[ Page 2081 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions.

Responsibility for homeowners' taxes. Mr. Stephens –– 2083

Columbia power project costs. Mr. Lockstead –– 2083

Federal-provincial committee on heroin. Mr. Gibson –– 2084

Government waste and incompetence. Mr. Cocke –– 2084

Committee of Supply; Ministry of the Attorney-General estimates.

On vote 16.

Mr. Lauk –– 2085

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2090

Mr- Lauk –– 2091

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2091

Mr- Lauk –– 2092

Mr. Macdonald –– 2092

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2093

Mr. Stupich –– 2093

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2095

Mr. Stupich –– 2096

Mr. Lea –– 2096

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2097

Mr. Lea –– 2098

Mr. Stephens –– 2098

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2100

Mr. Stephens –– 2101

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2102

Mrs. Dailly –– 2103

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2104

Ms. Sanford –– 2105

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2105

Mrs. Jordan –– 2106

Mr. Macdonald –– 2108

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2108

Mrs. Jordan –– 2109

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2109

Mrs. Jordan –– 2110

Mr. Gibson –– 2110

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2112

Mr. Levi –– 2115

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2116

Mr. Levi –– 2117

Mr. Strongman –– 2117

Mr. Gibson –– 2118

Mrs. Wallace –– 2118

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2118

Mr. Macdonald –– 2119

Mr. Gibson –– 2119

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2119

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I have a number of introductions today. In the gallery we have from the city of Penticton in my constituency, Mr. Harold Merrick. We also have Mr. Chuck Emery from Oliver. Mr. Emery is a member of the B.C. Marketing Board and also the chairman of the new group which is concerned about the water quality in the Okanagan basin. I ask the House to bid them welcome.

Also in the members' gallery today are three gentlemen from the Faculty of Agriculture at UBC: Dr. Warren Kitts, Dr. Les Lavkulich and Dr. Bert Brink. I would like to speak a moment, if I may, on Dr. Brink, who has 34 years' service at UBC. He started in 1940 as an instructor. He was with the Canadian army from 1942-45 as an instructor of mountain troops. He returned to UBC and in 1952 was made a full professor, continuing in that position until his retirement in 1977. He holds the degrees of BSA, 11SA and PhD. He has been involved in a wide range of professional and scientific societies, including the Gene tics Society of Canada and the American Society of Range Management. He is past president of the Vancouver Natural History Society, served with the B.C. Natural Resources Conference committee and has held several offices with the Institute of Agrologists.

He has also been involved with many community services: the Boy Scouts, the Vancouver Museum board and the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association. Yesterday he was presented with the Man of the Year award by the Pacific Seedmen's Association. I would ask the House to bid him a very warm welcome.

MR. BARBER: In the gallery this afternoon is a group of grade 9 students and their teacher, Lynda de Roseenroll, from Central Junior Secondary School in greater Victoria. I ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. SHELFORD: I'd like the House to welcome Alderman Lee Ellis from Kitimat and my secretary, Lee Barr, from Terrace.

MR. MACDONALD: In the gallery today we have a very distinguished British Columbian, Mr. Hachi Miyazawa, who was born in Japan on January 13,1888, and arrived in British Columbia in 1907. He was a founding member of the Cazp and Millworkers Union. He is in the gallery with his daughter, Mrs. Pearl Boelt.

MR. BAWTREE: In the precincts this afternoon is the class of grade 7 students from Grindrod Elementary School in the Shuswap. Accompanying them are Mr. and Mrs. Peebles, Mr. and Mrs. Knight and their son Tom, Mrs. Poor and Mrs. Rosie Brodoway. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. BARNES: In the gallery with us this afternoon is Mr. B.J. Johnson. I would like to ask the House to join me in making him welcome.

Oral questions.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave of the House that the rules be suspended and that we withhold question period for perhaps an hour until more cabinet ministers are in. There are only eight out of 17, and on that basis I would ask leave of the House that question period be suspended for an hour.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

MR. BARRETT: Are there any noes, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: I heard noes, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: Is that your ruling?

MR. SPEAKER: No, it is not a ruling; it's a hearing. (Laughter.)

MR. BARRETT: Oh. Mr. Speaker, then I question your hearing. (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKER: May we proceed with question period?

MR. BARRETT: Are you making a ruling that there can be no challenge of your hearing, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member. When noes are clearly heard when leave is asked for and leave is not granted, I don't know of any debate or any further points of order on that question.

MR. BARRETT: There is, of course, the matter of whether or not I can challenge your ruling as to whether or not you can rule. That is correct, is it not, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: It would be a little difficult, hon. member, since I did not make a ruling.

[ Page 2082 ]

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, are you refusing to make a ruling?

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member. We're just enforcing the rules. May we proceed to question period?

MR. BARRETT: Well, I challenge that as a ruling, that that is the rule.

MR. SPEAKER: May we proceed to question period, please?

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, you are telling me that you cannot make a ruling. That is correct. I challenge that as a ruling itself.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. BARRETT: We'll get a few more in here.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, as I understand it, the question is on the matter of whether or not there is an appeal. An appeal presupposes that a ruling will have been made. Since there was no ruling made, there can be no appeal. Since there is no ruling, there is no challenge. That is not even a ruling. We are operating in a vacuum.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, are you making a ruling on my appeal?

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member, I'm making an observation.

MR. BARRETT: Well, Mr. Speaker, you cannot run the House on the basis of observations. If you're making a ruling on my request for an appeal, that that's out of order, then I challenge that ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. member wishes to change the rules of the House, that can be done by substantive motion. 1 would welcome the hon. member to introduce, with notice and with a seconder, a substantive motion on the order paper. I would be very, very happy to allow discussion at that time.

MR. BARRETT: I'm not asking leave to put a substantive motion on the floor of the House. I'm asking you, and you reject an appeal that I made on the basis of ruling, so I say I challenge that ruling that you've made on the basis of my appeal.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon member, no ruling has been made. It was strictly an enforcement of the procedures and practices and standing orders of the House. Therefore I must now ask that we proceed to the orders before us.

MR. BARRETT: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, before we proceed to business there has to be a ruling on what the procedure is. If you gave an interpretation of the procedure and you say there's no appeal and that is by the rules that there's no appeal, then I challenge your ruling on that procedure, and that is always in order.

MR. SPEAKER: I have listened very carefully to the member's logic, and it appears to me that the discrepancy is not with an appeal to a ruling of the Chair, but with the standing orders of the House. I would welcome a motion that would question the standing order, and indeed have the question put to the House as to whether or not they would wish it to be changed.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the exchange of opinions. However, opinions do not rule this House. Either you make a ruling or you don't make a ruling. If you're giving an opinion, then we can exchange opinions all afternoon. That serves no purpose. You must give a ruling on my right to have an appeal. If you say that I have no such right then I have a course of action to follow and 1, Mr. Speaker, an asking you for a ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, there is no ruling to be made. It is strictly an enforcement of the rules and the practices of the House.

MR. BARRETT: You are enforcing a rule?

MR. SPEAKER: I am enforcing a rule.

MR. BARRETT: What rule, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Just a second. I'll get you the statute.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, in order to change a practice or a ruling of the House -that is, the rules by which the House is run -it requires unanimous consent of the House. Essentially that's what the Leader of the Opposition asked for when he asked leave that the rules be suspended.

That question is put to the House. If there is even one dissenting voice, that means that

[ Page 2083 ]

the House is not pleased to grant that change to the ruling and, as a result ' by practices of long standing in this House, it means that the rules cannot be suspended. That is the juncture where we're at at the present moment. These are practices to which we would like to adhere. If they want them to be changed, I must say again that they will have to be changed again by unanimous consent of the House.

MR. BARRETT: Then perhaps to resolve this point of order, I will direct correspondence Lo your office, asking for an interpretation from you in writing as to how one handles the hearing of a no. I heard no "no." A judgment was made and, as a consequence, there must be some recourse. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I will address correspondence to you on this point.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, there was one "no" clearly identified by a member of this House standing to his feet arid identifying himself as a "no". I think there is no question about whether or not there was a "no". May we proceed, please?

RESPONSIBILITY FOR

HOMEOWNERS' TAXES

MR. STEPHENS: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) a question concerning the responsibility for the horrendous increase in homeowners' taxes. His answer indicated to this House that he felt that was not his responsibility but the responsibility of the municipalities.

Since the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) appears to have been appointed a spokesman on this financial issue, I now ask him if he's of the same opinion as the Minister of Finance, that it's not this government's responsibility that the homeowners' taxes are going up but the responsibility of the municipalities. Do you agree with the Minister of Finance?

HON. MR. CURTIS: That's out of order. It's not his responsibility.

MR. SPEAKER: An answer is not forthcoming.

MR. STEPHENS: The minister refuses to stand up, but he was appointed by this government to appear on a television debate with me and spoke to it today. He has obviously been appointed a spokesman; he has accepted that position. I would ask him to stand up and answer the question.

MR. SPEAKER: I would remind the hon. members again that we seem to have forgotten sow of the rules of the House today. We may ask a question; we may even ask a supplementary question. But we cannot insist upon an answer and I cannot therefore insist upon the member's insistence.

COLUMBIA POWER PROJECT COSTS

MR. LOCKSTEAD: As a comment, you may notice that it is traditional in this House, if we are following tradition, as you stated a few minutes ago, that the official opposition usually gets the chance to ask the first question.

My question is directed to the Minister of Finance responsible for B.C. Hydro in this Legislature. Last week the minister gave the cost of the Columbia power project in answer to an order-paper question. The minister said the estimated cost was $1.291 billion and that the United States had paid $479 million, leaving the B.C. taxpayer to pay the balance of $812 million. The total figure is $175 million less than the figure given last year in answer to an order-paper question. Can the minister confirm that the cost of generating units 5 and 6 at Mica Dam were left out of his answer?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Could I ask the member here to repeat the allegation he just made? I believe the member opposite is referring to a newspaper article having to do with very complicated reportings.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It's on the order paper.

HON. MR. WOLFE: They do not want an answer. They needn't prattle around like a bunch of children.

He's referring to a newspaper article referring to the ongoing estimates of completion of the various treaty projects and transmission lines, et cetera. I'm given to understand that as the length of time involved in some of the components in that is now extending into the year 2000 and beyond, it's a constantly re vised estimate of future needs. The load factor required for energy development means that these requirements are so far distant in the future that it is quite common for revisions of this kind to be made.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Can the minister confirm that the cost to the B.C. taxpayer, including units 5 and 6, will be at least $987 million plus future inflation costs?

[ Page 2084 ]

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

MR. SPEAKER: On a final supplementary, the member for Mackenzie.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I didn't say final, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I said final. (Laughter.) Please proceed.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask that minister just what the former Social Credit Premier, W.A.C. Bennett, meant when he said: "Columbia River power will not cost B.C. taxpayers a nickel." Is that what he meant?

AN HON. MEMBER: It cost us $900 million.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It cost us $1 billion - down the tube.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Once again, Mr. Speaker, the answer was given to a question on the order paper. I think it's more appropriate to deal with detailed questions of this nature on the order paper. So if he has a further question in this regard, it should be addressed in that manner.

FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL COMMITTEE ON HEROIN

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Health. Yesterday I asked the minister if any effort had been made to obtain more accurate statistics on the extent of heroin abuse in the province. The minister informed the House that some statistics had been developed by what he called the joint co-ordinating task force operating under the federal-provincial committee on heroin, but that their study was not complete. I would ask the minister: is he referring to the task force on heroin epidemiology and when does he expect it to complete its report?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, no, I'm not referring to the task force on heroin epidemiology, I'm referring to ongoing studies being done by the federal-provincial drug strategy committee.

MR. GIBSON: Supplementary: Mr. Speaker, could the minister tell the House whether the task force on heroin epidemiology has completed its report?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, no, I can't tell the House at this point.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, could the minister undertake to check into this most important question and advise the House as soon as possible, because there is an urgent debate coming up on this matter? Could the minister answer that question, please? Would he do that? He's nodding; let Hansard show that.

MR. LAUK: Is he nodding or shaking?

GOVERNMENT WASTE AND INCOMPETENCE

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to put a simple question to the Minister of Finance, one that I'm sure he can answer, respecting government waste and incompetence.

Mr. Speaker, I got a letter the other day from one of my constituents, a Michael Yuen. Michael Yuen at that time was worried because already he had cost the government three annual reports from the Department of Labour, each addressed to the same person and each with the same address, initials and everything else. By the time I got home on the weekend, Mr. Speaker, he had two more. Now he has five. I would ask the minister whether we can stand this strain and whether or not he is going to do anything about this bungling and incompetence of our government.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The bell ends the question period.

MR. LEVI: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the Clerk actually computed the time right. It's a 15-minute question period. I made a note that we started at 2:23.

MR. SPEAKER: I think the computation of the time is left to a timekeeper.

MR. LEVI: I also kept the time. It was 2:23 when we kicked it off.

MR. SPEAKER: The time when question period began was 2:15. The order was called and the response of the timekeeper began at that moment because of the call of the Chair for question period, following which there were several questions regarding rules of order. The time ended at 2:30. 1 hope that clarifies the matter.

Is there a further point of order?

MR. LEVI: I ask your guidance. Are we including the point of order within the question period? I understood the question period was for question period, and if we were dealing

[ Page 2085 ]

with points of order we would make allowance for that.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, if we are to proceed to orderly business we must do one of two things: we must either obtain to the rules or we must dismiss this House. If we are to strain at a gnat and try to obtain only when we wish, and wish to have lenience when we don't wish, then we can no longer ask a chairman to rule over this House. Therefore if we wish to have question period for 15 minutes, as I have been instructed to do, then question period will be 15 minutes.

If we wish to have long hassles about whether or not a ruling is a ruling or whether or not it can be challenged, then let us at least be consistent in our approach to the orders. Therefore, in all good conscience, I must now call on Mr. Clerk for the next order of business.

MR. LEA: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I agree with you perfectly. You have described human nature perfectly. But I also agree with your second point about consistency. I would ask Mr. Speaker to check the Blues within this week or the latter part of last week, where I think you will find your words in Hansard saying that you had added three minutes because of a rule of order.

MR. SPEAKER: I think a careful review of the Blues again, hon. members, will recall my statement as saying that the time had been elongated - I remember the word very clearly -for a period of three minutes. It was not done by the Chair; it was done by consent of the House because no one took objection.

The bell rang. If we wish to have an extension to the question period, let leave be required, and see whether or not leave is granted.

MR. BARRETT: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, leave was not requested, if you will check the Blues. Leave was not requested.

MR. SPEAKER: That's right, absolutely right, but by consent it continued.

MR. GIBSON: On the same point of order, I'd like to confirm for my own records the same two figures. The question order was called at 2:15 p.m. and the actual questions did start at 2:23 p.m.

I would suggest to you, sir, that it is in the interests of this chamber that legitimate points of order be taken and considered at the time when they arise. That's a part of our standing orders that they must be. At the same time, our standing orders provide for a 15-minute question period - 15 minutes of questions, I would suggest, not 15 minutes of elapsed time.

Perhaps Your Honour could take this under advisement and report back to the House how this question might be dealt with in the long run.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you very much.

The practice of whether or not extra time is permitted at question period is simply that. It is a practice of the House, and it has continued without any written authority. It is precisely the same as the practice of the House that says when leave is not granted, it is not a debatable subject nor is it subject to appeal. Those are both practices. I think if we want to obtain to one, let's obtain to both.

MR. MACDONALD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that when the question period was called, there was a point of order as to whether it should have been called at that time. Now until that was decided, question period did not commence, and we have eight minutes to go. That's the common sense position and it's the democratic position.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF THE

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

(continued)

On vote [6: minister's office, $139,990 -continued.

MR. LAUK: I want to obtain the ear of the Attorney-General for a very serious matter of importance involving the administration of justice. I'm going to set out clearly the charges that I'm going to make with respect to the procedure under the Coroners Act as it exists today - the systems and procedures by which individual coroners operate within this province - to support my charge that you can commit murder in British Columbia without anyone knowing about it, even after they find the body.

The government is starving good coroners out of office in this province. There is no money for proper personnel and the proper training of personnel. There's no money for stenographic services, for support systems for coro-

[ Page 2086 ]

ners, for toxicology and histology tests and examinations.

In addition, I will charge the Attorney-General's office, including the Attorney-General, with a deliberate interference with the judicial process of the coroner system in this province by producing a memorandum that interferes with the judicial decision-making process of a coroner to save money.

MR. STRONGMAN: You have a vested interest in coroners?

MR. LAUK: You say I've a vested interest, Mr. Member? You stand up and give it right now or withdraw that remark.

MR. STRONGMAN: I just made the rpm-Ark across to the member as he spoke that he had a vested interest in coroners, and I believe that he does. He has a relation who is a coroner.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, that's an absolutely disgraceful remark to say. I have relatives who are judges; I have relatives who are coroners. I ask that member to stand in this House and withdraw the remark that I have a vested interest in these remarks under the Coroners Act.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman) to withdraw his remark.

MR. STRONGMAN: Since I have obviously upset the member, 1 certainly wouldn't want to see him fade away. I'll withdraw it, certainly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, hon. member. Perhaps if we addressed the Chair, hon. member. Just while I have the attention of the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) , we are on vote 16 and coroners come under vote 26.

MR. LAUK: This is a question of the administration of justice.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Fine, just so that we don't go through the same thing again on a later vote.

AN HON. MEMBER: We won't recycle it, okay, Gary?

MR. LAUK: Oh, no.

As I said, I charge the Attorney-General and his ministry with deliberate interference with the coroner system in this province. The first situation that I have to recite I will deal with by examining two cases.

The first is the case of Regina v. Eloise Wilson, a person who is charged with murdering her cousin. The charge was based on circumstantial evidence that directly involved coroners, autopsies and examinations of the victim. The theory of the defence was that the deceased had committed suicide. That is the essential ingredient of the trial. Part of the fault of the defence was that the theory of the defence was not examined fully in court. The accused, Eloise Wilson, a former member of the bar, has been convicted of murder; her appeals have been exhausted.

Now we find, Mr. Chairman, that the circumstantial evidence was this: Eloise Wilson was said to have slept overnight in the same house on the night that the victim was alleged to have been murdered. They determined the time of death by taking the relative temperatures of the deceased and introducing that in evidence. However, after the trial we now find that the deceased was stored in the freezer area of the Vancouver General Hospital before autopsies or coroner's examinations could be performed, completely destroying the evidence of temperature as indicating the time of death with respect to the deceased. We have a person now sitting in jail, convicted on that circumstantial evidence. The kind of continuity of procedures necessary in these cases cannot be overemphasized.

Also linked up with this case is the case of Eunice Coote, the mother of the deceased. It was alleged by defence counsel that Mrs. Coote may have been murdered by the deceased, the allegation being that the deceased was demented and suffered from delusions. Further, on the part of the defence, the allegation in the murder trial was that the deceased had committed suicide and was not murdered. To show that this is possible, the defence got an order of the court to disinter the body of Eunice Coote.

I'll give you some background on this woman. This woman, I'm told, was close to 80 years old. She had been dead for two weeks, lying in the same bed and decomposing while Hamilton, subsequently the victim of the murder, attempted to feed her and tend to her. She was a person who was obviously suffering from delusions. Police photographs of Eunice Coote indicated that she had zodiac signs placed on her and newspapers placed around her in most bizarre circumstances. The police included all of these things, including the fact that the physician who attended had signed the death certificate for the day she was found, when obvious decomposition had occurred. Cause? "Natural cause."

The deceased, Mrs. Coote, was taken to the

[ Page 2087 ]

city morgue and a lab attendant decided it was all right to bury her, based alone on the signature of the physician, in spite of the fact that a police report accompanied the body to the morgue. The body was buried approximately two weeks later. As a result of the murder trial that involved another deceased, they disinterred. the body.

This is what they found: the body was so decomposed that they could not establish whether or not this person had been strangled. But they did find something else - they found the original jewellery on the body. There was no inspection of the deceased before burial. There were two pairs of scissors in the middle section of the coffin that may or may not have been inserted within the body. Also in the middle section there was a ball of heavy string that could, speculatively, have been used as a noose or anything else. All this was in the coffin from the morgue to the burial, under the most incredible and bizarre circumstances one can imagine.

The falling down of procedures or the lack of procedures arise not because we haven't got one of the best coroners in Canada, because we do - Mr. Glen McDonald. It's because he hasn't got the staff. He has ill-trained staff who don't react properly to clear legal problems.

1 must remind you, Mr. Chairman, that in this province most coroners are lay coroners; they don't have a legal background. They must be properly trained if they are given the appointment. I'll prove to this chamber that they are not only not properly trained, but all they receive from the Attorney-General is a notice that: they have been appointed. They are ill-paid. They have no support services. A great many of the good coroners in this province are prepared to resign.

The second case involves the Sanucci case during the previous administration. Here's another bizarre case. Glen McDonald, the city coroner, says he's got enough machinery to do toxicology, but all he can do with his equipment and services that he has now is tell whether or not the deceased has arsenic in his system or some other poison or drug, but he can't tell you how much. If you ask him, "If you found arsenic, would you assume that the deceased was killed by poisoning?", he'd say: "No. There can be natural arsenic within a body at any given time." In the major metropolis of Vancouver he has not got the proper machinery to do a test on a deceased person to determine how much of a poison or drug is within that person's system.

In the Sanucci case there was an allegation of a beating. There was an autopsy. No toxicology was taken. The body was cremated. As a result, the opportunity was lost to prove one way or another the cause of death. In the first instance, the cause of death was assumed to be by the beating. The theory of the defence, because of other circumstantial evidence, was it may have been by an overdose of drugs, thus totally changing the character of the criminal charge.

These are the two situations which have arisen within the metropolitan area. How many cases of supposed suicide exist within this province, where a proper examination by a coroner and a proper system of testing would reveal foul play?

I'm not speaking about my experience watching American television shows. I have been involved in criminal defence work for some years. It's not a question of fantasy in my mind. I did not have to be led by the hand to the court, as would some distinguished gentlemen of the bar opposite.

The point is this: the Attorney-General's office should be doing everything possible to beef up the services and procedures within the coroner system in this province. Instead he sends his new deputy to a meeting on November 5,1977. The statements made by the coroners there would make his hair turn white. It's already made his deputy's hair turn white. If you think I'm being a sensationalist about the coroners, I'll quote you a transcript of the people we appoint as quasi-judicial officers in this province. I won't name names, for obvious reasons. I'm sure the Attorney-General has the transcript.

One coroner says: "There was another coroner appointed in my district. They didn't even supply him with anything except his appointment. I supplied him with his stationery and forms and he didn't even have the little green handbook they put out some years ago. I spent six hours with him and had him sit in on four inquests with me to try and give him the basis on which to operate." That's the system of inquests we have in this province.

Here's another quotation. This is on toxicology. The Associate Deputy Attorney-General sends a notice around that all toxicology tests should take place in the city of Vancouver at the police labs or the designated labs. What happens is that months later toxicology returns are made. Relatives are waiting to have a funeral, police are waiting in cases involving suspicious circumstances and we've got toxicology tests down in Vancouver waiting two and three months. That's a national scandal. This coroner goes on to say - and I don't think Glen McDonald will mind me mentioning his name: "I've heard so many complaints about the delays that sometimes I suggest to other

[ Page 2088 ]

coroners that rather than wait for the toxicology results, they should sign the death registration and then make necessary changes once the results have been received." That's most incredible. What that means is you sign the registration of death without completing your investigation. That's what it means. Take it into the context of some of these other quotations.

Another coroner in the province of British Columbia - this, by the way, can sum up the whole of the meeting of the coroners that they had last year and the whole of the meeting of the coroners that they had the year before -says: "The problem, I think, is that many of us feel: why are we held in such low esteem by the Attorney-General's department?" That sums up largely what they're talking about here.

Here's another coroner from outside of the Vancouver area. He says:

"The coroners do not get paid until the transcript of the evidence is in. I have only one stenographer and she's two years behind. I've waited two years for my pay. They say you can send over to Victoria to get a stenographer but they won't come over because they have to spend the night. So I can't get any more stenographers. The girl I have working for me works for the provincial court. I don't even want to have any inquests because of the problems I have."

Mr. Chairman, I will repeat that for the benefit of those members that weren't listening. Here is a judicial officer of the province who says: "I don't even want to have any inquests because of the problems I have."

There is another quotation. The stenographic help, which I've quoted, is reinforced again. This is a coroner who is also a provincial court judge and who states:

"There are incidents which I know of where bills have been sent over to Victoria for inquiry for a day and a half and the coroner has submitted his bill. Without even returning the bill, without any question about it, the bill goes in for, let's say, $37.50. Then the cheque comes back for $25 with nothing said about it. It's been reduced by the department. Somebody has arbitrarily done that. There are situations where they are paying for stenographic help."

In other words, there are coroners in this province who, aside from the honorariums that they get - and they're a pittance - are paying out of their own pocket to provide good service to the community. They're paying out of their own pocket to be a coroner. That's absolutely mediaeval.

This problem stems from many years, Mr. Chairman, and we might as well be frank about it. We introduced a Coroners Act. There is no excuse for a three-year delay in the proclamation of that Act which improves systems. There was nothing breaking the arms and the legs of the Attorney-General from coming in here two years ago with increased funds for coroners and increased support systems. You know that as well as I do. We at least paid our witnesses on time. You're not even paying coroners' witnesses ca time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair.

MR. LAUK: The second thing, Mr. Chairman, is that there are all kinds of situations involving a lack of witness fees and things that are worse. The situation has deteriorated in the last three years.

This was November, 1977. In 1976, what were the complaints of the coroners? Well, there were seminars and educational systems for the coroners; there were problems concerning court reporters and payment of bills. There was the work done by a coroner for which there was no fee schedule, so a lot of work is done without payment to the coroner by the Crown, and so on.

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to read in detail and take the time of the committee with the transcript of this meeting. It's not the only meeting the coroners have had. I have got other transcripts of other meetings held in years previous. I've got memoranda and letters from coroners from all over the province. I might say that upon my inquiry, Mr. Chairman -it wasn't volunteered but upon my inquiry - I have all kinds of information from various coroners.

Here's an example I'll just leave you with before leaving the transcript, Mr. Chairman. He mentions a place.

"The coroner up there didn't want to be a coroner. He was persuaded and cajoled by the RCMP and finally took the job. Of course, he learned from the RCMP. Then the time came that a white man killed a pregnant Indian woman, and he took the advice of the RCMP and didn't have that inquest because he was told not to.

"There, I say, is the whole crunch of the thing. The backbone must be ours. We must be our own men, our own coroners, autonomous within our own districts."

Now I will contrast that statement, Mr. Chairman, with a circular that was sent out by the Associate Deputy Attorney-General, A.L. Pearson. This is the answer that the coroners get for their complaints. This is the gift

[ Page 2089 ]

from the Attorney-General's ministry under this administration:

"Re: Autopsies.

"A recent consideration of increasing costs in autopsy, toxicology and histology in coroners' cases has caused us to be concerned about the tendency to order autopsies with dissection, sometimes with further pathological studies, in cases in which the cause of death has been apparent and supported by police investigation and by witnesses' testimony."

Now in order to have that kind of a case, you can have a conviction for murder before you decide to have an autopsy. That's the nonsense that's being spilled out of the Attorney-General's office, and a direct interference with the judicial capacity of a coroner. But he goes on, if that's not bad enough:

"For example, in suicide cases...."

Now, you see, there's a lawyer, A.L. Pearson, Associate Deputy Attorney-General. I wouldn't be attacking him, but the Attorney-General, by the way, has subsequently supported this circular so all the focus of my vehemence is on the Attorney-General at this stage.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Don't be vehement.

MR. LAUK: I will have to be vehement.

"In suicide cases" - now that's an assumption immediately that there's a suicide case. We don't need an inquest then, do we? We've already assumed that. We don't need an autopsy, do we, to determine that it's a suicide?

"In suicide cases, where the coroner is satisfied that the facts are such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion and the death was the result of suicide, an autopsy would normally not be required. Additionally, when death is clearly the result of natural causes..."

And let's go back to Eunice Conte. "Clearly the result of natural causes" - how does the coroner know that? He knows that by a certificate signed by some physician. What if that physician is goofing off? What if the physician was a conspirator - not in the case that I mentioned, but in any case? And this is the cherry on the cheesecake.

"...this office does not require a determination as to the precise medical cause of death."

Can you imagine that, Mr. Chairman? "This office" - in other words, the Attorney-General - does not need a determination of the precise cause of death. Who does he think he is? It's not his office that requires the determination; it's the public interest, it's the interest of the administration of justice -and they're not synonymous with the personality of that office.

And then they go on to say:

"There are many cases that have come to my attention at this ministry where these examinations could have been dispensed with and thereby considerable expense would have been saved."

What a patent outrage! This circular goes to people with no legal background. People with legal background would take this circular and say: "Go whistle, we'll do what we think is right. We'll call an autopsy when we think it's necessary and we'll hold an inquest under the Act; and we won't take directions from officials of the Attorney-General's ministry who want to save nickels and dimes at the total expense of the administration of justice."

So it is little wonder, Mr. Chairman, that I can stand in my place here with great regret and say anyone can commit murder in this province and go free, even after they find the body, and no one will know the better of it. Or, conversely, anyone can be convicted of murder in this province without the opportunity of full and fair defence. Does the defence have the opportunity in all cases ' with the tremendous cost of the pathological studies -the histology and the toxology that's necessary in murder cases? The examination of the deceased person must be complete, total and irrefutable with that recognition of moral certitude that's necessary in criminal offences. And I cannot tell people in this province that they can get a fair trial if they're charged with an offence involving a dead person. They can't get a fair trial because of the procedures and the lack of support system for our coroners in this province.

Mr. Chairman, I charge again that the government is starving good coroners out of office. There is no money for support systems, no money for stenographic staff, no money for properly trained personnel, and no money to train coroners who have been appointed. There is nothing being expended on toxicology and histology equipment and systems and machinery and personnel. There is no co-ordinated reporting system - there is in the Act, but so far it hasn't been proclaimed. There is no protection and there is, above all, Mr. Chairman, a deliberate interference with the judicial process of the coroners in this province by that outrageous memorandum. And the Attorney--General's defence that he sent to me in a letter is just sheer bafflegab. He repeats a lot of useless nonsense about how he's very committed to the system of adminis-

[ Page 2090 ]

tration of justice in this province. But after all, it's terribly costly, isn't it, old chap?, He goes on to support the circular that was issued by his associate deputy minister. Now I would ask the Attorney-General to commit special warrant funds immediately to take care of this crisis situation in the province of British Columbia.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the hon. member for his remarks. Since we're referring specifically to vote 26, I think it's reasonable and fair that I respond in particularity too to the particular vote. I draw to the attention of the hon. member that the complement has been increased in the vote by three and the dollars have been increased by some $218,000. 1 would also mention to the hon. member my remarks in opening yesterday that we are undertaking a full review of the coroners' roles, activities and remuneration and are considering proclamation of the Act.

I'm not going to differ with the hon. member when he makes the point that the coroners under this administration, under the former administration and under all former administrations have not, in my view, been effectively taken care of or recognized in this province. I'm very happy to say that at the present time I do have a submission before Treasury Board, and I'm hopeful that it will be successfully received.

Insofar as the specific letter that was sent out by Mr. Pearson, from which my learned friend quoted some excerpts - he indicates that he'll file a copy; I think it might be appropriate if he did that - he's concerned; he very kindly sent me a letter on February 23. And he said:

"I have had placed in my hands a rather alarming circular letter to all coroners in the province, dated January 17,1978, regarding autopsies. You will note the circular letter states in part:

'Additionally, when death is clearly the result of natural causes, this office does not require a determination as to the precise medical cause of death.'

"The letter goes on to state:

'Unless particular circumstances come to light in the course of an investigation which lead the coroner to believe that conditions quite beyond his knowledge may exist, or it is necessary to confirm that foul play did or did not exist, then he is not justified in holding a post mortem examination with dissection.'

"Not only as IA for Vancouver Centre, but as criminal defence counsel having attended many inquests, I'm very concerned about this direction to coroners, having regard for the fact that a great many coroners do not have legal training or background."

A great many of them do not; that's a recognized fact. And this, again, is not something that has happened overnight, and we're in a catchup situation.

"Surely it is not incumbent upon me to point out to the Attorney-General, or to his associate deputy, that his office is not the body which requires the determination as to the precise medical cause of death; it is, rather, the public. Coroners are judicial officers who must operate without any interference from the Attorney-General's office, except in standard procedures - which do not include an interference into the judicial judgment as to whether or not to order an autopsy. I respectfully request an immediate investigation of the circular letter above mentioned, withdrawal of the circular letter as a result of that investigation, and another letter to all coroners canceling the information in the memo of January 17,1978 and reaffirming your government's faith in the judicial processes of the coroners' system in this province.

"In many cases which I could bring to your attention, and intend to do so during your estimates with respect to coroners' activities.... I can say, without any danger of being over-sensationalist, that someone can commit a murder in the city of Vancouver and get away with it, simply because of inadequate procedures with respect to autopsies. May I have your earliest reply."

I replied to the hon. member under cover of March 21:

"Dear Mr. Lauk:

"Please let me acknowledge your letter of February 23,1978 regarding the circular letter of Mr. A.L. Pearson, Associate Deputy Attorney-General, to coroners about autopsies. I must disagree with your contention that there was anything wrong with the letter or the tenor thereof. I hold very strongly the view that the responsibility for the decision to order an autopsy in coroners' cases lies with the coroner himself, and that this is a quasi judicial decision.

"The circular letter you criticized does not conflict with that concept but, on the contrary, acknowledges the coroners' right to order an autopsy in proper cases. However, it must be remembered that it is a

[ Page 2091 ]

decision which may sometimes have considerable implications for the family of the deceased person. It is one that should not be exercised indiscriminately, or without reasonable and probable cause."

MR. LAUK: Or withheld indiscriminately.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Oh, certainly.

"It would be extremely difficult, if not impractical, to lay down concrete rules as to when the coroner should or should not order an autopsy, due to an infinite variety of circumstances that can be related to sudden death. Cause must not, of course, be the vital consideration in determining whether an autopsy should be ordered or otherwise. However, needless to say, unnecessary post mortem pathological studies would obviously create an unnecessary burden on public expenditure, which in itself is a factor indeed worthy of consideration. A commonsense approach must be made by the coroner in each and every instance, which I'm sure is a position with which you will agree."

Regarding the penultimate paragraph of your letter, if you are in possession of evidence of "many cases with respect to coroner's activities that someone could commit a murder in the city of Vancouver and get away with it simply because of inadequate procedures with respect to autopsies, " I'm sure you will agree that it would be appropriate with every respect that you, both as a citizen, as an officer of the court and as a member of the Legislative Assembly, disclose that evidence to the proper law enforcement agencies right now and without waiting for the legislative estimates. Certainly if such evidence is made available, appropriate investigation will be initiated. I thought it might useful if all of the correspondence was read into the record, and I'm sure you would agree with that.

Hon. member, as I said, the matter is before Treasury Board. I do not feel that the coroners' compensation is adequate or contemporary. It has not been so. I'm not going to start throwing stones over to the other side of the floor and say that you fellows could have got.... You could have and you didn't. I am quite prepared to say that this administration perhaps could have got to it earlier, but I can assure you I consider it myself to be a priority.

Now dealing with the analytical and toxicology services for the province, these are centralized in the city of Vancouver lab and at the RCMP lab, which are both located in Vancouver. There have been some problem of delay in the past but an effort has certainly been made by the city analyst and the RCMP to speed up and streamline these respective services. It is felt that for economy and quality control reasons within the ministry, it is favoured to continue the present arrangements for these two particularly specialized laboratory services.

My deputy mentions to me that there are three new laboratory technicians this year. Material and supplies are up $70,000. As well, priorities have been indicated and set for the availability of courtrooms, the preparation and delivery of transcripts and for the services of the summonses and so forth by the sheriff's officers.

So I would say, Mr. Member, that I think we are addressing the problems that you have illustrated. I think I would be reiterating material if I delivered any more to you at this point in time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just prior to recognizing the member, perhaps I could remind members that reading newspapers in the House is not appropriate.

MR. LAUK: He's reading the gardening advertisements in there. A new shipment of tulip bulbs coming in.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the Attorney-General for replying so quickly. I did correspond with him and the correspondence is not on the record. By the way, the funds that he's talking about are really token gestures to the nature of the problem I'm talking about. If you're talking about centralized laboratory services, you're talking about a breakdown in coroner's services in the interior and northern Island regions. That's exactly what you're talking about. But I'm not going to get into that debate at this stage.

The circular letter has not had the benefit of being qualified by the Attorney--General's reply to me. That was private correspondence. If he would write a similar circular letter around to the coroners, the damage wouldn't be half as bad. But I'll tell you something, Mr. Chairman. The damage would still be there. The appointment of coroners is at the pleasure of the Crown. When a circular letter comes from the Crown to tighten up, boys, you're ordering too many autopsies, you know perfectly well that a certain percentage of coroners are going to misinterpret that circular letter as being a coercive letter.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Oh, I don't think so. I've not received any of that information. If you've got some specifics, let me know.

[ Page 2092 ]

MR. LAUK: Oh, I'm sure they're going to go to you and say: "Please, Mr. Attorney-General, don't coerce us." That is clearly what the circular letter is doing. I will not impute motives to either you or your staff, but clearly the circular letter is causing that kind of damage and it is a silly, useless circular letter.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Have you got proof of that?

MR. LAUK: A considerable number of years with lay magistrates and lay coroners.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Has anybody got in touch with you and interpreted it the way you have?

MR. LAUK: No, not so far. I have discussed this circular with some judges in the Vancouver district.

HON. MR. GARDOM: If there is any misinterpretation of the letter, we'd be happy to send out another one.

MR. LAUK: All right. Mr. Chairman, I suggest that a circular go out to the coroners. If you will permit me to draft it, it will say: "You are a judge. You must not be interfered with in any sense of the way by the Attorney-General's department and you must determine the cause of death in circumstances which cannot be determined otherwise than by autopsy and toxicology and histology and so on." It should cover the whole ball of wax, because people in this province want to be able to go to bed tonight and say to themselves: "At least if I'm murdered in my bed, somebody will be brought to justice." The chances of that happening now are getting more and more remote.

This is not a subject of levity, but I must tell the committee a story about an ex-policeman, who many, many years ago in New Westminster used to tell me that we have the lowest unsolved murder rate in the city of New Westminster of any city in Canada. I expressed some surprise and I said: "Well, how on earth can this happen?" He said: "Easily. When we find a deceased, we put him in the Fraser and he floats down to Burnaby or to Vancouver." Mr. Chairman, surely there are ways to solve jurisdictional problems with respect to these kinds of things.

I'd like to see the administration of justice with respect to the coroner system in this province drastically improved. There's no point in going back three years and pointing to our administration. It's just like saying: "You did not do anything for the starving family when you were in office. Why do something now?" Well, if there's no other point to be made, it's that they've become hungry in the last three years. It does not take you three years to add money to your budget, and it doesn't take you three years to proclaim an excellent statute drafted by the NDP administration which you fully and without hesitation admit is the best Coroners Act in the country. Just do it with a stroke of the pen; that's why you were elected. Carry through with it. You can't get off the hook for that circular letter. The coroners of this province, I'm convinced, can be and will be intimidated by it.

HON. MR. GARDOM: One short point that the hon. member didn't mention which I think is of interest to him on this particular aspect is the jurisdictional one vis-à-vis the national government. This presented itself pretty clearly in the inquest at Cranbrook. In the course of the inquest, the coroner, Dr. Allan Askey, demanded of the investigators employed by the Ministry of Transport copies of the tape. They were not produced and eventually they had to be developed through the National Research Council because the federal Ministry of Transport refused to produce the tape. So they had to go around them to get them in another manner. I think this, indeed, is an intrusion into the administration of justice in the province and certainly does very well illustrate in the case of Dr. Askey the great importance of having competent and intelligent coroners available locally. He did, I may say, an excellent job there.

MR. MACDONALD: I'd just like to add a word on this subject. One of the reasons we embarked in our administration on a new Coroners Act, which was finally passed in 1975, was that in the Sanucci case....

HON. MR. GARDOM: That was 1974.

MR. MACDONALD: No, I have it here. It was passed in 1975. It got royal assent on June 26.

One of the reasons was that in the Sanucci case, it was an obvious case where not simply an autopsy, but toxicology was important. When I heard about the thing it was too late, of course. The deceased had been buried. That was one of the reasons we proceeded to look at the whole coroner situation. I cannot understand why the Attorney-General has not proclaimed that Act. If there's something wrong with it, it should have been amended. It's been two and a half years, Mr. Chairman.

[ Page 2093 ]

HON. MR. GARDOM: You heard what I said yesterday.

MR. MACDONALD: I know, but I'm not satisfied. I'm just repeating that.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You're never satisfied.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm repeating that I'm not satisfied. There have been six suicides in Oakalla...

HON. MR. GARDOM: You're consistent; you're never satisfied.

MR. MACDONALD: ... including three in April, and still no inquest. I'm not satisfied about that situation.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You never are.

MR. MACDONALD: I think the Attorney-General is falling down on the job, Mr. Chairman. You know, where you have three young men I'm just talking about the last three who committed suicide in the prison at Oakalla in April, and still no inquest.... Now when's it going to be - next October?

HON. MR. GARDOM: We covered that yesterday.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, but I want to repeat it because it supports what was said by the first member for Vancouver Centre. These services have been starved. There's a backlog of cases and, as a result, you may have another suicide when a coroner's jury in the meantime might recommend some corrections to prevent that problem. So it is a very serious neglect in this area of the coroner's jurisdiction and the whole upgrading of the system.

One of the important things about the new Act, which is still unproclaimed, is the alerting system in that Act, whereby when there is a death under suspicious circumstances - and they're all carefully described in the Act -the system of alert to the coroners is reinforced. So there can't be a burial or a lack of autopsy or toxicology in a case that demands just that kind of treatment.

So I say that the Attorney-General really should give attention to this matter. I don't think the increases that he's provided for in these estimates are going to clear up the backlog. You say there's going to be an additional request over and above what's requested in the coroner's vote. Well, that's good. I hope Treasury Board accedes to it. But there's been a long neglect in this particular field, and I support what the member for Vancouver Centre has said.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I did mention yesterday the situation of the New Westminster coroner's office, Mr. Doug Jack, who is doing a firstclass job, as everyone will agree who has ever met him or is aware of his capacities. We've been told that he will have additional staff, hopefully by July 1, which is not too far away. The competition has been completed, the selection has been made and the successful applicant is now arranging his release from his current job with the police force to so accept. Insofar as stenographic help is concerned, he presently has three medical-legal stenographers and he will shortly have a fourth.

So in the New Westminster situation, as I told you yesterday, a backlog had been created. You were absolutely correct on that. It is being appreciated and steps have been taken to see that it will not continue.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, yesterday evening when I thought 1 might be asking the Attorney-General this question, I sent him a copy of a letter and warned him that I would be asking him about this. I then suggested to him that he take the letter away during the evening so he would have time to consider it. The letter has now been returned to me, along with some material that I am sure belongs to the Attorney--General.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You are welcome to read it.

MR. STUPICH: Had I time to look at it, it might give me the answer. But then I wouldn't have an opportunity to ask the question. That's one of the points that I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman.

The letter was addressed by the Nanaimo and District Fish and Game Protective Association on March 3 to the Attorney-General. The letter indicated that a copy of this letter was going to a large number of people, starting at the top with the Premier, the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Bawlf) , myself, and then to a long list. I would have expected that had the Attorney-General dealt with this letter, he would have sent a copy to the MLA. I assumed that he had not yet dealt with it because I didn't have a copy myself. So I expect he's dealt with it since or he's found out something about it since.

However, the letter does raise a complaint, and I would like to take this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, of reading from the letter:

"On February 8,1978, three cases concerning various offences contrary to the

[ Page 2094 ]

provincial Wildlife Act were heard in provincial court in Nanaimo before Judge F.A. Melvin. (Copy of proceedings enclosed.) Because the Grown was not represented and because no evidence was offered on behalf of the Crown, all three charges were dismissed, this in spite of the fact that one of the accused initially pleaded guilty.

"It is difficult enough for provincial conservation officers to be in a position to lay a charge under the Wildlife Act, and even more difficult to gather sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. Our conservation officers work long and hard on society's behalf to protect our wildlife and to prevent abuse of hunting regulations. We admire and respect their devotion to the job. To have their efforts negated by indifferent or incompetent actions on the part of Crown prosecutors is, to us, inexcusable and unacceptable.

"At our last general meeting, members unanimously voted to press your department for action on this matter."

HON. MR. GARDOM: I'm sorry, Dave, was that March 3?

MR. STUPICH: March 3.

"Accordingly, the Nanaimo Fish and Game Protective Association hereby formally requests that you conduct a full and complete investigation into this incident, that the findings of such an investigation be made public, and, should the findings indicate wrongdoing, incompetence or indifference on the part of any representative of the Crown, that punitive or disciplinary action be as severe as possible under the law.

"Respectfully" - although it doesn't sound very respectful - "Michael Merner, president of the association."

Now as I say, Mr. Chairman, I would have expected to receive a copy of the letter. I assume that the letter just hasn't been replied to yet. Had I had an opportunity to read the correspondence that was returned to me with this, perhaps my question would have been answered.

On a separate issue, the commissioner of corrections, as late as well into April of this year, was still informing the committee that is concerned with the use of Brannan Lake that the corrections was looking at Brannan Lake with a view to using it for their purposes. I'm wondering at what date the corrections branch, or whatever it is, abandoned looking at Island Youth Centre as a possible site for their activities.

Of course, my concern about this is the government's decision, as the Premier termed it, to use it for other purposes entirely, and the fact that the community was being reassured as late as April 26 that many sites were being looked at for a possible drug-treatment centre, which led them to believe that there was still hope that Island Youth Centre would not be used for that purpose. Although they didn't want it used by corrections, they still felt, well into April, that corrections was considering it. I'm wondering at what point in time corrections abandoned it. This is perhaps a side issue to the same question, but with respect to the proposed use of Island Youth Centre for a drug-treatment centre - and I'll be very careful, I think, Mr. Chairman, not to transgress on the legislation - it's my information from everything I can hear that in the event that any community or any facility is going to be used for that purpose, any facility that is within city limits - and certainly the Island Youth Centre is well within the city limits of Nanaimo - the community that is going to be used to incarcerate drug users....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Order!

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I wonder on what basis the Attorney-General is calling order, because I'm not questioning the legislation itself. I'm not saying whether we should use that method at all, and nowhere in the legislation does it mention using any particular site.

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's not my vote, Dave.

MR. STUPICH: It's not in your vote? Corrections? I think it is in your vote, because my concern is that bringing people like that into one area within the city limits is going to attract into that community relations and friends of people who are incarcerated therein. Drug users and the people who depend upon drug users for their own livelihood, if I can put it that way, are going to be attracted to that community as well.

It would seem to me that the job of Corrections is going to be much more difficult in the Nanaimo community in the event that the government proceeds with its plans to incarcerate drug users at Island Youth Centre. I'm wondering whether the Attorney-General has any particular plans in mind. Is he preparing to meet what I believe will be a demand for much more of his attention from the Nanaimo community for help? Because certainly the escape situation will be much worse than it was when

[ Page 2095 ]

it was a juvenile detention area. We had many problems, many situations where the juveniles were breaking out of that facility and were causing damage in the community. The Attorney-General was continually being called in to look at problems with respect to these juveniles.

It's now proposed that an eight-foot fence be erected around the place. As we're dealing with adults rather than juveniles, it would seem to me that the breakouts are going to be even more of a problem than they were in the past, and I'm just wondering what plans or what comments the minister might have to offer with respect to my concern that we will have a lot more trouble within the city by virtue of the fact that such a containment centre is being established within the city limits of Nanaimo.

HON. MR. GARDOM: First of all, concerning the Brannan Lake situation insofar as it now no longer relates to Corrections, this ministry and the B.C. Buildings Corporation are going to be proceeding immediately with the identification of sites and the development of programme plans for new correctional facilities north of the Duncan area. Initial planning suggests that the programmes will provide accommodation for 50 male adults on an awaiting-trial status, a medium-security unit for sentenced inmates, and a community correctional centre to house approximately 20 inmates for the purpose of continuing education and Employment.

Now the implementation of these programmes on the upper Island has been based on an extensive study of present court sentencing trends and also population growth patterns. It appears from the study that 53 per cent of the sentenced inmates in Vancouver Island are from the Duncan area and north. In addition, Mr. Chairman, communities in these areas seem to be growing at twice the annual growth rate of the lower Island area.

I want to say that I am very pleased to be able to make this statement and illustrate more dramatically than in the past that this should be a great relief on the pressure experienced at Wilkinson Road. Adequate corrections programming costs on the range of the services required will be available when these particular facilities come on line.

Insofar as the first matter that was mentioned, dealing with the correspondence of March 3, 1 believe it was, from the Nanaimo District Fish and Game Protective Association, there was a complaint of three cases under the Wildlife Act. I do thank you very much for the material last night.

The reply, Mr. Member, is this. Judge Melvin dismissed the proceedings because the Crown was not represented and evidence was not offered. Then the charges were relaid, and following the dismissal of charges against one individual on February 28, he subsequently pleaded guilty to one count. He was fined $200, forfeited the meat obtained by his illegal act and the other charges against him were stayed. A new information was laid against the second individual on February 28. It was not possible to locate him and a warrant is presently outstanding for that person I s arrest. The case will proceed when he is found. In neither of these cases was the Crown at fault.

In the case of the third individual, it was a Crown error which caused the dismissal and no further proceedings were taken in respect to that matter.

The regional Crown counsel has advised we that as a result of these items, better lines of communication have been established. 1 sincerely hope they have been established because they should be.

I'm happy to say that ministerial officials have had meetings with the B.C. Wildlife Federation. I received this letter, dated June

"Dear Mr. Minister:

"On behalf of the B.C. Wildlife Federation and its 22,000 members, executive and staff, I would like to extend our most sincere thanks to you for the co-operation of your ministry regarding our concerns in the area of fisheries and wildlife enforcement."

There was an obvious requirement for ministerial officials to meet with them to hear their concerns.

"During the past few weeks our executive and staff held several very fruitful meetings with members of your ministry. We would particularly like to note our pleasure in having an opportunity to meet and work with Mr. Mark Krasnick, your policy planner, and Mr. Ken Salt, a legal officer in your criminal law division.

"We believe that as a result of these working sessions and in conjunction with the Ministry of Recreation and Conservation staff, fisheries and wildlife enforcement will improve significantly in B. C. "

And I'm very glad of that.

"Again, a sincere thank you. Through your good offices Fish and Wildlife have been well served on this occasion."

So I do thank them for bringing the matter specifically to our attention and I'm glad to

[ Page 2096 ]

see that they've been adequately addressed.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, just on that fish and game business, was the letter of March 3 ever replied to? I am wondering, and, if so, I'd like to have a copy of that letter for my file. I'd like to have something to show that something happened.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Well, I take it the reply was the meeting, but I will be very happy to get you some material, sir.

MR. STUPICH: I did ask the question as to when corrections abandoned their attention on the Island Youth Centre as a possible facility for their use.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I haven't got the date.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I guess I'll have to accept that. He hasn't got it, he can't answer it. I did ask similar questions of other ministers in oral question period and I've been reminded by the Speaker that I can't ask them again, even though one of them took the question on notice a month ago.

With respect to Brannan Lake, my concern is that we're going to need a lot more police protection in the Nanaimo city area because of the announcement by the chairman of the Alcohol and Drug Commission that the place would be in business by January I as a compulsory drug treatment centre. I've expressed my concern that we will need more police protection and wondered whether the Attorney-General was taking this under consideration and making any plans to deal with what I fear could be a very troublesome situation. He started to reply by saying: "With respect to Brannan Lake...." and then started talking about something entirely different north of Duncan.

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, that was the Vancouver Island facilities.

MR. STUPICH: But that didn't deal at all, Mr. Chairman, with my concern about what is going to happen in the city of Nanaimo when you contain 150 drug addicts behind an eight foot fence in that community and attract to that community all the friends and relations and people who do business with those 150 customers. Now that's my concern. Is the Attorney-General considering at all that he's going to need more police protection in the community, for example? Surely some attention must be given to this situation by the Attorney-General. He's not going to wait, I hope, until January 2 and wake up one morning and find out that this problem is suddenly before him and he hasn't given it any consideration. He must know it is happening, even though the facility itself within the eight foot fence will not be his concern, but outside of the eight-foot fence there will be a real concern. Is the Attorney-General not cognizant at all of my concern? Doesn't he understand why I'm a bit worried about this? Does not he understand why I'm not ready to wait until sometime next year to find out whether or not he's doing anything about it?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Well, I'll just respond by saying this, hon. member, I think you've been speculative insofar as contemplating difficulty, but I assure you that if additional law enforcement measures are required, consideration will be given to providing them. I do believe that briefs have been received from the area and they're under consideration.

MR. STUPICH: Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's just speculation, because everything love heard about other areas where similar treatment.... Maybe I'm getting into the bill now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe, hon. member, that this could be better canvassed under the principle of Bill 18. We've kept at a very fair distance up to this point, but I think now we are trespassing onto the principle of Bill 18.

MR. MACDONALD: It is really a criminal bill and not a health bill.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I think I'll have to fall back on this then. I did hear the minister say that briefs have been received from the area. I was not aware that briefs had been received from the area on this particular point - that is, expressing the concern about what kind of additional help we would need from the Attorney-General's ministry. But if that is the case, I'm pleased that such briefs have started to come, and if they haven't, I can assure him that they will, and I trust that we'll get some action from him on that.

MR. LEA: Just before dinner hour last night I brought up the matter of conveyancing of property and the fees that are being charged by the legal profession for this service. I would like to draw an analogy between transferring two different kinds of property: transferring a piece of property, land, that you have to hire a lawyer for, and transferring an automobile.

[ Page 2097 ]

A lot of people in here know that if you transfer an automobile it costs you so much money to transfer, whether it be a Cadillac or a Ford or a baby Austin. But when you're transferring property, the amount that it costs to transfer it relates to the price of the piece of property that you're going to transfer. I would like to know - we have six lawyers in this House who are elected members - from the Attorney--General or any other lawyer who'd care to answer: is there any more work in the lawyer's office to transferring a piece of property worth $50,000 and a piece of property worth $10,000? Does it take more work? Do you use a different form? If you use a different form, does it take more help? I don't think it does.

When you go to hire a lawyer to try and get justice in the consumer area, they are quite willing to act for you to go after the doctors, industrialists or the retailers. But did you ever try to hire a lawyer to go after a lawyer? That's an experience if you've ever tried it. It's pretty hard. Who are we going to hire to see whether people get a fair break from lawyers? There isn't anywhere you can go to see whether you can get a fair break from lawyers.

What about their fee schedule?

The member for Oak Bay (Mr. Stephens) has been talking about whether lawyers should have the right to advertise or whether they shouldn't have that right. Maybe it would do one thing. When you get down to the lawyer's office, you would at least know what prices you are going to pay. Then you can shop around and maybe find that you can get a personal property conveyance for a little cheaper from one lawyer than from another.

The minister is a lawyer; he's the Attorney-General. I'd like to know if he would explain to me every procedure that has to be taken to transfer a piece of property - off the top of his head and without calling in a clerk from his office to tell him. I'd like to know whether there is any difference in the procedure of transferring identical pieces of property except for the price of that property.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: The member for Oak Bay, who is a lawyer, says there is no difference.

AN HON. MEMBER: In the risk.

MR. LEA: In the risk to whom? The fact of the matter is that you are not allowed by the mortgage company to do it yourself. Any darn fool can take a look at that paper that has to be done and do it, but it won't be accepted because it hasn't been done by a lawyer. I say do it yourself. Take it to a notary public and have them look at it to see whether the form is done correctly and legally, and have him stamp it for $3 or whatever it is. As I mentioned last night, I think it is an absolute racket and a ripoff. For the identical piece of work, the only variance is the price of the property. That there is a variance in the price of the fee is an absolute ripoff. If some lawyer can convince me that it isn't, I'll be glad to listen to reason. But they are awfully mum on this subject - all of them. In my opinion there is no difference.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

Now that the Attorney-General is back, I would like him, as a lawyer and as the minister, to explain to me what forms you have to use to transfer a piece of property, if he indeed knows. I would like for him then to explain to me and to the House why there is a different fee for transferring a piece of property only because the price of that property is different. It's the same price to transfer a car; it's the same price no matter how much you pay for the car. Why can't the transferring of property be done in government offices, the same as you transfer a car? Why not?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I trust the member isn't soliciting free legal advice, and this matter is under the administrative responsibility of the Attorney-General.

HON. MR. GARDOM: The hon. member made this point yesterday evening, and it was well covered. It dealt with the question of legal fees in conveyancing. The fees in conveyancing, as you know, are prescribed under the supreme court tariff. From the notes here, I take it you have raised the issue as to whether there is a a different fee charged according to the amount involved in the transaction. If it's a $2 million mortgage, is the legal fee higher than on a $20,000 mortgage? The response to that is yes. In several instances there is more work and in some instances, I suppose, it would be fair to say that there is not more work.

I would say, though, to the hon. member, the fees are not cast in stone. As 1 said yesterday evening, this is the only profession that I am aware of and if anybody can correct me, please do so wherein if an individual is dissatisfied with the amount that is charged,

[ Page 2098 ]

it's open to have that amount reviewed by an officer of the court, who is called taxing master, or the district registrar, and then by the court. Also, of course, fortunately, there is a degree of competition within the profession and it is possible to determine rates.

I could tell you one thing. Last year, you will recall, three bills were introduced in the House dealing with the land registry system. Included in that material was a simplified documentation method vis-à-vis the deeds of land. So hopefully this will not only speed up the process but could indeed reduce the costs to the general public.

The general public is choosing to receive the protection they pay for. They are not compelled - I know what you're going to say in a moment; I hope to answer that too - to go to a lawyer to have a conveyance completed.

You're not compelled to go to a lawyer to have a will. Unfortunately, more wills end up in court that are not drawn by lawyers than ones that do. If a person chooses to fix one's own pipes or take out one's own bladder, I suppose the person almost has a right to do that. If people choose to seek legal advice, they pay for such legal ad ' vice.

Insofar as the lending institutions, which is the point that you made last night, which was a valid point, they get to predetermine that they wish to see that their transactions are handled properly. They do not wish to find any difficulty with registration. They want to make sure the mortgage is not on the wrong house. They make a survey to see that the legal description is proper and that they know the people they are lending to. They choose to seek legal advice. Their charges are deducted from the funds that are advanced.

I suppose if an individual chooses to attempt to shop between companies or lending institutions, that's open for him to do it in the free market.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, the Attorney-General is clouding the issue. First of all, he uses the figure $20,000 worth of property and $2 million. Let's use $20,000 and $30,000, so we can keep it reasonable. Both are homes that people are transferring the title to, not a gigantic industry and somebody's home or chicken coop. Let's keep it down to two houses, and a variance of $10,000.

The fact of the matter is that you don't have the choice. The Attorney-General says: "Well, you have a choice. You can take out your own gall bladder and have your own property transferred if you want." It's not acceptable. If I wanted to go into the hospital and operate on my own gall bladder, it wouldn't be allowed. -It's not allowed to transfer your property.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Perhaps it wasn't the best illustration.

MR. LEA: You're not allowed to transfer your own property, because if you want to do that, then you can't get a mortgage. So you're not allowed to do it. To talk about the protection of taking it to a lawyer, in my opinion, Mr. Chairman, is silly because the lawyer never sees the darn thing. The lawyer doesn't see the piece of paper that transfers the property. It's done by a clerk somewhere in the lawyer's office and he never sees it.

As far as I'm concerned, the people are being ripped off in that particular area by lawyers and I further say that not a darn thing is going to be done about it. Nothing is going to be done. You don't get ripped off that often because how often do you buy a house? If it were something you were buying every day, then there would be a groundswell of indignation about what is, in my opinion, a ripoff. But you buy the house, the mortgage company sends you down there and you do it and go home and half the time you don't even know that there's a different charge because of the price. You just think that's the charge. But when you look into it you find out that it is an absolute ripoff, and lawyers are going along with it and they're saying nothing. I believe it's that fraternity of lawyers who will not attack one another when it's to their benefit not to.

MR. STEPHENS: Mr. Chairman, yesterday in this House the Attorney-General stated that a committee had been set up to investigate the matter of advertising in the professions. He indicated that three ministers had been appointed to this committee.

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, not just advertising, Vic.

MR. STEPHENS: Well, whatever. In any event, the three minister who were appointed to this committee, as I understand it, were....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Deputy ministers.

MR. STEPHENS: In the Attorney-General's department?

HON. MR. GARDOM: That's one.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I must ask the Attorney-General to refrain from answering

[ Page 2099 ]

questions across the floor of the House. It's virtually impossible to make any sense of this when it's transcribed downstairs. It's not you I'm admonishing, it's the Attorney-General, and he is very bad at this. I must remind him again.

MR. STEPHENS: As I understand it, the ministries chat are going to investigate this are headed by the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and the Attorney-General. It seems to me that a better choice could have been made. Those ministries are all headed by lawyers. I have no doubt that these are honourable gentlemen who will do their best, but surely as lawyers and as members we should recognize.... Let's make justice appear to have been done. Why must we always put lawyers in charge of the investigation of lawyers? My first suggestion to the Attorney-General is that he review this committee and consider putting on it perhaps some of his backbenchers. I'm sure there are many here who are capable of participating in this who are not lawyers and would bring some evenness to the committee.

Going to the suggestions and remarks of the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) , some of the things he says I agree with. But I cannot stand or sit in this House and allow the member for Prince Rupert to castigate the legal profession with one black brush, simply because lie has a personal cross to bear insofar as the cost of advertising is concerned.

I have always had great respect for the legal system. I do attack the legal profession where I think it should be attacked, but I cannot stand and allow these comments such as "ripoff artists, " simply because the member has a personal axe to grind over one aspect of legal services.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I must interrupt you at this point. It may be very appropriate that you dislike.the remarks made by the member for Prince Rupert. However, this is not the proper time in committee to discuss it. There are other occasions in the House when it would be appropriate, but it certainly is not appropriate now. What is appropriate now is the administrative responsibilities of the Attorney-General, and remarks made about the member for Prince Rupert are not in order. Please proceed.

MR. STEPHENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have your point. But the member raised certain issues dealing with the Attorney-General's estimates that I also want to deal with. I want to preface my remarks with what I have just said.

The matter of conveyances is fixed by the supreme court rules, as the Attorney--General has pointed out. The problem with this, of course, is that when you fix these costs and these rates and when they're permitted to fluctuate with the value of property, as inflation sets in and the value of property goes up, so does the percentage that the lawyer is entitled to retain for his services. When we add to that the lack of competition within the legal profession and the fact that there cannot really be any fair and open competition, unless the lawyers can tell the public that they are prepared to charge less, the tendency is to charge what the going rate is or what the maximum is allowed by the rules. I would say that in the area of conveyancing, and in the area of estates, the Attorney-General should take a very close look at altering the scale of costs permitted to be charged, particularly in estates.

In the matter of estates, also guided by supreme court rules, lawyers can charge up to 2 per cent of the gross value of the estate. In many cases this is certainly well earned, but in many cases the opposite is true. The simplicity of probating a simple estate that might be worth $150,000 does not justify a fee of 2 per cent, or even I per cent. I know from experience that executors can probate their own estate in very simple estates at a cost of probably somewhere around $150 to $200 as opposed to $2,000 in a $100,000 estate. It does not take very much nowadays to have a $100,000 estate. A house, a car, a boat and a small bank account will put an estate over $100,000 without any difficulty at all. There are many widows in this province who find that that is the only thing they have left.

I suggest to the Attorney-General that he should look very seriously at providing a service through the legal profession, not through government, for people who choose to do their own legal work - some place where they can get some help and guidance. In other words, why should everybody be forced to go to a lawyer's office and get this work done when in many cases it can be done very simply just with a little help? I would ask the committee that the Attorney-General has set up to consider this aspect very seriously when discussing whether or not lawyers should be allowed to advertise or publicize not only their fees but their style of practice.

I'd like to talk about legal aid. The legal aid costs in British Columbia have grown at a tremendous rate over the past seven or eight years. When I first started to practise law, legal aid was handled on strictly a voluntary

[ Page 2100 ]

basis. Lawyers did it for nothing. In those days, as the same today, about 10 per cent of the legal profession was handling about 75 per cent of the legal aid cases. It was only in murder cases that an honorarium was paid to counsel. If I recall correctly, that was about $500 for the whole trial. Then what happened is that lawyers got the idea that as justice was the responsibility of the community as a whole, the legal profession should not be asked to bear the burden or make the sacrifice of defending cases on legal aid for nothing. That sounded like a reasonable argument; and I must confess, at that time I accepted it.

A committee was put together by the lawyers to come up with some method by which some financial assistance should be paid to the lawyers who acted on legal aid cases. Of course, that was the beginning. The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) and the Attorney-General know the tremendous cost to the British Columbia taxpayer of legal aid services today.

But now a problem has arisen, because there does not seem to be any end to these increasing costs. More and more people are demanding and receiving legal aid and legal services at the cost of the taxpayer. Some of these people are very much in need; others are not. As I explained earlier, others are coming to a lawyer's office with $5,000 automobiles and getting free legal services or legal services at the expense of the taxpayer.

I'm going to make a proposal, Mr. Chairman, and I'm going to issue a challenge to the legal profession - and I'm also going to issue a challenge to the Attorney-General's ministry - to very seriously consider encouraging the legal profession to take up this challenge voluntarily, and if they won't, to start exercising a little gentle pressure to see if we can improve the quality of the legal profession in this province. My suggestion is that because lawyers have done very well in the past decade - we've had a feast; we are among the top income earners in Canada - as a profession the time has come for us to do a reverse of what we did 15 years ago. That is to say, it's time for the legal profession to say: "Okay, we are now prepared to spread the legal aid workload out among a greater number of lawyers, and we will expect every lawyer practicing before the bar in this province to do his share of legal aid for nothing." As I said, 10 per cent of the lawyers are now carrying 75 per cent of the burden of legal aid and, if we can shift that burden evenly throughout this profession... There will, of course, be some exceptions; there are very heavy and complicated cases in which specialized training is required and where payment will have to continue. But on the day-to-day, routine legal aid cases that can be handled by most general practitioners, my suggestion is that the lawyers agree to take up a large percentage of this slack and do it for nothing.

In other words, what I'm saying is that it's time for the legal profession to become a real, true profession. It's time for this profession to lead the people of this country in the concept that we are going to improve this country. If we are going to get inflation under control and if we are going to stop making more and more demands upon the taxpayers, let's lead the way by saying: "Okay, we are going to take that responsibility, or a portion of it, and we are going to do our share for our country and our province." And then, I think, the profession can be proud of itself. Then, I think, it can look to other professions to do the same, and that will spread down through our community and will certainly be a step toward a tremendous cost-saving to the community. If a profession is truly a profession, it should accept this challenge. And the challenge is small because, if every lawyer is prepared to do his bit, if every lawyer in this province said: "I will do two legal aid cases a year for nothing, " Mr. Chairman, the tremendous tax dollar saving to this province would be incredible. It would the best public relations job that any profession could possibly do. And I challenge the legal profession to take it up and I challenge the Attorney-General to, first, encourage them, and second, nudge them, and thirdly, shove them, if that's necessary.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Should I respond to the .... ?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I might explain that the Attorney-General's back has been bothering him. It's a little difficult to recognize whether he is exercising or standing.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Well, I'm not exorcising -I can assure you of that, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, the hon. member discussed the question of estate fees. These, as conveyancing fees, are subject to taxation. And I would recommend to any of the people in this province that if they have not availed themselves of that process and they wish to do so, would they please do so.

Secondly, I would inform the hon. member, for his own interest, that I have been requested to change the structure for executor's fees, which now are set at a maximum of 5 per

[ Page 2101 ]

cent. I don't think that's appropriate at all, and as far as this voice is concerned, I don't intend to see that happen. But there have been a number of petitions in from professional executors, who are usually trust companies, that the fees be open-ended. I don't think that's appropriate and I don't intend to support that concept.

Insofar as lawyers' performing their job is concerned, I've always made it as clear as I can, hon. member, that in the province of British Columbia we do have a responsibility to provide legal assistance to those people who are without the necessary means to have it provided. I've always felt that the bar is at times perhaps suffering, shall I say - with all respect to them - from a lack of altruism; there is no reason why they cannot do more. I've always urged them to do more. But they do have one excellent programme - and I would like the public to be aware of this -and that is the lawyers' referral service. This is a first-class programme of the bar and they should all be commended in B.C. for their assistance in that regard.

Also, hon. member, as you know and as I know, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of lawyers in the province who every year do no end of free legal work in matters perhaps where they may send bills without ever any hope of collection or matters where they never ever send any bills. This used to be the situation with the medical profession until we had Medicare; now doctors, of course, are paid for that which they do, as far as I know, at all times. The legal profession is not in that situation. The amounts of dollars that are paid to practitioners in legal aid.... I've got a raft of statistics here, but I'm not referring to them; I'm speaking off the cuff. The rates per se in legal aid are just about the lowest in the country. I think we have a good legal aid system. I think there is a necessity for a greater harmonization between the Legal Services Commission and the Legal Aid Society. Those are matters which are being considered at the present time and I do hope that we'll be able to come up with a vehicle that will better serve the interests of both of those organizations and, in so doing, the interests of the general public.

One item that I must say distressed us has been the attitude of the federal government to its commitment here. Insofar as the criminal legal aid costs that are covered by the federal contribution at the present time, 38 per cent of our costs are taken care of. But just listen to some of these other provinces: Saskatchewan, 53 per cent; Manitoba, 53 per cent; Alberta, 65 per cent; Ontario, 43 per cent; Quebec, 49 per cent; and the Maritimes, 90 per cent. Of course the highest cost factors that we have here in legal aid are by virtue of the narcotic problem in B.C. We have 60 per cent of the narcotic problem and we certainly are not getting that kind of contribution from federal sources. I do hope that any people who are interested and have dealings with the federal government would certainly continue to draw that fact very demonstrably home to Ottawa.

We have not yet agreed to signing the new legal aid agreement. When we approached Ottawa it was on the basis of British Columbia representing all of the provinces. The provinces acted in concert. I think this is a good example of the local areas in the country appreciating their own concerns and going as a body to the federal government. That was exactly what was done at the recent attorneys' meeting. British Columbia was given the job some months ago to negotiate, on behalf of the contracting provinces, with the federal government the new legal aid agreement.

We wish to have it expanded outside of just the criminal side because I really and truly have felt all along that the general public are not reluctant to see their tax dollars spent for legal assistance. But I think they are reluctant to see their tax dollars only being spent for criminal legal assistance. I would like to see some of these federal tax dollars find themselves into the area of family law and children's law. To this point in time, we have not received an effective response from the government of Canada. But hope springs eternal in the west and I certainly hope that all of those, people who will be contemplating putting their toes into the water come the fall or spring of this year will carry these concepts back to the capital city.

MR. STEPHENS: Mr. Chairman, the Attorney-General's response to my suggestion that he review and consider the scale of fees lawyers are allowed to charge under the Supreme Court rules for estate work is simply that if the client doesn't like it, he can tax his bill. Now that's quite true, but the Attorney-General knows that anybody who attempts to tax a bill before the registrar must show that the bill goes beyond what the lawyer is entitled to charge. If the lawyer is charging according to the Supreme Court tariff, the client has no claim. So it's not good enough to say you can go and tax your cost. You're simply asking the client to run up additional legal costs just to tax the bill when he's not likely to get a remedy. The purpose of the right to tax a bill

[ Page 2102 ]

is when a lawyer is abusing the rules, when he's charging more than he should. But if he's charging within the Supreme Court tariff, which you have control over, how can you say he should tax his bill?

I'm suggesting to the Attorney-General that he look at the amount of fees that are being charged on estates. Some of them are quite justified, but others on some estates are just outrageous. It's that simple. I'm asking you to look at that and look at the possibility of finding a method through the legal profession of allowing people who want to do their own legal work and who can do their own legal work an outlet. Give them the information that they need.

The Attorney-General says he is hoping for more altruism from the profession. I'm not talking altruism, I'm talking self-survival. It seems to me that the legal profession needs some attention; it needs a better public image. It's not looked upon or generally accepted by the public as doing its job.

It's not altruism; it's a question of the legal profession fighting for survival. One of the best ways to fight for survival is to get up and be of service to your community. The traditional answer is the one the Attorney-General gave: "We're hoping to get more money: we're hoping that Ottawa will help us out" -more money, more money, more money.

What I am suggesting is that the Attorney-General seriously go to the legal profession and say: "Is not it time more of you thought about doing something for nothing?" I agree that a lot of lawyers do something for nothing. But cannot we do a little more? That's all I'm asking. It would take so little effort for all of the lawyers to do just a little bit more for the community. It would be a tremendous service and it would be a tremendous tax saving.

The Attorney-General referred to the lawyer referral service and I agree that that is a good start. But unfortunately, all the lawyer referral service does is that if you need a lawyer, you call a phone number and you get the name on the top of the list. Some effort is made to divide the lawyers who choose to participate according to their specialties. But you really get the name and phone number of a lawyer and you call him up. You have no way of knowing, any more than you would if you chose the number out of the yellow pages, whether you are going to be able to communicate with that lawyer or whether you agree with his prices. You go there and you spend your $5 and you have your, half-hour or 15-minute interview. I would presume that if the lawyer can't help you, he tells you so.

That's just fine. But if he can help you, then from that moment on, it's no holds barred as far as the fees are concerned.

While it is a step in the right direction, it falls far short of the needs of the public to have more access to legal information.

HON. MR. GARDOM: There are some very interesting plans in the United States concerning prepaid legal assistance. I happen to have in front of me the Hawaii prepaid legal plan which a gentleman very recently sent me. All legal benefits to Employees under this prepaid plan are tax free. Employer's premium contributions are tax exempt in that state as a business expense, which, of course, if it came into being in this country, would require amendments to the federal Income Tax Act. But there is some very interesting material in here. I could just tell you very quickly, if I may, in a couple of seconds.

"After years of study, the American Bar Association special committee on prepaid legal services has predicted that within the next few years, 70 per cent of the public and 50 per cent of the lawyers will be involved in prepaid legal service plans. The Hawaii prepaid legal plan makes this type of protection affordable and available today."

Interjection.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, as a matter of fact, it's being considered right now by members of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar. It covers members and their spouses and any unmarried children under the age of 18. They can make their payments either by deduction, weekly, bimonthly or monthly. Selection of the plan law firms are chosen by those people who wish to participate in it. There is a great deal of preventative law, and general legal services. There are restrictions as to the amounts that can be considered by the lawyers. It goes into domestic matters.

Members in the contested proceeding: the member represented must pay the normal and reasonable charge of the plan attorneys for such representation above their normal and reasonable charge, $350.

Wills do not include the preparation of trust wills or complicated fees.

"If the probate court sets a fee in excess of $500, the estate shall pay the excess."

It deals with tax matters, civil actions, claims and debts, criminal law. "Representation will not be provided in misdemeanour cases if the member has been arrested and charged for a similar offence on more than one

[ Page 2103 ]

earlier occasion within the past 12 months."

Then there are a number of exclusions. One of them is dealing with unmeritorious claims and appeals. Limitation of benefits. Legal fees for coverage under the plan. "Any single case shall be limited to $500 plus one-half of the plan's normal and reasonable charges for the next $500."

This is something I think is worthy of consideration.

MRS. DAILLY: I wish to change the subject to the whole area of impaired driving in British Columbia, specifically dealing with some questions around the effectiveness today of the impaired driving course which is used, as we know, around the province. In my own municipality of Burnaby, there is a very excellent committee which deals entirely with the implementation of what is called the Burnaby impaired drivers' course advisory committee. I'm sure that the Attorney-General's department, along with much of the mail - I know how much mail you must receive - has probably received their recent report.

I would like to take this opportunity during your estimates to just bring up briefly several of their recommendations which I think have a province-wide impact, not just for the Burnaby area.

HON. MR. GARDOM: They're a good bunch out there.

MRS. DAILLY: They're a good group, aren't they? They work very hard and I think that their recommendations show that they have done a lot of study on what today is - I know the Attorney-General will agree with me - one of the most serious problems we face: the whole matter of impaired drivers.

The basic concern they have right now, Mr. Chairman, is on the actual effectiveness of the present impaired drivers' course which is available. Their concern is that it fits in with an overall plan; I believe your ministry announced recently a programme on the whole matter of drinking-driving called Counterattack. Really what they would like to know is: where does the impaired driving course fit into this? I think really what they would like to hear is some policy statement on it, because they are not quite sure just.... They are all for a co-ordinated provincial programme, but they're rather floundering around now because they really have heard nothing but an initial statement. Their concern is that if you are moving on this province-wide Counterattack programme....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Don't you have a copy of that material?

MRS. DAILLY: We have some of it. But is the impaired driving course going to be co-ordinated in with it? That is their question.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Oh, yes, for people who are convicted.

MRS. DAILLY: Do you know if the material been sent to these advisory committees?

HON. MR. GARDOM: That's a good point.

MRS. DAILLY: I think that's the important thing: they want that communication. If not, I can do it.

I have a couple of points I would like to ask the Attorney--General's opinion on. I think they had an excellent recommendation here. They pointed out that although 985 persons were convicted of drinking-driving charges in Burnaby in 1977, only 40 persons of that group attended an impaired drivers' course. So really the concern is that if we have this course, why are not more people being sent to the course when they are fined? Has the Attorney-General any figures on that? I think that is their question. Can you determine for us the number of people in the province, Mr. Attorney-General - do you have those figures? - who have been convicted? How many have attended the impaired driving courses? That was one question.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I may have to get you that later.

MRS. DAILLY: That's fine. We can get that later.

I think they are making a point here that there is something wrong when this course is not being used to the degree it should be.

They have a specific recommendation that I wonder if the minister could comment on: that greater consideration be given to the impaired drivers' course as a supplement to fines and/or punishment when sentencing a person convicted of a drinking-driving charge who is a first offender. Alternatively, I wonder if the minister could tell us his reaction to this recommendation: that a new system be considered which would allow the superintendent of motor vehicles to order each first offender to take an impaired drivers' course or face an increase of the mandatory suspension now in effect.

I am going through this in detail, Mr.

[ Page 2104 ]

Chairman, because I think we all agree that this is a very serious problem that's faced over this province and we have a group of people in Burnaby who have worked very hard to come up with positive recommendations. I think it would be interesting to have a reaction from the minister.

They are concerned that the first offenders who are going.... Often you find that impaired drivers who have had previous convictions are attending the impaired drivers' course. Their concern is that these people sometimes have a detrimental effect on others attending the course - for example, first offenders. The point they are making is that the course should not be used as a form of treatment for chronic alcoholism. There seems to be a tendency for the course to be used for that and they have expressed their concern about it. I was hoping that the minister could tell us his reaction and if he agrees with that concern about it not being used for chronic alcoholism.

The other recommendation they have which I'd like to hear the minister's reaction on is to allow the superintendent of motor vehicles to consider returning a driver's licence for sober and regular attendance in an impaired drivers' course on the recommendation of the probation officer. We know the hardship that some people have to go through if they need their cars for their work and so on. Yet I personally feel that if they make the great error of drinking when driving, they must face the punishment. But on the other hand, the recommendation here is that perhaps people who have taken the driving course and have attended it regularly and soberly could have it returned on the recommendation of the probation officer.

I have one final point for the Attorney-General, Mr. Chairman. It is a known fact today - and it's a very sorry fact - that more and more teenagers are drinking. The incidence is getting higher, for whatever social reasons one doesn't know, but it's a fact. And the drinking age is getting lower; 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds are drinking. The point that is being made by this very active group in Burnaby is: is it not time to start introducing into our school system an impaired driving prevention programme? Now I realize this has to be done in conjunction with the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) . I wonder if the minister has had an opportunity to talk that over with the Minister of Education.

I know there are a number of detailed questions, but I would appreciate it if the minister could answer some of them at this time.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Thank you very much, Madam Member, and specifically for your interest in this matter. Counterattack, I think, is one of the programmes about which we don't have any policy difficulties or any party difficulties anywhere in the province. It's as a result of the combined interest and efforts of everybody in B.C. that we have been able to develop to this point in time the degree of awareness that we have. We do mean business. We want to keep those drunken drivers off the road, and we're not making any bones about it. The risk of apprehension is higher. There are year-round, province-wide roadblocks, and those are going to continue. At some point in time we will be bringing in a reduction from 0.08 roadside suspension to 0.05 roadside suspension, which was a bill that was passed in the House last year. Furthermore, we are giving serious consideration to blood tests for injured people following motor-vehicle accidents, which are in place at the present time in Australia and in other parts of the world. That, though, would require an amendment to the Criminal Code; it's not something that we could do on our own in B.C. It is a matter that British Columbia will be bringing up at the provincial attorneys' meeting.

We are stressing law enforcement. We are stressing community involvement. I can say that the Counterattack committees have been developed in no end of regions in the province - in the Kootenays, Kamloops, the Okanagan, Prince George and the Fraser Valley. We've got terrific support from organizations: the Hotels' Association, the Bartenders' Union, the B.C. Medical Association, from registered nurses, the Automobile Association, the B.C. Federation of Labour and a number of employee groups.

Concerning law and policy review, we have developed a high-level ministerial committee, comprised of this ministry, the Ministry of Energy, Transport and Communications, and senior officials from the Insurance Corporation. Their specific mandate is to examine and make recommendations concerning provincial laws relating to motor vehicles, with a view to the complete consolidation of the Motorvehicle Act and any other laws that relate to motor-vehicles in the province of B.C.

Insofar as clogging the justice system is concerned, the villain in the piece is really alcohol and vehicles. The figures are in these massive texts that are in front of me now. But in the interest of time, I am not going to look them up. I think that something like 80,000 cases out of 140,000 that come before the provincial court in a year are related to cars and liquor. There is something wrong out

[ Page 2105 ]

there, and we are going to do our level best to stop it. The penalties have increased. Under the Summary Convictions Act it used to be a maximum of $500; now there's a maximum of $2,000. The courts are starting to award higher penalties. The Crown prosecutors are doing their job and exercising their responsibilities and they are appealing cases where the awards are inappropriate. We have killers on the road and we just can't continue to put up with that.

I think that what will cow from, this ministerial committee - and I will speak at greater length on that at another time - will be some thing that I'm sure will be of very great interest to all of us. We will direct it to give full consideration to a merger of the defensive driving courses run by the superintendent of motor-vehicles and the impaired driving courses that are a condition of probation. I think there should be more requirement of those people who are applying for licences in this province to know more about the laws that affect them insofar as drinking and driving is concerned. I don't want anybody in B.C. to be caught by surprise. I want them to know what the law is and to know what the penalties are, so they will know fully, completely and clearly that if they are on the road and they have had too much to drink, they are there at their own peril. We don't want them to create the death and injury and social damage as well as the enormous costs that have developed over the last year.

In 1977 people charged with driving while intoxicated numbered 23,000; roadside safety suspensions were up as well - 20,000. The police are finding more and more borderline drivers. The object of that is a safety exercise. If the man or woman is not in a state of impairment, as a safety exercise we get them off the road; the police are doing a first-class job in that.

The December fatality figures were down. It's never a pleasant thing to talk about fatality figures or take any comfort from it -the only comfort you can ever take from that is when it's zero. Fatality figures for 1976 were down to 68; they were down to 44 in 1977. The road checks are continuing. The BATmobiles will be continuing. Public information will continue to focus on specific targets, e.g., summer motorists and, at the present time, high school graduations. Most important emphasis is going to be given this year to an indepth review of the law by each of the three organizations that are most closely connected to it. I thank you for your remarks. I can assure you that your remarks will be given to that group to consider.

MS. SANFORD: I have a few very brief questions that I would like to raise with the Attorney-General. Some time ago I wrote to the Attorney-General because I was concerned about what might happen with the community corrections centre at Snowdon. There was some discussion at that time that Snowdon may, in fact, be closed down and be moved to the Island Youth Centre.

But now that the Island Youth Centre is being used for other purposes - and I certainly won't discuss those because I know you will call me to order, Mr. Chairman - I would like to know from the Attorney-General whether there is going to be any change at all at Snowdon as a result of the ministry of Health taking over the Island Youth Centre. If so, what kind of changes are being contemplated?

Does the Attorney-General at this time anticipate that the programme- which has been ongoing at Snowdon for some period of time will, in fact, continue as it is now using the current staff, whether or not they intend to phase out the programme? Do they have other facilities that they might be looking at?

Mr. Chairman, the other question that I have relates to a problem that I have been trying to solve in my own mind. I wonder if the Attorney-General might give me his interpretation as to what might happen in a situation that I am just about to outline. I would like to know from the Attorney-General: if, for instance, a young 15-year-old girl is committed by a judge to a juvenile detention centre such as the one near Campbell River at Lakeview and she is pregnant, do the parents have any jurisdiction over this child after she has been put into the containment centre? Is the director of the centre the one who would be responsible for any decision with respect to a possible abortion, whether or not the parents and the child might disagree on the issue of whether an abortion should take place? Who in fact makes the decision? Would the parents still be responsible for deciding what should happen to that girl?

Let's say the girl, who is 15, would like to keep the child. Let's say that the parents involved would prefer that the daughter have an abortion. Where does the director of a place like Lakeview stand? Does he make a decision on this? Is he the one who acts as arbitrator? Do the parents still have that say? Does it go back to the courts? What happens? I wonder if the A-G could clarify that for me.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I made an announcement earlier today concerning facilities for the north Island. I know you are interested in it

[ Page 2106 ]

and I will have a copy delivered to you to save time. Secondly, Snowdon will be continued. Thirdly, re the other item you mentioned, I'm informed that the parents' and child's decision would be the decision that would govern and not the director of the containment centre.

MS. SANFORD: You would have nothing to do with it? Whatever they decided would go ahead?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Not the superintendent of child welfare, no.

MRS. JORDAN: I won't take much of the House's time. I apologize if this matter has been canvassed before, but I am under a compulsion, both for my own concerns and the general feeling of, 1 believe, many people in this province and certainly the people in the constituency and the fact that the case that I want to wrap this around involves a child's death.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Is it under appeal?

MRS. JORDAN: I'm going to ask you to put it under appeal.

The general principle that I want to mention just for a moment is the concern that is growing in this province that the fine line of justice is tipping or has tipped in favour of the guilty, and that the innocent citizen today, the average citizen in British Columbia who is offended, whether it is in a minor way with the fact that a juvenile cuts their fences and allows their cattle out, whether their school is burned down and the child cannot basically be punished because he's a juvenile or whether it is a more serious offence of breaking in or whether, in fact, it's an even more serious offence that might relate to murder on the highway.

Mr. Chairman, the people of this province and certainly the people that I represent are deeply concerned that the average citizen who is offended by a thoughtless act, either unintentional or intentional, by an irresponsible person is guilty until they can prove they are innocent. In other words, the innocent in our province, as our justice system appears to be evolving through the courts, are guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. These people feel that today the justice system in trying to.... And I believe they understand what they are trying to do, which is to not make mistakes, not have an innocent person condemned to guilt when, in fact, they're not. But it is condemning the average person to a situation where they simply can't fight their own battles, where they simply have no voice in the courts and where they simply do not have justice.

Mr. Chairman, they're concerned that the relationship between the offended public, the RCMP, who are in most instances in this province the law-enforcing body, and the courts is not in tune. An offended individual, justly so, will talk to the RGMP and the answer from the RCMP - which people can well understand -is: "Well, I'll come and do something, but I assure you there is very little that I can do. As you know, when we take them into court, they're not prosecuted. They're let off on legal technicalities such as where the comma is in that particular aspect of the Act. They're juveniles; therefore we can't impose any severe penalty."

To keep it brief, Mr. Chairman, I don't think these people are red-neck radicals; I believe these are average citizens who feel that our system is offending them and is coming down in weight on the side of the guilty. The average citizen is utterly helpless to deal with some of the more minor offences and to deal with or protect themselves from some of the people who are no less than animals in their conduct in our society, and who are escaping to repeat that conduct because of the leniency of the courts and because of the inability of the average citizen to have the offence looked into as to what their innocence is and what should be repaid to that innocent individual. These people are not calling for lynchings, they're not calling for long-term incarceration, but they are calling for a penalty for the people who wilfully offend society, and in that instance should recognize that in doing this they give up certain rights.

I would like to move further, without going into more detail, to this matter of drinking drivers. The people in the North Okanagan strongly support this government's and the Attorney-General's efforts to make people more aware of the dangers of drinking-driving. We could get into seatbelts - the dangers there, the benefits from seatbelts - to make people aware that the government's intention is to get them off the road, not necessarily give them a criminal record. They're quite willing to support this, Mr. Chairman. But when they do this and perhaps are caught offending once in terms of four beers and an 0.08, they get a criminal record, and they see habitual offenders going before our courts and being let off on probation, or people committing serious crimes like arson or manslaughter or crimes of physical abuse, and getting off with minimum sentences of six months and two years, their

[ Page 2107 ]

faith is shattered. They ask: "What is the system trying to do?" Then when you get to the more serious offences from drinking-driving, Mr. Chairman, such as death, I must report to you that the people of the North Okanagan are absolutely stunned at the type of injustice that the courts are meting out in our area in terms of this offence.

I'd like to cite a specific case for you in which a gentleman of 24 years of age was drinking on the job and left the job with his friend and went to another drinking area. He was drinking there. They each got into the cars and he did what I'm told is a burn-out, because he was annoyed at what happened at work and I understand this is spinning his tires and almost turned his car around. He got out on the highway, drove down a major road to another drinking centre and in the process killed a 13-year-old child who was walking home from school in a pedestrian lane. This in itself, Mr. Chairman, was a tragedy, but the consequence of the court action is an even greater tragedy in our view, because that young man had his charge, which was laid by the police, reduced from criminal negligence resulting in death to dangerous driving.

After he'd been drinking on the job; after he'd gone to another drinking area in his car; after he'd done a burn-out in that parking lot; after he'd been clocked going down the highway at 85 miles per hour; after he passed a car in a school zone where there were children all over the highway and killed a child, his charge was reduced to "dangerous driving." This young man was sentenced to four month's incarceration and two years' suspension of his driver's licence for the killing of a child after drinking, after obvious disorderly behaviour.

Mr. Chairman, the answer when you bring this up is: "Well, the poor chap has to live with the knowledge that he killed someone." I've done a fair amount of checking into this and I would suggest to you, in this instance and in many other instances of this type of driver and this type of highway death, that these are not poor chaps who are going to live with remorse. They are animals dressed in human form and they do not suffer remorse. And in many instances they will go out and do this again.

Mr. Chairman, what people are asking is: Is this the type of justice system we want? Is this, in fact, a way to deter deaths on the highway? I don't suggest that a more severe penalty would, in fact, cure everything, but I would like to suggest that we just have to look at our justice system. We have to look at the innocent people in our society, the innocent victims who, in fact, are turning out to be the guilty and who are paying the penalty for these crimes. It is not the felon or the criminal or the poor chap that is paying the price for this crime.

[Mr. Loewen in the chair.]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to leave this for the moment, but I would also like to say to the Attorney-General again that these citizens are not red-neck, right-wing radicals. They are concerned, through you, Mr. Chairman, to the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) , about the future of society. But if you have been in England and seen where the justice system became so overbalanced that when you're away on your holiday, transients can move into your house even though it's locked and you maintain residence there.... You have no right to that house. I suggest that this is exactly what's going to happen in British Columbia.

With the greatest respect for the many changes that the Attorney-General has brought about in British Columbia, and for him himself and for the justice system, I say again that not all people who commit offences are poor chaps. When you deliberately commit an offence you do forfeit some of your civil liberties and your rights, and you must recognize that. That responsibility belongs in the lap of every citizen of this province. If you forgo it, you must pay the price. We simply are seeing ever-increasing crime rates, ever-increasing disrespect for people's private property and other citizens' civil liberties, and ever more transgressions in this whole matter of preservation of life, where it's becoming a matter of "isn't it too bad you killed somebody on the highway."

If I sound impassioned, Mr. Chairman, it is because I am. I live in an area that has seen probably more young people.... We have a number of motherless families. We have a number of fatherless families in our area for no other reason than the stupidity of drinking driving, and some of those deaths have been involving more than once the same people.

I plead with this House not to let our hearts bleed for the guilty, just as we don't want to over-condemn the guilty. But for good heaven's sake, let us wake up and recognize our responsibilities to the innocent citizens of this province. Let's give them an equal opportunity and an equal voice, and let's not give the standard crass answer of: "Well, you can take it through the courts." Because frankly, Mr. Chairman, the average citizen in this province emotionally can't stand to go

[ Page 2108 ]

through the courts and financially can't afford to go through the courts. They who pay the taxes and they who are the of fended are not the people that are eligible for legal aid.

I leave this with you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for this opportunity. I sincerely hope that the Attorney-General will weigh some of these points very carefully.

MR. MACDONALD: It isn't every day I agree with the member for North Okanagan, but without referring to any particular cases, there have been cases where the offence of criminal negligence causing death has been reduced to the charge of dangerous driving, on perhaps the expectation of a prosecutor that the jury might reduce that charge. But the prosecutor shouldn't because the Criminal Code is there and the law is that if it's wanton or reckless conduct causing death, it should go to a judge and jury. That's what the law says. Some of these reductions are certainly not warranted. Sometimes the charges are reduced and there's a guilty plea and then there's not even an inquest, so the community simmers. I'm not referring to any particular case at the present time, but it's not good. There's something wrong there.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

Mr. Chairman, let me ask the Attorney-General this question, because he's talking about alcohol offence. A loophole appeared in the very tragic death of a young man in Surrey, which I think the Attorney-General probably knows about - Peter Graham Stewart, who was hit at an intersection by an American near the border.

HON. MR. GARDOM: An American, yes. That's why we're advocating the blood....

MR. MACDONALD: Well, I do not know whether the blood test would be enough because the loophole is there. The loophole is this: the person, whether it's the breathalyser or whether it's the blood test, says: "I'm sick. I need to go to hospital right away." He spends his time in hospital for at least the two hours or so until the alcoholic haze passes out of the bloodstream and then he's free. So that is a loophole, is it not, in the enforcement procedure, whether it's breathalyser or whether it's blood test?

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's in the Criminal Code, Alex.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, it is, but it's a loophole. There it is. The person can pretend to be sick and thereby prevent the police from taking either a blood test or administering the breathalyser, and that is a loophole that should be cleared up. There are lots of loopholes in the law, and I think that's what the lawyer called his dog, wasn't it? Loophole. But that's another story. I'm talking about a tragic case.

The other thing is, what happens in a case like the Stewart case if the person who is driving the death car - the responsible person - takes off into another jurisdiction, as happened in that case? Should there not be some immediate ability of the police officers to put that person under apprehension, or at least bail, to ensure that he will answer the cause of justice? It's pretty hard to extradite somebody for a traffic offence. Surely where there's a homicide on the road involving what appears to be criminal negligence, the person who may be responsible should be held and not allowed to go into a foreign country. Then ICBC picks up a bill, and that's supposed to have satisfied the interests of justice. I don't think it does.

HON. MR. GARDOM: In response to the last speakers, the sentencing, of course, is a matter for the judiciary. Sentencing is one of the most difficult things a judge ever has to do - we all appreciate that fact. A sentence depends upon the circumstance, the gravity of the offence, the opportunities for reformation of the individual, and deterrence from the point of view of the general public. Those are the elements that are always considered in depth by the courts when they're sentencing. That has always been the test and always will be the test.

If the courts have erred - and courts do err in sentencing - then it's always open for the executive side of the administration of justice to consider appeal. Vis-à-vis dangerous driving and criminal negligence situations, usually these are charges that are both made at the one time, and depending upon the circumstances they can be reduced. If you have a situation in a local community where there has been a trial on a criminal negligence charge, involving more serious circumstances in case A than in case B, then you have case B come up and you find in case A it was a charge of criminal negligence, and that particular charge is dismissed and a charge of dangerous driving was the result, then the prosecutor in his wisdom is balancing the community standards and the finding of juries in the community and proceeds on that basis.

[ Page 2109 ]

This is not anything that's unique to this province, this is followed right throughout Canada. I must say it has a great wisdom of historic precedent from other jurisdictions, as you well know.

MRS. JORDAN: I want to ask the Attorney-General how we can possibly leave this Legislature and go to the public and give them the answer you just gave us. I realize you are reflecting the system, but I think what I want to tell you is that I believe the system has got to sit down and examine itself.

How do the average citizens speak to the judiciary, which is becoming the untouchable elite in their minds? Who is going to decide social standards? Are nine men in the supreme court from Quebec and Ontario going to decide the standards for our country? It just may be that this country doesn't want their standards, and if that is the case how do they speak to them? We can't speak to them as politicians, because that's interfering. Tell me, how does the average person on the street in Canada speak to the judiciary system? How do they say: "I find your answer, Mr. Attorney-General, representative of the judiciary of Canada, unsatisfactory"? How do they say I'm not out for blood and hanging, but I am out for justice for the innocent and justice for the average."? And how can we change the attitude that I believe is growing, in our country - if you want to talk about Canada instead of British Columbia - where we are finding the average law-abiding citizen ... ?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are on vote 16, which is the administrative responsibility of the Attorney-General. You are now straying quite a long way off that.

MRS. JORDAN: I'm talking about British Columbia and our judiciary system, Mr. Chairman, and I'll try not to stray.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, you are out of order, because the judiciary system is not the administrative responsibility of the minister in the light of the terms of reference you are using. Please continue.

MRS. JORDAN: Let me rephrase my point in terms of the administration of justice and the system in our province. I only want to make one more point. In looking at our administration, Mr. Attorney-General, the people of British Columbia - the average law-abiding citizens - if you listen to them are beginning to throw up their hands and say: "Well, what is the law?" When you have the backbone of your community saying this, and the backbone of your citizenry beginning to lose their respect for the law, not because of their values but because of the values of the justice system or the administration of that system, then I suggest we have a growing and very serious problem. I suggest that inadvertently the administration of justice in this province is undermining the total legal and justice system in, our province, because it is forcing the average citizen to lose his faith and to lose his respect. So more and more you hear the [illegible] of this country or this province saying: "Well, everybody else does it - why shouldn't IV' I'm not saying this is right, but I suggest this is what is happening, and I suggest that it is something that we should look at very seriously. I realize you don't have all the answers, but perhaps British Columbia and its administration can lead in the area of providing some of these answers.

I realize you're all sitting here smiling and laughing and, frankly, I say to hell with you. You'd better get out 'there and listen to what the citizens of this province are thinking and talking about. When you talk about the future of the administration of justice in this province, if you want it to work you had better listen to what those citizens are saying and what they are doing. We, as administrators and legislators, had better find a better way for them and we had better be able to give them some more realistic answers than what we got in this House this afternoon - without disrespect to the Attorney-General - what they are getting today from the RCMP, what they are getting today from the lawyers and what they are getting today from the judges.

HON. MR. GARDOM: In response to the lady member, I would draw to her attention that one of the fundamental tenets of the system of jurisprudence that we enjoy in this country and which has resulted from several hundred years of very, very fruitful performance, and for which many people have given their lives, is the independence of the judiciary. I think if the Hon. member is suggesting that we move from that concept to a non-independent judiciary, it is something that I will never, ever subscribe to, nor do I think the backbone of the country would ever subscribe to.

I would also take great issue with the hon. member that the backbone of the country is in any way losing its faith in the system of jurisprudence that exists throughout the Commonwealth countries of the world and which started, for our purposes, in Great Britain. It is the best system in existence in the

[ Page 2110 ]

world, and if the lady member has some precise suggestions as to how that can be specifically improved, she perhaps should give some thought to them and have them rationalized and we could certainly look at them.

Dealing with the question of decisions of judges in cases, yes, it is always possible to express an opinion as to the merit of the decision, as to whether it is, in the view of an individual, too big or too small. People can express the same attitudes about nurses and carpenters and doctors as well. That's certainly open for a person to do. But I would like to assure the hon. member that the system that she is criticizing is the one which I really think plays the greatest part in keeping the free world together, and I'm totally behind it.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Attorney-General, I feel that you read more into my comments in terms of criticizing the system. I don't damn the system. I believe it is the best system. But I don't think it's a holy virgin that cannot be improved, that cannot be criticized. I don't talk about tampering with justice, but I talk about justice perhaps reviewing itself. It's not absolutely perfect. The judiciary system is not above human beings. It has its faults; it has its individuals.

Why is it in this province today when you want to talk about Something of this nature that is concerning people, then immediately you are a renegade? We talked about this in taxation and in education. If you want to question the cost of education or the value you are getting for that money, you are immediately against education. I'm not against our system. I'm just trying to ask how the public can reach the system.

I do think - contrary to what you say, Mr. Attorney-General - they are in danger. They're_ not wanting to destroy the judicial system, but they're losing faith in it because of what they are seeing happen to innocent people. If the judicial system and the administration of it is so frail after these hundreds and hundreds of years, then it isn't doing what it should do. It should be strong enough to stand its own capability to examine itself. It should be strong enough to listen to what is going on in the public mind and, if not change, then be able to answer that public in a way it can understand.

As I say, I don't want to prolong it because I know you want to get on with the vote, but I would ask you not to misinterpret that I wish to destroy the system. I don't know them all. I am not a lawyer, but Iove looked at the French system and I certainly know the other systems, and I think it is the best. But as I say, it is not above reproach, it's not above improving itself, and it is a system that is designed to serve humanity, I presume, and democracy and the people.

All I an trying to do is put forth a feeling that I believe many people in this province have. I don't want to be damned for it, nor do I think I should, nor do I think those people should be considered anti-justice or antidemocratic or anti-historical. They're basically positive people. Perhaps they aren't as articulate as the lawyers or the judiciary, but they have a point, they do care, and I think we should listen.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for North Okanagan is expressing a part of the very great frustration and alienation that is abroad in our society and, I think, in North America at the moment. I think probably the vote on proposition 13 yesterday in California was, in another area, an example of people saying: "We don't know quite what to do about it all, but we'll lash out somehow."

I would suggest to the hon. member that I think it's perfectly proper to question the judicial system. Perhaps our political system ought to be questioned even more than that because we're the ones, I suppose, who make the laws that those judges enforce.

I want to say something to the Attorney-General about the legal profession because there have been quite a few shots taken at them during this debate. I've taken shots at the profession in the past too. Iove said that advertising of an informational nature should be allowed. Iove said there should be lay people on the benches. I've spoken of the fancy offices that lawyers sit in, many of the top lawyers, and you know very well who is paying for them as you're sitting there.

But with all of this, I would just like to put on the record for a moment that there is another side. A strong and independent legal profession is, in my view, one of the bulwarks of our liberty in our particular system of law and politics. They are perhaps not as important as a free press, but very nearly so and right up there. I personally want to pay tribute to the work that the Canadian Bar Association and others do in legislation that is put together by this government and by others, and concerns for the rights and liberties of individuals.

That said, I want to return to another question raised by a member, and that is the cost of conveyancing and other such what one might call minor legal matters. In the temporary absence of the Attorney-General from the

[ Page 2111 ]

chamber, perhaps the deputy could be kind enough to make a note as to the various subjects that come up.

I want to ask the Attorney-General why the number of notaries in this province is so closely controlled. I don't have an exact number but it is my understanding that the number of notary seals available in the province is somewhere between 300 and 400 and is strictly controlled at that level. There is even a reasonably close control kept on notary seals as to the part of the province where they may be located.

Mr. Chairman, under the Notaries Act, people who are notaries may do a great many of the simpler things handled by the legal profession. They can draw, pass upon, keep, and issue deeds, contracts, charter parties and other mercantile instruments within the province. They can draw and supervise the execution of wills of the class prescribed by the bylaws of the Society of Notaries Public. They can attest and protest all commercial instruments. They can administer oaths, affidavits, and so on.

They can, as I say, perform legal duties of a routine nature. Why, then, do we not see more notaries practising in the province of British Columbia? I suppose it might pose a bit of a threat to the legal profession in the sense of giving more competition in those basic areas which might be called the overhead paying functions of law offices. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there should be more provision in this province for people without the high qualifications of lawyers to perform the simpler legal functions.

We all know that in fact it's paralegals within lawyers' offices who do this kind of work right now. Why can't a lot of those people take the exams and be issued notary seals and be able to get about the business of doing these simple legal things at a more accessible and lower price?

I would like to ask the Attorney-General specifically who was responsible for putting the political questions, the partisan choice questions in the survey that was undertaken by his ministry having to do with how people perceive the law and its administration. The Attorney-General may recall that he was asked in the House about this particular survey and he said that he himself had no knowledge of it. He put a stop to it. This is the political question. But who was responsible for that? What was the name of the person responsible for that particular outrageous inclusion in that survey.

Among other things, people were asked: "If a provincial election were held today, would you likely vote for the Social Credit Party, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party or other? Please specify." There's even a choice if you would not choose to vote. I'm sure that choice would be exercised by a lot of people in an election today. But who is responsible for that?

Incidentally what were the results to the extent they were tabulated? I think a lot of the members in this chamber would be interested.

Yesterday we canvassed, to some extent, the minister's responsibility under the Constitutional Questions Determination Act. I wasn't satisfied with the ministers reply. First of all, he seemed to say that this was really a matter for cabinet, not for him. Yet I look in the annual report of the Ministry of the Attorney-General for 1976, and on page 65 we have a list of Acts administered by the Attorney-General. It's quite a long list, and one of those Acts specified as being administered by him is the Constitutional Questions Determination Act. So it seems to me that on the admission of his own annual report, there can be no question about the administrative responsibility for the Act.

Yesterday the Attorney-General was asked by several of us as to his policy on reference to the court of appeal - by the cabinet on his advice - of proposed legislation which might not be constitutional. I thought the Attorney-General was very lightweight in his replies. He suggested that there was not any real, solid expression of opinion - and the particular Act with which we are concerned, the Heroin Treatment Act, I'm not, of course, debating at the moment - for worrying about the constitutionality of this Act. One of those solid bases is the fact that the juvenile containment legislation, which had a similar conflict and fine line of division between federal and provincial authority, has been found ultra vires of this Legislature. It's under appeal. That situation may change around, but for the moment it has been found ultra vires. If the Attorney-General wants other solid expressions of opinion, he should be aware that the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association has expressed its own grave concerns about the constitutionality of Bill 18. The Standerwick report, which was prepared for the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, suggested that in pith and substance the proposals treated in the White Paper were directed towards crime and not towards health.

HON. MR. GARDOM: We're going to have a very full debate on the bill, you know. You can bring up the constitutionality of the bill

[ Page 2112 ]

then.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would suspect that this might be better covered under second reading of the bill, rather than at this time. It's a fine line to define what's a bill and what isn't, but a bill on this matter has been tabled in the House.

MR. GIBSON: I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. I have very little more on it. I could not help but note the Attorney-General's comment that this could be covered during the legislation. I'm suggesting to the Attorney-General that if there is a significant chance of lack of constitutionality, then that should be decided upon before the bill is ever called for debate and certainly before it is implemented. If that constitutionality is not determined - and I say this with respect to any bill, not just this particular Bill 18 -the government then proceeds to pass the bill and proceeds to make expenditures and take action on the basis of what they believe to be law, and one fine day the matter is brought up in court and the court might rule it ultra vires, rule it unconstitutional. Then where are we? We are then in a position where perhaps millions of dollars have been spent and many very serious plans have been made on the basis of legislation that turned out to be beyond the capability of this House.

I once again make this plea to the Attorney-General: given the genuine constitutional shadows that, have been thrown on this bill, will he not, as is his responsibility, make a recommendation to the cabinet that the Constitutional Questions Determination Act should be used in this case to obtain for the government and for this Legislature a firm opinion as to the constitutionality of Bill 18? 1 will say no more about that question, but I make that plea to the Attorney-General. He can save this province a great deal of grief and money if he will do that.

Under the Attorney-General's responsibility for the Racing Commission, I would ask this brief question. He has received extensive representations from the racing community -for the moment I will leave the provincial taxation aspect aside, because that is more properly directed to the Minister of Finance -with respect to Sunday racing. Those representations have suggested that apart from anything else - extra revenues accruing to the province of British Columbia, and so on - our balance of payments would be assisted to the tune of something like $250,000 for every Sunday that racing was permitted - money currently going to the state of Washington from people going across the border to follow the horses on Sunday. Of course, any kind of Sunday racing would have to be set at a time which would not interfere with the Day of Observance as practised by many people, but it seems to me that that kind of time accommodation can be worked out. Will the Attorney-General give the Legislature his current state of thinking in response to that brief given to him by the racing people - last September, I think it was - as to the desirability of introducing Sunday racing in British Columbia?

I would like the Attorney-General to respond, if he could, to a concern which was voiced by one of his regional officers sometime earlier this year with respect to the relatively low use of community service orders as a result of a shortage of probation officers to supervise those community service orders. I would ask him if that situation improved. At the same time I would commend him and his ministry for the experiment that has been set up in the Cedar Cottage-Kensington area of Vancouver which will, in effect, allow local panels of community people to be involved in the handling of juveniles who one way or another have come afoul of the law. This is an experiment, of course, and ultimately if the community panel is unable to deal with the question in a satisfactory way, it goes into the regular juvenile trial apparatus. But this emphasis on the community and local people dealing with local juveniles seems to me a very good experiment, an experiment that should be closely watched and encouraged. I ask the Attorney-General if he has some response to those various points.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Dealing with the images in the law question, in the first place that questionnaire was not distributed publicly, but it had only been submitted to about a couple of dozen researchers in order to assess the suitability of its format. The research staff was employed for that specific purpose; they were on contract to do the job.

I'm sorry, I missed maybe one of your other questions there, but I'd mention this: I'm informed the name is Mr. Andrew Wachtel. The programme was reconsidered after I requested a review, and now it's looking at the basis of law in two specific areas which, I think, will be of considerable value in the area of delinquency of juveniles and in the area of law affecting the family. These two particular areas are where attitudes and values are changing very, very rapidly throughout the country and certainly within the jurisdiction and control of this ministry to a degree that we have limited the capacity of the research

[ Page 2113 ]

facility to these two topics in order that it can be more effective and useful.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

With all respect, I don't think there is too much more that I can add to the remarks that I made yesterday concerning the bill that is before the House. I would reiterate that if any member of society has some specific observations and a specific opinion as to its constitutionality of lack thereof, we'd appreciate receiving that before the debate. The bill is not going to be debated this week, so there is still some time to have that before the House. I'm sure that we will have a very fulsome debate on that topic when the matter is developed.

You had one additional question about programmes for youngsters. I'm sorry, I haven't got the specifics on that, hon. member, but I'll check Hansard and give you a full report on it. There are a multitude of programmes in the community today and Corrections have developed first-class booklet on it. It's printed and I'll send you a copy.

MR. GIBSON: How about Sunday racing?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Insofar as Sunday racing is concerned, the brief was received from those interested people. I think that this is a matter, really, that affects not only the interest group itself - and we know this is an interest group - but it affects the attitude of the general public as to whether they are or not in favour of a more open Sunday, and this certainly would be one of the aspects of it. I certainly would personally like to see that this is an item that could be well considered and debated at the next meeting of the UBCM when they have their meeting. I don't quite know when that is coming up. I'll mention that to my colleague, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Hon. Mr. Curtis) .

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, first of all, with respect to the Sunday racing I would suggest to the Attorney-General there are relatively few municipalities that are affected by this particular issue. You know, there aren't racetracks located in every municipality of British Columbia.

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, but the areas in which they're in constitute the largest population blocs in the province Victoria, Vancouver and the lower mainland so I would say population-wise we encompass probably two-thirds of our population.

MR. GIBSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, then perhaps the Attorney-General, rather than waiting for the next meeting, could perhaps consult the municipal authorities of those two particular areas. I thought this whole question of Sunday sports in general was settled a long time ago. Why there should be this particular hangover I simply don't understand.

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's not a hangover or a hangup and, you know, Sunday sport.... Fine. Racing indeed is a sport; it's also gambling. It's one of the few exceptions under the Criminal Code and it's an item that, I think, we should receive an expression of opinion on from the people in the province and the people most closely associated to that happening.

MR. GIBSON: Well, I'll take it, then, that the Attorney-General is inviting expressions of opinion, and presumably those most interested in it will attempt to organize such expressions if they can possibly do so. I hope that he will pay attention to that when it happens.

On the Constitutional Questions Determination Act again, the Attorney-General suggested that if there was a specific and substantial constitutional question raised, he would be interested in it. As the Attorney-General knows, the Canadian Bar Association British Columbia branch is studying this right now. If that association - the association of British Columbia lawyers - was to come to the Attorney-General and say officially on behalf of their association, "Mr. Attorney-General, we think there is a significant question as to whether or not this Act, as drawn, is constitutional, " in that case would he then exercise his potential responsibility under the Constitutional Questions Determination Act and refer the legislation for constitutional determination before debate?' I think you should. I think you should answer the question anyway.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Do you want me to answer it? I'm not going to speculate. But as I said, I would welcome receiving opinion; the government would welcome receiving opinion; you would welcome receiving opinion. All God's children would welcome receiving opinion.

MR. GIBSON: I want to say I welcome receiving the Attorney-General's opinion too. I just wish he'd do something about it.

The Attorney-General did not answer the question with respect to notaries public, and

[ Page 2114 ]

why the number of these fine individuals, potentially able to give the simpler kinds of legal services in a convenient and low-cost way to the public around this province, is so closely controlled. I understand that it is kept at somewhere between 300 and 400. 1 want to know why the Attorney-General shouldn't allow the expansion of the number of notaries public by a considerable degree so that even some of the very competent paralegals now practising in some of the major law offices could go out and write their exams, obtain their notary public seals, and be of service to the public directly, rather than having to go through someone else. Let's cut out the middle man here and let these very competent paralegals in the areas that notaries public can serve have the opportunity to do that kind of thing.

Would the Attorney-General be.... I won't even ask him if he's prepared to consider it. He's prepared to consider anything. Will the Attorney-General ensure that the number of notary public seals in this province is increased by some reasonable fraction over the next couple of years?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Hon. members, there are provisions within the statute in question concerning the appointment of notaries, and fitness and need are a couple of the qualifications that have to be shown. As you know, there are an increasingly large number of people over the past 10 or 15 years who receive more comprehensive training than do the notaries in the field of justice, namely lawyers graduating from the universities and at public expense. There is no comparison between the training of the one and the other. We also utilize, of course, that active resource of legally trained people for the bench now and as a result of the initiative taken by the former administration - which I compliment them upon - the lay bench, some of whom did a first-class job. But at the present time we have a professionally trained bench.

MR. GIBSON: I would suggest to the Attorney-General that I understand there are a lot of lawyers coming out of our law schools, but maybe it is time we realized that we have too many lawyers and not enough notaries. Isn't it just possible that sometimes we're overtraining people for the job that has to be done? When the Attorney-General talks about being able to afford things, society can't afford to overtrain people. We have more than enough work to be done, and we have to direct the resources into the most important area.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Right.

MR. GIBSON: I am glad you agree with that, Mr. Minister of Mines, in your wisdom, and I hope you introduce your members to the Coal Act soon too.

I have one more question for the hon. Attorney-General, if he would put his cigar down and come back into the chamber for just a moment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure he'll have the question, hon. member. Please continue.

MR. GIBSON: I want to ask the Attorney-General, from his sources, from the corrections branch, from the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit, from such contacts as he has with the bureau of dangerous drugs, from the justice information system which is under his control, from the Vancouver city police, and so on, what are the trends that he measures in heroin use and heroin-related offences in this province at the current time?

If the Attorney-General would come in and answer that question, I can sit down. I'd just like him to answer the question, Mr. Chairman.

You know, the Leader of the Opposition's (Mr. Barrett's) speech on tobacco the other day wasn't bad.

MR. GIBSON: The question I addressed to the Attorney-General - and I hope he has the information from his many sources in CLEU and Vancouver city police and the corrections branch and so on....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we can ask questions; we can't insist on answers. The minister has indicated that he does not have that answer.

MR. GIBSON: Well, he didn't indicate that on Hansard. What he did was go outside to pick up his cigar again. If he doesn't come back here in about one minute, I'm going to move this committee rise and report progress because I don't think that's a very good way to handle a committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Possibly the member would defer to another member.

MR. GIBSON: No, I'm going to stand here until the A-G comes back and answers my question. I will read from the Notaries Act in the meantime.

The Attorney-General is back. Do I have the Attorney-General's ear for a moment?

Mr. Chairman, I would like to know from the

[ Page 2115 ]

Attorney-General - from his sources in the corrections branch, the justice information system, CLEU, the Vancouver city police and such contact he has with the bureau of dangerous drugs - what the trends are that he finds in heroin use and heroin-related offences in the province of British Columbia over the last few years. Is it going up or is it going down?

HON. MR. GARDOM: I don't have that specific information. I will obtain it for you, Gordon.

MR. GIBSON: The minister is sitting across the floor of the House and he is sputtering and puffing and saying he doesn't have the information. Yet we're told that this is the most important criminal problem in the province of British Columbia. He tells me he doesn't have figures.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is what the hon. member said.

MR. GIBSON: That is what he said and I just can't believe it. I just wish that he would say it so that it was on Hansard and so that people understood just how little the Attorney-General understands about these trends in crime. What is more basic to organized crime, to the whole fight against crime that his department is supposedly superintending and masterminding? Surely to goodness he knows something about heroin-related offences and the trend thereof in this province in the last few years.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I have been given these figures, hon. member. The heroin-user population - known heroin users in B.C. - has increased 248 per cent from 1969 to 1976. Police intelligence indicates this trend is continuing for 1977 and 1978. The criminal justice monthly report indicates that heroin offences have increased 90 per cent in the first quarter of 1978 over the first quarter of 1977.

This is the heroin indicators trend report of the federal-provincial drug strategy committee.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, these are very interesting figures. I wonder if the Attorney-General would make this report available to the committee or to the House or to the public in any way he might see fit. These appear to be timely and interesting figures. Would he be prepared to make this report available?

HON. MR. GARDOM: There may be some confidential aspects within the report insofar as crime suppression is concerned, so I will have to consider that first of all. I will address that question and report to you later.

MR. GIBSON: Apart from necessary crime suppression confidentiality Will the Attorney-General make the figures available and in a timely fashion - namely in time for the debate?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Oh, sure. Whatever I can produce, I will, but I want to look at it first of all.

MR. LEVI: Can I ask the Attorney-General if he is going to stick around for a few minutes, or shall I nip out and take a puff on a ... ?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Well, it's my first time, Norman.

MR. LEVI: Oh, fine. I wasn't in the House earlier.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I know.

MR. LEVI: I'm going to ask the minister now: did you reply to my questions about child kidnapping that I raised last night - the Dulong case - and what is the policy? That was one thing.

I asked him about the results, if any, of the investigation in respect to the chartered banks, particularly the problem in New Westminster in the beginning of 1977 - and it had its origins in 1974 - in respect to some ripoffs in terms of loans.

Now I want to ask the minister a couple of other things. I'd like to talk to him just briefly about prostitution. I know it's not a subject he's very familiar with, but if he'll bear with me, I'll attempt to enlighten him.

Perhaps the minister, when he answers the question, would explain to the House what exactly happened in the mess-up of t ' he Philliponi case. I'm not now commenting on the decision, but rather on the fact that well over $2 million of taxpayers' money was spent and, at the end of it all, everything was back to where it was except for the fact that I gather these people still don't have a licence. I'm not making any plea that they get their licence back. Would the minister tell us what happened in his Crown counsel, prosecutorial work and in the innards of his department, that this case was blown so badly in terms of its prosecution and the ultimate result?

Would the minister also tell us what the compelling reason was to proceed with this

[ Page 2116 ]

case? Now I know that we have decisions from the supreme court in relation to prostitution which make it very difficult for the police to obtain or to even take cases into court.

I'd like the minister to be very candid with us about what the bases of the prosecutions are. Why is it that it's such a priority? It's my impression that the major concern about prostitution, particularly in relation to the so-called Penthouse case, which I don't think has generally been made known to the public, is that there is some very serious concern about the involvement of organized crime in the prostitution business. If that is the reason, then the Attorney-General should say so, because many people in the public are sometimes confounded by the incredible efforts that the police go to to arrest prostitutes. They take up a great deal of court time, a great deal of money, usually they beat the charge, and then they begin to wonder what it was all about. Now if there is some very basic underlying reason for doing this, for making it a major priority of law enforcement, then we should know why.

If it's unrelated to organized crime and it's simply a question of getting prostitutes off the street, then it would seem to me that the Attorney-General or the police have far more important things to do than just chase a few prostitutes. So I'd like the minister to tell us: what is the underlying reason for a prosecution like the Penthouse case?

It's my impression from talking to a number of people, particularly in the Vancouver area, and in talking to the police about various investigations that they complete, I'm thinking now particularly in the area of commercial fraud.... I'm told that they're able to complete their investigations usually within six months, but then they're lucky if the cases get to court in two and a half to three years.

Is there some bottleneck in the Attorney-General's ministry? Are there some decisions made by the director of criminal law which tend to delay the prosecution of cases and getting then into court? This is particularly in the commercial fraud area. We have a couple of cases where people were recently charged in relation to offences under the Securities Act which go back as far as 1973 and 1974 - this is in relation to the Seneca case. Many of the commercial fraud cases have their origins three, four and five years back. I'm informed by the authorities that the investigations were carried out, and that usually there's a two- to three-year gap before these things actually get into court. Now what's the problem? What is the problem of bringing these cases on?

I want to raise one other matter with the Attorney-General. One of the areas which I thought perhaps the Proudfoot commission would look at, perhaps as an observation on the administration of the corrections department, was whether in fact the corrections department could assume a fuller departmental role than it has. Is it still a desirable thing to have the corrections department going through the Attorney-General's ministry, reporting through to the deputy minister and then really becoming just part of the Attorney-General's ministry, when in nearly every province across this country in Ontario, for instance, and Saskatchewan there are separate deputy ministers who report directly to the minister?

What I'm saying is that that's not the case in your ministry. He's not able to operate separately and distinctly and to have the ear of the minister. If it's different that that, then let the minister tell me. In his little mouthings that are coming across the floor, he is saying that the commissioner of corrections has his direct ear without going through the deputy minister. Is that what he's saying? That is something that should be examined in terms of the administration of the corrections operation. It's been a continual problem. It just becomes part of that myriad system that exists in the Attorney-General's ministry.

To refresh the minister's memory, can he tell me about kidnapping? What is the policy now? What will happen tomorrow if a father or a mother steals a child? What kind of process will take place?

I'd like him to talk about the chartered bank thing and the observations that I've made.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Hon. member, dealing with the childnapping situation, I think I could really spend a little more time with you on this than just in estimates, because I know you are interested in the point. The decision as to whether a charge of abduction should issue is made on a case-by-case basis. Where, the child is in the custody of the spouse in whose favour the court order was made, but during some earlier period had been abducted by the offending spouse and taken to another province or country and subsequently returned by whatever means, criminal charges are considered on the basis of the known facts. But the principal concern in every situation relates to the best interest of the child; that is the primary concern which will be taken into account by the prosecutor.

Insofar as prostitution and organized crime are concerned - and organized crime can even

[ Page 2117 ]

be organized at a local level - yes, that is one of the major concerns. There are amendments right now before the federal House to change the law to deal with both male and female prostitution. Soliciting in a public place need not be pressing or consistent conduct in order to constitute an offence, which was the Deborah Hutt case which went to the Supreme Court of Canada, and that any means of transportation located in or on a public place - for example, a car - is deemed to be a public place. That again was the Hutt situation. The Minister of Justice has responded to that effect, and those matters are before the federal House.

Insofar as corrections are concerned, the commissioner of corrections does have the rank of a deputy minister. There has always been liaison between the commissioner of corrections and the Deputy Attorney-General, but there is a direct reporting mechanism to the minister.

Vis-à-vis there being a completely separate ministry, if I understood your remark, I don't think that is too favourable. All of the people in corrections have argued that the justice component should remain one component rather than severing it into two ministries.

MR. LEVI: Well, I disagree.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, but there are different philosophies being articulated there.

MR. LEVI: What about the long delays that take place in getting cases into court?

HON. MR. GARDOM: You talked about some of the major white-collar crime cases and conspiracy cases. The delay there is really in the evidentiary assessment and in obtaining the necessary evidence. There have to be a number of search warrants. Recently that matter received a great deal of publicity, for example, in the press. That is undergoing scrutiny at the present time. I'm not going to talk about the case.

MR. LEVI: Let me just correct the minister on this. I did discuss with the commercial crime people just what the problem is. I gained the distinct impression that they collect the evidence as they feel that they have it. I recall they told me that usually six months and they can complete it. But there's a problem in your ministry somewhere. That's what I raised before. They submit the information. Now what is happening in your ministry with this evaluation process?

This is the kind of thing that I've constantly found about people who are waiting for things to happen and don't happen at all. There is something wrong with the process. Let's not shift it to the police. I think the police are doing their job. They provide the evidence. They have done all the investigation. They have put it on the desk of presumably the director of criminal law or the deputy minister of criminal law. What happens after that? There is a delay.

I speak to numerous lawyers and people who are complaining of the fact that something is not getting through the mill. This is a problem. I am not prepared at the moment to cite cases but I will certainly tell the Attorney-General that there is a problem. There is a problem about getting these things through into the prosecutorial system. That's very serious because you have endless kinds of cases that need to have the attention of the courts but which simply aren't getting that far. So it has nothing to do with the investigative process; it's the decision-making in your ministry.

MR. STRONGMAN: I just , ;ant to make a very brief comment on the remarks of the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) and to echo some of his concerns with regard to notary publics. I spoke, as you may remember, Mr. Attorney-General, about this matter in the first session of parliament. It is my concern that the costs of conveyancing property, the cost of providing simple wills and the costs of providing simple legal services are skyrocketing because many, many law firms, in fact most law firms, follow the tariff system of attaching costs to the services rendered.

The Law Society argues that the tariff hasn't changed for 20 or 25 years. But the fact is that the costs of the properties being conveyanced have gone up in multiple percentages to a point where the incomes that a great many law firms achieve are created by a group of paralegals working under the guise of a lawyer who can charge the tariff fee.

I would suggest to you that the system that is followed in the province of Quebec, where you have a large number of notary publics well trained in certain areas, should be followed here. Lawyers should practise law, and notary publics should provide the inexpensive legal services that the average person in the province demands and requires. It's a very simple thing. I believe that 320 or up to 500 notary publics in this province are not nearly enough.

I would suggest that a two-year training programme at the university level be provided

[ Page 2118 ]

and over a five-year or ten-year span the numbers could be increased dramatically. I believe then costs could be controlled, especially the costs to the small homeowner who sells his home and has a tariff applied to that particular transaction.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I was interested in the brief set of figures the Attorney-General gave us on heroin trends in the province of British Columbia. I wonder if he's familiar with a document dated September, 1977, put out by his ministry: "An Analysis of Heroin and Methadone Users Among Admissions to the B.C. Correctional System." It says on the frontispiece here that this report was produced by programme evaluation and data systems, corrections branch, Ministry of the Attorney-General. In reading the executive summary, there are some statements that seem on the face of it, at least, to contradict the figures given to us by the Attorney-General. So I'd just like to give these data from his own ministry to him and ask if he will have any advice to this committee as to how they can be reconciled with the earlier figures that lie gave to us. I'm reading directly from the report. I should say, incidentally, that while I won't read the whole thing, there are advantages and there are disadvantages to all kinds of heroin statistics. They've all got to be taken with caution. But I want to read directly from the report.

"From the overall analysis in chapter 2 some interesting trends become evident. Drug-user admissions are a steadily decreasing proportion of total admissions, from 14.9 per cent in 1973 to 8.1 per cent in 1976."

So that's point No. 1.

"Admissions of drug users to B.C.'s correctional institutions have fallen dramatically from 1973 to 1976."

The second point in the report:

"The actual number of drug-user admissions decreased by 20.4 per cent from 1973 to 1974, and by 14.7 per cent from 1974 to 1975, but increased by 3.8 per cent from 1975 to 1976."

And the next point:

"From the four-year average, 58.0 per cent of total admissions are to institutions (and 41.9 are to probation) , while 85.9 per cent of drug-user admissions are to institutions and 14.1 per cent are to probation. Thus there is a much higher proportion of drug-user admissions than of total admissions to the institutional system."

In other words, the admissions statistics of drug users to correctional institutions, if anything, overstate rather than understate the fraction of drug users in the criminal activity of the province - according to these statistics. As I say, Mr. Chairman, these are at such extreme variance with the figures that the Attorney-General gave us earlier on that I'd be very grateful if he could take a moment to explain to the committee this considerable discrepancy.

MRS. WALLACE: My questions are two local questions related to my own constituency, and not nearly as far-reaching as the kind of questions that the member for North Vancouver-Capilano was raising.

I wanted to ask the minister about the alternate school in Duncan, which somehow he seems to feel is not his responsibility as far as funding goes. This has been a change of attitude since that particular minister has been responsible for the Attorney-General's ministry. It's one that concerns me a great deal because, while some funding is forthcoming from other ministries, the fact is that that school is doing a great deal in the way of preventive work, and in the way of curative work, because many of the students in that school are referred there by the courts. They are placed in that school and make a tremendous recovery, are rehabilitated; and it's doing an excellent job. I just can't understand why the minister sees fit not to provide some financial assistance to that institution. It's an institution that certainly is in line with the kind of corrective programmes that I would expect an Attorney-General to be carrying on. That's the first question, Mr. Chairman.

The second question relates to the situation at the Duncan courthouse - the overcrowding that's very, very evident in the Duncan courthouse. I know that the Attorney-General has had appeals from the members of the law society there, asking for some assistance in getting better accommodation for them and for the hearings, and getting some of the paperwork moved out of there. I'm wondering whether or not the Attorney-General has taken any action to ensure that this will be forthcoming.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Insofar as the first matter you mentioned is concerned, hon. member, this has been determined as not one of the ministry's priorities. But I certainly think that the programme does require an answer from government. An interministerial committee has been formed, dealing with these kinds of matters, and that has been referred to them

[ Page 2119 ]

for consideration.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I notice that the Attorney-General's travel expenses are going up under this vote from $8,000 to $20,000. It's a tremendous increase. Is the Attorney-General telling us that things go better when he's out of town? You know, it's the second-highest travel allowance in the estimates. The highest is $22,000 for the hon. Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) . Now that's money well spent by the people of the province of British Columbia, because there is no question whatsoever that things go better in British Columbia when he's away. But why this increase in this ministry? What is he telling us?

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I am still waiting for an answer from the Attorney-General on the question that I posed to him.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Just very quickly, it's a difficult thing to start reconciling statistics across the floor of the House. You know, the old statement is that a person is considered warm if they've got their feet in an oven and their head in an ice block. The statistics you are referring to deal with corrections admissions, I take it, and the statistics that I quoted to you are users.

I would mention this. Over the past two years, as a result of the direction that has been taken by the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit and the Joint Forces Operation, there has been targeting on the big people in that industry rather than on the smaller in that industry, and I think with the net result that there have been lesser admissions.

MR. GIBSON: The necessary implication of what the Attorney-General says, then, is that if there has been a growing heroin-user population which must commit criminal acts to support their habit and at the same time there has been a decline in admissions of users, the Attorney-General in effect is saying that there has been a serious decline in the efficiency of the enforcement.

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

MR. GIBSON: Well, it seems to me that's a necessary implication of what you say. You say on the one hand that the user population has been &owing, and you have said on many occasions that the user population commits crime to support their habit. We have statistics from your department here saying that the proportion of users being admitted - and even the absolute number of users being admitted -has been dropping. So if both sets of statistics are correct, then the efficiency of enforcement is going down.

I would be a bit loath to accept that conclusion because of the assurances we've been given by this Attorney-General and the last one as to the greater efficiency of the police in this province and because of the certainly greatly increasing sums that this House has been voting every year in this regard.

So I would ask the Attorney-General how we solve this paradox. One of three things is wrong: either the hypothesis that there is an increasing number of users is wrong; or the measurement that there is a declining number of users being admitted to correctional institutions is wrong; or the enforcement isn't working well. In the judgment of the Attorney-General which of the three is it? It has to be one of the three.

HON. MR. GARDOM: As I indicated to you, there has been a change in Emphasis from the demand side to the supply side as a result of CLEU. Secondly, I am informed that the figures you are using refer to self-reported users, and those aren't necessarily very reliable statistics because a lot of them don't self-support.

MRS. WALLACE: The Attorney-General was good enough to answer one of my questions. I'm wondering .whether or not he has an answer for me regarding the Duncan law court.

HON. MR. GARDOM: What was the question, Barbara?

MRS. WALLACE: The overcrowding there. You had some correspondence from the legal society in Duncan, and some correspondence from myself as well, asking for some assistance in increasing the facility there because they are really being slowed up in their efforts to dispense justice. It seemed like a fairly simple matter.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I'm sorry, I haven't got that one in my fingertips, but I'll give you that tomorrow morning.

Vote 16 approved.

Vote [7: administration and support, $2,804, 356 - approved.

Vote [8: court services, $28,952, 359 - approved.

[ Page 2120 ]

Vote [9: Grown counsel, $8,284, 545 - approved.

Vote 20: police services, $35,192, 543 - approved.

Vote 21: corrections, $53,941, 435 approved.

Vote 22: Legal Services Commission, $9,600, 000 - approved.

Vote 23: Justice Development Commission, $1,835, 180 - approved.

Vote 24: legal services to government, $2,673, 452 - approved.

Vote 25: judiciary, , $6,548, 370 - approved.

Vote 26: coroners, $1,198, 602 - approved.

Vote 27: British Columbia Parole Board, $79,113 - approved.

Vote 28: Law Reform Commission, $295,361 -approved.

Vote 29: Criminal Injuries Compensation Act, $1,500, 000 - approved.

Vote 30: public trustee, $1,557, 506 -approved.

Vote 31: fire marshal, $1,439, 731 - approved.

Vote 32: Racing Commission, $452,890 - approved.

Vote 33: land registry, $5,958, 191 - approved.

Vote 34: Order-in-council Patients' Review Board, $92,221 - approved.

Vote 35: building occupancy charges, $21,448, 642 - approved.

Vote 36: computer and consulting charges, $2,641, 600 - approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.