 24,1977.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Table it and I'll talk to the reporter.

MS. BROWN: Table it and he'll talk to the reporter. Using intimidation - you're trying to threaten the press, I see.

Mr. Chairman, another report we have says that according to the B.C. Association of Social Workers, a study they did shows that welfare families are falling further behind, and one of the reasons is the refusal of the Minister of Human Resources to have the section of the Act proclaimed that would index their benefits. Why not index their benefits?

When the minister was asked about this earlier, he said: "Well, in fact, they may not be much better off if I had indexed the bene fits." We'll start out by indexing their benefits, then we can look at the system and see how much they benefit or if in fact they're still falling behind. But start out by indexing the benefits. It doesn't make sense to promise in your "Bill Bennett Meets the People" campaign literature to index the bene-fits, then to introduce legislation with a section which says the benefits will be indexed tied to the cost of living, and then refuse to proclaim that section of the Act.

Mr. Chairman, the Federated Anti-Poverty Groups prepared a study that shows that the $20 increase the minister promises to the handicapped people of the province on July I in fact is going to have very little impact in terms of the basic rate to the poverty level. It showed that whereas they were 68 per cent behind in 1976, in 1977 they are 63 per cent behind and in 1978 they are going to be 66 per cent behind. This is one handicapped adult. It's broken down for one adult with a child

[ Page 1626 ]

and a family of two, a family of four or a family of five. So for the minister to say that on July I there's going to be an increase of $20 is still not to address himself to inflation and to the increase of the cost of living in the province.

What people in receipt of GAIN are asking is that that section of the legislation should be proclaimed, that the benefits should be indexed. The basic rate has to be improved. It has to be brought in line, first of all, with other provinces. What most of the groups are asking for is a basic rate of $230 and indexing. If you increase the base rate to $230 for an individual and then index it, maybe we will start to be able to do something about the widening gap. People who are poor will find that if they're not catching up, at least they are standing still, they won't be falling behind. It needs that leap first in the basic rate and then it needs the indexing.

Mr. Chairman, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association has canvassed a number of people.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Well, the churches for one. Did you say "What people?" Oh. I'm sorry, I thought you said "What people?" They didn't canvass Surrey Dodge because they knew that the member who couldn't see a Mustang parked in the lot in front of him wouldn't be able to see that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The members don't require a citation from May on relevance. We could just proceed on the relevant facts of vote 152.

MS. BROWN: It's very difficult to be heard over the member for Coquitlam.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, they canvassed the churches and various community groups.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Oh, he's back. Oh, good grief!

Half of the people endorsed the increase to $230 basic, indexed. Mr. Chairman, the cost to the department would be $48 million, which is less than half of the underrun which the Minister of Human Resources tells us that through his manipulations and distortions and his use of front organizations he has been able to save in the ministry.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to take this opportunity to read into the record one of the resolutions debated at the convention on the weekend:

"Whereas the poorest people in British Columbia are those who depend on the provincial government for their income, through the Ministry of Human Resources; and whereas the stated goal of the income assistance programme is to provide people in need with assistance to facilitate health and decency in their daily living; and whereas the present meagre rates of income assistance are too low to provide basic needs for rent and nutrition and utilities; and whereas the buying power of people dependent on income assistance is decreasing drastically as the cost of living increases; and whereas aver half of the people in the province who are dependent on income assistance are children and should not be penalized by having to live in extreme poverty; and whereas about 23,000 are heads of families, mostly single parents, 15,000 dependent on income assistance are handicapped or too old to compete for the few jobs which exist; and whereas the 15,000 theoretically employable people on income assistance are unable to find jobs because in the present economic system they do not exist, therefore be it resolved...."

What they are asking for, Mr. Chairman, is the first priority of the government to increase the basic rate of income assistance to a minimum of $230 for a single person, with a corresponding rate increase in other categories, including the handicapped persons income and income for people between the ages of 60 and 64, and to have all of the income assistance rates indexed and tied to the cost of living and retroactive to January of this year.

I want to say that we use a figure of 15,000. 1 notice the minister, in his press statement, when asked about the number of people in receipt of welfare, said that of the people on welfare only 20,000 were eligible for work. So he uses a higher figure than we do.

Of the 112,636 people, only 20,000 are eligible for work. So when he deprives, as I said before, he is depriving the 58,000 children as well as the single-parent families and the people between the ages of 60 and 64. Mr. Chairman, we have here a graph which shows the poverty level set by Senator Croll's department compared with the GAIN rate, and we find that GAIN ensures that people in receipt of income assistance in British Columbia live very far below the poverty line. I think the minister should take that into account and seriously look at these income assistance figures of his and then at least consider the

[ Page 1627 ]

recommendation that he go to a base rate of $230 a month and then index it from there on.

Mr. Chairman, a letter was sent to the Premier by Rev. Griffin of First United Church in which one of the things he did was break down a budget for a family. He uses the case of a mother and two teen-aged children whose income assistance cheque would come to $513. He broke it down into rent, fuel, telephone, food and clothing, and found that after all the bills were paid, it left approximately $1.73 a day per person in that family unit to cover the cost of food, clothing and miscellaneous. It is just not possible to live with any kind of dignity under the income assistance rates paid by the present government.

He broke down another family of seven and showed that even with the rental overages with the family allowance cheque added to that, their calculation worked out to $1.87 per day per person to cover the cost of food, clothing and miscellaneous.

He cited the case of a 51-year-old single male who was trying to live on $175 a month and said that he was starving and, of course, he was unable to find any form of employment. He cited the case of a 46-year-old male who was trying to live on $175 a month, and he said that he too found that this was not possible to do, because the fact of the matter is that it is not possible, even for a single person, to live on $175 a month.

Reverend Griffin goes on to say that in comparison with rates of other provinces - and I used those rates earlier - British Columbia has to be ashamed of itself for having these kinds of rates for people to live on. There are a number of other letters to the Premier and to the Minister of Human Resources on this topic.

I want to very quickly deal with just one other thing. That has to do with the decision of the ministry, the order-in-council, which said that compensation paid for injury is to be considered as income. That is so punitive. It really was a very punitive decision on the part of the Ministry of Human Resources to do that. Compensation paid for injury, whether it's Workers' Compensation Board payment or it's a case of criminal injury or whatever the situation is, to include that as income and to have it deducted....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN. Hon. members, please. We are on vote 151, the office of the Minister of Human Resources. The first member for Burrard has the floor. Perhaps we could stay in order.

MS. BROWN: I just went to bring to the minister's attention that most of the senior citizens and the older people and a number of people between 60 and 64, et cetera, who live in the downtown area of Vancouver live in an area where there are a lot of muggings and these kinds of things going on. Occasionally they do receive compensation, usually around $200 or $300 - not very much money. Immediately that they receive that compensation....

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Well, look, it's order-in-council that that has to be deducted from HPIA or else it's deducted from their pension cheques.

It says here, criminal injuries, F78-13. That's the one that I took it from. If that's not true, then I think you'd better get the word out there, Mr. Minister. If that is not true, the word should get out there that victims of the criminal injuries Act who get compensation under this Act.... It is not to be. considered as income and that they should not have it deducted from their cheque in terms of their GAIN, because even the Sun of December 14 is under the impression that it is presently deducted.

The First United Church again - this is the Reverend Hennessy of the staff team of the First United Church - brought this matter to the attention of the minister on May 8,1978. I don't know if you've received this letter yet, but it was mailed to you on May 8 and it referred to order-in-council 3360 dealing with criminal injuries awards. Again it asks the minister that these awards not be included as income in terms of deciding whether the GAIN cheques should be deducted or not.

He pointed out, Mr. Chairman, that aside from the disability, the pain, suffering, disfigurement and replacement of artificial limbs, clothing, eyeglasses, dentures, hearing aids and other such item which may be broken or damaged as a result of a crime, they should not have to lose part of their cheque as well.

Mr. Chairman, I have an example of a 50-year old in receipt of social assistance who also receives some Workers' Compensation Board pension, and that was considered income and deducted from his social assistance cheque. There are a number of instances, you know, where people are in receipt of income assistance, which is about as minimal as is humanly possible an income to have, absolutely minimal....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's right, but that's not what

[ Page 1628 ]

I'm here discussing. That may, Mr. Chairman, be what interests the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Chabot) , but that's not what I'm here discussing.

In any event, I'm appealing to the ministry and to the Minister of Human Resources to withdraw order-in-council 3360 and to issue through regulation or whatever information to the staff, certainly in the downtown east side area of the city, that Workers' Compensation Board pensions and awards made in instances of criminal injury not be t-considered part of income for purposes of the GAIN legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to bring to the attention of the minister an article of December 14 in the Sun dealing with this particular issue, and ask him if it is incorrect, whether he would set the record straight.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to bring to the attention of the minister an article on December 14 in The Vancouver Sun dealing with this particular issue and ask him, if it is incorrect, whether he will set the record straight.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Leave granted for a division to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10.35 p.m.