[ Page 1421 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions.

Archaeological sites. Mr. Hanson –– 1421

Professional grant lobbyists. Mrs. Dailly –– 1421

Confidential information about government employees. Mr. Lauk –– 1422

Administration of justice. Mr. Macdonald –– 1422

Budget debate.

Mr. Ritchie –– 1424

Mr. Passarell –– 1425

Mr. Davis –– 1429

Mr. Cocke –– 1432

Mr. Segarty –– 1436

Mr. Hanson –– 1440

Hon. Mr. Mair –– 1444

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: May we proceed, hon. members. The hon. member for Revelstoke-Shuswap.

MR. KING: Shuswap-Revelstoke, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Is that a different place? Please proceed.

MR. KING: I have in the gallery today visitors from the very fair city of Salmon Arm, Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, who are visiting the capital, and I would ask the House to extend a warm welcome to them.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I would like to introduce two residents of Ucluelet who are visiting the gallery today. Would the House welcome Ted and Lynn Walker.

MR. DAVIS: In the gallery this afternoon we have students from Argyle Secondary School, and their teacher Mr. Maxwell. I would appreciate it if the House would make them welcome.

HON. MR. McGEER: We have two very distinguished visitors in the gallery today from Beijing: Dr. Hou Ren-Zhi, who is the head of the geography and archaeology departments at the University of Beijing, and his wife, Mrs. Zhang Wei-Ying, who is a historian from the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. I'd like the House to give them a very warm welcome.

MR. LAUK: We have a visit today to all members of the Legislature from persons representing the British Columbia Students' Federation. I understand they have visited most, if not all, of the MLAs and asked them certain questions. I want to name the executive members who visited with our caucus: Malcolm Elliot, Jean Bennett, Jean Kirk and Russ Collier.

MR. RITCHIE: I am pleased to introduce to the House today Miss Janissa Wilson. Janissa is president of the Burnaby Campus students' union of the Pacific Vocational Institute. Would the House please welcome Janissa.

MR. LORIMER: We have a number of members of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union with us today. They are over here to speak to the Social Credit caucus as well as to our own caucus. I hope their visit proves worthwhile.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery are two members representing the East Kootenay Community College who are in Victoria today: Ron Metcalf and Evelyne Perrouault. I would like the House to make them welcome.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make an introduction today on behalf of the member for Mackenzie. Visiting in the galleries today is a group of girl guides from Powell River, with their guide leader, Wendy Sketchley. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, before we proceed to question period, please permit me an observation.

The first order of business on our Orders of the Day — today and on each day — is listed as Prayers. We would invite all hon. members to be present for that ceremony.

Now unaccustomed as I may be to the conventions which surround that ceremony, I would like to suggest that perhaps a little dignity might be added if we had less noise in the Speaker's corridor during the ceremony. All members are invited to attend; none are compelled. But of those who wish to wait outside, may I please request that we have silence in the corridor. If it's not possible to arrange for silence in that way, then perhaps we would have to close off the corridor in order that we not embarrass the visiting clergymen. I think that would be your wish.

Hon. Mr. Fraser tabled the annual report of the British Columbia Steamship Company (1975) Ltd. for the year ended December 31, 1979.

Oral Questions

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. In view of the fact that only four major archaeological sites representing the Indian history of the Fraser Valley are still intact, and one of these sites dated at 5,000 years before the present happens to be situated on the approach to the Annacis Island bridge, and another site dated at 8,000 years is immediately adjacent to the north, my question to the minister is: what action has your ministry taken to either protect or retrieve the information from this important site?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of this. I'll certainly take the question as notice. We have in our ministry people who look after these things. I'll get that specific site and report back.

MR. HANSON: I have a new question for the same minister.

Arising from concern that the Duke Point development was in conflict with archaeological sites in the past, and the funds requested were met by only one-third of the funds granted — in other words, they only paid one-third of what was requested to do the job properly — my question to the minister is: will your ministry provide the funds necessary to do the job properly?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I'll take that question as notice and report back.

MR. HANSON: On March 5, 1980, Mr. Speaker, I asked the following question of the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair)....

AN HON. MEMBER: He's not here.

MR. HANSON: Is there a backup acting Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker?

[ Page 1422 ]

MR. SPEAKER: I'm not aware.

MR. HANSON: I'll wait till he shows the courtesy of coming to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: So ordered.

PROFESSIONAL GRANT LOBBYISTS

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Provincial Secretary. In view of the B.C. Wildlife Federation's attempt to use a former Social Credit MLA, Mr. Kerster, as a paid professional lobbyist, could the minister tell the House what specific steps he has taken now to ensure that public funds will not be granted to professional associations for the hiring of professional grant lobbyists?

HON. MR. WOLFE: I thank the member for the question. I think the matter that she is referring to, having to do with funding of agencies, where the inference was made that incentive funds might be paid to lobbyists, etc., has been dealt with adequately through statements that I've made since that time. All funds appropriated to such agencies are under the auspices or recommendation of an advisory group which makes recommendations in terms of their funding based on their application having been received in good order.

MRS. DAILLY: A supplementary. Are we to understand then that the minister not only does not condone the use of professional lobbyists but has actually issued a statement to all associations in this province that his ministry will not fund them if they so use them?

MR. SPEAKER: It's a future action, Mr. Minister, but you may wish to answer.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I wouldn't want to comment, Mr. Speaker, on the adequacy of their request. I just want to say in terms of that particular agency that as long as their application is in good order, their fears may be groundless as far as the funding being provided. But the use of professional lobbyists for government grants, in general terms, would only indicate that an organization was relatively less needy than others. Therefore I don't think we would support a policy of incentive paid to lobbyists for the sake of the grant obtained, but certainly these recommendations are strictly approved on the basis of adequate advice.

MR. LAUK: A question to the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams). Actually, several questions.

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Oh, he's not here. Could it be he's a scaredy-cat?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have a question?

MR. LAUK: I wonder if Mr. Speaker could call his name in the hall three times.

MR. SPEAKER: Are there further questions?

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
ABOUT GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

MR. LAUK: To the Minister of Transportation and Highways: in two recent Labour Relations Board hearings, the British Columbia Telephone Company provided confidential information to the B.C. Ferry Corporation about the telephone accounts of members of the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers' Union. No notification was given to the individuals concerned that this action was taking place. My question to the minister is this: can the minister advise whether he had knowledge that such action would be taking place at that period?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, no. I didn't.

MR. LAUK: Is it government policy to permit the breach of privacy of individual government employees in disputes which are not of a criminal nature? Will it be government policy?

MR. SPEAKER: Neither question is in order, but maybe another question would be.

MR. LAUK: To the Premier: has the government decided that it will permit the breach of privacy of individual government employees in disputes which are not of a criminal nature?

MR. SPEAKER: Has the government taken steps? The question is in order.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I am not sure what the member is referring to, but the government respects the rights of all the employees of the government at all times.

MR. LAUK: To the Minister of Finance: in view of the fact that the government has allowed its agencies to obtain confidential information from telephone accounts, what steps has the minister taken to prevent government agencies access to confidential information contained in B.C. Systems Corporation files, which include medical records, pay records, driving records, and a wealth of other personal data on B.C. Individuals?

HON. MR. CURTIS: The hon. member advances at the start of his question a premise with which I am not familiar. I cannot assist him at this point. I'll take the question as notice.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. I would ask that minister, in connection with the hon. member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie), of whom an RCMP investigation was requested, whether that investigation was requested by him or by his officers with his knowledge.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would like your guidance on a point here. I think that if it does take a couple of minutes, question period should be extended; I think that is only fair.

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MR. SPEAKER: If it is a point of order, we can perhaps extend question period by a minute or two.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, it is a point of order. We have a ruling of the Speaker of this House dated February 28, 1977: "Questions without notice must be urgent and important...supplementary questions may be allowed by permission of Mr. Speaker. No debate shall be allowed during questions. The decision of Mr. Speaker shall be final on allowing or disallowing any questions."

Then the hon. Speaker gave some examples of supplementary rules. First of all, there should not be a short speech. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I refer you to this one: "A question to an ex-minister with regard to transactions during his term of office is inadmissible."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. GARDOM: Well, this is what the rules are, my dear friend.

Furthermore, "dealing with the actions of a minister for which he is not responsible to parliament" is inadmissible. That is the situation here. I refer you to Beauchesne, fifth edition, 1978: "The minister to whom the question is directed is responsible to the House for his present ministry and not for any decisions taken in a previous portfolio."

So I would submit with the greatest of respect that the question is not in order. And I would say that applies not just insofar as this question is concerned, but also to questions of a similar nature to other ministers of the Crown in their new portfolios and relating to experience or actions taken by them in their past portfolios.

MR. SPEAKER: I think I have your point, hon. minister.

MR. BARRETT: If you'd only spoken to Vogel as much.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The point that is made is simply this: is a minister, having been transferred from one portfolio to another, responsible to parliament? The question is not: is he responsible? The question is: is he responsible to parliament for those decisions made in his previous portfolio? I have to tell you that the authorities give every indication that the answer is no. A minister is only responsible to parliament for decisions made in the portfolio in which he presently has responsibility, and I cite Beauchesne's fifth edition, the most recent, at page 132, if members wish to have further authority.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, and I understand the time is not being counted...

MR. SPEAKER: That's right.

MR. MACDONALD: ...the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations answered a question of a similar nature, although it involved his past duties to the province of British Columbia, last week. Now having, as he thought, in an exculpatory way, defended himself in answer to that question, why should he not, in an inculpatory way, answer the simple question that I've asked today?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I think, hon. members, that the guideline needs to be the rules that we have. Ministers have chosen, on many occasions, to answer questions which may not have been in order, and I think that should be allowed for in the House; otherwise, following the guidelines strictly, hon. members, there's hardly a question that is in order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Well, that's the point.

MR. SPEAKER: We will continue with time then.

MR. LAUK: I have a question for the Attorney General. The Attorney-General said that he had a conversation re the Ritchie case — and I'm referring only for the sake of brevity to the name of the individual — with the Deputy Attorney-General on November 26, 1979. That answer was received when he answered notice questions on December 10, I believe. What was that conversation?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I can't give the member a verbatim answer to that question, but I can tell him that that conversation took place during the briefing I received when I was appointed Attorney-General of the province; and it was to the effect that the police investigation, with respect to the case to which the member refers, was nearing completion.

MR. LAUK: The Attorney-General also stated that he had a conversation re the Ritchie case with the Deputy Attorney-General on December 17, 1979. Could he relate what that conversation was?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: What day of the week was it?

MR. LAUK: December 17 was Monday — the day before.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, late in the afternoon on December 17 I was advised by the Deputy Attorney-General that over the weekend the Assistant Deputy Attorney-General had reached his decision with respect to the laying of a charge.

MR. LAUK: Would the Attorney-General confirm that he has instructed lawyers in private practice to investigate the CBC allegations into the Vogel case?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, in connection with the review I have undertaken to look into these matters, as I announced in this House on Monday. I have engaged lawyers in private practice to assist me in that review.

MR. LAUK: Could the Attorney-General indicate on which date he retained the services of the said lawyers in private practice?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: One on Friday of last week and one yesterday.

MR. LAUK: Could the Attorney General reveal to the House what their names are and what their instructions are?

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HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I'd be happy to advise the member of the names, but not of the instructions. The first lawyer retained was Mr. Thomas Braidwood, and to make it absolutely clear, I met with Mr. Braidwood yesterday. He indicated that he believed he would have a conflict of interest and therefore declined a retainer. Yesterday I engaged the services of Mr. John Hall.

MR. LAUK: On March 11, 1980…. By the way, I have circulated copies of the Blues; I don't know whether they are on the Attorney-General's desk. I'm sorry if I haven't....

On March 11, 1980, the Attorney-General, in answer to my question "Who is conducting the review?" replied: "I am conducting the review personally, with assistance from my staff." The 11th was Tuesday. The Attorney-General did not disclose that he had retained the services of outside counsel. Why did the Attorney-General not disclose the full truth when I asked him the question on March 11 ?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Certainly there is no imputation of wrongdoing by virtue of the asking of a question — surely not.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I see the honourable and learned first member for Vancouver Centre shaking his head in the usual indication of negative to the imputation. I gave a full answer, and it was the truth, when I responded to the member on March 11. While I had arranged for the assistance of Mr. Braidwood on that date, he had not at that time embarked upon the review with me. It was arranged that he would come to Victoria for that purpose yesterday, and I have already told him what took place on the occasion.

MR. LAUK: On March 3, 1980, the Attorney-General was asked a question by the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) as follows: "Did the Attorney General have a conversation with officials from his department relating to investigations into allegations which might involve the hon. member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie) prior to December 18, 1979?" The Attorney General rose on that day and said: "The answer to the question is no." Again, Mr. Speaker, in reply to another question taken on notice, the answer to which was delivered on March 10, the Attorney-General replied that he had a conversation with his Deputy Attorney-General about the allegations on November 26 and December 17. Does the Attorney-General wish to now change any of the answers he has given on the Ritchie case or the CBC allegations?

MR. SPEAKER: The bell ends the question period.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I'd be happy to answer.

MR. LAUK: Shall leave be granted for the Attorney-General to answer the question?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I think that we've extended the question period by I don't know how many minutes....

MR. LAUK: I asked that leave be asked for.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the answer that I gave to the question on March 3, appearing on page 1196 of Hansard — and I thank the member for making the copy available to me — is accurate. The question was: "Did the Attorney-General have a conversation with officials in his department, or officers of the RCMP, relating to the investigations into allegations that might involve the hon. member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie)?" The answer was no, and that's correct.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. RITCHIE: I'd like to start out today by asking the opposition to look at this budget on its merits and not prejudge it. They can start by joining the ordinary people of this province in appreciating the cash surpluses the government has built up.

Money in the bank, as any responsible person knows, is good news, not bad news. The accumulated surpluses are the result of good management, and it's completely silly for the opposition to attack them. Those surpluses are making some terrific benefits possible without a nickel's increase in personal taxation. The very surpluses the opposition will no doubt continue to attack today are going into a $146 million fund for reforestation, a fund that will promote long-term growth in the forest industry so crucial to British Columbia. The surpluses under attack by the opposition will also go to help small businesses, refugees, our senior citizens and our young people. It's the people's money, and it's going into people programs.

Why can't the opposition face up to this budget? Why can't they for once admit that they are being asked to consider measures which are exciting, positive, forward-looking and, above all, sensible? Frankly, I cannot understand their attitude.

You should not think me unsympathetic towards the members opposite, because I realize theirs is not a very easy lot. Being a member of the New Democratic Party isn't the best start for a constructive approach to criticism. It is not an ideology that promotes individual thought or constructive reaction.

The party is divided even within itself. We have already heard in this House the curious tale of the signing of the Waffle Manifesto by the leader of the opposition party and by some of its members. We have also heard of the rejection of the same socialist manifesto by his present House Leader. But I will not dwell on that.

Consider the issue of uranium mining. The New Democratic Party members opposite have long been condemning such mining in British Columbia. But they have conveniently forgotten to mention that their colleague the Premier of Saskatchewan has given the green light to uranium mining for massive development in that province. I guess the contrast between our government and that of the NDP government in Saskatchewan is just too striking for the opposition to ignore now.

[ Page 1425 ]

What do they say about party solidarity now? It's very hard to be open-minded in debate when you're shackled by ties to that kind of thinking.

Let me return to my main message to the opposition today. I call on the opposition to return to some intelligent and honest criticism of the government's policies before it's too late — before someone moves a motion of non-confidence in them and before the people of British Columbia lose confidence in the ability of this House to debate as a legislature. Let the opposition show once and for all that they do not agree with the famous definition of an opposition given by Lord Derby in 1841, when he said: "The duty of an opposition is very simple: to oppose everything and propose nothing." The people who elected them, I believe, expected a lot more than that.

Let me conclude by saying a few things about the thinking behind this budget. I guess the old idea of stewardship best describes the philosophy in the budget. We're only spending what we've got, and we're spending it wisely. In an era of deficit spending and massive government borrowing, the Minister of Finance has placed a balanced budget before the House. I think that is tremendous. Does anyone have any doubts about what kind of budget we would have in 1980 if the opposition had not been removed as government in 1975? Can you imagine the deficits that would be burdening British Columbian taxpayers? It's really a bit frightening to even think of it.

Perhaps most impressive of all is the long-term approach of this budget. The government has shown that it's prepared to invest our money in our future through such things as reforestation and energy research and development. That's the kind of stewardship British Columbians want to see. This budget isn't designed to help just you and me but your children and our grandchildren too.

There are also two measures in this budget that I want to comment on. The first is the announcement that the government of the province will now pay interest on all accounts left unpaid after 60 days. This appeals to me as a businessman; it is a good business practice. It gives some small businesses a real break when they deal with the government. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to see our government run as efficiently and as effectively as a well-managed company. Unfortunately, I know the hon. members opposite don't share this view.

A second view the opposition doesn't share with me concerns our government's strong backing for independent schools. These schools are a valuable part of our overall educational system, and by assisting them we acknowledge that. It's great to live in a province where we can promote diversity. The budget commits $11 million to these schools — a hefty sum considering there was no help at all until this government provided that help. But the $11 million isn't even 5 percent of the total public school budget, which shows how wrong the members in the opposition were in charging that the Independent Schools Support Act would be the ruination of a fine public-school system. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this move to support the private-school system will make for a much stronger and healthier public school system.

As I near the end of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Minister of Finance. His decision to show confidence, both in our immediate economic prospects and in our future, is clearly evident in the budget. This is not a budget prepared by someone who shares the pessimism and negative outlook of the opposition benches. The minister's confidence in British Columbia will, I know, pay great dividends this year and in future years.

Finally, I suggest to you and to all members of this House that a vote for this budget is a vote of confidence in the future of British Columbia. It is a vote of confidence in our ability to work together, to continue building a strong and dynamic province on the excellent foundation with which we have been blessed.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, at the onset of my speech I would like to introduce a few guests in the gallery. They are members of the Native Brotherhood, and I'd like the House to welcome them to our Legislature.

Starting off my speech today I'd like to refer back to a newspaper clipping and it says: "Bennett's Last Days." This is in the Province newspaper, June 12, 1900. I'm quoting from this article: "Looking at the thriving burg of Bennett today, built as it is upon the sand and looking as it is three or four months down the road; it is as pictured by those who claim to know what the near future will bring. One sees a sad but true case of a fitness of things. The little city is doomed to sink from view."

Well, things haven't changed much, Mr. Speaker. This budget demonstrates the lack of concern for the hard-working people of the north in the province. It's a shame the Premier has left. History is telling us that the future of this budget will bring upon himself and the party the same doom that Bennett, B.C., found in June, 1900.

I found it ironic, Mr. Speaker, watching television the other day — I'll try to keep television programs out of my speech today — that the Minister of Finance was explaining his budget. The interviewer asked him: "How can this be a budget for the people?" He said: "Oh, it's a budget for the people. Look at the picture of the people on the front of the cover." Well, you need much more than a picture on the front of the cover of a book to make it a people's budget.

The Minister of Finance stated in the budget speech: "The government's commitment to high-quality service and facilities is expressed clearly in this budget." The second quote I'd like to deal with is: "The medical care system is working well in British Columbia." In my speech today, Mr. Speaker, I will demonstrate how both these statements are fantasy in regard to the north, and offer some solutions on how they could become a reality. The member for South Peace River (Hon. Mr. Phillips), I think, mentioned that the opposition never offers any solutions or alternatives; I will try to offer some solutions to this budget to help the people of the north.

Last year when the member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland) was the Minister of Health, I related problems concerning northern health care in three communities: Dease Lake, Cassiar and Iskut. To take Dease Lake specifically, I'd like to mention what has happened since I brought this up on July 17, 1979. Three days after I brought this up, Mr. Speaker, the then Health minister said that he agreed with what I was saying, that there were no health facilities or staff in the community of Dease Lake, that he was going to hire a nurse effective August l, 1979, and that he was going up to Dease Lake on approximately August 17 to dedicate a health facility, a trailer. The minister did hire a nurse, but he never did make it to Dease Lake on August 17. He made it as far as Cassiar, where he showed a film slide to six people in the community. The trailer never

[ Page 1426 ]

arrived at Dease Lake. The nurse is still working there at approximately $190 per month, providing 24-hour medical assistance to a community of 300 to 400 people, the only medical assistance in the surrounding area. I find it unacceptable to pay someone $190 a month to provide 24-hour medical assistance in a community of 300 people.

One of the nice things that the ministry has done for this nurse is to provide her with a plastic tablecloth. The nurse often operates off her table; there's no facility. So the ministry has provided her with a plastic tablecloth to move before dinner or after dinner, as the case may arise. I think this nurse has provided an excellent quality of care, depending on the conditions of the payment — for $200.

Concerning the health facility in Iskut.... I would certainly hope that the Speaker would restrain the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet). When a doctor comes to Iskut, maybe once a month, he spends two or three days there. He comes up from Vancouver and can see between 250 and 450 people in two or three days. At times the man has worked 18 or 19 hours a day seeing people. I wonder how much this provincial government has given to the assistance of the community of Iskut, mainly because it's a native reserve, and the loggers and the people who live in the area also have to use the reserve. I wonder what kind of quality care we're providing in health facilities, when a doctor has to fly up from Vancouver to see that number of people in two or three days.

AN HON. MEMBER: And half a billion surplus.

MR. PASSARELL: That's right. And half a billion surplus. In Cassiar, a totally different story, the company provides a first-aid station — it's a private first-aid station to a certain extent — for a community of 250 people. Many of the residents of Cassiar and the surrounding area, Good Hope Lake and Dease Lake to a certain extent....

Interjections.

MR. PASSARELL: I'm sorry. Thank you for bringing it to my attention; it helps out. You're very good, at times. To correct my original statement on the number, 2,500 people. There is a first-aid station in which the company provides for three communities in which a doctor is sometimes present. They do have a fine nursing staff, but at times a doctor.... Because of the conditions of the north, they come in for two or three months and then they're gone, and by the time they hire another doctor there might be a lapse of two or three or four weeks. The nurses pick up a lot of the problems, but the major problem is that in the entire northern part of my constituency the Cassiar first-aid station is the only medical facility. The only hospital I have in my constituency, which is made up of 160,000 square kilometres, is in the municipality of Stewart, approximately 550 miles south of Cassiar. So with the limited funding that's provided for the Cassiar first-aid station, many of the residents have to be flown out of the province, to either Whitehorse or Edmonton, to receive medical attention when they are sick. I find it unacceptable that resident citizens of our province have to go outside British Columbia to receive medical attention.

This government has once again displayed, to a certain extent, their ignorance and lack of concern for the residents of the north. With surpluses galore, one suggestion could be a hospital in Cassiar — build a small, public hospital with maybe six or seven beds in the community of Cassiar to provide medical attention for the northwest section of British Columbia. This would be a start. We don't need a fancy 200- or 300-bed hospital but maybe a six- or seven-bed public hospital funded by the provincial government.

Secondly, a promise was made in this House concerning a medical facility in Dease Lake, a trailer. Studies have been done concerning the cost of the trailer to the residents of Dease Lake. We are talking about $10,000 to bring a trailer into Dease Lake for the nurse who is already there to work out of. I do not find $10,000 unacceptable to provide a trailer so this nurse could work out of a trailer located in the community instead of off her kitchen table.

Doctors and nurses. There is a drastic need for both professions in the north. I think the Ministry of Health could do some type of program to encourage people, maybe through subsidiaries, to go up there and do some type of work for the people of the north.

Denticare. I find it supportive, favourable and good for the province. But it is not good if only $30 million is allocated for the program. This works out to about $11 per person in the province. I still have my teeth; I have been to a dentist before. But to go in to see a dentist costs maybe $16 or $20 just for him to even look into your mouth. Then if there are any problems after he has looked into your mouth and he sets up another appointment, that is a further expense added on. I find it very difficult to see the government providing a denticare system for the province out of $11 per person.

We must also take into consideration whether you can find a dentist. It is very difficult to find a dentist in the 160,000 square kilometres of northwestern British Columbia. They are almost an endangered species. You don't seem to find them.

I will skip the issue of health at this time and refer to it later in my presentation.

One of the most disturbing things I found concerning the Speech from the Throne as well as the budget speech was the lack of mention — not even one sentence — of the words "Indian" or "native." Once again we have ignored the first citizens of this province.

I was surprised that the word "Indian" or "native" did not appear in the throne speech or so far in the budget debate. It resembles to a certain extent the booklet that was presented during the mini cabinet shuffle. This government forgot to include in that booklet who was responsible for native affairs. At one time it was the Minister of Labour, but when that Minister of Labour transported himself to the position of Attorney-General, native affairs seemed to slip along with that. I found it unacceptable that there was no mention made.

I have feelings as to why this was. It was to ignore and conquer to a certain extent. This is similar to government aspects on native policy to the Talthans, the Kasska; the Tlingit, the Iskut and Nishga — to conquer, to flood and to eliminate.

In regard to employment programs, there has been $4 million allocated for youth employment — $4 million across the province. I just wonder how much of this money is going to be filtered up into the north. Many of the communities up north are running at between 98 percent and 99 percent unemployment for youths in the communi-

[ Page 1427 ]

ties, almost very similar to the unemployment rate in many native reserves and small communities up north. It's unacceptable — $4 million.

In regard to labour benefits — I'll keep my major thrust of concern for the estimates, where they belong, for the Forests and Labour estimates. But I found it ironic that I received a phone call the other day from a small independent logger-operator up in Stewart. He's a man who has mentioned many times to me that he doesn't believe in our philosophy, but we've always had good conversations anyway — conversations that could be used to the benefit of this Legislature, without the yelling, even if we differ on different aspects of government. This gentleman told me that he was being priced out of the market, that there was no help for the small, independent logger. I certainly hope that through this budget there might be some type of help for the small, independent logger up north.

The next aspect I would like to talk about is an aspect I found enlightening, and that was the lower mainland stadium. If you remember, Mr. Speaker, when this came up last summer I was the only one in this House to stand up and vote against it. I voted against it because I'd asked for 1 percent of that original $25 million to be allocated for playing fields in the north. I met with the appropriate ministers after I voted against the lower mainland stadium fund, and things were promised. They haven't happened yet; I certainly hope that they will be happening in 1980, but I won't hold my breath for too long on that. Now this year another $25 million has been allocated for a football stadium in Vancouver, and I will be dealing with that matter when the bill is presented to the House for debate. The north suffers again — the north that, to a certain extent, subsidized this province through the mining royalties, the mining tax per se, personal income tax and others; but still it is placed in the closet by this government.

B.C. fishermen are affected by foreign fishing intervention. This budget, to a certain extent, is not protecting the B.C. fishermen. They need protection and they should be covered by provincial bargaining rights to a certain extent. B.C. should be first.

I'll be covering some figures out of this budget at this time, Mr. Speaker. The first is out of the agricultural budget, and that was aid to developing countries. There was $393,000 for aid to developing countries, but not one of these eight communities in my constituency received any provincial government medical facilities: Good Hope Lake, Dease Lake, Bob Quinn, Meziadin, Lower Post, Centreville, Mile 48, Haines, Nass Camp. Four additional communities are sponsored by the federal government without major funding from the provincial government. They are Telegraph Creek, Iskut, Aiyansh, Canyon City and Greenville. The community of Atlin is sponsored by the Red Cross. There was $393,000 allocated for developing countries in the agriculture budget, but not a penny was allocated to help these 11 communities.

Mr. Speaker, costs from the Premier's office last year were $245,047. This year it has been increased to $551,612 — an increase of 100 percent. The Premier's furniture in his office has been increased from $1,447 to $15,000. This is up 1,000 percent.

AN HON. MEMBER: What was that?

MR. PASSARELL: It's been increased from $1,447 last year to $15,000 this year — furniture for the Premier's office. That's an increase of 1,000 percent, and still there's not a penny for medical health in Iskut, Good Hope Lake, Glenora, Canyon City — 11 communities.

In the criminal justice division — and I notice the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams) has left — with an estimated staff of 280, allocations for furniture alone are $123,262. Just to go over that again, that works out to $440 a person, and not a penny for medical attention in eight communities with a population of 962. It's a shame, Mr. Speaker. We're spending money for furniture and we can't provide medical assistance for those residents.

In the post-secondary student aid program, with an estimated staff of 18, furniture allocation was $3,300. That works out to approximately $185 a person for just furniture, and not a penny for the playing field at an elementary school — Good Hope Lake elementary school — where I taught, which has 36 students. We spend $185 per person for furniture in this one department, and not a penny for a playing field.

In another section, in the executive management of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) — and I notice that hon. minister has also gone — with an estimated staff of ten, the allocation for office furniture and equipment is $7,000. That's $700 a person for furniture. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources has $700 per person for a staff of ten in his office, and not a penny for a public medical facility for the community of Dease Lake, with a population of 350-plus.

MRS. WALLACE: He could have done it when he was Minister of Health.

MR. PASSARELL: That's right. He's gone from one ministry to another and is not even thinking about these people.

In the agent-general's office, with an estimated staff of nine, allocation for salary and expenses is $434,535. That works out to $48,281 per person, and there's not a penny to build a bridge that would eliminate 60 students in the community of Greenville from walking across the ice of the Nass River to get to school. There's $48,000 per person in the agent-general's office, and 60 students have to walk across the frozen river to get to school.

In the Government House activity, with an estimated staff of six, allocation for operation is $226,743; that works out to $37,780 per person, and there's not a penny to supply Band-aids to adults and children in the community of Good Hope Lake. We spend $226,000 for Government House activities, and there's not a penny to provide Band-aids for children and adults in the community of Good Hope Lake.

In the Ministry of Universities, Science and Communications — he's another minister who has seen fit to leave and has gone — with an estimated staff of 16, allocation for advertisement is $150,000. That is $9,375 per person, and not a penny is allocated to clean up the PCB spills in the north or to hold a medical investigation into what really happened in those communities where PCB was put into the environment or into future medical aspects upon those workers who were contaminated with PCB.

In the information services of the Ministry of Agriculture, with an estimated staff of seven, moneys allocated for advertisement were $19,000, which works out to $2,714

[ Page 1428 ]

per person, and not a penny was allocated to provide radio or television to the communities of Iskut, Centreville, Glenora, Nass Camp, Mile 48, Haines or Kitsault, with a total population of 562. These communities are not receiving any type of communication, and we spend $19,000 for advertisement in the Ministry of Agriculture.

In the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, under the executive and staff — a staff, mind you, Mr. Speaker, of two — money allocated is $188,980. Right out of their own budget, it works out to $94,490 per person. That's not a bad job — $94,490 per person in this ministry, and not a penny allocated for running water or sewer in the communities of Good Hope Lake, Glenora, parts of Telegraph Creek, Lower Post and Mile 48. We can pay someone $94,490 in the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, and still the people of these communities up north do not receive any type of running water or sewer.

Senator Foghorn said in the Vancouver Sun, dated March 12: "In British Columbia's contention, sir, there should be one system of health care for its citizens, regardless of race, colour, creed or location." This is what the minister said yesterday, and it is a shame that the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) is gone. The member for Kamloops should come down to reality, Mr. Speaker. There is no way that the residents of the north receive the same type of medical assistance that the residents of the lower mainland and the south of this province receive. In his own statement there should be one system of health care for citizens, regardless of race, colour, creed or location. It appears in this province that there are three types of systems of health care, and these are listed in priority listing: the south, the north and native care.

One of the interesting aspects that I found going through the 1978-79 budget, in its relationship to this budget, and one of the positive notes that we could put forward to help this government fix this dilemma that the people of the north are facing in medical assistance, is from the standard classification number 40. These figures were taken from the Estimates of 1978-79 and Public Accounts of 1978-79. This, Mr. Speaker, is what these ministries underspent. The following deputies underspent in their budgets: Ministry of the Attorney-General, $328,343 — he underspent part of his budget by 96.6 percent; Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, $86,567 — this deputy minister underspent his budget in advertising and publication by 87.9 percent; Ministry of Environment, $51,957 — this deputy minister underspent his budget last year by 54.7 percent; Ministry of Forests, $243,646 — the underspent portion of his budget was 99 percent. I notice the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is also gone. It seems to me that there must be a cabinet meeting here. Ministry of Human Resources, $242,686 — the underspent portion was 40.2 percent; Ministry of Tourism, from the minister's program to promote B.C., $161,745 — the underspent portion of the budget was only 4 percent.

When you add these up, Mr. Speaker, what this government underspent last year was $1,114,944. Instead of hiding this money in surpluses, it could be used to dramatically improve health care, roads and conditions for the people of the north. These moneys should have been allocated for these specific purposes.

A reasonable suggestion to offer that government would be items for the north which could be logically and reasonably asked for. Twenty nurses at the cost of $17,500 each — working out to approximately $350,000; six doctors at approximately $50,000 each — amounting to $300,000; three dentists, support staff and mobile trucks — amounting to $450,000; and playgrounds — amounting to $300,000. That works out to approximately $1.4 million. If we could under spend advertising and publications last year, we can certainly provide for these small and token aspects to help people up in the north.

These moneys are derived from the deputy ministers' advertising and publication budgets which this year increased by 16.31 percent. All you need to do is cut 5 percent from the 1979-80 level and you've got it. You can get this money back to help the people of this province instead of just squandering it as surpluses to make it look nice in a fancy publication with a picture of people on the front.

The member for Prince George South (Mr. Strachan) yesterday spoke on the enlightenment of legislation introduced on economy vehicles. If the member spent more time in the north, he would be aware that many of the residents up in the north do not need small, economic vehicles for their livelihood, but drive around in pickup trucks — not foreign imports — for their livelihoods. If you take into consideration the weather conditions and the road conditions — like Highway 37 and parts of the Alaska Highway — a small, foreign car would be illogical to use up north.

MR. LAUK: Another penalty for the north.

MR. PASSARELL: That's right. It's another penalty for the north for having to have a four-wheel drive or a pick-up truck. Many residents of the north need pickup trucks for their livelihoods. Their reward for this is to be penalized and taxed extra. They have no use for a small, foreign compact. If this government had the foresight, they would realize that the residents of the north shouldn't be penalized and denied tax concessions because of their need to own a pickup truck or a four-wheel drive. It is utterly illogical not to give the same tax benefits to people up north who are paying 25 to 50 percent more in some small communities for gasoline.

MR. REE: Pickup trucks are exempt.

MR. PASSARELL: I would hope that the member would look at his budget.

There are some topics I would like to cover quickly, Mr. Speaker.

Hydro — this year there's an additional $709 million for Hydro's debt. Last year this government passed an additional $750 million to be added on to this debt — two budgets in less than a year. The interest was $1.4 billion for Hydro. It's going to be increased to $6.4 billion. What do the people of this province get for their indebtedness of Hydro?

Interjection.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Member, there are many communities in my constituency that do not receive electrical power.

After increasing the debt by $709 million and $750 million a few months ago, which is $1.5 billion, what do

[ Page 1429 ]

the people of this province receive? A rate increase in the next few weeks. But Hydro's debt is $6.4 billion. It's getting out of hand. It's a monster. Who controls Hydro?

Hydrogate. Ah, the famous Hydrogate. Some of the reports that have been released on the Stikine, Iskut and Liard dams were the famous reports of which Hydro at first said: "Hey, they don't exist." Just to remind the hon. minister who's responsible for Hydro, SD 1020 was a secret report; SD 1013 was a secret report; the minutes of the April 25 meeting were secret; the Stikine future plan was another secret report; the Nass future plan was another secret report. All of them were about the effects upon the northern rivers of British Columbia.

In the Speech from the Throne these rivers were mentioned as running unused into the ocean. The waters were wasted, running into the ocean. What does this government say? "Hey, we've got to look at putting some type of dams on this." Dams will be built on the Stikine-Iskut and Liard Rivers which, even in Hydro's wording on page 3-2 of secret report SD 1020.... They said that northern communities, townsites, sawmills and developments will not receive one volt of power. In Hydro's own statement in report SD 1020, page 3-2, they say that northern communities will not receive one volt of power from these northern dams.

Why is Hydro building these dams? Well, we know that the Premier of this province sent a telegram to Governor Hammond two weeks before the May election asking that the north side of the Stikine River become a protective transportation corridor. Kaiser Resources have made public statements concerning the need to put in a copper smelter in the panhandle of Alaska, a distance of just over 60 miles from the proposed Stikine-Iskut dams.

What type of idiotic statement was that made in the Speech from the Throne saying that too much water rushes unused into the Pacific? The native people who live on these rivers know the use of the river; their livelihood comes from fishing.

In a report I read last June, Power Perspectives '79, the minister said: "It's just a report; nothing to worry about." More than two years before that report was published Hydro had already put it through their brain trust and decided to go ahead and build these dams. The report said that any dams built on the Stikine-Iskut and Liard River systems would have an effect upon the migration of the fish. What kind of a statement is that by Hydro?

Health. At the beginning of my speech I elaborated on some of the problems faced by the residents of the north. I spoke about the former Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) from Langley, who said he was going up to Dease Lake to help the people. He never got up to Dease Lake; he got to a place called Cassiar and showed film slides. Unbelievable!

Highways. There have been some good improvements on highways. This summer there will be some paving between Stewart and Meziadin; I have to congratulate the government for going ahead on that. It was a good suggestion, which they took up from my speech last June.

I'd still like to know why the children of Greenville have to walk across the ice to get to school. There was supposed to be a bridge built there.

AN HON. MEMBER: Because you're against development, that's why.

MR. PASSARELL: Against a bridge? No, not when children have to walk across the ice.

Another good suggestion by the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) — I'll be bringing up more problems of my constituency when the Highways estimates come up — was to provide television service to some of the northern communities. I think it's a very good step by this government to provide television to small rural communities in the north. For an additional $3,000 amplifiers could be placed on these earth satellite transmission stations, and people in the communities where transmitters are located could pick up television.

They need a ferry service. That will be covered when the Highways estimates come up.

Education. I'd like to welcome the British Columbia Students' Federation. I understand they have met most of us. Their requests have been reasonable and thoughtful in regard to a minimum program for student financial aid for post-secondary education. On behalf of the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) and the official opposition, we wish to state our full support for these reasonable requests, and we urge the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) to make the necessary changes this spring. We will be pursuing these matters during the estimates of both ministers.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this budget is a slam against the native people of this province, with a specific intent to cause extinction. This budget is also a slam against the residents of the north who have developed the north. They're facing hardships, continually being placed as second citizens of this province. One of the solutions of value that this government might consider is setting up a Ministry of Northern Affairs to look specifically into the problems of the north. We are all one people in the north and let's start treating each other with dignity; one of the the best ways is to start in this House.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) on the way he introduced this budget. I like his style. He speaks clearly and he speaks with authority; he was easy to follow on Tuesday afternoon. And the supporting documents which he tabled gave us a great deal of information on the present financial position of the government and its fiscal plans for the future.

I welcome this budget for several reasons. It's a balanced budget — income essentially equals outgo — and it is placed properly in its five-year setting. We can therefore look ahead with this information to the mid-1980s and see what the government's latest initiatives are likely to do to our provincial finances in the years immediately ahead.

Traditionally budgets have been one-year shots in the dark. Background material — if there was any — was historic and statistical in nature; it related solely to the past. No attempt, in other words, was made to look ahead, certainly to look ahead more than 12 months. New programs with increasing long-term costs were discounted in this way. They looked good; at least they looked good in the short run — we couldn't see their longer-term consequences. They therefore looked better than they should have done, because their longer-term results were hidden from the members of this Legislative Assembly and we couldn't assess them properly. In other words, I'm thanking the minister for his stewardship and his frankness. He's not running us into debt and he's showing us all of the government's programs, showing us

[ Page 1430 ]

how they can be financed without significant tax increases in the early 1980s — not simply over the next 12 months, but for as many as five years to come.

I think he's also to be congratulated for placing the correct emphasis on people programs. I notice on page 34 of his published budget statement that, for example, the Municipal Affairs budget for the next 12 months is up 55 percent — that's a very substantial increase. Human Resources is up 17.4 percent. Health is up 17.1 percent. Education is up 15 percent. These are all double-digit increases; they're above-average increases for a budget which, in itself, sees some remarkable increases in spending.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

So much for the compliments, Mr. Speaker; now for the criticisms. The hon. Minister of Finance tells us at the top of page 14 of his published budget statement that the government's spending estimates for the fiscal year 1980-81 "do not represent the beginning of a new trend." I think they do; in fact, I know that they do. For some years now government spending in this province has been lagging behind the growth of our gross national product. Now, with this latest budget, it is gaining suddenly and rapidly. In 1980-81 we will be approaching the exceptionally high level reached by the NDP in 1975-76. Last June, when the previous Minister of Finance, the hon. second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Hon. Mr. Wolfe), presented his "sunshine budget," government expenditures were down to 15 percent of our gross provincial product. In 1980-81 they'll be up to 17 percent. That is getting uncomfortably close to the 18 percent figure which the government, headed by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett), who is not in the House today, reached five years ago.

Perhaps I should put these numbers in their longer-term perspective. In 1972, when the Hon. W.A.C. Bennett was still Premier of this province, the provincial government took a 12 percent bite out of the total provincial purse. By 1975, after three years of NDP government, that bite had become a savage attack; government spending amounted to 18 percent of our total provincial outlay on goods and services. This trend was reversed in 1976 when the present Social Credit government came to power. The 18 percent figure fell to 16 percent two years ago and 15 percent last year. But now the spending is up dramatically. It's rising faster than gross provincial product; it could be of the order of 17 percent in 1980-81. I hope that this sudden reversal will itself be reversed again in the following years.

MR. LEA: What year was 16 percent?

MR. DAVIS: In 1977 it was 16 percent, and in 78 it was 15 percent.

I would like to ask the hon. minister why the government has not released its estimates of our gross provincial product for 1979-80 and 1980-81. Why didn't it include these figures in its background document entitled "British Columbia: Medium Term-Economic Outlook and Fiscal Analysis, March 1980"? I can't imagine a provincial economic document worthy of the name ignoring such an economic indicator as this. I've made my own rough estimates and I believe that the gross provincial product for 1978 for the province was of the order of $25 billion; 1979 was $28 billion; 1980 was $32 billion, all indicating rapid growth under this government, and for that it's to be congratulated. I'd like to know whether my estimates are in the right ballpark and I'd really like to know fairly soon what the official government estimates are in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, as I've said repeatedly in this House, I'm opposed to big government. Not only do I think governments should live within their means, as this one has certainly done, but I also believe that it should encourage the private sector to grow as fast, or faster, than government does. I must say that I liked the previous Minister of Finance's sunshine budget. It contained significant tax cuts and it reduced the provincial government's share of the provincial economic part. This spring's budget, by comparison, has its cloud patterns. It is reversing a trend towards less government, which many of us have welcomed in recent years, and is moving abruptly, and I hope temporarily, in the opposite direction.

There's another aspect of the present budget which bothers me. Government revenues have shot up unexpectedly; they've gone up dramatically — nearly $1 billion over last June's budget forecast of $4.5 billion. This could only happen under a free enterprise government, certainly one pushing resource development; but in effect we've had a welcome, but to some extent unexpected, windfall. We've taken many more dollars in than we thought we would get 12 months ago. Now I see we are also going to spend many of these dollars and I'm not so sure that we should be spending most of them in this coming year.

Mr. Speaker, what would you do if you received a sudden windfall of $1 billion? Would you save it, would you spend it or would you give it away? Would you give it back to the people — mainly the taxpayers of B.C. — who gave it to you in the first place? Like the present Minister of Finance you would perhaps do a bit of all three. You would save some for a rainy day, you would spend some on worthwhile government programs and you would give some of the newly found wealth back to your fellow British Columbians in the form of tax cuts of one kind or another. Personally I would put tax cuts at the head of the list. Instead of $50 million of tax cuts I would allocate several hundred million dollars to tax reductions both in the people category and the corporate category. Last year we reduced personal income tax in this province from 46 percent of the federal take to 44 percent. I would like to see it reduced to 42 percent next year; I would target on 40 percent as a maximum rate for the early 1980s. That would certainly put us below most other provinces — indeed all other provinces except Alberta with 38 percent.

In the corporate sector I would have dropped our general income tax rate from 15 percent to 12 percent, with 10 percent as my longer-term objective for business in British Columbia. After all, B.C.'s current general corporate income tax rate is the highest in Canada at 15 percent. Alongside Alberta with 11 percent and Quebec and the Maritimes with 12 percent, we don't look as attractive to business as we should. Bear in mind that most corporations are able, certainly in the longer term, to pass on any of these kinds of tax imposts to the consumers anyway.

I certainly would have done away with our corporation capital tax. It was brought in by the NDP; it taxes all kinds of assets including bank loans and inventories. It's a tax which many businesses have to pay whether they're making a profit or running at a loss. It hurts firms most which are trying to update their plant and equipment, and it is particularly onerous in a period of high interest rates. Why should we be making capital more expensive in British Columbia when the

[ Page 1431 ]

cost of money is continuing to go up here and elsewhere? Of course, I welcome the reduction in the small-business rate of income tax to 10 percent; now we're on a par with Ontario. I'm glad to see the government take its 4 percent sales tax off electricity and natural gas used for residential purposes. Only Quebec, to my knowledge, has a tax of this type. We will put all forms of energy on the same zero-tax basis by doing so.

Yes, we should encourage, as this budget does, the processing of minerals in this province; so I welcome the moves which the government is making by way of amendments to the Mining Tax Act and the Mineral Resource Tax Act. But I would also urge the Minister of Finance to have another good, hard look at mining taxation as such. We in this country now tax mining much more heavily than we tax our other resource industries; indeed, more than we tax all other industries, certainly including manufacturing.

So I would urge the minister, in his upcoming discussions with the federal Minister of Finance, to have Ottawa back off a bit. I know that it was as a result of federal initiatives in the early 1970s that we got into this impasse. It is part of the continuing debate as to which level of government really owns our resources and has the power to tax them. But surely an agreed sharing of a profit-based tax on mining which is also in line with taxation imposed on other industries, such as secondary manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec, makes a great deal of sense in a vast mineral-rich country like ours.

I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, that I was concerned about the windfall nature of a large part of our current provincial income. Resource revenues have trebled since 1977. They have gone up from $400 million three years ago to $1,200 million now. I have said that this is the kind of thing that could only happen under the present kind of government. It isn't the kind of problem, if I can call it a problem, that the NDP is ever likely to face.

While our resource revenue has trebled in these recent few years, tax revenue from our conventional sources such as the provincial sales tax, income taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes and so on has only gone up one-third. One has trebled; one has gone up one-third. This is unusual. In other words, we shouldn't count on our resource revenues increasing rapidly, at least at this exceptional rate, year after year. Those revenues are bound to level off. They could indeed, under some circumstances, drop by several hundred millions a year in the early 1980s.

As an aside, and I'm repeating, I'd say to the members of the opposition that this is the kind of problem that they wouldn't really have to struggle with if they were ever again to form the government of this province. Resource revenues were dropping sharply in the years in which they were in power. They would have continued to be depressed had an anti-business, anti-mining, anti-oil company party continued to be in power in B.C. in the latter half of the 1970s.

I think that the present government, even with its favourable policies for resource development, has to be careful. It has to watch natural gas in particular. What if the federal government decides to levy an export tax on natural gas? This invasion of provincial jurisdiction alone could cut $100 million a year, perhaps more, from our provincial revenue column. The field price of natural gas has to go up. It has to match the field price levels in Alberta, or we won't maintain a high level of exploration and development in our provincial north. That will cut into our provincial revenues.

Then there's the question of exports of B.C. gas to the United States after 1989, when the current contracts run out. If it is federal policy to deny any further export applications, then we face two additional problems. One is the disappearance, nine years from now, of several hundred million dollars a year of revenue generated by way of the B.C. Petroleum Corporation. That's simply the equivalent of tax revenue from the industry.

But the other and more immediate consequence would be a decline in drilling activity in northeastern B.C. This would almost certainly happen if the oil and gas industry thought that continuing export business in the 1990s would be denied to it. Its markets would be cut in half in 1989, and that prospect would discourage further exploratory activity here in the relatively short term — in other words, in the 1980s. That's a worry. It calls for some hard decisions insofar as energy exports are concerned. They may be good or they may be bad as far as income generation for government is concerned. But I for one wouldn't take a simple projection of our recent history of increased lease, royalty and export revenues for granted. Certainly I wouldn't take them for granted and use them for projections of income in the early 1980s unless I was confident that the federal government would have a firm export policy regarding natural gas.

Revenues from our forest products side also present a problem in the sense that they vary. They vary from year to year; they go in cycles. They have varied from a low of less than $100 million five years ago to more than $500 million in 1979-80. And now, with mortgage interest rates at an all-time high, we're likely to see another drop of unwelcome proportions. True, the Minister of Finance has made an allowance for this in his 1980-81 estimates, but we are pumping more money into reforestation on the expenditure side, so I have some difficulty really knowing what the net income to our provincial treasury from forestry will be. In the long term the trend, undoubtedly, will be upward; in the very long run it will be much higher. But I don't envy the Minister of Finance his task in trying to forecast what revenue from the forest industry is likely to be 12, 24 or 36 months from now.

Revenues from hardrock mining should and will undoubtedly increase. Our revenue from coal mining should rise. But as these revenues are currently less than 10 percent of all our tax take from the natural resource sector, I don't see them solving a large part of our overall budgetary income problem in the near term.

Finally, on the income side, I would worry about contributions from other governments. Ottawa is presently paying the province about $1 billion a year, but Ottawa is in financial difficulty: it has a massive deficit on current account to contend with; it is taking in $100 for every $120 it spends now. And with high interest rates eating into Ottawa's revenues, we're not likely to see the federal government launching new initiatives in such provincial fields as housing, health, education and social security. Federal taxes almost certainly will go up instead, and that will reduce the share of the provincial pie available to this government and, even more important, to the private sector in British Columbia. Don't count on a 10 percent annual increase in federal payments to our provincial treasury, in other words. Don't expect Ottawa's contribution to our overall budget to go up; it may well decline percentage-wise rather than increase.

This, together with a cautious approach to forecasts of resource revenues in the province, suggests that there is a limit to tax cuts which our British Columbia government can make at this time. There is definitely a limit to the new

[ Page 1432 ]

programs it can initiate. And there is a need, above all, for a provincial revenue stabilization fund of the kind which the minister describes on page 14 of his budget statement. We must take the long view, in other words; we must rely on our strengths to shore up our weaknesses. I'm glad to see that the minister is aware of this need, and I trust that his spending programs will continue to be shaped accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, I support the underlying shift in emphasis away from subsidies to industry, and toward better programs for people. Health has a much larger budget, as I said. Education and Human Resources are more than holding their own. Our municipalities are getting more funds, directly and indirectly, through Municipal Affairs and other ministries, like Transportation, Highways and Communications, and this is all to the good. But what about such projects as, say, a new gas pipeline to Vancouver Island, a proper, adequate refinancing of B.C. Rail, and certainly the re-equipment of our new Urban Transit Authority. Altogether they will involve us in expenditures running into many hundreds of millions of dollars — additional expenditures which are not listed in the budget, or included in the "Economic Outlook" document which the minister has tabled in this Legislature.

The Ministry of Finance's economic document tells us: "Over the five-year period to 1985, budgetary revenue is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of 12.2 percent," slightly below the rate of growth of the gross provincial product. "Over the medium term, projected expenditure growth exceeds projected revenue growth, but the cumulative budget deficit implied by these projections amounts to less than 0.6 percent of total budgetary revenue for the period." This tells me two things: we could experience budget deficits in the 1980s unless we change some of our present spending habits; and provincial government expenditure, as a percentage share of our gross national product, could remain at its present relatively high level, or even rise, over the next few years. This, as I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, disturbs me. Both of these possibilities bother me.

I hope that the Minister of Finance, when he rises to close this debate, will allay these fears. I hope he can tell me that it's still government policy to contain government in this province and to budget wisely for our longer-term future. I'm on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, because I believe this party stands for less government rather than more government. I'm on this side of the House because I believe that the private sector needs more room, rather than less room, to breathe, to live, to flourish as it should, to support and enrich our people in the future. This, essentially, is why I'm going to vote for this budget; but, as I've said, I have some misgivings. I hope the minister, by giving us more information on such matters as the size of our gross provincial product and possible future actions in the area of tax cuts, will allay my concerns later in this debate.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have a marvellous opportunity here to shoot down a a Tiger Moth — that's a very small airplane, not a 747.

AN HON. MEMBER: You were in the wrong war.

MR. COCKE: I was in the right war, thankfully — less government — and that kind of insulting comment from across the floor is quite unnecessary, particularly coming from a right-winger.

I just want to talk about right-wingers for a second or two, following that particular speaker. "Less government rather than more government." That's what he said, and he indicated that this right-wing government is certainly the government that will give less government rather than more. The only example I can show you of where you have less government in this country is in the province of Saskatchewan. You have more government now than this province has ever imagined it would have. The increase in staff, the increase in bureaucracy, is incredible. When we read those estimates, when we read that budget, we say to ourselves: "Who are these businesslike people that came to run our province?"

Well, I can't imagine, having heard the speech from the member across the way, who talked about us being anti-mining, anti-resource development, anti-oil, uncle-I don't know what, but anti-everything he could think of.... And then he failed to recognize the fact that we saved this province over a billion dollars with our BCPC, the Petroleum Corporation, whose revenues were nil — at least from natural gas we were getting nothing with the old Socreds. Then our government came in and found a way to get those resources paying for themselves and paying the people in this province. They haven't gone back on it, Mr. Speaker. This province has earned well over a billion dollars in that short period, just because of our farsightedness, and you're not going to back off on that one.

Mr. Speaker, they voted against it....

AN HON. MEMBER: That was a tactical device.

MR. COCKE: A tactical device, he says, Mr. Speaker. Anyway, the fact is — and if the very erudite member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) would care to read some of the facts at the time we were government — there was a strike of capital, not in British Columbia, but across this entire nation. Out of Alberta, oil rigs were going to Montana. All across this country we enjoyed that kind of blackmail from the oil companies. Oh, yes, I must confess, we're not all that happy with the behaviour of these corporations.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I have just been corrected, Mr. Speaker. It's $1.5 billion that we've earned in those few short years from the British Columbia Petroleum Corporation that our government was thoughtful and farsighted enough to set up.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to talk about the budget. I'd like to conjecture why it's suddenly so large, and then I sort of thought I should do a count before I did that. I know that they're going to require a lot of money, and let me tell you why they're going to require a lot of money. They're going to require a lot of money to pay for all of these inquiries. Do you know how many governmental inquiries we've had since they've been government? Guess, and guess high.

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty-five.

MR. COCKE: Twenty-five exactly. You win. You're marvellous. There's a list of them. I'm not going to go through them all, but I am going to give you an offer that you can't refuse. I'm going to offer to make as many bumper strips as you like — "Inquiries — B.C.'s Number One Industry" — and I hope that the Socreds will put them on the backs of their cars, because that's what we've got going for

[ Page 1433 ]

us in this province with this businesslike government — inquiry after inquiry after inquiry. We've had eight set up this year — yes, eight.

How to keep your friends busy is the word from this government. Mind you, you've got to get into a lot of trouble in the first place in order to get reasons for those inquiries. How many of them? Allegations of kickbacks, that's May 16. Advisory committee on medical...no, that's no kickback. There's the Delta police probe...no, that's not it. On July 6, 1979, there was a probe by Mr. Justice Seaton; I think that was fairly recent. There was the dirty tricks investigation by the RCMP in the fall of '79. And on and on we go.

I am concerned, but I will lose some of my concern provided I see this nice orange and black burnper strip appear on the back of the car of the member for Vancouver South and on all the Cadillacs etc. that we see across the way. I notice that the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) isn't driving his Cadillac anymore. I urge him to put this on the back of his new car, whatever it might be.

In 1975 the NDP government of the day decided to embark on a dental program for this province, after having given it a great deal of thought. They had commissioned and received a first-class report from health economists. This report was commissioned not only by my office at the time but also in conjunction with the College of Dental Surgeons — believe that or not. We had in our hands the report that gave us many of the answers this province required before embarking upon a dental program. It wasn't a political runaround. It wasn't an on-again, off-again proposition. It was a very carefully thought out plan that was working to its culmination. Unfortunately, there was a loss of government at the time. That loss of government created a loss of the dental program for this province.

We had made a deal with the University of British Columbia whereby they would assist in the training program required to back up the particular dental program which was the result of that report. The report said, in effect, that dental care was not available to all in the province. It was also evident that children's care was particularly inadequate. Northern communities, such as in the description we heard a little while ago from the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell), were being deprived of dental care, as were other rural communities.

Obviously there was a need for more dentists and a geographical placement of those dentists, or there was the need to go the route they went in Saskatchewan, New Zealand and elsewhere: a school-based plan for the children and another kind of plan for senior citizens. We also saw the need for seniors.

We made the agreement with the university to train the aides. The dental program was announced. The election came, and suddenly there was quiet. Everything was cancelled. Okay, I can understand there being a wake, but I would have appreciated it if the members of the new government had taken the trouble to read that very thoughtful report. Obviously they didn't.

So when the election campaign occurred in 1979 I announced that if re-elected we would proceed with the plan. Immediately the Socreds replied: "So will we." How did they reply? They replied in this way

"Denticare. The cost of dental care is a major concern in many families, and Social Credit is moving to meet that concern. In a recent budget your Social Credit government announced its commitment to develop B.C.'s first provincially operated denticare program. With the legislation to be announced during the next session of the Legislature, the new comprehensive denticare program will provide an important measure of protection for those British Columbians who are not covered by an existing dental plan. It's one more way...."

During the next session of the Legislature they announced no plan — just a little talk. I suggest to you that they've announced no plan now. They've said: "We're taking $30 million out of surplus, and we're going to give you a dental plan" — one that the minister admits he hasn't even decided upon yet. But in any event, that's what we expect.

Mr. Speaker, the government is totally disorganized, bumbling here as they have elsewhere — the kind of bumbling government that requires 25 inquiries in order to keep abreast of things, in order to keep up with all their problems. British Columbia is in the hands of a government that has absolutely no idea of where it's going. I say that they have no leadership, and that's their problem.

In 1976 there was a brief put forward by the Social Planning and Review Council of B.C., along with the B.C. Teachers' Federation, B.C. Federation of Labour, Consumers Association of Canada and the Registered Nurses Association of B.C. And what did that brief say in part? It said as follows: "Our organizations welcome and support the decision that a dental-care program for children will be a health-care priority of the provincial government." Weren't they a trusting lot? That was in 1976.

I can't blame the present minister. I know that the other minister was so preoccupied with a heroin treatment program that has caused them no end of embarrassment....

MR. KING: Abortive.

MR. COCKE: Abortive is correct. Mind you, I notice that they've spent millions and millions and millions on that abortiveness.

"A number of provincial organizations in addition to ourselves have endorsed the proposal, including the B.C. School Trustees Association, the B.C. Association of Social Workers, Indian Homemakers' Association, B.C. Federation of Foster Parent Associations and Federated Anti-Poverty Groups of B.C. Without undertaking a major campaign we've also received support from 4,482 individuals, and others have written directly to your office.

"A public dental care program for children will bring immediate and long-term improvements to the health of British Columbians. The present need is clear. Each year about 40 percent of our children receive no dental care at all; at the age of 15, 95 percent of the children have untreated cavities, with an average of three teeth per child needing restoration; 27 percent of 7- to 15-year olds have severe malocclusions and 30 percent have gum disease."

Mr. Speaker, if the minister would only even read this brief — old as it is — he would find arguments for that kind of a dental program, as opposed to the rumoured one that we hear about. I'm not sure that the minister has made up his mind entirely; but we certainly know that, whatever he's going to do with the $30 million.... If it's a dental program for the numbers of people he's talking about, then

[ Page 1434 ]

we suggest that it's either totally inadequate or it's going to have a tremendous amount of patient input.

Now where are we? Well, we're in a position now where we're dealing with the dentists. Dentists, incidentally, have come to a lofty position recently. They get a lot of time off, they work not bad hours, and yet they have become the second highest income group in our country. I notice their college is fairly influential. The minister, I suggest, could have been influential himself, if he'd really been interested in this dental-care program, because this top group of income earners have recently announced a fee hike of 12 percent. Now that's a general hike. Then there are other associated hikes that go along with that with, according to some economists whom I have spoken to, will roughly increase the increase in the cost of dental care in this province to about 25 percent. When we are in the process — if, in fact, we're not a bungling government — of trying to develop a dental program, they come out with this announcement.

Well, the minister says: "But I have no power." Can I quote, Mr. Speaker? "Mair Has no Power to Act on Dentist Fees: Health Minister Rafe Mair said Thursday the government can do nothing to prevent the latest round of dental fee increases in B.C." Wow! He can do nothing? And yet he was supposed to be negotiating something on our behalf with this group of practitioners, so that we have a denticare plan.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if he isn't talking out of both sides of his mouth when he makes this statement. He can do that rather easily. We saw him doing it the other night. Let me read to you from the B.C. Dental Bulletin. The president, Ted Ramage, said: "Negotiations with the government in December and January included fees to be paid for dental services under the government program." Does everybody note that? Yet what did the Health minister say beyond what I read to you at the beginning? He said: "Reports that there was a 'sweetheart deal' between the BCCDS and the government are absolute rubbish. Our discussions with the dentists were on the type of dental plan they'll put in. We weren't discussing money." That's a bit contradictory, isn't it?

Ted Ramage says: "We're talking about money, and we suspended those discussions. We talked about money in December and January." The minister says: "We weren't discussing money." Holy doodle! Do they carry on with this kind of performance in every field of endeavour? You know, if I were not a fair, thoughtful person, I would suspect that somebody was kidding the truth here; somebody was not telling the truth.

I don't know whether I should suggest that Ted Ramage, the president of the College of Dental Surgeons, should have his work reprinted here. Or I wonder whether the minister was misquoted in his Vancouver Sun report of February 15: "We were not discussing money." Surely the government, now in this moment of riches, has discovered an embarrassing surplus.

The member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Ree) said this billion dollars just came out of heaven, and they didn't quite know what to do with it all. So they said to themselves: "How can we spend some of that money? Well, let's allocate $30 million for dental care. We haven't come up with a program yet, but let's do it anyway." Someone probably asked: "Why $30 million?" And the reply was: "Well, why not $30 million?" This is good, solid, businesslike government.

MR. LEA: They're not going to spend any of it anyway.

MR. COCKE: They may not. But this is the kind of solid businesslike government we have.

Do we know where we're going? I'm here to tell you that obviously we don't. My problem is: who's going to design the plan? I suspect the B.C. College of Dental Surgeons will design the plans because this government is too lazy to do it for themselves. They're too lazy to read a report that they've already had before them to give themselves an opportunity to design a plan that's needed in this province.

Seniors and children — that's where we should start. You have a limited resource. We know that. You should start in the area of prevention among children and work on those children to keep their teeth sound, and also in the seniors' level where they have very little income and fixed incomes for the most part. Those are the two areas that we should be working on instead of this broad brushstroke plan that isn't going to help anybody a great deal. If my feelings are correct.... I feel that the College of Dental Surgeons is deciding the kind of plan we need, and I've had a number of those arguments with that group.

I don't believe this government has any administrative ability. They get up today, almost five years later, and in every speech spend virtually all of their time condemning a government that was in power for three years and four months. They can't extol their own virtues; there's no virtue for them to extol. They have nothing to boast about except to try to condemn a government that was there for a very short period of time and cleaned up a lot of rot while they were there, I'll tell you.

Mr. Speaker, why do I say that minister doesn't know what he's doing about this plan? He said so himself yesterday on "Webster." Good old Jack Webster. The minister said: "I don't know when it will start." He doesn't know when it will start. So I suggest that he call the College of Dental Surgeons and ask whether or not he can go ahead with it, and what he should go ahead with.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to discuss something that the government was involved with, and that's the Burrard drydock. B.C. has high unemployment, regardless of this budget and regardless of the fact that in some pockets we're better off than elsewhere. But we have unacceptably high unemployment. Yet Burrard drydock, the government of Canada and the government of B.C. deemed it propitious to build a new drydock in Japan — by Mitsubishi. It's a big dock. It's going to take boats up to 36,000 tonnes, and as a matter of fact it can go up to 40,000-odd if they expand it.

The Mitsubishi bid was $26.8 million, plus $5 million for insurance and towing across the Pacific, because the whole drydock is going to be totally built over there. There was a bid from a local consortium of $40.6 million for a better dock, a reinforced steel cement drydock. One included taxes and the other didn't; the Japanese was stripped and ours wasn't. A local bid would have given 500 direct jobs in this province, plus thousands and thousands of spinoff jobs. Yet our government was a party to that. Now I condemn far more the Conservative government of the day that perpetrated that act, but our government was party to it because they are part of the price — the one point five, which is an equivalent; it's a waiving of taxes, I would think. In any event, the taxes from the income earned on the construction of that drydock would have so far made up the difference and given us a healthier economy than we have, particularly in view of the number of people in the buildings trades that are unemployed.

[ Page 1435 ]

Mr. Speaker, I don't think I can quote anybody better than a Conservative bagman. This particular Conservative was part of the consortium trying to persuade the government in Ottawa and, obviously, the government here and Burrard drydock to have it built in this province. I'll quote Ken Stevenson, in a press release that was suddenly withdrawn before it saw the light of day; it didn't get out to the poor old newspapers. Mysteriously it got picked up, but a copy of it got into my hands. "I find it incredible that a government that promotes a shop-Canadian policy could award a contract involving almost $30 million of taxpayers' money to a foreign country," said Ken Stevenson, president of Stevenson Construction Co. Ltd., the Canadian firm to bid for the contract jointly with Dywidag Canada Ltd.

Incidentally, I had a discussion with the president of Dywidag, trying to find out what was going on. He is absolutely furious that we should have such short-sighted governments in this country, both provincially and federally.

I want to go on and quote a little bit more from Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Speaker, I think this is important: "Under an agreement with Burrard Yarrows, the federal government will contribute $28.8 million to the $50 million project." Incidentally, that's gone up considerably, because they found that it's going to cost them more anyway. "If our bid is not accepted," said Mr. Stevenson, "Canada will have lost $25 million to $35 million that the project would generate in jobs and for the Canadian workforce, if it were built here."

Now, from that day to this, we'll have actually lost a great deal more because the cost is up marginally. His vice president, Mike Degelder, says: "If we lowered our bids by 10 percent we could come within 5 percent under the Japanese bid." And don't forget the Japanese bid was price-stripped; both federal and provincial taxes were stripped off that bid, and that's why it was relatively inexpensive.

I want to go just a little bit further and tell you why I say that the concrete would have been better: "Our main reason for bidding the concrete alternate is because it doesn't require much maintenance. Steel rusts, and the water-covered part of a steel dock would have to be raised periodically for expensive maintenance which wouldn't be necessary in a concrete construction." I think this boondoggle, which has had hardly any coverage, hardly any discussion, in our community, is one of the biggest boondoggles in this country. Lloyd's of London preferred the Canadian bid; Lloyd's of London thought it was a better way to go.

But the minister of the day — and I'm not going to give him all the bad news — was a guy by the name of Mr. Huntington. He shares some constituency areas with the member who sat down just a few minutes ago. Huntington had a fat cat theory. He said: "Canadians are fat cats whose expectation levels exceed their work output." Mr. Speaker, that's the way he trys to weasel out of a situation like. We have one of the highest productivity levels in the world — we have. We keep shooting at ourselves all the time, but we really have. If you do a fair comparison on Canadian productivity, you will find Canadian productivity rates very very high. And I'll tell you right now there are a lot of people who are very unhappy about this.

The political history of that boondoggle goes as follows. In the first place the government of Canada said: "We're going to build a major drydock on both sides of the country — one in Halifax, one in Vancouver. It will be a government-owned drydock that may float from shipbuilder to shipbuilder. Whoever bids on a major repair will be able to use, providing it's not in use, that drydock." In other words, in Vancouver there would have been four or five shipbuilders that could have had access to that drydock.

But at that time the Liberals were the government, and I guess maybe Burrard Yarrows has some friends in government. They made the suggestion that they would like to put up a little bit of the money and have it exclusively. Now, I'm sure the Liberals understand that they made a terrible mistake, because they say they're not going to do the same thing in Halifax; it's going to be government-owned back there. But meanwhile, here, they pandered to Burrard. The Conservatives took over and did nothing about it. Not a single solitary thing did they do about it. They just came in and they said: "Well, I guess we'd better award the contract." Naive Mr. Huntington looked at blank figures without thinking in terms of consequence, and said: "Well, obviously, this is higher than that, so therefore they get it."

I don't wish them any bad luck but, you know, they're going to have to float that thing across the North Pacific. As a matter of fact, I understand it may cost some more anyway, because they're going to have to build up the sides to withstand the potential high seas in that area. It'll have to be towed all the way over.

I think it's strange, Mr. Speaker, that we should put up with these kind of free enterprise people over there that keep talking about free enterprise. They bungle along, including the Ottawa free enterprise government and this British Columbia free enterprise government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Anyway, we're getting our steel back.

MR. COCKE: Yes, that's right. We're getting our steel back, and our coal. Incidentally, the Japanese intimated that we'd get some more business. I imagine we're going to sell them some more coal and some more steel as a result of this great deal. It's a dumping proposition as far as they are concerned.

Let me tell this government who they gave the business to — Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi is a hard-nosed corporation; they do the kinds of things that many of these hard-nosed corporations do. I want to read you a quote — or at least I want to read you just a little bit of history here:

"The manager of a South Carolina industrial plant has been sentenced to four years in prison in the first case of industrial espionage brought to the U.S. Justice department under laws passed in 1970. Early in the seventies, Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan was dissatisfied with the quality of the specialized films it was producing. It tried to reach an agreement to purchase technology from Celanese Corp. in New York. Celanese would not play, but one of its employees did. One of its employees was Hal Farrar; he was manager of the Celanese plant in Greer, South Carolina, and was hired as a consultant by a Los Angeles consulting firm on behalf of the Chicago consulting firm working for" — you've guessed it — "Mitsubishi. There was an estimated value of $6 million in those secrets. Mr. Farrar got $130,000 for himself, and there was another $20,000 paid out as well."

Anyway, he is doing a little time, but so are the people in this province doing a little time. They are doing a little time on the unemployment insurance lines because this govern-

[ Page 1436 ]

ment and the government of Canada haven't got guts enough to say: "Let's keep it here; let's keep it in this country." They haven't got wisdom enough to do anything but read that bottom line, and that bottom line they live by is so deceiving when you don't take all of the considerations into your consideration.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that was just one of the finest boondoggles of the day. And it was all done so quickly, all over the new year. It was done at a beautiful time; the timing was such that I can't believe it — over Christmas and New Year's. That is a politician's delight. You make sure that everything happens when nobody is listening to the news; all they are doing is Christmas shopping. That is precisely the time all this broke, and nothing happened. Has anybody in the House heard of it? If some of the Treasury Board over there haven't heard about it they should hang their heads in shame, because they've got a million and a half dollars of our money in that program — shipping those jobs over to Tokyo, shipping those jobs to Mitsubishi when we need them here desperately.

I am ashamed of that government under these circumstances. I am ashamed of so many things that they have done. They are asking me to vote for their budget? They couldn't budget their way out of a paper bag. They couldn't budget for this province properly. The member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Ree) said: "It's a balanced budget." Who knows it's a balanced budget? Last year they were a billion dollars out and this year they are going to be out a great deal more, likely.

Mr. Speaker, who could vote for this budget? I can't.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, since coming to this Legislature last June, along with some members on both sides of the House, it was my understanding that we were going to have a new start. The member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt), after many years of experience in another legislature, expressed the concern that the reputation of this Legislature across Canada was a very robust one, and indicated a desire for change. However, to my disappointment this has not occurred. When this session was called, the NDP said they wouldn't come down here to rehash dirty tricks. The personal attacks on government ministers and government MLAs disgust me a great deal. I must confess that I was very disappointed with the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King), whose personal attacks on the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) were indeed incredible.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did Jack Kelly write that?

MR. SEGARTY: I heard he wrote yours. I heard he was working for you.

To have seen the member for Coquitlam-Moody associate himself with this sort of debate disappoints me a great deal.

On with the budget, Mr. Speaker — I don't want to say any more about the opposition's conduct at this point. Perhaps before I do so I would like to take a moment to express my good wishes and congratulations to yourself along with the member for Prince George North (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), the member for North Okanagan (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) and the first member for Vancouver South (Hon. Mr. Rogers), along with the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head (Hon. Mr. Smith). I wish these five members of our caucus the very best in their responsibility to the people of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, the budget manages to be a budget for today which provides also for tomorrow. It is a budget that will keep my constituents working for many years to come. It is a budget that the citizens of the Kootenay constituency are going to welcome, not because it has a lot of fancy promises and giveaways but because it provides good management of our resources, critical to our community, because it also provides support for the mining industry, and most of all because they know it is a budget that will keep this province moving along the prosperous road.

The citizens of Kootenay will also welcome the increased spending in health care. This has long been a priority of mine, and I am pleased to see that the budget recognizes the importance of health care in the province of British Columbia. The expansion program at the Cranbrook and District Hospital is well underway. It is part of a continuing expansion that will bring that hospital up to regional hospital status.

I will be calling on the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) in the 1980-81 fiscal year to approve the construction of a 60-unit intermediate-care facility in Cranbrook and the expansion of a 30-room intermediate-care facility in Fernie. I will also be asking the Minister of Health to include plans in his budget for expansion of the Elkford and District Diagnostic and Treatment Centre. Along with those plans for his consideration would be a fully equipped dental office along with counselling space.

Education has received a fair share of the provincial revenue. This reflects in the emphasis that this government has in this area. It also shows the hard work of the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith). His response to the community needs around the province of British Columbia has been tremendous and we're grateful for it. Mr. Speaker, the response from the minister to the Kootenay constituency in the past year has been tremendous, and the $7.5 million East Kootenay Community College core campus is scheduled to start construction this spring. It is my hope that arrangements can be worked out between the East Kootenay Community College, the city of Cranbrook and the Ministry of Education to include in their construction plans a lecture hall and a civic auditorium to be funded jointly by the three. This would be a worthwhile community project, and enhance the cultural life of that community.

The progress being made in School District 1 by the Ministry of Education in upgrading the educational facilities in that area is most encouraging. It is my hope that the people of Elkford will have a full high school facility in that community in the very near future. This, I hope, will stop the present unnecessary busing each day of 150 school children to the already overloaded plant at Sparwood.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I am pleased with the response the Kootenay constituency has had from the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) in the past year with the upgrading of the Cranbrook and Kimberley airport road. That project is well underway. However, much work remains to be done, particularly in the Elk valley. I would like the minister to include, in his 1980-81 budget, funds for the reconstruction of the road from Elkford to Sparwood, along with the replacement of the two wooden bridges on that road. I would also like to see funds included in his budget for the construc-

[ Page 1437 ]

tion of an overpass across the Canadian Pacific Railway just north of Sparwood, otherwise known as the Sparwood north bypass.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) responded to the needs of Cranbrook when he approved the $3.5 million Wattsville/Slaterville sewer project. In 1980-81 we will again be calling on the minister for assistance in providing $3 million for upgrading the water and sewer facilities in Fernie. Such direct grants to municipalities, as the Minister of Finance noted in his speech, are a way in which the province plays a major role in keeping local taxes down. The importance of municipalities to the province is obvious from the 53 percent increase in the budget of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. This is a real commitment by our province to the small towns and municipalities across the province of British Columbia.

The East Kootenay Library Society has been working to establish an improved library service in the East Kootenays, under the direction of Mrs. Mae Williams of Fernie. I will be approaching the Ministry of the Provincial Secretary and Government Services for funds to set up this system, once the program has been finalized. I'll also be calling on this ministry for funds to construct a community hall at Hosmer and senior citizens' recreation centres in Fernie and Sparwood. These are just some of the ways in which the budget provides for better services and living conditions to the people of my constituency. It makes one wonder, Mr. Speaker, how the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) could regard the free enterprise system as heartless. Well, I can tell the member that this heartless free enterprise system has provided more than $1.5 billion to put into the health care service of this province. It sure makes the member for Skeena look silly, if I can say that, Mr. Speaker, without being unparliamentary.

Let me talk a bit about the industries in the Kootenays, and how the budget has helped those particular industries. As the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) stated in his budget speech, the driving force behind such a historical prosperity has been our forest industry. I would like to take that statement a step further. Not only has our historical prosperity been the forest industry, but our future prosperity will also be based on the forest industry. The forest industry must remain a strong and vital sector of our economy if we as British Columbians expect to prosper. Even if the tourist and mining industries are at record heights, British Columbia will never fully prosper unless we have a forest industry that is healthy. This government has recognized this fundamental fact, and backed up that recognition with the greatest commitment in forest management made by any government in the history of this province. The sum of $1.4 billion will be spent on a forest management program over the next five years; $388 million will be spent in this fiscal year, and this is the kind of commitment that I, as a person who worked in the forest industry for 11 years, understand. I ask the hon. members opposite what kind of commitment they made to the forest industry when they were in government, and I'm not surprised that they haven't much to say, Mr. Speaker, about the budget. Everybody knows the forest industry was booming when they gained office, but it was in a shambles by the time they left.

Now, after a little more than four years, the government under the Social Credit leadership, under the leadership of our Premier, has restored the health of the forest industry. But even that, Mr. Speaker, is not good enough for us; we want to ensure that the industry remains strong in the future. So this government has committed $1.4 billion to a forest management program which will guarantee adequate forest reserves for decades to come. It's an investment in our forest industry; it's an investment in our children and in their children.

Although the forest industry is of primary importance to British Columbia, the coal industry is also an extremely important industry in my constituency, and one that promises to grow in importance throughout the province. In 1979 the coal industry provided many jobs for British Columbians and $500 million in revenue for the provincial treasury. Trade missions to Japan and Korea undertaken by our Premier last fall have already paved the way for new major coal contracts with Pacific Rim countries. Coal exports to Japan and Korea are expected to reach nine million tons in the mid-1980s. These promising forecasts are already evident in the recently announced expansion by Fording Coal Ltd. of its plant in Elkford in the amount of $110 million, creating 400 new jobs and long-term employment opportunity and a continued good standard of living for British Columbia workers and their families.

This week, Crows Nest Industries in Sparwood is starting the construction of a new mine site in that community. During the construction period this project will create 400 new jobs, and the project will take two years to complete. When the project is completed, it will provide 1,100 long-term jobs for Canadian and British Columbia workers. This project, Mr. Speaker, has encouraged further development of this province's vast coal reserves.

This government has provided $20 million for support facilities associated with northeast coal development. This additional development will increase job prospects for the people of the region and will increase government revenue — revenue that can be used to finance much-needed social and industrial programs in the province of British Columbia. Past economic development and expansion in this sector has been due to the sound economic and industrial policies of this government, policies which will continue this year as a result of this budget.

Along with resource expansion, the Kootenay region of British Columbia is important to tourism. The city of Kimberley is a single-industry, resource-extraction community. The municipality, in its wisdom and in order to diversify its economy and get away from being a single-industry, resource-extraction community, has tried to develop a year-round, tourist-destination resort facility under the theme of the Bavarian city of the Rockies. This has been done under the aggressive leadership of His Worship Mayor Jim Ogilvie, and the Kimberley city council. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of Cranbrook, I support Kimberley's application to be designated a year-round, tourist-destination resort area in an effort to diversify its economy, and I hope that the city of Kimberley will receive some of the $50 million that has been allocated for travel industry development subsidy in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I have talked at some length about the industries within the province and about the record of this government during the past four years and about the plans for the future. The province's economic and industrial strategy will thrust British Columbia into the eighties, and we shall be known as a very prosperous province throughout the world.

Can the NDP make the same claim with respect to their term in office? Mr. Speaker, the answer is no, not a chance. Let's take a look at the NDP's record, of which they speak so

[ Page 1438 ]

proudly. The truth of the matter is that their record is much less than impressive. When the session was called, I thought the NDP might want to come to Victoria to talk about our energy or perhaps the economy or our natural resources or employment, about uranium mining or job training for young British Columbians or the new Ministry of Environment Act or changes to the Workers' Compensation Board. But no, Mr. Speaker, the NDP insisted upon disrupting government business.

I don't believe that the members on the other side of the House have any understanding of the word "leadership" or policy planning. As you know, after 20 years of criticizing the former government of W.A.C. Bennett, the NDP in 1972 wanted to have a chance to govern, and the people of British Columbia gave them that opportunity. The people of British Columbia expected to see results. After all, they inherited a full treasury of $498 million and a healthy economy, an economy that was managed effectively and efficiently by the former government of W.A.C. Bennett for 20 years. In 1974, two years later, British Columbians expected the same sound economy. Yet if one examines the figures expressed on the same accounting basis, the figures showed a loss of $13.4 million, the first deficit in the history of British Columbia since the Second World War. I ask you, was this the "new deal" for the people? After all, that was the title of the 1972 NDP election platform.

What about unemployment? That too came under the new deal for people." One of their many promises was to reduce unemployment, which in 1972 stood at 71,000 in British Columbia. In 1975, three and a half years later, we saw the effects of the NDP government, with 109,000 British Columbians unemployed. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, is this the sort of leadership the people of British Columbia need? These unemployment figures represented 9.6 percent of the labour force. That percentage rating, I might add, was higher than the 7.2 percent national average. The blame for the high provincial unemployment rests solely on the shoulders of the NDP for its moves against the private sector.

In addition, the establishment of the British Columbia Development Corporation, funded at $25 million, didn't come up with one new job other than the public servants to staff it.

Then there was the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia in 1974. In its first fiscal year of operation ICBC collected $212 million in premiums, which barely covered the claims it had to pay. The loss of $34 million was attributed to initial starting costs. Yet in the second year of operation the story became even more grim with the overall losses estimated at $135 million. The ultimate deficit will be $181.5 million. I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that you would concede here that such a deficit hardly credits the NDP with strong leadership. I am thankful, however, that the people of British Columbia saved the province from future deficits by soundly defeating the NDP in 1975.

My disappointment with the NDP doesn't stop here. Other Crown corporations also displayed red ink. For instance, in 1973-74 the British Columbia Ferry Corporation posted a loss of $38 million on revenue of $43 million. A similar situation occurred in the British Columbia Transit Authority with a loss of $17 million in 1974.

Financial losses also must be noted when the NDP government decided to go into the real estate business. Then it went into the purchase of the Goodrich and Dunhill development. Then they moved into the processing business with the purchase of Pacific Poultry and Panco. Then they decided to go into the forestry business through the purchase of worn out sawmills, plywood plants and Ocean Falls.

They also moved into the area of transportation through the purchase of the Vancouver Coachline Company and the British Columbia Steamship Company. All showed losses, which reinforced the need for sound financial planning for the people of British Columbia. Such financial planning is obviously provided under the capable leadership of our Premier.

It was also during this time that cabinet ministers flocked to exotic places. The NDP Speaker went to India to meet with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. And the then Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs jetted to Australia to see how the leftist Labour government looked after its citizenry. Then when unemployment was reaching new heights, with the economy in a chaotic mess, the former Premier and former Attorney-General jetted off to Japan to play rugby. Is that the sort of leadership that the NDP is advocating? Then the transportation minister jetted off to Stockholm to purchase some second-hand boats, which cost considerable amounts of money to refit for British Columbia's unique and rugged coastline.

Yes, those were the years when the bargaining process in British Columbia was near anarchy. Lockouts and walkouts became the order of the day. There were an estimated 60,000 idled by strikes, lockouts and secondary boycotts. Where was the NDP leader during this time? He was sunning himself down in California. That's sound leadership.

The truth of the matter is that there is no leadership issue in this province, indeed the vote on the amendment proved this. This province has outperformed every other province in Canada — it's second only to Alberta — since the Social Credit government, under the leadership of our Premier, took office in 1975. That's leadership.

Let's review some of the programs initiated by the Social Credit government. Let's focus our attention on the programs made available to the people of British Columbia by our Premier, programs that clearly build confidence in this province's economy and reinforce the notion that the business sector has the strictest confidence in the Premier and government of this province.

In addition, the government's characteristics of sound management and strong leadership are also evident in the area of health. In 1978 British Columbia was the only province in Canada to provide a major health initiative through the implementation of the long-term care program, a program which offers universal subsidization of health care services at virtually all levels outside the general hospital.

The new program was aimed at three main sectors in society: the elderly people, who need some help to enable them to stay in their own homes, the mentally disabled; and coverage also includes care in an institution and homemaker service. The direct charge for people in an institution is $6.50 per day, and the provincial government continues to pay a comfort allowance for those people who cannot afford the cost while enabling children in extended care to stay at $1 per day.

Mr. Speaker, these are the results of capable leadership, good government and sound economic planning — characteristic, I might add, of what is the foundation of this budget.

In addition, those individuals are receiving care based on their needs as assessed by long-term care assessors in each of

[ Page 1439 ]

the health units throughout the province. This program has created a more effective utilization of our tax dollar by enabling the province to reduce the ratio of acute-care beds. However, the emphasis on the program is to keep individuals in their own homes and communities as long as reasonably possible — a factor made possible with the provision of homemaker service. This program has been extraordinarily successful in coordinating and supplementing service for those persons who are unable to maintain their independence due to long-term health problems, which include both mental and physical illness. Any individual who has been a resident of British Columbia for 12 months is eligible for care under the program. Ninety percent of the 35,000 British Columbians receiving care under this program are 65 years of age. Almost 15,000 British Columbians are receiving in-home service.

I would also like to express at this time my confidence in and support for the Deputy Premier and Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy). This minister, Mr. Speaker, has been burning the midnight oil and working hard trying to develop a new system called the hassle-free system for single parents. This is a system that will restore their confidence so that they will be able to seek future employment opportunities. These are programs that have been made possible through sound fiscal planning and part of the present budget with the 17 percent increase in Human Resources.

I am looking forward to seeing these programs further expanded to support the needs of families in matters pertaining to child welfare. Like I said, Mr. Speaker, the Social Credit government is the only government in Canada in the 1970s that has been able to introduce a major health initiative, and I am pleased that under the capable leadership and direction of our Premier, we're getting ready to launch yet another social program — a major health initiative in the form of a dental care program for all British Columbians not presently covered under the existing plan.

I have talked enough about health care, Mr. Speaker. Let's look at some of the other programs that have been established under the capable leadership of our Premier. This government has made home ownership a priority by establishing the first family home grant in the amount of $2,500. I am pleased that the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) is going ahead with the government's commitment to release Crown land for sale for residential and recreational purposes. This is a program that will reduce the high price of initial land costs for every British Columbian.

In 1979 the homeowner grant was increased by $100 to $380, and to $580 for senior citizens who are eligible under the program. Again, Mr. Speaker, this is a program which serves to reduce the tax burden of homeowners in British Columbia. A $200 million dollar program was designed to cut interest rates to 9.75 percent for the buyers of new homes in British Columbia in 1980 and to stimulate the demand for British Columbia plywood by reducing the slack in the forest industry. It is a program that will stimulate the construction industry by creating new jobs and ultimately will encourage British Columbians to seek home ownership for themselves.

I am sure you noted, Mr. Speaker, that this year's budget has kept the tradition of granting an additional $50 homeowner grant for senior citizens and war veterans — an additional increase to $630. Again, Mr. Speaker, that could only have been made available to the citizens of this province through sound financial management of our economy under the capable leadership of our Premier.

A further point worth noting is the decision by this government to go ahead with the creation of British Columbia Place in Vancouver. It is a decision that will show significant benefits to all British Columbians. British Columbia Place, as we envision it, will truly become downtown British Columbia. It will give British Columbia a future sense of pride, and whatever pessimism other parts of Canada might feel, it is not reflected in the province of British Columbia. Why was this possible? Because the people of this province have the greatest confidence in the outstanding leadership of our government and Premier.

Let us touch briefly on some of the many factors that the Social Credit government has provided for the people of this province. The ombudsman has been a creation of this government; the auditor-general has been a creation of this government. Both creations reveal this government's concern for the citizens of British Columbia. The honourable members across the floor of this House say that this government has no concern for people. I say that the record proves them wrong. All they have to do is to read the budget. This government, under the capable leadership of our Premier, has made British Columbia a better place to live and work. This is reinforced if one focuses attention upon the advantages obtained through the creation of the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation in 1978 and the free share distribution of BCRIC in 1979. The province of British Columbia has indeed a bright future.

The British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation was established to encourage British Columbians to participate individually in equity investment in British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, such a program has never been undertaken anywhere else in Canada. This government, through the free distribution of shares, has given every British Columbian the golden opportunity to participate in the resource investment of this great province. And the people of this great province took advantage of this opportunity. Two million four hundred thousand persons were eligible to receive the free BCRIC shares. Almost 90 percent applied for their five free shares and 120,000 applied for extra shares. This opportunity, plus the offering of common shares from March 15 to June 15, 1979, produced $487 million in gross proceeds to the company. As a result of this scheme of distribution, BCRIC has over two million shareholders, including 13,000 registered shareholders. This fact makes the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation the most widely held public company in Canada today, a fact that smacks of success. Through these achievements the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation has become a truly public company — a company owned by the people of British Columbia and controlled by the people of British Columbia.

Just a week ago, Mr. Speaker, the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation announced yet another success. Plans were announced by the corporation to purchase 14 percent of MacMillan Bloedel's common shares and 20 percent of Kaiser Resources stock. These purchases will substantially enhance BCRIC's position in the resource sector of this province. This is all to the benefit of the citizens of British Columbia, who own BCRIC themselves. BCRIC has given every British Columbian an opportunity to invest in the resources of this great province, and the investments made by the corporation will allow, and continue to allow the ownership of the natural resources of this province to be retained by the citizens of British Columbia.

This could only have been done through investors' confi-

[ Page 1440 ]

dence in the British Columbia economy, a factor which has enabled our government, under the capable leadership and direction of our Premier, to provide outstanding social programs such as GAIN, universal Pharmacare, SAFER, child-care programs, family support programs, achievement centre funding, homemaker programs, day-care expansion, lon-gterm care programs, aid to independent schools, community colleges in every region of the province of British Columbia and fully funded by the province, financial assistance for first home buyers, more and better highways to speed communications to British Columbia's centres, small airport development programs, the largest hospital construction in the history of the province of British Columbia, and other areas of assistance — to single parents, changes to the Workers' Compensation Act, and other programs that directly benefit individuals in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, these are programs that have been part of this government's long-term economic plan. The desire to implement these programs was evident in last year's budget. This year's budget has provided an increase in finances for these programs for the future, and the growth and expansion of these programs will provide even more benefits to the people of British Columbia through sound fiscal planning.

AN HON. MEMBER: How are you going to vote?

MR. SEGARTY: I'm going to vote in favour.

Mr. Speaker, the Social Credit government, under the capable leadership of our Premier, has been able to provide these outstanding social programs for British Columbians, and at the same time reduce taxes for all British Columbians.

I've discussed forestry, coal and tourism, and how the budget affects them. I have also gone into detail in several key areas of the programs that have been established in the budget. These programs have been secured through the people's confidence in the economy and the government of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, the NDP say that the Social Credit government has no real concern for people. I've outlined to you some of the very important programs, people programs, that have been outlined in the budget, and none of those programs has been the acquisition of junk ships and sawmills. These are the responsibility of the private sector. This will enable British Columbia to get the resource taxes which will put these programs in place. Mr. Speaker, I urge all hon. members to vote in favour of the budget.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, as I take my place in this budget debate, I would like to take the opportunity of congratulating you on your re-election as Speaker of this House, and also the Deputy Speaker, who's recently had a bridge named after him in Delta.

Mr. Speaker, I couldn't help but catch the last remark of the member across from me, referring to the Princess Marguerite as a "junk ship." I think that member would have an awfully difficult time getting elected on Vancouver Island, or in Victoria, after the performance of this government over the last year regarding that vessel. I have in front of me a sheet of paper with about 30 entries per page, just going back to January of 1979, outlining the indecisiveness of this government on this very simple matter.

Early on, we indicated to the then Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) that we were rational people, that my colleague and I in Victoria wanted to look at the report, so that we could sit down in a reasonable way and ascertain whether the ship was safe, how much it would cost to refit it, and what kind of economic impact there would be in my own riding of Victoria, to have that refitting undertaken here, so that the material and the labour was spent here. We were always refused that information, which was ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could have order in this?

MR. SPEAKER: There is a debate going on, hon. members; let's hear it. The second member for Victoria has the floor.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, it was of primary importance to the workers and the citizens of my riding that something be done about the Marguerite. The entire business community — and I'm talking about the small business community — is absolutely outraged about the performance of this government. These people, reportedly, are supposed to be advocates of small business. That is absolute nonsense. It is the NDP that is the spokesman for small business in this province, and you just have to wake up and recognize it.

Interjections.

MR. HANSON: The Flintstone Gang down at the end is active tonight, Mr. Speaker. There must be a full moon.

MR. SPEAKER: Just continue addressing the Chair and don't let them deter you. Please continue with the debate.

MR. HANSON: It's interesting to get some response from the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot), because I've been reading the earlier contribution he made on the Glenshiel Hotel. That will make interesting comment a little later. And I read in the Legislative Library about your performance on that particular issue — three pages of indecision. Shame on you.

Way back in September of last year they had a cabinet meeting, and the Premier announced that they were going to sit down, look over the report and come up with a decision, because the chamber of commerce in Victoria was asking, and prominent people in the business community were looking to what they felt at that time would be their advocates, for an answer. No answer was forthcoming — page after page after page.

In January of 1979, Mr. Elwood Veitch, who now has a different line of work, reported that 90 percent of the Marguerite traffic were American people, and that of those interviewed — I understand there was a summer student project and they were interviewing the American visitors to Victoria — 89.8 percent of them said that they would happily come back on the Marguerite to Victoria.

But again, as reasonable people, we ask for the reports. Show us. If it is an outrageous cost, we'll take that into account. But we kept hearing figures of $1.5 million and $2 million for a refit, for the proper tanks, for changes in ventilation, for maybe some wiring, fixing up the galley and so on. We were denied that report.

Mr. Speaker, do you know how many jobs would have been created if a decision had been forthcoming from that government in time for a refit? It is estimated that 5,000 man-days of employment would have been created-43,000 man-hours of employment. Now the multiplier effect of $1 million in the form of labour, plus half a million or a million

[ Page 1441 ]

dollars in material purchased here in Victoria, is 3 to 1. The indecision of this government cost the Victoria economy, in direct refitting costs, about $5 million, at a time when our construction trades, our metal trades and our finishing trades are 25 percent and 35 percent unemployed. They are not enamoured with this government.

The indecision went on and on. First, they delegated people to go to Scandinavia to look for vessels to rent. They couldn't make up their mind. Then they've switched dayliners to nightliners, they want to cut holes in ships and weld them back — it is absolute madness. Not once have I heard a member — other than the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), who doesn't know any better — stand up in this House and admit, as they should, that the whole thing was an absolute bungle. Everyone in my riding knows it.

What is happening now, Mr. Speaker, is that the penny has finally dropped. The same government that is making all the decisions on the Marguerite is also the government making decisions on every other matter of provincial jurisdiction. And it is absolutely frightening. People around Victoria who normally would be defending this government have now decided that the straw has finally broken the camel's back. No longer could they possibly abide the policies of this government.

Just an hour ago I met a resident of Victoria who said: "The credibility gap of this government is now so large that if the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) were to say Douglas fir is good wood he wouldn't be believed." They just cannot believe what this government has done. It's not just the Marguerite and the impact that that particular bungling decision over two years has had on the Victoria economy. As a member for this riding, I could not believe how a government could, with a straight face, have $300 million in surplus at the same time that people were lined up 1,300 deep for elective and urgent surgery at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, or 1,000 deep at the Victoria General.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or?

MR. HANSON: Or? How are things in Okanagan North? I know that in the riding of the new Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) the waiting list now is 1,300 for elective and urgent surgery.

You know, I've met with doctors, I've had people call me who have had the disruption in their own lives of waiting two or three months, preparing themselves psychologically for an operation, finding a replacement at work, having that person trained for a six-week period or whatever, arranging for child care, getting ready to go to the hospital — and then receiving one of the phone calls that appear three or four times every day in Victoria: "I' m sorry, there is no bed for you, as a result of the shortage of beds."

How that remark is met with derision and laughter from the other side of this House is really beyond me. It really is. Unless this government starts surfacing, coming up for air, looking around and seeing what's happening in this province, hopefully you're going to be out of power very, very soon.

I'm not impressed with this budget and I'll happily vote against it. You're impressed with numbers. This is the characteristic of your side. It's just numbers: $5.8 billion, Mr. Speaker, through you to those members.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You don't build hospital beds with poker chips; you build them with dollars.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the member now speaking across this floor sat there with $300 million in surplus and didn't have the courage to fight it out of Treasury Board and get that money free for hospitals in this province.

Interjections.

MR. HANSON: I don't know how you're able to sleep with yourself at night.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HANSON: Too busy innovating with the Heroin Treatment Program.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the member kindly address the Chair. It will assist us in keeping order.

MR. HANSON: On a number of occasions, Mr. Speaker, members on the other side of the House have entreated us to be more constructive, nicer, do away with the so-called nonsense. They can't get it through their heads that they have no credibility, that we want to see them removed.

AN HON. MEMBER: We know that.

MR. HANSON: Good.

Mr. Speaker, referring again to the hospital situation in Victoria — and I think the nurses and doctors in my riding would be listening very carefully to the remarks of the members across from me — if a patient goes to a doctor and is diagnosed to have some physical complaint that is classified as urgent, it is likely that that person would have to wait between two and three months to get into a hospital bed. That is true, my friend.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's not interrupt the member who has the floor.

MR. HANSON: I'd be happy to give this information from my contacts in the Victoria General Hospital area to the Minister of Health in the corridor.

A semi-urgent complaint is a two-to five-month wait.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Will you table all that information?

MR. HANSON: I'd be happy to give my figures to the Minister of Health, yes.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's hear the debate.

MR. HANSON: An elective operation — and as you know, the term "elective" only really means that a person is not in serious jeopardy, but they can be important; they can be hernias, cataracts, bladder problems, all sorts of things that are difficult to cope with psychologically, that have an emotional impact, and as a person is older that emotional

[ Page 1442 ]

impact is greater — that waiting time can be up to nine months.

I have an example for you of a constituent, a very well-informed person because she works in the health-care system, who waited four months for a not extremely serious operation, a bladder problem which is aggravated by a long wait. She is worried about it. She works as a laboratory technologist here in Victoria. An employee was engaged to replace her....

Interjection.

MR. HANSON: The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) thinks the phrase "working person" is amusing.

MR. KEMPF: Coming from your mouth it is.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Let's hear the debate.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, this person had arranged with her employer, for the date in question when she was to enter hospital for surgery, to be replaced. This person underwent an orientation program, she arranged for child care, she arranged for all the other things that had to be done during her absence in hospital, and she received the call and was turned down. It's not an extraordinary thing. It happens every day in all parts of the province, but I'm bringing it to your attention, and through you to the Minister of Health, what an emotional impact it had. In fact she phoned the Minister of Health and did not get a response, and I'll be happy to talk to him in the corridor, because I don't want to name names in this House. She called my office to bring to my attention, as had been brought to my attention before, the emotional impact of these things — not just the financial impact but the emotional impact. She said, in a very candid and honest way: "I'm young enough to handle it. It hurt me. It was difficult, but I'm young enough to handle it. What is it like for an older person?"

The whole notion in medicine of early diagnosis so that the prognosis is good — catch it early, have it dealt with so it doesn't become exaggerated — what does that mean, that whole notion, when you have to wait four and five and six and eight and nine months to go into hospital? On health care alone, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to vote against this budget.

MR. KEMPF: Do you know what a ghoul is?

MR. HANSON: The member for Omineca thinks it ghoulish to raise these issues. I'm raising it out of genuine interest and concern for my constituents; I don't care what he thinks.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're raising it for political expediency — that's all.

MR. BARBER: Do you remember the story Barney told one night? Talk about political expediency in raising a health issue!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, there is an added complication in the large urban hospitals, and I think it is that the Victoria General, and more so the Royal Jubilee Hospital, function as major referral hospitals. People come for specialty problems and operations, so it is serving a larger area than just Victoria itself. Now that adds a specific burden when it is compounded with the fact that we have a large senior citizen population here, and inadequate long-term and extended-care beds to accommodate that problem. So the whole acute-care bed ratio to the population is out of whack, and that has to be changed.

I have some notion, Mr. Speaker, of what the Minister of Health and the former Minister of Health have on line in terms of beds, but it's inadequate, because no proper planning has been done to make the projections of how many long-term care beds are going to be required as a result of the peculiar age distribution of the population here in Victoria. It's a wonderful place, this south of Vancouver Island. It has a nice climate, but the hospital situation is not geared up to accommodate the people from colder areas in British Columbia or in Canada who want to move here for their retirement, after working very hard. They're welcome here, but we require more planning and it is not there. Just to throw figures out of the budget, I am going on the facts of the performance of this government over the last year in health care and it is totally inadequate.

I referred earlier to another aspect. The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) made a comment earlier and I said to him that I had read through the provincial clippings on the Glenshiel Hotel because I wanted to be well informed on it. I wanted to give some constructive criticism. I wanted to know what was involved, why a government would want to put 60 senior citizens out of their homes in Victoria. Surely they must have justification for that. I guess if there is an issue in Victoria at this particular moment which indicates the heartlessness of this government, it surely is the Glenshiel Hotel.

The hotel was built in 1908. It was an annex for the Empress. When the provincial NDP government decided to purchase that particular property to keep it within the legislative precinct and to make sure that there was accommodation there for the senior citizens residing there, the member for Columbia River (Hon. Mr. Chabot) made the outrageous accusation at that time that more money had been paid for the Glenshiel Hotel than should have been paid for it and the additional money went into a secret NDP campaign fund. That was a most irresponsible statement.

HON. MR. CHABOT: True.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the member for Columbia River has stated that it was the truth that money from the Glenshiel Hotel purchase went into a secret NDP campaign fund. I would like him to withdraw that remark.

MR. SPEAKER: I do not have any basis on which to ask for the withdrawal. In any statement made by any member who has the floor, the member himself accepts all responsibility for the veracity of what he says. Those things which are said by interjection from across the floor, if they are unparliamentary, we normally ask to be withdrawn, but I have no grounds upon which to ask for this withdrawal. Would the hon. member please proceed.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I will let it lie on your conscience.

Interjection.

[ Page 1443 ]

MR. HANSON: It was a particularly good one, Mr. Member.

In 1977 the Minister of Transportation and Highways, who was responsible for the Glenshiel Hotel.... That in itself is a peculiar thing. Why would a Minister of Transportation and Highways be responsible for a residential hotel for senior citizens? When the Ministry of Public Works was dissolved in a very callous fashion by this government and the B.C. Buildings Corporation was established, the Glenshiel Hotel was leased to the Ministry of Transportation and Highways for one dollar. A committee was established to oversee the hotel. These were high-ranking government employees who were then to report to the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. That committee had no access to funds whatsoever. They had to go to the Treasury Board to get money because they didn't have a direct vote.

As a result of the cumbersome bureaucratic setup that this government established for the Glenshiel, they allowed the Glenshiel to run down after discharging the maintenance man who kept the thing in good order. I think they let it run down deliberately. They let it run down because they had no intention of staying in the "hotel business," of having the government involved in the hotel business.

Just to assure any citizen of British Columbia who may have laboured under the misunderstanding that that hotel was a burden to the purse of this province, that hotel is almost self-sufficient: roughly $25,000 a year additional subsidy is required to keep 60 to 70 senior citizens happily in a hotel which is their home. It is not an institution. It is a cluster of homes close to the bus station and close to the park. They want to live there, Mr. Speaker, and this government will not allow them to do so.

Just the other day I sent a letter to the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) asking him to refer the jurisdiction for the Glenshiel to the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) because I thought the Ministry of Health in its structure would be more aware of the value of that hotel as a residential hotel for senior citizens. I have had no response to that correspondence, but I am looking forward to getting some. I just want to say, for the record, that the early performance of the Social Credit government, particularly the performance of the member for Columbia River (Hon. Mr. Chabot), is on the record as being extremely opportunistic, trying to take advantage of a situation which he really should have stayed clear of entirely. The amount of clippings on that particular exchange is really amazing. You got a lot of political mileage out of that.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to move on to another area: the economic impact of this government here. Now many of them are not aware of the fact that the unemployment rate in Victoria is extremely high. It is 10.1 percent, and much higher for younger people. There is nothing in this budget that directly addresses a remedy to this problem. The remedies are obvious. We have a zero vacancy rate here in Victoria. It is extremely difficult to get rental accommodation, even more so if a person happens to be a senior citizen. I would have thought it would make great sense in this budget to have had provision for a stimulus of rental accommodation here for Victoria and for Vancouver, but there isn't. You know, in Saskatchewan the unemployment rate is 3.9 percent....

The number of unemployed in British Columbia between the ages of 15 and 24 is 41,000 people. In my own riding, Mr. Speaker, where the main source of employment is either working for the government or very minimally in the private sector, and some in the general service industry.... Interjection.

MR. HANSON: The Premier shakes his head. The unemployment is very high in my riding, and I'm looking for solutions.

For example, the carpenters union presently has 27 apprentices out of work. Out of the 260 unemployed carpenters, 51 no longer qualify for UIC. These are people who have worked very hard to become skilled tradesmen. They are now faced with the situation of being on welfare, when they would like to be out doing a job, paying taxes and making a good living for their families, like any other citizen in this province.

The policies and programs of this government, including the bungling of the Marguerite, the proposed ferry rate increases and the increased cost of living on Vancouver Island are really making it very difficult for enterprise to establish here on the Island, where we need clean technology, shipbuilding and marine-oriented industry. They're not interested. Why aren't they interested? It's because they are interior-oriented in their approach. I think it's probably because so many of the cabinet are from the interior. They just don't seem to get the input to give them some kind of rational decision-making.

The other day I talked to people in the leadership of the various trade unions in Victoria. They were thinking — and I think it's true — that there's going to be a negative economic impact as a result of the proposed ferry increases. It's going to make it very difficult because of the way these increases are passed to the consumers and increase the price of goods produced on the Island. It's going to have a deleterious effect on the economy of Vancouver Island. This government has already had a negative impact in terms of its decision on the Marguerite.

I just want to make a few more comments, Mr. Speaker, regarding the cost of living for senior citizens here in Victoria. I'd like to talk about food, and again this relates back to the ferry rate increases. There are many senior citizens here in Victoria. I see them shopping in the supermarket, and they have small trays of chicken backs and chicken necks and the cheapest cuts of protein and meat in their carts.

MR. STRACHAN: Good stuff. I eat it every day.

MR. HANSON: Unbelievable. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, and I say to this government: where they should have been moving on this budget to make life easier for senior citizens, they are making life more difficult.

MR. LAUK: And they laugh about it too.

MR. HANSON: And they laugh about it; they think it's funny.

Mr. Speaker, in this budget I was looking for some leadership. I was looking for some economic planning. I was looking for some innovation — something that would help the ordinary person. But the old line, "them as has gits," and "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," is the line of this government. I'm anxiously looking forward, as are an increasing number of my constituents, to the day that this government is defeated.

[ Page 1444 ]

Interjections.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the member across from me thinks it's because there's a full moon, and I think it's just that that seems to affect the Flintstones more than it does others.

As a result of the economic bungling, lack of planning and lack of foresight, I will not be supporting this budget.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the second member for Victoria I observed for the first time that the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) sits between the two members for Victoria. That must be a very awkward position to sit in, Madam Member, but I notice that you survive the ordeal very well, and retain not only your sense of humour but a degree of intelligence. I find it remarkable.

Mr. Speaker, on the way in today I was asked by one of the hon. members why I was wearing the red rose. It betrayed a very serious misunderstanding of the role of government. It was a bribe, of course, and very often we're given these little perks. Go out and make a speech, you get a red rose; go back to your office, you get a brown envelope. It's just one long day of opening brown envelopes and putting on red roses. It really is a lot of laughs. I sometimes wonder why they want to come over and join this, but I guess if you like empty brown envelopes and crudely red roses, this is the job for them.

MR. LAUK: Johnny Carson.

HON. MR. MAIR: Johnny Carson. Have you been drinking that stuff again, Gary?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's not interrupt the member who has the floor, and I think it will assist us in keeping order.

HON. MR. MAIR: We were doing so well, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) please state the point of order.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, it's been a long-standing convention in this House that no member reflects upon the sobriety of another member. I'd like to point out that there is ample opportunity on this side of the House to break that rule.

MR. SPEAKER: I would recommend that we stay with the convention. The hon. Minister of Health has the floor.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I of all people would be particularly delighted to go along with that convention. But I was noticing the gradual darkening of the member's hair when I made that comment, and assumed that he was back to drinking his Grecian Formula.

MR. LAUK: If it worked, I would use it.

HON. MR. MAIR: Well, if you mix it with some other stuff, you never know what might happen.

MR. BARRETT: You ought to know, Rafe.

HON. MR. MAIR: Yes, well, I've got it going all ways, Dave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. On to the debate.

HON. MR. MAIR: At least, Mr. Member, we know I have to shave.

Mr. Speaker, I will be getting into the budget in some detail, I hope, a little later tonight, after the adjournment. But before I do so, I'd like to make a comment on some of the good-natured banter that we've heard over the last few days in this House. But particularly I would like to talk about the, I suppose, good-natured banter from the Health critic.

Over the last few days — indeed the last, I suppose, ten days — I've heard from time to time that I'm in for a particularly rough time during my estimates when these estimates go to committee. Well, actually I've been led to believe, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, that if I were to behave myself a little better in his terms, then it would go a little easier for me. So I suppose in this House the quid pro quo is that your estimates go easier if you behave as the New Democratic Party would like you to behave. I thought about that for a while, and I must admit, I suppose, because estimates can be a very tiresome ordeal for the person under the gun, that that's a fairly tempting idea.

I thought to myself, no, I don't really care very much if this House sits until December 31, as long as it does the people's business. I frankly think that the Health estimates ought to take a lot of time. I think they're very important. We're going to be spending a great deal of the people's money: $1.5 billion, or even a little bit more. I must admit that although I suspect that during estimates there will be good deal of the playing of politics with the sick and that sort of thing. I probably could learn something from the questions asked by the other side. I must say that I've learned in the past from questions asked by the other side during my estimates. I've learned that you can't learn anything from the questions that are asked by the other side during your estimates.

Hon. Mr. Mair moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Williams tabled the statutory annual report of the Justice Development Commission for the period ended March 31, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:47 p.m.