[ Page 1483 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions.

Administration of Justice. Mr. Lauk –– 1483

Goldstream River dam. Mr. King –– 1483

Environmental impact of Stikine-lskut project. Mr. Passarell –– 1484

Environmental impact of Liard project. Mr. Passarell –– 1484

Kemano II project. Mr. Lea –– 1484

PCB contamination. Mr. Hanson –– 1485

Radioactive wastes. Mr. Hall –– 1485

Uranium mining. Mr. Hall –– 1485

Administration of private nursing homes. Hon. Mr. Mair replies –– 1486

Budget debate.

Mr. Levi –– 1486

Mr. Hyndman –– 1491

Mr. Nicolson –– 1494

Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 1497

Ms. Brown –– 1501

Hon. Mr. Heinrich –– 1504

Presenting reports

Rules, orders and regulations pursuant to the Health Act, February 1979 to November 1979.

Hon. Mr. Mair –– 1507

Ministerial statement

Radiation from video display terminals.

Hon. Mr. Mair –– 1507

Presenting reports

Milk Board annual report as at December 31, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 1507

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. SMITH: Today in the gallery we have a famous first for this area: the Canadian Inter-collegiate Athletic Union basketball champions, the University of Victoria Vikettes. It is a first in many ways. Not only is it the first time that this university in my riding has won a national championship in basketball, but it's the first time that both the men and the women have won a national championship. Some of the players overlap both teams, as you'll see.

I'm pleased to introduce these ladies, Mr. Speaker, and I'll ask them to stand, one at a time: Janine Prince, guard; Jamie MacKie, forward; Tracie McAra, guard; Sue Shaw, forward; Luanne Hebb, forward; Jane Favali, forward; Karen Packalen, forward; Sandy Lewis, forward; Carol Turney-Loos — outstanding woman player in Canada and member of the Olympic team — guard; and Kathy Shields — whose husband is the coach of the winning men's team — coach of this group. I'd ask the House to make them all welcome.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone in the House a particularly happy St. Patrick's Day. I will just quote very briefly the words of a great Irish bard of years ago, who observed:

Up the long ladder and down the short rope,
A green Irish costume cannot hide a dope. [Laughter.]

HON. MR. MAIR: Ah, to be sure, Mr. Speaker, after the last remarks it would seem most appropriate to introduce that famous visitor from the Emerald Isle who is with us today on the floor of the House, Leprechaun O'Vander Zalm.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my colleague. Actually, the remarks of the member from Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) were given with a bit of a Welsh accent, so I'll accept them as they are. But I think today everyone should want to be a little bit Irish. Every nation has its traditions, superstitions, mythology and folklore, but most are for evil and are negative. However, the Irish have their fairies and their leprechauns, who are for good and are positive. So I think we ought to be grateful to the Irish for being very positive, and I would like the House to join me in bidding well to all Irish British Columbians on St. Patrick's Day.

MR. LAUK: In the gallery today are two distinguished officers of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation: the president, Mr. Al Blakey, and one of the directors, Mr. Jim Bowman. I ask the House to make them welcome.

HON. MR. BENNETT: In the precincts of the House today are members from the Comox-Strathcona Regional District. This morning I had the pleasure of holding meetings with them, together with the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser). They are advocating an additional road and bypass for their area. I'm always very pleased to receive their delegation and their representations. I ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. DAVIDSON: Visiting with us today in the gallery are Mr. John Reynolds of radio station CJOR, a very good and close friend of mine, and Mr. Fraser McColl from Oak Bay. I ask the House to make them very welcome.

MR. REE: In the gallery today we have a younger brother of one of the legislative interns with us this year. I ask the House to welcome Stephen Smith from North Vancouver– Capilano.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'd like the House to bid welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Al Wilson from Oliver in the great constituency of Boundary-Similkameen. Mr. Wilson is a turkey producer and a member of the B.C. Turkey Marketing Board.

Oral Questions

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

MR. LAUK: My question is to the Attorney-General. In answer to a previous question the Attorney-General indicated that he had retained the services of private counsel Mr. John Hall to look into the Vogel allegations. It's previously on public record that the Attorney-General appointed Messrs. Anthony Pantages and John Rowen to look into other allegations. With respect to the Vogel allegations, the Ritchie case, the Eckardt commission, campaign funds and the Lettergate affair, can the Attorney-General indicate if there are any other private counsel advising the Attorney-General on any of those matters?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure that I caught all of the lengthy list, but the only counsel I have retained is Mr. John Hall.

MR. LAUK: The Attorney-General indicated previously that Messrs. Leonard Dudley and Anthony Pantages were retained to provide legal advice with respect to the campaign funds concerning the Social Credit Party. Was that not a correct piece of information?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, all counsel retained to advise ministers of the Crown are retained through the Attorney-General's ministry, but those counsel were not retained to advise me.

MR. LAUK: Would the Attorney-General indicate to the House, with respect to Mr. John Hall, his terms of reference and his fees?

GOLDSTREAM RIVER DAM

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I think the dog got the minister's tongue.

I have a question to the Minister of Environment. Noranda Mines has applied for a water licence to construct a dam on the Goldstream River, north of Revelstoke. Has the minister intervened to ensure that public hearings will be held before a decision on the water licence is made?

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

MR. KING: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Could the

[ Page 1484 ]

minister advise the House whether the fish and wildlife branch of his ministry has requested a public hearing?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Not to me, Mr. Speaker.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, they would hardly request a public hearing of the minister; rather, that would be directed to the water controller. Is the minister aware whether the fish and wildlife branch of his ministry has requested of the water controller that public hearings be conducted incident to the water licence application?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member's question, the matters have not been brought to my attention, either by the commissioner of water rights or the director responsible for the fish and wildlife branch. But I will take the question as notice and find out if such things are already in place.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
OF STIKINE-ISKUT PROJECT

MR. PASSARELL: In its proposed Stikine-Iskut project, B.C. Hydro reports the following damage is likely to occur. The migration of the salmon will be drastically affected and the last wild herd of mountain goats will be relocated. The question is: can the Minister of Environment report what government action has been taken with respect to these serious environmental questions?

HON. MR. ROGERS: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, we have had no proposal from Hydro.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
OF LIARD PROJECT

MR. PASSARELL: I have another question. In its proposed Liard project, B.C. Hydro reports the following damage is likely to occur. The migration of the grayling, the major food supply of the Kaska band, would be drastically affected. Can the minister tell me what government action has been taken with respect to these serious environmental concerns on the Liard project?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you could give me some assistance, because it's my understanding that matters in question period are to be matters that are urgent and pressing, and I think some matter that has not been brought forward to government and has not been proposed is neither urgent nor pressing.

KEMANO II PROJECT

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Environment that's both urgent and pressing. Has the province reached agreement — or is there a near agreement — as to who will develop the proposed Kemano II project? Will it be B.C. Hydro or Alcan who develop Kemano II?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I would like, perhaps, to ask the member to direct the question to the appropriate minister responsible.

MR. LEA: As the Minister of Environment, is the Minister of Environment aware of any province agreement as to who will develop Kemano II? Surely the Minister of Environment is involved, and I would like to know from his point of view whether to his knowledge the province has reached an agreement or is near an agreement as to who will develop Kemano II — Alcan or B.C. Hydro?

MR. SPEAKER: Only that portion of the question which asks what has been reached is in order. That which talks about the future and the policy of the government is not in order.

MR. LEA: I'd like to know: has there been an agreement reached, or is there a near agreement?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, it's the same answer that I gave the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell). To the best of my knowledge, no one has applied for Kemano II.

MR. LEA: Okay. I have a simpler question: is the minister aware that water rights is under his ministry?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Further questions, please.

MR. LEA: In view of the interest of the national fishery, as well as hydroelectric power and other environmental concerns, has the minister, through the government, discussed with the federal government and the federal Minister of Environment whether there is a need for a full-scale federal-provincial public inquiry into the Kemano II project?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I had an opportunity to discuss this matter with the federal Minister of Fisheries. However, due to the fact that the government in Ottawa collapsed and there has subsequently been an election and the new minister has only recently been put in place, I have not had the opportunity to discuss the matter with his replacement.

MR. LEA: Has the minister made up his mind yet as to when he will discuss this matter with the new federal minister?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I think, Mr. Speaker, as soon as we have some agreement on pairing, I'll be able to leave this House and go to Ottawa to have those discussions.

MR. LEA: I would almost be tempted to ask, Mr. Speaker, whether the minister has heard of the Kemano II project. Has the minister come to any conclusion as to whether or not the Kemano II project should go ahead under B.C. Hydro or Alcan? Have his ministry and his office made any conclusion as to what should happen there?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, once again, that responsibility does not come under my ministry. It is not the decision of my ministry to make any determination as to who should operate it, if anyone should operate it at all.

MR. HOWARD: I would ask the Minister of Environment if he could advise me and the House when he will be able to answer the letter I wrote him over two months ago asking for the involvement of his ministry in this matter.

[ Page 1485 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The question is out of order. The second member for Victoria.

MR. HANSON: I'll defer the floor.

MR. LEA: Is the controller of water rights still under the Ministry of Environment?

Interjections.

PCB CONTAMINATION

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Environment, if I could get his attention. On February 14 it was brought to the minister's attention that there were three locations in the province where PCB, a cancer-causing chemical, had been spilled, and there was enough evidence to warrant an investigation. Shortly thereafter, on February 18, the minister indicated that no inquiry was required. Fortunately, ministry officials within his own branch conducted the investigations on their own. The levels are now known as being at 200 parts per million, which is a serious health hazard.

My question to the minister is: what action has the minister taken at this time on the other two locations that were brought to his attention, to determine the level of contamination?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I guess it's my day, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the request was for a public inquiry into these spills, and I said at the time that officials of the ministry would look after the matter. I advised that member in writing of the investigations that were taking place, and I trust the member has a copy of that letter. There are persons within my ministry, in the pollution control branch, investigating all PCB spills. The latest specific one is the one that took place in Kitsault last week, on which a press release was issued on Friday. But when we're talking about things of the magnitude of two tablespoons or less, I find some difficulty in being able to stop people in the ministry and dispatch them just on request from members of the public.

MR. HANSON: A clarification, Mr. Speaker. The letter I received from the minister was three weeks after his account. We are not talking about....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. You must have a question, hon. member. This is not a debate.

MR. HANSON: I have a question directed to the Minister of Health. In view of the latest evidence at Kitsault, at 200 parts per million, and 8 parts per million a quarter of a mile away, would the minister advise us if he is going to take any action to safeguard the health of the workers at Kitsault and have them properly tested?

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

RADIOACTIVE WASTES

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, in view of the doubts expressed by Dr. David Bates that the commission of which he was head would be unable to fulfil its promise to the Surrey residents that it would study radioactive wastes on property owned by CRF Holdings in Surrey, can the Minister of Environment advise what other action the government is prepared to take on the problem of radioactive wastes in Surrey?

The minister appears reluctant to answer that question, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. ROGERS: It questions future actions of the ministry, but I'll take the question as notice.

MR. HALL: I would have thought a new minister might have wanted to take advantage of question period to tell somebody what he is doing.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

URANIUM MINING

MR. HALL: We'll turn to a more experienced minister, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations: in view of the provisions of the Atomic Energy Control Act, and in view of superior court decisions such as the Pronto Uranium case in Ontario and the Denison Mines case which held that the federal peace, order and good government clause extends to the production and use of uranium, can the minister advise what discussions, if any, have been held with the federal government to ensure their cooperation regarding the ban on uranium?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Is this a question which is perhaps introducing past history for the point of argumentation? If it is....

HON. MR. GARDOM: We're also looking at uranium mining in Saskatchewan, Mr. Member. But I'd like to assure you that we'll be having the most fulsome discussion with the federal government.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister could repeat his answer. The applause prevented his answer reaching this side of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, if a question is not heard, perhaps the House would be wise to allow the question to be repeated. Otherwise it cannot be answered. However, if an answer is given, it is recorded in the Blues, and I think that in order to avoid further interruption of the House, we should refer to the Blues for those answers. I would suggest that as a guideline.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order, it's the process of question period — and clearly set out in the memorandum of Mr. Speaker Smith that was kindly circulated to the House the other day by the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) — that supplementaries are allowed on questions. It's very difficult for opposition members to ask supplementaries on answers that cannot be heard. It is a question that is of concern to us that ministers drop their voices deliberately and avoid giving clear answers to questions.

[ Page 1486 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Is this on the same point of order or is this a debate?

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, it's on the same point of order. Just a correction, Mr. Speaker, for the poor little member over there. I didn't circulate any material. I don't know what he's talking about.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I would like very much to give two answers to questions asked of me in question period a week or two ago.

Leave granted.

ADMINISTRATION OF
PRIVATE NURSING HOMES

HON. MR. MAIR: Last March 3, the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), asked me a question regarding the death of an elderly gentleman at James Bay Lodge in Victoria. There were, of course, two very unfortunate deaths at this facility last year. As a result of inquiries into these matters and the resulting coroner's inquest, the following is the action taken by the government.

The local representative of the Provincial Adult Care Facilities Licensing Board conducted an in-depth review of the staffing levels of the James Bay Lodge. The board required assurance of a licensee of James Bay Lodge that staffing inadequacies would not take place in the future, and that the person in charge of this facility be delegated full authority to dispense funds to provide proper staffing levels at all times. Representatives from James Bay Lodge, including the person in charge, the president and vice-president of Beacon Hill Lodges, have been before the board to give their assurances that staffing levels are currently, and shall remain, in accordance with the adult care regulations.

As a matter of further interest, I would like to remind the House that the verdict in Mr. Pascoe's case was "death by undetermined causes," while Mrs. Lock was found to have committed suicide while apparently in full possession of her faculties. I have also requested that a review team be established to do an in-depth study of the operation and care being given in long term care facilities throughout the province. Included in this study would be a review of staffing levels to ensure that all residents are receiving adequate and appropriate care. I expect that this review team would be led by a lay representative, probably from the business community, and will include a facility administrator and nutritionist and a nursing consultant. Recommendations of this task force may well be reflected in future government action.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, last March 5 I was asked a question by the hon. member for New Westminster regarding Como Lake Private Hospital. I would like to advise the member that the information which he gave the House about the situation at Como Lake Private Hospital is sadly out of date. The member's question was phrased as follows: "We were informed that at Como Lake Private Hospital there are no personal toilet articles, and only four commode chairs for 70 bedridden patients. Has this facility passed inspection under the Community Care Facilities Licensing Act?"

The issue of personal toilet articles was investigated and rectified in April of last year. On the question of commode chairs, I am informed that there are eight, not four. The supply of wheelchairs, bedpans and urinals is adequate for patients' needs, according to reports from ministry staff who have visited the facility. I must question the reference to "70 bedridden patients" at this facility. Mr. Speaker, although 51 of these patients are in the extended-care category, which, of course, is the top level of long-term care, the majority of the patients at Como Lake are dressed and out of bed for part or most of the day. Although the facility has caused some concern in the past, there have been frequent and detailed inspection visits by staff, and they have generally been satisfied with the improvements made. Indeed, the comments and recommendations of the inspecting staff have been attended to. I can assure the House that we will continue to assist the management to make improvements at this facility. It is scheduled for inspection again next month.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET
(continued debate)

On the amendment.

MR. LEVI: Mr. Speaker, because we've had the weekend, for the benefit of the members and to remind them that we are into the amendment, I would just like to read the amendment. Also I can stick to the rules, and they'll know what I am talking about.

The amendment to the budget speech is that the motion "that Mr. Speaker, now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply" be amended by adding the following:

"...but this House regrets that in the opinion of this House the Hon. Minister of Finance has failed to adequately relieve our citizens of the onerous burden of continual increases in the cost of living, or to mobilize our human and natural resources toward a strategy of full employment embracing manufacturing and secondary industry and also that no provision has been offered to protect our citizens against rising interest rates."

Mr. Speaker, during the general debate we had hoped that the members across the way would remove themselves from the role of being analysts in terms of speech-making and stick to the issues that needed to be debated. Instead of discussions about the budget, the economy, the question of cost of living and unemployment, what we really got from them might best be described as B.S. I don't want you, Mr. Speaker, to get upset because of the term B.S. I want to talk about B meaning braggadocio, which is what we get over there — you know, the kind of boasting that is going on over there. Some of it is the salaciousness — the empty boasting. Of course, that's what we had from the member for South Peace River (Hon. Mr. Phillips).

I think that in debating the amendment it is important for the members to set the debate in terms of the context of the province and certainly in terms of the last election. The important thing about the last election was that the NDP got some 600,000 votes and the government got 635,000 votes. That result can best be characterized as a repudiation of the kind of economic policies that government pursued for three and a half years. That particular policy related to overtaxation, large deficits, what they did with ICBC, what they did with the ferries, and not addressing themselves to some of the more specific issues relating to the needs of housing.

[ Page 1487 ]

Now we've heard a speech from the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), which has been coming across this floor now for something like four years. If one goes back into Hansard, you find that he actually repeats the same speech every year, usually at the top of his lungs with his hands flying — and, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, he is much more liable to take off now that there is no tax on windmills. He simply wants to constantly repeat the same kinds of arguments that he advanced in 1976, '77, '78 and '79.

He is the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, Mr. Speaker. He is the man responsible for an industrial strategy, for an economic strategy, and we have yet to learn from him what is actually going to happen. Two years ago he got up in the House and started to talk about a blueprint for the economy. Of course, in that blueprint one would have hoped he would have talked about the questions of high interest rates, inflation and the need to do something about housing. But no, all he said was: "We really don't have a blueprint. We have some ideas, none of them etched in stone, and we are still kind of casting around." That, in fact, is what we've got from the government — a whole series of castings-around, looking for some kind of central theme for the economy.

It's got to be remembered — and I think the government has to remember this — that the election in 1979 must have said something to them; but they're not listening. The people who voted for them in 1975 stayed with them. They had expected to get a larger majority and to have far more seats than they've got. In fact that didn't happen, and they have to analyze why. People are simply not satisfied with the way the government runs the province. That is a fair comment. That is why we have, at the moment, such a small number of votes in the centre that everybody is trying to chase after. We have a polarization.

Part of the polarization is based on the economic philosophy of this side of the House versus that side of the House. That is what it is all about. It is not about the idea that somehow the Premier is trying to buttress his Minister of Industry and Small Business Development in terms of a blueprint, so that he can run out every 15 minutes and make another announcement about a $200 million mortgage scheme. Then he talks about a bridge and then he talks about B.C. Place. What does all this fit into? What does it mean in terms of immediate development of jobs in the next three or four years — or in the next year? It doesn't mean anything; it's not based on anything specific. There has been no lead time given to it. But that is what we have — this kind of ad hockery.

Today the province is in the midst of a very severe housing crisis. The lead article in the front of the Vancouver Province this morning dealt with the serious shortage of housing that exists in the city of Vancouver — and in the rest of the province too; we can't just talk about the city of Vancouver. Part of it is a direct result of the rent control removal which has taken place since this government has come in. The other part of it is that they have not cared to address in any meaningful way the problem of how to assist people who are running into very serious trouble in terms of meeting mortgage payments. They made the first tentative moves, in terms of the $200 million mortgage plan, to assist people.

The one thing we are sure of in terms of the government — because they are constantly telling us; we have only to look in the budget speech — is that there is an adequate amount of money to take that $200 million mortgage scheme to at least $500 million. The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development has said that some 8,500 jobs will come out of the $200 million mortgage scheme. That's fine; if that develops then there are 8,500 more jobs.

If they have the money sitting in the treasury, one has to look with some horror at the last two pages of the budget speech that was presented last week, in which there is a discussion at some length about how much money is going to be left over at the end of the fiscal year 1980-81. Mr. Speaker, it is a pretty horrifying prospect that we are going to have all of that money unspent when we are in the midst of a very severe housing crisis, a housing shortage, and the whole question of the shortfall that people will have in their income because of mortgage payments. Yet this government is quite prepared to say, as they do on page 61 of the budget speech, that the forecast balance for March 31, 1981, is going to be $1,188,500,000.

That is an incredible situation, faced with the current economic situation. They are prepared to plan that way, to make no infusion of capital into the housing market, into mortgage assistance; they simply have no plan at all. When are they going to learn from what took place last May? You cannot continue, if you are serious about the development of the province, to advance the same kind of programs that you advanced before. Those kinds of programs really deal with the idea that you will save up large surpluses which you will spend the following year, unexpended in the current year. They really represent an overtaxation, and do not meet immediate problems which exist in the province.

You know, it is interesting that we heard from the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, and we also heard from some of the backbenchers. Of course, all they are really doing is using the notes of some of the ministers about the state of the economy in 1975 and 1976, and how terrible it was that we had the NDP here and that things were very difficult here.

The other day I was looking at some options that we might have in terms of what took place in respect to high interest rates, the cost of living, and the whole generation of employment. In 1976 — and perhaps we have no better authority now — the Conference Board in Canada started to do a quarterly provincial forecast. They would look at all of the provincial governments, and they would give some kind of forecast. They're now into their fifth year of operation. It's interesting that in their July 1976 quarterly report they said that British Columbia's economic performance in 1975 was similar to that of Canada as a whole, as the real domestic product increased by 0.2 percent from its level in 1974. First of all, he puts it in the context that even in British Columbia — and listen to all the things these people have said — the situation that prevailed in the rest of Canada prevailed in this province. It goes on to say that they looked forward in 1976 to improved levels of activity in the construction industry, which would largely reflect a turnaround in the housing market in British Columbia which occurred during the second half of 1975.

Even in 1974 and '75 the previous government was doing something about housing. When the present government came in they decided that there was no role at all for the government in housing, that it was going to be left to the free enterprise system. Well, it has been left to the system for the

[ Page 1488 ]

past four years, and now we have a severe housing shortage. Coupled with that, we have this government moving towards assisting the free enterprise system by taking off rent controls. Now we have people around this province who, because their rents are in excess of $300 — or $350 a month if it's a family — are faced with $100 or $150 rent increases. They are no longer covered by the rentalsman. We are asking the government over there what they are going to do about this. We have some indication that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), who is responsible for the administration of the rentalsman's office and the Residential Tenancy Act, is going to look into putting some housing not presently under the regulations in there in terms of tenant complaints, but nothing to do at all with the question of some kind of rent control.

I would like to hear some of the members across there get up in debate and justify the fact that no housing over $300 a month is now covered by rent control and that they agree with that kind of process, and that somehow a miracle is going to happen out there and the free enterprise system is going to create some housing. All the economic surveys we have seen indicate that we are going to have an exceedingly soft housing market in this province in 1980, that we're going to have a soft lumber market because of the export problem in the United States, where they are not building any houses. So we are going to have a whole combination of problems, where people who are paying $400 and $500 a month for their mortgages now have to renew them at high rates of 4 percent to 5 percent more than they were paying, which means they have to find $150 to $200 a month more just to meet the mortgage. Some of those people are not going to be employed, particularly if they happen to work in the wood industry where there are some layoffs. So there is a whole combination of events coming together which make for a continuing serious problem of how people are going to simply get by on a day-to-day basis.

The major criticism that comes across from the members on the other side has been: "Make us some proposal. Make some suggestions." They got suggestions from our critic, the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich). They got suggestions on improving the energy conservation problem, enlarging on what the government was taking in terms of its first tentative steps towards conservation. They were applauded, and I applaud them too. Because they have the money — the money is in the bank; it's available — now is the time to broaden the program, with the objective of selling the idea of conservation and creating employment. Then we're asking them to do something about housing and something about mortgages. Members, particularly those whose ridings are on southern Vancouver Island and on the lower mainland, are receiving a large volume of letters from people complaining about the fact that they are unemployed and that they are in the inescapable position of not being able to meet their mortgage payments. This is the time for that government to show some kind of leadership in terms of looking at the economy.

The other day we heard from the backbencher on the other side, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), who was critical of the government for not going far enough, in terms of its taxation policy, in returning more money to the consumer. We had this kind of analysis done four or five years ago by the C. D. Howe Institute, which, in a direct criticism of that government in 1976-77, said that at that time what they should have been doing was cutting personal income tax and looking at small business tax and at the sales tax; but that they were going in the opposite direction. They didn't get into the sales tax business until there was an agreement with the federal government to pick up part of the costs. There are some options they could follow in terms of the immediate problem they have today, but they're not really prepared to do it.

Now suddenly, despite the throne speech and the budget speech, the Premier, who apparently was up in Kamloops on the weekend, was talking in a very serious way about the problems of inflation. He went up to Kamloops and he just discovered it — there's an inflation problem. But there is nothing in the budget that really deals with it. It doesn't deal with inflation; it doesn't deal with higher interest rates.

Now what are the ministers concerned going to do in terms of the economy? They lie back and say: "Well, that's something the federal government has to do." Well, it's not something the federal government has to do. If you're the provincial government and you're projecting such large non-expenditures over the next year…. You have to just look at the back page of your budget speech. Are they really telling us they're not prepared to do this? That seems to be the situation — that they're simply not prepared to move on it.

It's not as though they had a great deal of support for this kind of attitude out there. The budget that came down — the largest budget in the history of the province — was not all that well received, because here was a large budget with government involvement, demonstrating that government was getting bigger and not smaller. This is the government that campaigned on the idea that they would make government smaller and more efficient. Well, what are the facts? In 1977 the public service had some 38,000 people in it, and now we find that in 1979 it had 46,000 people. This is the government that said it was going to reduce the size of the public service and make it more responsive and more efficient. So what have we got? We've got an almost 20 percent increase in the public service by the people who said they were not going to make government any bigger than it is.

We have it said within the budget, Mr. Speaker, that the Crown corporations are going to need nearly $1.2 billion in financing. They're going to go out to the market or use pension funds and Canada Assistance Plan funds to raise this money. We've heard a lot of speeches from people over there who say: "You can't spend a dollar if you don't have a dollar, so our attitude towards governing is that we will not get into debt. We are not prepared to leave any debt for the next generation." I've never heard such an idiotic statement in my life, but they constantly say that.

No, we have no future debt in this province, except over $7.5 billion in debt because of Crown corporations, which was around $4 billion some four years ago. And there is no doubt that by the end of their term, at the rate they're going in terms of the debt structure they are developing, this province is going to have some $10 billion worth of debt before the next election. That is the rate at which they have taken the government financing; they push some of it into the Crown corporations and then turn around and say: "Aren't we wonderful? The government is operating at a lower cost than it was previously." We know that that's not the case at all. We know that if you take certain services from the government and put them into a Crown corporation, they have to be funded. Most of them have to get money which is coming from outside the government, and then they have to go to the money market.

[ Page 1489 ]

With all the discussions we've had regarding the new budget, we have had no real attempt by the government to tell us exactly on what it bases its plans for the economic future of this province. We have had no reports from them. As far as we know, they have not done any analysis that they are prepared to show either the people in this House or the rest of the public.

For instance, in terms of capital financing, three years ago, in April 1977, the Minister of Economic Development and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, as they were called then, embarked on having three studies done. One was a capital market study. Then the Minister of Economic Development wanted to know about the bond market and what the debt-equity situation was in the province. That's $200,000 of reports. Most of it was done by J. Henry Schroeder, and until this day we have never seen any of those reports. We have no idea on what they base their economic planning or how they plan where they're going to raise money for this huge amount they need for Crown corporations. That is part of their total inability to come to this House and tell us what they're doing. In the same way we're attempting in this amendment to get them to address these questions: What are they doing about high interest rates? Where are they going? What kind of discussions are they having? What plans do they have? We've had nothing from them.

For the first time, we had a background paper to the budget. I certainly say to the Minister of Finance that it's a first, it's worthwhile and it needs to be continued. One only has to look at page 3 of this background paper, which is "Medium-Term Economic Outlook and Fiscal Analysis." That's the first time. It's here. It's got some interesting material.

On page 3, the first chart, Canadian and U.S. Interest Rates, 1975 and 1980, is a rather graphic chart telling us what the problem is in terms of where we're at. If one looks at the severe trough in terms of where the interest rates were down and then started to climb, we only have to look at 1977 on, and up we go.

Yes, look at it. Don't just hold it up. What is it? I can't even read it. See the minister sitting there, Mr. Speaker, on an important document. Has anybody taken a picture of him? There he is; he's the one standing next to the blue paper.

So there, in that particular graph, they start to plot what is happening in terms of interest rates. It's something that was available to everybody, where you can calculate what is going to happen on the basis of what's going on in the United States and Canada. The tremendous rise over the past two years of the interest rates.... And then we also have to look at the provincial budgetary process, in which there were huge taxes, huge surpluses, at the same time as their interest rates were going up. Surely we have to say to the economic geniuses across the way, Mr. Speaker: when are you going to do something about the problem that exists today — high interest rates and the housing shortage and the unemployment situation? Surely all of those things come together. We must say to the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development: is it not possible for some funding to be made available so that more houses can be built, so that more lumber can be used?

Yes, we have the ministers pointing to the grand plan, but the grand plan, my friend, is this, because that's what was presented. That's what you're debating, not something we've never seen. We know what's going to happen because we've been told, in here, what are the worst possible things that can happen. The worst possible thing is that we're going to have some underexpenditures of over $1 billion.

Now we would hope that in this debate, now that the minister has a report fresh off the presses, he'll stand up, participate in the debate and tell us exactly how he is going to do something about high interest rates, what he's going to do about unemployment and what he's going to do about the whole question of housing. Those are three basic questions. They are on everybody's mind today. Everybody you talk to in the ridings and on the streets is discussing whether, by the time they have to renew their mortgage, the mortgage rates will be higher or lower. Somehow that government has got to give an indication that they're prepared to give relief to people in the way that they're attempting to do on the $200 million mortgage plan — by looking at a greater expenditure. Because they've been in government long enough now to have learned some of the mechanisms of our economic system, the multiplier effect of the infusions of money into the economy. If $200 million will generate 8,000 jobs, then $500 million will generate 20,000 jobs plus the spin-off in terms of the lumber industry and all of these other companies that operate around that kind of industry, most of which are small businesses.

We've had no indication from them. We've looked at the speech; we've simply seen that it's a continuing repetition of what they've been doing for the last four years. If that's what they've been doing for the last four years and now.... Because in May of last year we had such a close election, where virtually half the people in the province said: "We reject the NDP policy" or "We reject the Social Credit policy." There is a very severe polarization. It's around the issue of how you are going to manage the economy. We know, because they've been there for four years, that their methods of dealing with the economy have been repudiated.

What are they planning to do? Do they have the money? I say, yes, they do, Mr. Speaker. It's going to take a great deal of guts on their part to do this, to depart from the way they've been behaving over the past four years. It's not easy to change. After all, when they got into the $200 million mortgage assistance program they went from being free enterprisers to near-socialists. I'm sure that that must have upset the member for Prince George North (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), because he made a speech before about all the horror stories out of socialism. Yet the socialist mechanism of mortgage assistance — and that's what it is, a socialist mechanism, the kind of thing that they do in various socialist countries around the world- is worthwhile, a good idea. That's the way you can help people.

But it has to be greater because of the emergent situation in the province not only because of unemployment but because of that constant serious erosion of people's paycheques in terms of what kinds of plans they might have had for next year, based on mortgage payments and mortgage renewals of 11 percent and 12 percent, and not on 15 percent and 16 percent, because that's what's happening. That's a cost-of living problem; that's an inflation problem. And what we've got from the government is an extremely large budget. They're the people who have argued for years that large budgets — that is, government budgets — are inflationary. They are inflationary unless you're prepared to use them in a way that they're going to assist most people, and there is no indication that, apart from the $200 million mortgage fund, which is only going to start entering the market once the

[ Page 1490 ]

houses have been built, you have anything else in terms of assisting people in the kinds of problems that they have today.

We have from the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) an indication that there won't be just $1 million available for seniors' housing; he says it's $4.5 million. Well, he knows; we don't. It's not in the budget but presumably it comes under that $14 million which is not well described in his own budget. If it's $4 million or $5 million, fine. But with all of the unexpended money, surely that $4 million or $5 million can become $40 million or $50 million — in terms of the mortgage money, the mortgage assistance. What you're really being asked to do is pay the difference between the 11 percent or 12 percent cost of mortgage money today and what they're going to have to renew at — 14, 15 and 16 percent. Tragically, if mortgages in the United States go to 20 percent — and it looks like there is a lot of indication that way — then the government is going to be faced with a number of problems all at once in terms of people who are in housing, people who are finding their incomes eroded or people who are unemployed. That's what the government has to put together in terms of a plan.

This is an emergency situation; it's something that they have known about. It may be that the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) will stand up and tell us what's in his blue book that he keeps waving about. But whatever it is, up till last Friday he didn't tell us anything. All he did was to go back in history and talk about all the things they were going to do but didn't do, and all the things that were very difficult in 1975 and '76 — which is contrary to the facts. Nevertheless he's prepared to deal with them because he's the minister who likes to deal with "true facts." All right, it's properly now on his shoulders, not on the shoulders of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis). Mr. Speaker, it's now up to the ministers who are responsible for economic development, housing and forestry — because within the forestry sector it's possible to create employment — not, mind you, at the rate they indicate on page 61, where all they're going to spend in terms of the extra money is $19 million, and we'll have some $127 million unexpended. Surely, because of the crisis that exists, the $127 million should be spent.

We've constantly heard from this government that they have big surpluses because of the rainy day. Well, I say to them that the rainy day is here, and it's pouring on the heads of a lot of people who can't meet their bills. The unique part about it is that most of these people are working, and yet they're having great problems meeting mortgages.

We don't have a Conservative government in Ottawa that was offering a mortgage deduction plan. This government took a step in the right direction in looking to assist people in terms of mortgage assistance. It was a great philosophical departure from where they usually go, which is to leave it to the free enterprise system. Well, we have absolute proof that in the mortgage market the free enterprise system does not work in the interests of the average householder at all. So the government, realizing this — also looking, possibly, to attract some part of that middle ground of voters who are floating around.... Regardless of that, the plan itself is basically good; the breadth of the plan is really what's at issue here.

So what we're asking the government to look at in terms of the budget speech, because of emergent situations which were not included in the planning for the budget, are the questions of high interest, of the mortgage rates and the whole question of unemployment. Those are the problems that face us; that's what's not addressed in the budget speech; and that's why we've moved the amendment. I have to go back to the whole problem that exists within the budget. We hope that when we can get the minister into his estimates, we'll be able to get him to explain to us what pages 60 and 61 of the budget speech really mean. Do they really mean that when you have an item which says "Forest and Range Resource Fund allocation, $146.6 million; forecast expenditure, $19.3 million; and forecast balance March 31, 1981, $127.3 million...."? I mean, Mr. Speaker, that if you go through all of these items, there will be what is equal to almost 22 percent of the total budget unexpended — over $1 billion will be unexpended. We have, for instance, the whole question of the $200 million mortgage assistance in the budget. We don't know where it's at at the moment. We hope to be able to ask the minister these kinds of questions. They have, within the same area, an item called "other assets," which is $200 million at the end of the year; they're going to finish up with some $200 million unexpended.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, that has to say something of this type of budgeting and the kind of indifference that is exhibited by that group over there. They're not prepared to spend more of the money they have. Actually it will be in the bank, in the treasury, in B.C. Hydro bonds or whatever, but it will not be in the economy in such a way that we are going to have a direct benefit from it, and there are many people out there who need to benefit from it.

We have a situation, for instance, in the rental market. We have about 350,000 people who rent homes in this province, and nearly 25 percent of them are in no way covered by any form of control. They are not covered because the amount of rent that they pay is beyond that kind of control. There are people who have entered new buildings, new houses, since 1974; they are not subject to controls. There are problems with condominiums — not the rented ones but the others; they are not covered by the Residential Tenancy Act. There are a whole range of people who are not covered, who have no protection at a time when they very seriously need it, and we have no indication at all from the government that it is prepared to make any moves in respect to assisting those people.

It's not like it was four or five years ago when people were getting increases of $20 and $30 on their rent. Everyone in this House is getting letters from people who are saying: "I rented a house for $350, and now I have been told that I've got to come up with another $150." That is the kind of thing that is going on out there. It is easy for us to characterize it as rent gouging, but that's not what I'm prepared to characterize it as. I'm prepared to characterize it in such a way that here we have an open system which is not subject to any control and is supposed — according to the free-enterprise supporters — to find its own level on the basis of the demand.

Because there have been no additions to the housing stock, we now have a situation where we have too many people taking too few houses. We have that classical situation where people are caught in the squeeze because the system broke down. Well, the government are the economic directors in this province; they have to find some mechanism. I would urge all of them to participate in this debate.

It is on the basis of what we are talking about in this amendment that we go even further in saying that we cannot

[ Page 1491 ]

support the budget speech, and I urge people to support this amendment.

MR. HYNDMAN: Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to lead the reply of the government to the amendment that was moved on Friday, suggesting, as it does, that on the grounds of inflation, unemployment and the alleged lack of an economic strategy, the House should vote "no confidence" in the budget.

I think, Mr. Speaker, looking at the wording of the amendment, that "economic strategy" seems to be what's behind the thinking of the mover and the seconder. Most of my remarks will attempt to compare the economic strategy, as we can glean it from that group on your left, together with the economic strategy of the government.

But on the way to that, because inflation and unemployment have been mentioned in the amendment, I think the facts are worthy of a look. It's always helpful to get back to the facts, so let's just take a look at inflation. Let's think back to 1975, the last almost full year in which the mover of this amendment was the Minister of Finance in this province, and let's look at what the rate of inflation was doing in British Columbia in 1975 compared to the rate of inflation in Canada.

It's interesting, Mr. Speaker, that just five years ago, when the mover of the amendment was Minister of Finance in this province, B.C.'s rate of inflation was significantly higher than Canada's rate of inflation. We were more inflated out here than the national average. That was the record with the mover of that amendment — under socialism — as the Minister of Finance. And what is the fact today? The fact today is that the rate of inflation in British Columbia is significantly below the national average — not just today, Mr. Speaker, but for the last three years.

If you want to talk about the record of inflation and compare the two governments, the fact of life is that the mover of this amendment, as Minister of Finance of this province in 1975, presided over a provincial rate of inflation higher than the national average. The present government, for the last three years, has maintained an average rate lower than the national average.

You know, it is very interesting, if you go back to that budget speech of 1975. These are the words of the mover of the amendment, Mr. Speaker. He was then the Minister of Finance, and he addressed himself to the problem of B.C.'s rate of inflation, running as it was above the national average. This is what he had to say. This is the mover of the amendment, the first member for Vancouver East, and he said this: "The problems of unemployment and inflation are not unique in British Columbia or Canada; they are international problems." He went on: "Mr. Speaker, I should point out that the means for dealing most effectively with unemployment and inflation in Canada are in the hands of the federal government. It alone has the necessary fiscal and monetary leverage to have a significant impact on the economy." He said this. The Minister of Finance in 1975, the man who moved that amendment — way back then, just five years ago — the Leader of the Opposition said these very words: "Mr. Speaker, I should point out that the means for dealing most effectively with unemployment and inflation in Canada are in the hands of the federal government. It alone, Mr. Speaker, has the necessary fiscal and monetary leverage to have a significant impact on the economy." How things change!

HON. MR. BENNETT: When was he right?

MR. HYNDMAN: That's the question.

So much for inflation. The fact of life is that we can look at the positive steps this government has taken to make the lower rate of inflation in this province a reality: not just a balanced budget, but a step beyond — a careful program of debt reduction. The importance of that is that in paying your debt and pouring that money back into the supply of loanable funds in this province, you're doing what you can to bring down that rate of interest. The low-interest mortgage program is an example. The reduction of the sales tax is the most important thing this government could do to keep down our rate of inflation.

We have a Premier who understands where inflation comes from. He has been unrelenting in his efforts to have representation for this province at the board level of the Bank of Canada, and may he continue to do that.

For unemployment the figures and the record are the same. The man who moved this amendment was Minister of Finance in 1975 and presided over a B.C. economy in which the rate of unemployment was above the national average. B.C.'s rate was worse than the average for Canada.

Now what's happened five years later? Well, just a couple of days ago the Vancouver Province said it pretty well: "Vancouver and B.C. Jobless Rates Fall. The Canadian employment picture is looking a little rosier than last year, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday, with the brightest spots in Vancouver and the rest of B.C." Now listen to this: "B.C. leads the way in the decline in jobless totals, dropping from 8 percent in January to 7.3 percent last month, and the trend, according to Statistics Canada, is likely to continue."

Way back in 1975, when the mover of this amendment was Minister of Finance, and B.C.'s rate of unemployment was worse than the national average, whose fault was that? Well, in the words of the mover of the amendment, it was all the federal government's fault. We've just heard those words. Now five years later, even though the record is much improved in this province, somehow the fault is here.

It really all comes down to a question of economic strategy, I think. That's the operative phrase in the amendment. It's one of those new buzzwords of the NDP. If you call a thing a strategy it sounds pretty terrific and businesslike, and wonderful things happen.

I think, in fairness, if we're going to talk about economic strategy we should try to divine what that group on your left, Mr. Speaker, would present as their strategy and compare it with what the government has provided. That's helpful because the other night in the throne speech debate the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) made a very proper and worthwhile suggestion. He suggested that in particular the young people in this province need a dream, something to look forward to. We on the government side concur with that. I think it's fair to say that by nature Socreds are tremendous optimists about this province and where we can go. I give the member for Coquitlam-Moody great credit for recognizing how important it is for government to lead psychologically and to provide some leadership, some inspiration and that dream our young people can look forward to.

If you look around the benches and at the speeches of those to your left, Mr. Speaker, and you ask what sort of broad goal that group has in terms of the end result of their strategy, what you find is not very exciting. The former

[ Page 1492 ]

Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, one of the key spokesmen of that group on your left on economic matters, last August spoke to the annual convention of the Young New Democrats. This was the headline coming from that speech: "B.C. Faces Depression, Lauk Tells Convention." Can you believe that? A former minister of the Crown, responsible for economic development and then mines and minerals, one of the silk-stocking representatives of the NDP and one of their business spokesmen, predicted a depression for this province. Here's what the Vancouver Sun had to say, reporting it:

"British Columbia faces a major depression in the early 1980s, NDP MLA Gary Lauk said Saturday. 'Continuing oil price increases and massive public and private debts will send unemployment soaring and land values plummeting,' Lauk told the annual convention of B.C. Young New Democrats at the Britannia Community Centre. The former Mines minister in the previous NDP government claimed a recession, sparked by higher energy costs, will boost unemployment to more than 14 percent."

It's about half that right now in this province, Mr. Speaker.

"Lauk said the recession will turn into a depression when unemployment forces homeowners to turn over heavily mortgaged property to banks and mortgage companies. 'Once there is a decline in land values, it will be a depression, not a recession.'"

Now this is very important, Mr. Speaker. He went on:

"While disclaiming any skills as an investment counsellor, Lauk said people who are now buying gold will be in a good position in a recession, while investment in land and buildings will not be safe. 'People who are buying stocks and bonds are insane,' he said."

Mr. Speaker, that is the economic dream of the first member for Vancouver Centre for all those people who want to invest in this province — all those good people who bought BCRIC shares. In his words, "people who are buying stocks and bonds are insane." Well, it's not so surprising. One of the first statements the mover of this amendment made when he became Premier for a short time was to predict that the boom era in British Columbia was going to end. The Vancouver Sun, October 6, 1972, had the headline: "Boom Era is Going to End." That was the opening dream of the new Premier then for the young people in this province. Of course, that was continued in his famous Nova Scotia speech, where the first member for Vancouver East, the mover of this amendment, said B.C. was in trouble and he was glad. That's the kind of economic strategy and economic dream that group on your left has for this province: a depression mentality. It goes hand in hand with the great idea of that group to trade off British Columbia's resources in the name of a glorious socialist plan.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Just so that there is no misunderstanding once again, let's look at this part of the economic strategy of that group to your left. The mover of this amendment has said over and over that British Columbia should share all the oil and natural gas rights granted to it by the constitution, if the government of Canada will put under public ownership all the oil and gas in this country. As part of the economic strategy of that group on your left, looking forward to a depression, trade off the resources to Ottawa.

But it's no surprise, because the mover of that amendment was one of the signatories of the Waffle Manifesto. Here is what it says in one sentence: "Capitalism must be replaced by socialism, by national planning of investment and by the public ownership of the means of production." Let's not hear that the mover of this amendment didn't mean to sign the Waffle Manifesto. There is the manifesto; there is the statement on the trade-off.

But, Mr. Speaker, that part of the strategy is just a little confused, because to his credit the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) occasionally doesn't agree with these things. Here is what he had to say about the Waffle plan for nationalization in a report from Canadian Press in Ottawa:

"Frank Howard, a candidate for the leadership of the New Democratic Party, has scathingly rejected proposals from the party's so-called Waffle group for public ownership of Canada's resource industries. The MP for British Columbia's Skeena riding said across-the-board nationalization is a balloon-like concept that has been exploded many times over the past. 'Surely one of the fundamentals of intelligent people is that we should learn from history and be guided accordingly. Even the most elastic imagination should recognize....'"

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I draw your attention to the order paper and motion thereon.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

MR. HYNDMAN: Mr. Speaker, my point very simply is that in considering the question of economic strategy we should try to divine the economic strategy being advocated by that group on your left. In very large part it talks about public ownership of Canada's oil and gas resources.

The then federal member for Skeena continued:

"'Even the most elastic imagination should recognize that nationalization is no remedy to our economic sickness.' Howard called on all clear-thinking people in the NDP to reject the academic and professional theories of the Waffle group which, because they are theoretical, feed upon themselves for support and substantiation."

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, the hon. member should be well aware that he has on the order paper in his name a motion to debate the relative merits of the Waffle Manifesto, and is thereby prohibited from raising it in this debate.

HON. MR. MAIR: On a point of order, the second member for Vancouver South said "clear-headed NDP members." Of course, there is no such thing; it's a contradiction in terms.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is not a point of order. It is the kind of thing that really destroys the good name of this House.

MR. HOWARD: On the point of order raised by the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), I would be quite prepared to let the member for Vancouver South carry on with his inanities.

[ Page 1493 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That again is not a valid point of order. The point has been made, and I ask now the member for Vancouver South to continue in the debate on the amendment.

MR. HYNDMAN: I know it pains the member. The motion on the order paper simply calls on members of this House to reject something called "the manifesto"; it does not call for a debate on the merits. I am finishing a quotation from Canadian Press, which I'd like to do, Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence.

The federal member for Skeena continued:

"'The cost of putting into effect the Waffle program would be unbelievably staggering,' he said. 'The immediate cash requirements, just to buy out foreign interests, would be about $60 billion. Money would have to be diverted from education, health programs, pensions and all other social benefits. Any such commitment would destroy Canada completely and thoroughly, just as any endorsement of these Waffle proposals will destroy the NDP.'"

Well, that's part of the strategy.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Did the Minister of Finance sign it?

MR. HYNDMAN: The Minister of Finance signed it — the mover of that amendment.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: And endorsed it?

MR. HYNDMAN: He endorsed it.

We begin to see the outline of this grand economic strategy, Mr. Speaker: a depression mentality, a trade-off of our resources to Ottawa, and then the great third plank. The great third plank of this wonderful strategy is: no more natural gas export for British Columbia. Now, what does that mean for British Columbia — the old "leave it in the ground" philosophy? Well, as one looks at the fiscal accounts of this province you'd have to gauge that this year the sale of natural gas, in terms of export from B.C., represents revenues of something like $250 million to $300 million to this province. That's about 2 points on the sales tax, a load that the people of this province, the individual workers, would otherwise have to carry.

That is, of course, part of the grand strategy of that group on your left, because that "leave it in the ground" philosophy — scare away the investment — means that the people, individually, are the ones who've got to pick up the tax load and carry it on their shoulders. The figures tell us that; it's very, very interesting. If you sit down and say to yourself, I want to compare, with the present government, how much of the tax load the people carried compared to 1975, the remarkable fact is that under the present government, which has encouraged responsible investment, responsible financial returns from the development of our natural resources, the total of the tax load in B.C. borne by people has fallen sharply.

These are very interesting figures. In 1974-75, the last fiscal year when the mover of this amendment was Minister of Finance, add up, first of all, the people taxes collected in this province. You add up the personal income tax, you add up the social services tax, you add up the fuel tax on individuals, succession duties and gift taxes. Those are the people-collected taxes, Mr. Speaker, and you then compare them with what this province gleaned from corporation taxes and resource royalties and revenues. The result you get is that of the total collection of revenue, the people, individually, paid more than 61 percent of the total. Sixty-one percent of the tax collections in this province fell on individual shoulders in the last year in which the mover of that amendment was Minister of Finance.

This fiscal year, by contrast, under this government, the percentage of the total tax load in B.C. paid by the people, by individuals, has fallen to 50 percent. That's a very sharp reduction, and that's part of an economic strategy this government believes in. We don't leave all our resources in the ground and we don't chase investment away, because those resources prudently managed, and that investment, are the source of a big sharing of the tax load in this province. If that group on your left has their way, and they trade off our resource rights, and they ban the exports of natural gas, and they leave the minerals in the ground, the only people left to pay the load, Mr. Speaker, are you and I and all British Columbians as individual citizens. That's the economic strategy of the group on the left; that means higher taxes, more inflation and a far higher cost of living.

So now let's just take a look at the record and the amendment, in terms of inflation. The mover of the amendment presided over an inflation record in this province worse than the national average. At the time he said it was all Ottawa's problem, and now with B.C.'s inflation rate below the national average he suggests no confidence in the government. That's a motion of no confidence in himself, Mr. Speaker.

In terms of unemployment, the record is the same. When he was the Minister of Finance, the mover of this amendment presided over an unemployment rate higher than the national average, and to defend himself, once again he blamed it all on Ottawa. Now, as the mover of this amendment, he doesn't blame it all on Ottawa, and he moves no confidence in a record far better than his. What does that say of his record, Mr. Speaker?

But in terms of economic strategy let's just compare the components. That group on your left sees a depression coming for British Columbia. The rainy day is here, as the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) just said this afternoon. And if you want a very good example, Mr. Speaker, of the different economic strategies of the groups on your left and on your right, read the economic forecast tabled by the government with the budget. There are some good times and good days ahead for British Columbia; that's our view. But the great economic strategy of that group on your left says the rainy day is here and a depression is coming. Within that framework of rain and depression, they want to trade away our jurisdiction over oil and gas and tell people who want to invest in this province that to buy stocks and bonds is insane. That group is prepared to shut down the export of natural gas from this province and thereby increase the tax load on people. That's the kind of economic strategy they would advance.

By contrast, Mr. Speaker, our strategy is quite simple: first, a better record of inflation fighting than the national average; second, a better record in fighting unemployment than the national average; third, record job production in this province — 170,000 new jobs since this government took office; and, most important, a positive and optimistic economic strategy — a strategy that says, "There are excellent

[ Page 1494 ]

times ahead for this province," a strategy that says, "We want people to invest in this province, and we want individual British Columbians to buy stocks and bonds, and to grow with all of us," and a strategy that says, "That portion of the tax load carried by our people must be kept as low as possible, and we do that by the prudent financial management of our resources and keeping resource developers in this province paying responsible rates of royalty and return to our people." We've got to keep the jurisdiction of our own resources here at home.

In concluding my remarks, may I simply say that if you follow the economic strategy of that group on your left, you would have in this province unprecedented unemployment, unprecedented rises in inflation, a loss of jurisdiction over most of our valuable resources, a virtual shutting down of the province and a prediction of rain and depression and gloom and doom. That's what the amendment would contemplate, and for that reason it should be rejected.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this amendment, and in doing so, I would anticipate that that member who has just completed his speech will return to his caucus offices once again wrapped in cotton batting and sheltered from the harsh realities of the real world. You would wonder at how a back-bench member could get up and try to paint such a rosy picture of the very serious situation which has developed in this province and in this country. In no small measure is this problem really a reflection of the philosophies and the actions — or inactions — which have been undertaken by this present government since 1975.

Mr. Speaker, for the second time in one decade, Social Credit has managed to put housing out of the reach of ordinary people. Not only is it out of the reach of ordinary people, but the reality is that housing is out of reach of even the upper middle class in this province — if such a class system exists. In terms of earnings which are required in order to qualify for the purchase of a house.... I was talking to a couple of residents of Victoria just yesterday who had been out looking for homes in the Gordon Head area. Standard three-bedroom bungalows were going for over a hundred thousand dollars, and some of them were even as much as $120,000. Mr. Speaker, I ask you how any family is going to aspire to.... That's not the Cadillac housing, that's the Chevy compact housing that is being put right out of reach.

Mr. Speaker, in the early part of the decade just past, rental housing had a vacancy rate of 4.1 percent, and there was nothing much being done about it in 1971. Nothing was done for a few years prior to that. Nothing was really on the drawing boards, and it dropped to 1.9 percent in 1972, before a new government had any chance to get on with it, to address the problem. It started to address itself to that problem in 1973. By 1975 it had a great number of housing starts underway, particularly in the rental field, in attached dwellings and in multiple-housing starts, and was able to turn it around. So, when the government changed hands in 1976, programs that were well underway once again brought rental vacancy rates back to acceptable levels — 2.7 percent by 1977, when those programs had reached their full effect, and this continued into 1978.

Then this government said: "Oh, well, that's fine. Everything is solved." Apparently they didn't know how it got solved. They shut everything down. They started selling off social housing units which were intended for the working poor and people of lower than average incomes. During the first half of the decade immigration brought in population at rates of around 3 percent; during the second part of this decade those rates dropped off to 1.5 percent. But this government could not manage to keep a level of housing activity which would meet even that reduced demand, a demand which had really been cut in half because of other policies of this government — policies of creating unemployment, of turning down the economy of this province — which for the first time discouraged people from moving from the east to this province.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I am getting an interjection from the north. If he would refer to page 32 of one of his government's publications, Lands, Parks and Housing Review, volumes 1 and 2, December 1979, he would see that this level has continued right through into 1979. These are some of the latest levels which, I think, we can bring to the attention of that member. I suppose he doesn't read these things. He is kept in cotton batting; he's sheltered from the harsh realities of political life. All those backbenchers are given nice little speeches prepared by the research staff of the caucus, and they read all of their speeches verbatim — like dutiful servants of their caucus. One or two, of course, might come up with a dissenting opinion, but that is mostly limited to people who are no longer in the cabinet, and have given up hope of ever getting back into the cabinet.

The comments that one can find by reading the housing statistics of Central Mortgage and Housing in their year-end reports and summaries paint the very same picture, that in terms of housing starts — the number of units under construction at any one time — the level of activity back in 1975-76 in the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Victoria was about 13,000, and the level of activity has been reduced progressively under this government to about 5,000. The other rather interesting aspect of these statistics is that the emphasis on dwelling units which are suitable for rentals — dwelling units which are affordable, in terms of townhouses and attached condominiums — has dropped off at an even greater rate, so that while starts on single detached houses are, perhaps, going along at the same level or slightly lower than average, the dropoff in terms of rental housing units is almost non-existent. Some of the most recent projections for Victoria are that currently there are, I think, 384 units presently under construction, and they will maybe come on stream in some few months' time. That is all that is on stream to fulfil a need.

Mr. Speaker, right now we have not reached the spring season, when the various motels, motor hotels and such like, which convert over to furnished suites for the winter season, will be giving notice to their tenants that they will be going to their summer rates. Many people who are being presently housed in Victoria and in Vancouver in this type of accommodation are going to find that they have no place to live. As was pointed out this morning in the Vancouver Province, they are predicting that people will be living in their cars and in tents this summer in Vancouver. The same gloomy picture is also painted for Victoria.

I say that this is a waste. We also have a correction. I think the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) pointed out that the mayor of Vancouver was incorrect when he said that only $1 had been allocated for housing.

[ Page 1495 ]

He said that was only the amount in the special appropriations fund and that in fact a total of something like $5.6 million was appropriated for all the forms of social housing.

Mr. Speaker, in 1975 there was a budget of $12 million for senior citizens' housing being sponsored by non-profit societies alone, more than twice what is being provided and proposed now for all forms of social housing, both for seniors and for families. Back in 1975 there were approved and under construction by non-profit societies 1,308 apartment units and 280 special-care units, a total of almost 1,600 units.

Under another section of the National Housing Act, which this government didn't want to get on with, there were approximately another 700 units — 477 units under construction at that time and another 256 in the planning stages. Also approved and under construction were 1,137 cooperative units with 522 more units being planned. What did the government do with those 522 units, Mr. Speaker? They first of all decided to try to sell them as AHOP projects. Then I think they turned around and decided that maybe they should sell them as rental units. They switched from one foot to another.

Mr. Speaker, there were people ready to go into a cooperative. For instance, in Simon Fraser, an extension of the Norman Bethune co-op, I think there were some 200-odd units designated for that. They shut that down. Family rental housing at that time: 1,900 units under construction. So there was a fantastic number at that time, and the job was just beginning to become manageable.

That's what this group were handed. I don't have any particular desire to fight the 1975 election over again because I know what the result was. We lost. But I would suggest that the government might be well advised to re-examine some of those programs which were working which did take us from zero vacancy rates, which we inherited when we formed the government, to vacancy rates of upwards of 3 percent in this province and created a healthy climate.

People today are facing notices of rent increases from $350 up to $500. They're facing notices of rent increases from $400 up to $600 per month in decontrolled areas. This is absolutely intolerable.

Another time-bomb which this government set ticking back in 1976 was in going along totally and completely with the AHOP building program. Those AHOP loans are up for renegotiation, and people who found themselves being housed for perhaps $289 per month are now facing, if they want to keep up those mortgages under the current rates of interest, payments of upwards of $600 and $700 per month. With the increase in interest rates and the taking away of the subsidies they enjoyed for three years, people are having to face increases, if they are going to hold on to their homes, which more than double the monthly cost of those homes.

So, Mr. Speaker, this government hardly devoted a line in this budget to the housing problem. It is one of the real problems of today. How well I remember how it was such a topical thing. Well, it isn't going to go away. If this government starts today, it will take two years before there is any relief or impact or even a turnaround of this disastrous circumstance and directionless drifting of this government, where they have said: "We'll leave it all to the private sector."

What is the answer of the private sector? We have the B.C. Rental Housing Council or some spokesgroup for the apartment owners asking for an abolition of rent controls, and yet we do not have a supply and demand situation. There is no supply, and if rent controls were removed it would just be an absolute demand. What government should have been considering all along was keeping an adequate supply and having plans to provide that supply. They simply haven't been forthcoming.

Mr. Speaker, here's a statement of November 1979 from Central Mortgage and Housing. It says: "Provincial demographics indicate increasing demand for housing until 1985." But has housing been featured in this budget? They say there's a dramatic drop in new, privately initiated rental stock, which is apparently not sufficiently viable under today's market conditions. So if the market is not going to supply this under-supplied rental stock, who is going to do it but government? And what are governments for, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, when the private sector did not adequately supply the needs for electricity in this province back in 1963, the government of the day took it over. They brought in a rural electrification program, and they brought in policies that did meet the needs of the people of the province. If the private sector is not fulfilling some aspects of the rental housing market.... I'm sure they're supplying the luxury penthouse sector very well, doing a good job, and they should continue to do so. If they are not meeting the needs of people who cannot afford that kind of housing, then governments must act.

I've heard nothing from this government for five years in terms of what they feel Central Mortgage and Housing should be doing as an institution, what the federal minister should be doing, what the federal government should be doing. Do they have any programs, any policies, any basis on which to cooperate with senior governments? If they do, I certainly don't see them.

In December 1979 — one of the latest publications from Central Mortgage and Housing — they're talking about preliminary information for metropolitan Vancouver. It said there were 1,178 units started in December, down from the 1, 262 starts of the year earlier. Of course, the year earlier was a recent all-time low in terms of starts. That was 1978. The single-detached sector remained strong, but the multiple sector remained correspondingly weak, down 45 percent to 375 units from the previous year's 676 units. In metropolitan Victoria it was the same story. The multiple sector remained weak all year, down 57 percent from 1978, but there's hardly a murmur in this budget in terms of meeting one of the greatest problems that people can face in their daily budget, and that is the simple cost of shelter.

Mr. Speaker, I'm surprised that even some MLAs from rural ridings or people who have to commute from Vancouver and take rental accommodation in the city of Victoria aren't aware of the scarcity of rental accommodation right here in the capital city. I might almost disavow myself of voting on this motion because I might have a pecuniary interest. I think a good many of us might have to do that, except I know that under the strict interpretation of the rules that will not quite be the case.

Mr. Speaker, we went from record levels of activity to record levels of disinterest under this government, and it is time to turn it around. We can't wait until the next election; the people can't wait until the next election. This government has to act, and I certainly would support positive measures that would bring this about.

It's also interesting to look at what Central Mortgage and Housing says about the government's action in bringing in

[ Page 1496 ]

the $200 million mortgage program. It says that what it did was to change and level off the housing activity for the year. What they anticipated was going to be a slow period for the early part of the year with some increase in activity at the end of the year has simply ended up displacing that later activity to earlier in the year. Without some follow-up action, that particular action, laudable as it appeared at the time it was brought in, with no plan, no rhyme or reason, done apparently on the spur of the moment, certainly will have no lasting effect.

Mr. Speaker, we're facing interest rates in housing. We're also facing interest-rate increases to the point where in the United States, I understand, and I am sure it will soon follow in Canada, many retailers are now refusing to take charge cards, because they have to pay current interest rates on borrowed money in the interim between sending in their claims and getting rebates. I think that problem will probably appear here, if it hasn't already, it will appear within about a month or two. The whole concept of credit purchases is something that government simply hasn't considered. Quite frankly, if the temptation to use a credit card were taken away, I personally might welcome it. But there are problems to which this government simply is not addressing itself.

What kind of employment strategy have we had? In spite of the fact, for instance, that the local union.... A hopeful aspirant to become the Member of Parliament, Mr. Lyle Kristiansen, lost the particular election in which the incident occurred, but won subsequently. In spite of my own, you might say, pleadings or suggestions, government decided to allow one of the largest American firms in the lumber industry, Louisiana Pacific, to take over Salmo Forest Products, rather than perhaps direct B.C. Cellulose to take it over and repatriate that company to the province of British Columbia. Louisiana Pacific is part of a company that was so large and threatening in the United States that it was forced to split up — Georgia Pacific — and it has a design on the southeast corner of the province. I understand that having established a foothold at Salmo Forest Products, they are currently submitting a bid for Crowsnest Industries, which is up for sale. That company has been well known in the United States for being extremely competitive and for very rapidly buying up smaller companies.

We have, in the area, a company owned by Atco, and another owned by a family, Hearn Lumber. We have a couple of other family concerns, Hadikin Brothers and the Kalesnikoff brothers. Over in the Creston area there is Wynndel Box, which is actually a sawmill, and Huscroft, another sawmill. If one goes over into the East Kootenays there are others besides Crowsnest Industries which are potential candidates for the voracious appetite of an outside company.

It is rather interesting that while the union asked the government, through the Minister of Forests, to purchase the company through B.C. Cellulose, and while Lyle Kristiansen, now the Member of Parliament, and I, as the member of the Legislature, requested and pointed out that our first choice would be for the government to acquire this through B.C. Cellulose — and that would have been a very popular move in the Salmo area — the government chose to approve the transfer of all cutting rights in this company from one foreign concern to another.

That is the first company to have a total shutdown. We are told that it is a shutdown in order to install more parts on a trimmer. I hope that that's the truth, but it certainly creates a great deal of uneasiness. It creates a very scary climate in a community where just a little over a year ago we saw this government shut down another mine.

Mr. Speaker, we see what the government's attitude is towards employment in many areas. It isn't towards maximizing employment. At the Salmo Forest Products mill, the planing is not done in Canada. The lumber is shipped out in a rough-sawn form and planed at Ione, Washington, creating jobs there. I think that it is time that this government introduce a strategy for increased employment, particularly in the forest industry. When companies are bidding in a timber sale — maybe under the small enterprise program of the government — in terms of awarding that contract, I think the guidelines should look at how many man-days of employment are going to be created, not simply at what is going to be the highest short-term return to the Crown.

If we're going to simply saw a log into rough lumber and then allow the finishing to be done across the border, I think we should very seriously consider the bid of someone who would take that product to a very high degree of manufacturing with a very labour-intensive process, and as long as that person is operating at a profit and showing reasonable returns to the Crown, there should be a weighting of consideration given to that kind of bid.

In earlier parliaments I presented information which claimed that more employment could be found in certain small sawmill operations in treating a given number of cunits of lumber of a certain species. It was not denied by the minister at the time, nor did his deputy appear to prod him with any rebuttal material. I take it as being accepted information. Yet we see nothing in terms of this tremendous opportunity here in this province to start planning towards maximizing employment as one of the goals of our forest policy and maximizing employment in terms of the manner in which the resource is distributed in this province. In fact, it was one of the focal points of our mineral policy.

There are many things that could be done, such as when we encouraged Afton Mines to go into secondary manufacturing and the refining of copper concentrates rather than shipping them out, as was allowed prior to 1972.

Because of all this new mining activity, I think that there are areas of employment.... For instance, has the government given any thought to giving assistance to assayers to start up business? There are many opportunities which seem to slip by the minister who is interjecting.

One other thing, of course, is that in spite of whatever this government seems to put forward in terms of budgetary proposals, they never stick to their budgets anyway. They massively under spend on certain things like aid for the handicapped, and they over spend in terms of sending the minister to China. He must have a condominium in Peking, judging by the rate at which we're having to finance some of his junkets.

I think that this government has been drifting, particularly in the area of housing policy and in terms of investment in this province. Capital investment has been directed into areas that do not leave permanent jobs. We've been mainlining on capital-intensive projects that produce some temporary euphoria in terms of economic activity but produce no permanent and lasting jobs. I can only quote one of the union executives involved in the construction of the Pend-d'Oreille Dam. He said: "It distresses me to know that when we leave this project, in spite of the fact that we have enjoyed good

[ Page 1497 ]

employment here, we will leave behind us about 11 jobs at this particular project."

In order that we can turn this province around, we've got to start looking at the manner in which we deploy the capital we are borrowing at a fantastic rate.

If the back-bench members at least would consider the plight of people in terms of housing, and if they would realize that it's not just the people who are looking for housing; it's people who presently have mortgages and are going to face new interest rates when those term mortgages expire. We are talking about a very sizeable portion of our population. In terms of all the people affected, in one way or another, it is an extremely high proportion. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, as I've suggested earlier, it even affects members of this House in terms of some of these inflationary effects, and there is nothing in here which is going to do anything about it.

If the government should be so fortunate as to bring about some alleviation of the unemployment problem and to create a more buoyant economy, the housing problem will be even more acute. If it hasn't got their attention right now.... If the government should, by some fluke, happen to turn the economy around, the housing problem is going to be even greater than it is today, so for this reason I hope that some of those back-bench members will give it some consideration and think in terms of supporting this very important amendment, one which comes at a cross-roads for the people of British Columbia.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate you, as Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker for your patience since this Legislature has opened, because it has been two weeks, going on three now, of non-debate. We've seen it again here during the debate on the budget. The opposition are not prepared to stand in this Legislature and make any concrete proposals or legitimately debate the budget, so they bring in this absolutely ridiculous amendment that certainly I intend to speak against and I intend to vote against. I'm sure that every member on this side of the House will follow suit, because I think we've had enough of this ridiculousness.

MR. COCKE: Then sit down.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I'll sit down when I'm finished. I'll say more in five minutes than you'd say if you stood up here all week, because you've got nothing to talk about. You had nothing to do when you were government, you did nothing when you were government, and you're not even good now that you're back in opposition. You were better before you were government, my friend. You're the worst opposition of any legislature in Canada.

Interjections.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Don't speak up and show your ignorance. Just remain quiet and we'll all think about it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, if we would address the Chair and keep our interjections to a minimum, the debate will proceed in a nice, orderly, quiet manner.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: If that group over there were really concerned, as they say they are, about the province, they would make it possible for cabinet ministers to get out and travel to Ottawa and do some negotiations, and carry on the business of the province. But no, they are not interested. They make out they are but they're not interested, and they sit in here.... If they were a good opposition I wouldn't mind staying here listening to them, but they tie the hands of the government when they will not pair and allow ministers to get out and do the business of the province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't mind staying here if there was worthwhile debate coming from the opposition benches, but it's absolutely ridiculous. They were not prepared to debate the throne speech and they didn't; there wasn't one constructive suggestion. As a matter of fact, there wasn't even a constructive suggestion during the entire throne speech debate. I'm sure that if the people who voted for them, and voted them into opposition.... A government needs good opposition, and that is the healthy democracy that we have here in British Columbia — a good strong opposition.

Well, I'm afraid we don't have a good strong opposition, and if the public who voted them into opposition, the people of this province, were here to see that they do not even attend the House.... The mover of this motion and the seconder of this motion have not been in for one word of debate since they brought in the motion — and they brought in the motion. I'll tell you, it makes me feel ill to see the type of opposition we have in this House, and they haven't even read the budget speech. The ex-minister of nuclear energy, the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), stood up in this Legislature and said we should bring in some incentives for the mining industry to process their metals here. There are bold new initiatives in this budget that the hon. Minister of Finance just brought down, and he didn't even read the budget. But that isn't what bothers me as much as the fact that if it were not for the media in this province, there would be absolutely no opposition. Ninety-nine percent of the research that they have done has been researching the media. They have done absolutely no research on their own, and they stood in this Legislature last year and cried big tears that we weren't giving them enough money for research. So because the economy was good and we had the money, we funded all their research team. What have they done with them? They must be sitting up in the back room playing canasta or something, because they're certainly not doing any research.

I want to say just one more word about research. Regarding the member from Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) — who used to be from Vancouver South and has now carpetbagged into Coquitlam-Moody — I was holding up a document when he was speaking, and he said: "I hope it's a new document." Mr. Speaker, this document is over a year old, and the reason they don't know about because it talks about ten years in British Columbia — Charting the Growth. Every member of this Legislature received a copy, but I know what they did with all their copies. They had it banned because it tells the facts about how the economy of this province dipped in the three years they were government, and how, in the last four years, it has shown a steady growth. It's all in this booklet.

MR. BARBER: Give us the title.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: The title, again, is Ten Years in British Columbia: Charting the Growth, put out by the Ministry of Economic Development.

Well, the Ministry of Industry and Small Business De-

[ Page 1498 ]

velopment is going to put out another booklet this year, and it's going to include the '79 figures. And I am happy to report in this Legislature that every single statistic, every single position and every chart of economic development is up again in the year 1979. And they have the audacity, when it comes to the economy, to stand in this House and try to feed the people of this province the stuff you put on mushrooms. It's clear that the economy is growing and the economy is strong.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the person who made this motion on Friday morning, the person who is now the leader of Her Majesty's official opposition, and who five years ago was the Premier of this province.

MR. REE: A defeated candidate.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: No, he's a social worker, and he led that party when they were government. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point I want to make is that the member who introduced this motion was, at one time, guess what?

MR. REE: A defeated candidate.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: No, no. Guess what he was at one time.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: He was also the Minister of Finance for the province, and it was during those two and a half short years that he was Minister of Finance — the member who introduced the motion on Friday morning — that the ship of financial state in the province of British Columbia went on the rocks. We were on the brink of financial disaster in this province, make no mistake about it. The facts speak clearly for themselves. And that's the member, Mr. Speaker, who introduces a motion, saying that the hon. Minister of Finance has failed to adequately relieve our citizens of the onerous burden of continuous increases in the cost of living.

Now I want to talk about that for a moment, because the cost of living, when that member over there who introduced this motion was Minister of Finance, went to the highest rate in all of Canada. Last year, under this administration, and after four years of solid planning and financial management, what was the figure? Lowest of any province in Canada. That's why I say this motion is ridiculous, particularly coming from the member that it came from.

What happened in the province while that member said that we failed to mobilize and get the economy rolling? Investment by the private sector in the province of British Columbia, during the two and a half years that he was Minister of Finance, came to an absolute grinding halt. And he talks about unemployment. As you know, Mr. Speaker, and anybody with half a brain knows, you have to have investment by the private sector, or there are going to be no plants for people to work in. That's what government is all about. That's the responsibility of government: to create a climate and an atmosphere. As I've said in this House many times — I said it when I was in opposition — liquid cash is very nervous money and it will go to a secure base. There was no secure base in British Columbia. That's why it went elsewhere, that's why talent went elsewhere, and that's why people went elsewhere.

I want to talk about that in a moment, but I just want to paint the picture that here we have an ex-Minister of Finance, who brought the province to financial disaster, bringing in a ridiculous motion like this. Also, the party he led when they were government left the province with one of the highest unemployment rates of any province in Canada, Mr. Speaker. In the latest figures I have, we are second only to the province of Alberta in having the lowest rate of unemployment, and they stand over there and gibber and gab about unemployment and employment and inflation. If they would just read the facts, they would go and hide their heads in shame, because the facts speak a lot louder than some of the speeches, certainly, that they're making.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Send them some copies.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I've sent them copies, but their research people hide them on them because their research people don't want them to know the facts. If their research people knew the facts, it would make the job of research much more difficult than it is now. So they just go around saying that the sky is falling in and it's all gloom and doom in British Columbia, when it's a province that is known throughout the free world as having the best economy, the best financial picture, of any jurisdiction in North America.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk to you for just a moment about inflation, because there has been a lot of talk about inflation during this budget. I want to say a few words about inflation, because what have they said? They've said that this government has done absolutely nothing to come to grips with inflation, even though the city of Vancouver has the lowest CPI rate of any city of 12 in Canada, which really, in essence, tells you that the province of British Columbia has the lowest inflation rate of any province in Canada. Now that is fact, but they continue to say we've done nothing about inflation.

Well, I just happen to have the Consumer Price Index for February — and this relates to Vancouver, as I said, because that's where they check. The 1971 figure of 100 increased 0.9 percent — from 198 in January 1980 to 199.7 in February 1980. I want you to pay particular attention to this: "As a result the 12-month rise between February 1979 and February 1980 was 7.6 percent" — Mr. Speaker, did you hear that? —"a rate increase lower than that recorded for any other surveyed city in Canada." And that means that this government is doing a good job of holding down inflation.

Now I want you to pay particular attention to this next statement, Mr. Speaker, because it says: "A contributing factor to Vancouver's low 12-month rate of increase was the reduction in the general sales tax from 5 to 4 percent, which occurred in April of 1979." Did they reduce the sales tax? Did the federal government reduce the sales tax? Did any other jurisdiction in North America reduce any taxes last year? The answer, my friends, is no. This is the government that reduced taxes, and that's one of the prime reasons inflation in our great province is lower than in any other province in Canada. So far as I'm concerned, Mr. Speaker, the motion is an absolute farce. We had to dig ourselves out of the depths of financial disaster in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak for just a moment about the seconder of the motion, the member for Coquitlam-Moody. No, it's the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) — he moves around so much that I have a great deal of difficulty keeping up. Now here we have a second social

[ Page 1499 ]

worker in the opposition over there who is a one-time Minister of Human Resources seconding the motion, and this again to me is completely ridiculous. For him to stand in this House and say anything about economics is completely ridiculous, because I remember that not too long ago, when they were government, he was the fellow who went around with a shovel and shovelled money out of the back of a truck. There was a $100 million overrun in one year that he called "a clerical error." When he was Minister of Human Resources, the social services budget — and I want you to listen to this — in this province went from $190.9 million to $384.4 million in three years, over a 100 percent increase at a time when people were fleeing the province. Today people are coming back to the province in ever-increasing numbers; they're flocking here because this is the province of opportunity. Mr. Speaker, it always creates social problems when you have a growing economy and when you have people flocking to the province.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, he took the spending of the Human Resources ministry from a per-capita levy of $83 to $158, almost a 100 percent increase in three years. But that group over there seem to take greatly to standing up and making a lot of noise about how we haven't had any economic blueprint. I've told them about our economic blueprint, our thrusts and the definite positive results that we've had from that blueprint in four years. It's unmistakable; the facts speak for themselves. We have unmistakably improved the economy.

MR. LEA: File it.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: The member for Prince Rupert wants me to file something. I tell you, the more information you give them, the more goes in the wastepaper basket. I sent them a little booklet a while ago entitled Action for Industry — programs to encourage industrial development in British Columbia, programs to help our manufacturing sector in British Columbia, positive programs, programs that we negotiated as part of our strategy with the federal government. I sent it to them. I sent one to every member. They didn't read it.

The problem is that they don't get a chance to read it because their research staff, as soon as anything positive comes from a cabinet minister, say: "Oh, my gosh, I can't let them see that, because they might possibly read it. Then all this garbage I'm handing them from our research out of the media would confuse them." So all of the positive things we talk to them about and all of the positive booklets.... I sent them a booklet the other day.

The member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) stood in this House and said: "Are you ever going to extend the program of assistance to manufacturers in the lower mainland?" I tell you, the ink was hardly dry on the budget when I had the program on every member's desk — to extend that program to the lower mainland. That is a pure British Columbia program. The feds won't participate in the lower mainland, but because the economy of our province is strong and we have the capital, this government and this government alone has extended a pure British Columbia government program to include the lower mainland — assistance to small manufacturing industries. I sent it to them and didn't hear a word. I never heard anything further. They have a lot of members over there from that area, but I didn't hear anybody saying: "Great stuff. Good."

Mr. Speaker, the reason I bring this up is that the person who moved this motion and the seconder make this motion all the more ridiculous. The seconder once said, referring to the government of which he was a part: "The government never had a blueprint for office. It lacked one when it took office and failed to develop one subsequently. Our basic interests and ideas were right, but the needed refinement of them never occurred." Now listen to what he said about his own government: "Effective management was lacking." What he should have said is that effective leadership was lacking as well. As a matter of fact, if he had told the truth, he would have said there was never any leadership when they were government.

Here is the social worker duo over there, trying to stand up and criticize this government and saying we have made no plan. They also stand up and say: "Oh, but we were only government for three short years." That's why they are no good as opposition, because before they were ever government they could criticize everything, but now they've had their opportunity. That's why they are so quiet. They blew the chance when they were there. They were government once now. They can't act like they used to when they were in opposition and make all kinds of airy-fairy ideas, because they had their opportunity. What happened? They had no leadership, they had no management, and they blew it — the same as every other socialist regime in the world that ever tried to run an economy blew it.

Mr. Speaker, you don't hear them talk too much lately about their philosophy, about socialism. They are trying to say: "We are a new type of socialism." I don't care what colour you put on it. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked in Canada. It hasn't worked in any area in the world, and it never will work. They are socialists no matter what kind of a great front they put on. They're socialists and a lot of them are Waffle Manifesto socialists.

Mr. Speaker, I promised myself that I wouldn't get excited.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you didn't.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I really haven't.

I listen to those socialists over there trying to hide behind some new paint or varnish or whatever you want to call it and saying: "Oh, we're the new breed. " I tell you, you can count them. Some of them may be a little further to the right than others, but the leaders over there are rank socialists, and their leader signed the Waffle Manifesto.

They want to talk about inflation, Mr. Speaker. My heavens! You want to go and look at the record of Britain under a socialist labour government. I just read today that it is anticipated that in 1980 Great Britain will still have the world record for inflation — something that started with that great socialist government.

They want to talk about employment. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that under a socialist Britain.... What were their workers paid? Were they paid the highest, like they are in free-enterprise British Columbia? Higher than any province in Canada or practically any state in the union? No. Britain happens to be part of the great European Economic Community. When Henry Ford was looking to build a new engine plant, he looked at Spain, Italy, France and a lot of other members of the European community. But where did

[ Page 1500 ]

he go? He went to England, because the wage rates in England, under a socialist government, were lower than any other country in the European Economic Community.

I'll tell you one other reason he went to England. You hear those guys up there condemning the great multinational corporations, the big, bad guys, General Motors and Ford and ITT. What did the socialist leader of the day do? He gave Ford more kickbacks than any other country in the European community — which are mainly free-enterprise countries — would do. They said: "Oh, the socialists wouldn't do this." They wouldn't do it until they get to be power, and then they'd do anything, because they have no real philosophy.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out to the House again the stupidity of this motion, saying that we haven't come to grips with solving the economic problems. What else was said? A fellow by the name of Wally Ross — he'll be well known to my friends opposite — what does he say? He said that Dave Barrett himself was a kindred soul — he should have said "not much of a leader." He was unwilling to dampen his colleagues' enthusiasm in any way, and the result was predictably that the NDP government had no overall blueprint. Yet all of a sudden, we're supposed to tell them our blueprint.... I'll tell you, we've got it, and it's functioning, and we will revise it as time and necessity warrant. But they had no blueprint. The proof of a blueprint and the proof of a plan is what happens, and it has happened in the province of British Columbia under Social Credit government. You know, you can talk all you want to about blueprints. Certainly we have a blueprint. But they didn't even know where they were going, and they stand up and say that we've had no blueprint.

What else did this fellow Wally Ross say? "This lack of advanced planning contributed significantly to the absence of sound management." But oh, they love to stand up in the House and talk about what we should do, what we haven't done. As I say, Mr. Speaker, they can condemn us for saying.... But they were government. I want to repeat it: they were government. Now they've got lots of advice....

I remember the first year, 1976, when we brought down our first budget, after they had brought everything to a grinding halt, curtailed expenditures, cut off social welfare after they had that $100 million overrun, stopped road construction. Everything that they could possibly bring to a halt they brought to a halt.

AN HON. MEMBER: A panic freeze.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: A panic freeze. That's after the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) took over the ship, don't forget. The ex-social worker had deserted; he was swimming for shore as fast as he could go, and he left it in the hands of the member for Nanaimo. A complete grinding halt. Then they called that snap election so that the people of British Columbia wouldn't know the true financial facts. Oh, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker.... Oh, they're great now. And in the first year: "Oh, you're not spending enough on this; you're not spending enough on that. This program isn't big enough; that program isn't big enough. Why don't you spend more?" You know, six months before, the word got out: "Stop hiring civil servants. Stop road construction. Stop giving away money, stop this program, stop that program." Six months later, when we're government, they're saying: "Spend more; you guys can run the economy." They have faith in us because they know we're going to spend more because the economy is good.

I just want to read one more sentence and then I'll get on, Mr. Speaker. What I'm really trying to do is point out to the members on this side of the House and the members on that side of the House how absolutely stupid and ridiculous this motion is, particularly by those two social workers.

I just want to finish with one more little statement. This guy, Wally Ross, says it was "like a house of casual pleasure run by the girls." I won't condemn them any more, Mr. Speaker, because, you know, they are more to be pitied than censured. Poor government and poor opposition — you know, I really feel sorry for them. I don't know where they are going to go from here. Oh, yes I do; they're going to go out.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I want to tell you a thing or two, my friend. When you were government, people were fleeing this province. They were stumbling over each other. In my riding it wasn't safe to be on the road. The road to Alberta was so full of traffic it wasn't safe because of people deserting this province, people leaving this province. I wouldn't laugh about it, my friend, because it was because of your socialist policies in this great province of ours. That's why they were leaving.

I remember that during the election campaign Gary Lauk tried to talk to me about a few things. I wanted to give him the facts. I wanted to give him a few facts on how British Columbia grows with Canada in interprovincial migration. Mr. Speaker, these are the facts, and they are in this little booklet. I want to ask the opposition, if they were as great, and if their socialists policies worked as well as they said they were going to work, or as they claimed they worked: why did we have people leaving the province in the last year of their government? More people were leaving the province than were coming to the province for the first time in the history of British Columbia. It was also, I guess, the first time that we ever had a socialist government, so the two fit hand in hand.

AN HON. MEMBER: And the last time.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Yes — and the last time.

I want to just point out to you, and this is a base.... We'll start in 1972 when 47,411 people left. First year of the NDP the figure climbs — 56,556 people left. What happened in 1974? The figure goes higher, up to 61,517. What happened in 1975? People really got in high gear and they left. They were leaving like fleas; the figure went to 63,999. That gave British Columbia, at that point, a loss in population in 1975 of 2,864. Is that socialism? Is that the policy for British Columbia? — a growing, dynamic province. Here's something you must consider. They had, in their last year, 8.5 percent unemployment — at a time when the work force was on the decline because people were leaving the province, my friends, because of your philosophy, because of your policies, and you still had one of the highest rates of unemployment of any province in Canada.

Let me tell you the difference. Last year we got the figure down to 48,000. It has been coming down every year since we've been government so that we now have a net interprovincial migration of 30,000 people. The work force in British Columbia is growing faster than practically any other pro-

[ Page 1501 ]

vince in Canada. But compare that with people leaving the province in the last year when their socialist policy really caught up with them — it took three years. You had people fleeing like fleas from the province, and you had one of the highest unemployment rates. Now compare that with today with people coming into the province in droves, creating a few social problems, but because of the economy being so strong and such a high rate of employment, a rate of employment that is the envy of any province in Canada, with people coming back we still have one of the lowest unemployment rates. And they have the audacity to stand in this House and bring in a stupid, ridiculous motion like this when this government has done more for the economy of this province than any other jurisdiction in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I said I'd remain calm, but I get just a little frustrated with the stupidity of that opposition over there — really frustrated with the stupidity of how they would have the face to come in here and bring in a motion like that.

There are a few other things I want to talk about, but I want to talk to you for just a moment about one of our plans to get the economy of British Columbia back on stream and to ensure....

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's go over our resolution.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Now there's the man over there from New Westminster who was responsible for the Insurance Corporation losing $180 million. If I were you, I'd just remain quiet. You know, I wouldn't yak, yak, yak.... I don't know how you can face the people of this province. With no competition....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the member for South Peace River to please address the Chair.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask you to ask the member who lost $180 million for the Insurance Corporation just to remain calm because I don't think I've got too much longer to go. That's the type of opposition you get — yackle, yackle, yackle. They must wake up every morning and look themselves in the face, Mr. Speaker, and laugh because they're a laugh to the people of the province and they're certainly a laugh to this government so far as opposition goes.

All right, I want to tell you about a very positive program. I want to tell you that we became government. First of all, I want to set the scene for you. This province and Canada must export if we are going to survive. We must export. We must export our manufactured goods. We must add further value to our processing, to our natural resources, but above all, we must export. We are logistically situated to take advantage of the great and growing market in the Pacific Rim, and of course, that's one of the reasons we are building this great trade and convention centre, another great initiative of this government in downtown Vancouver to capitalize on Pacific Rim trade.

Now there has been a lot of criticism about the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development travelling overseas. Well, first of all, I had to travel overseas to talk to our number two customer, which is Japan, because they don't get as many communications as the great United States do, and they don't understand what's going on over here. I had to tell them that British Columbia was willing to do business with them again, and that if they came to British Columbia to buy or to sell, we would have an open door and were no longer the Chile of the north; that British Columbia was safely back under good management and with sound economic policies.

Mr. Speaker, let me just set the scene for you, and tell you why it is necessary for us to go into the international marketplace and sell — not go there and play rugby or plant trees. Bilateral trade continued to set new records in the world in 1979. External trade between Canada and Japan was $4.3 billion in 1977; $5.3 billion in 1978; and guess what in 1979 — $6 billion, an increase of $2.3 billion in only two years of Canada's trade with Japan. That is buying and selling, and it's a two-way deal. Since 1973 Japan has been the second-largest market, after the United States, for Canadian exports. Canada was Japan's seventh-largest trading partner in 1977. But if you take away the petroleum products Japan has to buy because she doesn't have any energy sources of her own, Canada was Japan's fourth-largest trading partner, after the United States, Australia and Korea. That two-way trade between Japan and Canada, as I say, is increasing at a very rapid rate, and it follows a slight decline in 1975.

After two-way trade, investment flows. Japanese investment in Canada amounted to $560 million in 1977 — most of it in western Canada, and a very large portion of it in British Columbia.

What's going to happen in the future? For instance, tourism from Japan has been increasing in importance; the number of Japanese visitors to Canada now exceeds 100,000 annually.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I suppose if that member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) were still Minister of Highways, he wouldn't say, "Yankee, go home;" he'd probably say: "Japanese, go home, we don't want your tourist dollars."

Estimating the average expenditure per visit at $350, it is calculated that Japanese visitors spent in excess of $56 million in 1978. It is expected that in 1980 revenues from Japanese tourism will exceed $70 million, as the number of tourists from Japan alone increases to 200,000 annually. Doesn't that create jobs? Doesn't the export of our goods and services create jobs? That was part of our blueprint: to put us back as an international trader.

MR. SPEAKER: Time.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I was going to talk about some of our developments. But there's just one more point I want to make. Canada-Japan bilateral trade in 1979 was $6 billion. How much did we sell to Japan? Of that $6 billion, we sold $4 billion. How much did Japan buy from us? It bought $4 billion. What did we buy from Japan? We bought $2 billion. That's a balance in our favour of $2 billion.

MS. BROWN: Once again we've been victimized by that Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, who can't even get his flim and his flam together. We've had a whole bunch of hot air and no substance. Over and over again he stands on his feet and says nothing new. He trots out the same old chestnuts. And then when he's finished.... I hope he's getting his things together to go to his office and do

[ Page 1502 ]

some work. Certainly he's one of the reasons why this resolution is on the floor today. It's because of the failure of his ministry.

I'm going to speak in support of this resolution. There's certainly one group of people in this province who have not been addressed at all by this budget. I'm speaking, of course, about the 52 percent of the population who happen to be female. According to the Ministry of Labour's own bulletin, we learn that the annual average unemployment rate for women in British Columbia has been higher than that for men over the past ten years, and is in fact continuing to get higher. You would think that with that kind of information the new Minister of Finance, in bringing a budget down.... When you take into account that he was previously the Provincial Secretary, responsible for programs dealing with women — and he knows the situation with women in the province — you would have thought that he would have made a special effort to see to it that his budget addressed the increasing unemployment among women in the province. Nothing, absolutely nothing.

The Labour bulletin goes on to say that there is evidence that the trend is towards longer periods of joblessness for women in British Columbia. Such a trend would seem to indicate that difficulties in obtaining suitable jobs are responsible for their high unemployment rate, rather than an unwillingness on their part to work. Like most of the things that that government over there does, the budget ignores the needs of women, and certainly ignores their need for employment and their poor economic situation.

Mr. Speaker, again I'm using the department's own bulletin. It is also of interest to note that a high proportion — it says about 40 percent — of the unemployed females who are trying to find work are re-entering the labour force. These are the women who we were told should be full-time mothers, stay at home and take care of their children, and they did that. Once the children are grown and they are willing and able to re-enter the work force, we find there are no jobs for them. Absolutely nothing — no indication whatsoever that this budget is even aware of that factor, or aware that most of the women interested in entering the job market are not doing so as recreation, but simply because it absolutely needs two incomes to raise a family today.

Mr. Speaker, it also doesn't take into account that a number of these are older female workers. They're the ones hardest hit. It's difficult enough getting into the labour force when you're an older male, but of course trying to get in as an older female is even more difficult. You would think that the budget would take that into account, and absolutely nothing was done.

The rate of unemployed women, or women in the unemployed forces, in British Columbia today is over 10 percent, it's 10.5 percent and, as I said, has been increasing since 1976-1977. The trend seems to be that it's going to get higher and higher, and of course the hardest hit, as I said before, are going to be those women over 40 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, a statistic that we should take into account at the same time as we look at the unemployed women is the number of them who are the heads of their families — the single-parent families. Seventy-eight percent of single parent families are headed by women. So as I said before, we're talking about people who are not working as a hobby, or are not seeking to be employed as a hobby, but simply because they have to. When you couple that with the kind of statistics that the United Way brings down if these women are forced to depend on welfare, you realize that it's much more important that the government should get into the business of creating jobs so that these women can work, rather than forcing them to apply for welfare.

When one listens to the minister who just spoke and the derogatory comments he made about social workers, one has a better understanding about why the dispensation of welfare in this province is so disastrous and so bad. We are dealing with people who not only dislike the poor but dislike even people who work with them.

Everyone is caught in a bind. These are really tough economic times. But more and more the information coming out seems to indicate that women are being much more hard hit by these tough economic times than men, because they are caught in the grip of two things happening at the same time.

Technological change, Mr. Speaker: technological innovations are making incursions even into the four areas which constitute the female occupational ghetto. They're being replaced by machines, whether it is word processing machines or correctable typewriters, or whatever the situation is. I'm glad that the Minister of Labour is here, Mr. Speaker. The whole business of the technological revolution in the occupational ghettos where women traditionally find themselves is making them almost unnecessary. It's beginning to happen to women now. The first thing was, of course, that they were confined to these three or four areas where they were either clerical or service workers. Now there are machines coming in that can do the job, and they are being thrown out of work by the machines. So that's the first thing that's happening, Mr. Speaker.

At the same time we find that with a cutback of the kinds of support services they must have — like day care and those kinds of services — they are caught in a vice between the technological changes and the cutbacks in services. The end result, of course, is the increase in poverty among this particular segment of the population. You would have thought, surely, that the government would have taken this into account in bringing its budget down — either taking job creation into account, increasing the services or granting additional funds for retraining, Mr. Speaker, to have women re-enter the workforce and give them the supports, like child care, or even going to the area of creating part-time jobs, which would be much more useful and necessary for them. But all of these factors have been ignored by this budget. That's one of the reasons I am speaking in support of this particular resolution.

Mr. Speaker, again, in another Labour Research Bulletin — and one of the latest ones which I am using — we are given the information that 129,000 women in British Columbia who are working are in fact heads of families. They are working because they have to support their families. The bulletin goes on to say that whereas in Canada as a whole you have 15.4 percent of the single-parent families headed by women, in British Columbia it's double that. It's more than double that. It's over 33 percent, and over 33 percent of these single-parent families, where they are working, live below the poverty line. So we have this whole cycle of lack of services, lack of jobs, inadequate welfare and poverty. We're not just talking about the women, which is unfortunate. It would be bad enough if we were just talking about the women. We are talking about families, because the women we are talking about are the parents of children. In the final analysis it is really the children themselves that suffer.

Mr. Speaker, there are some statistics here that would

[ Page 1503 ]

talk to us more. The Canadian Council on Social Development's national report on women in poverty, has painted a very bleak picture. I know that the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) had this information. I know that the Provincial Secretary, the present Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) had it. The Status of Women commission, after getting their statistics, concluded that the women of this country are particularly vulnerable to the hazards of being poor, and that the relationship between women and poverty is apparent in the average earnings of those who are employed. It is even more obvious when one considers the women who are not in a position to earn incomes of any sort of all. And that's the group, surely, that the budget should have taken a look at in terms of trying to help get them back into the labour force and onto the job market.

Mr. Speaker, it goes on to say: "When you realize that these women assume the bulk of the responsibility for raising children and maintaining the home, that they are improperly trained and they're denied access to better jobs" — or even to any jobs at all — "you realize that what we are doing is creating the kind of poverty cycle that the Minister of Human Resources says she's committed to breaking."

It's not possible to break that poverty cycle just by being a Minister of Human Resources. The government has to be involved in that, and the budget is the first place, Mr. Speaker, where you get any kind of indication as to whether the government has any commitment to this group of people in our society, and if they're going to do anything about it. This budget has indicated that this government is not going to do anything at all in terms of breaking this cycle. The women who are poor are going to remain poor, and the pittance that comes out of the Human Resources' budget is going to remain that way. But the services aren't there and the jobs aren't there. Certainly they have not been budgeted for.

Mr. Speaker, I've been speaking quite a bit about the single-parent family. But, in fact, there are a large number of women in British Columbia who also have to work because their husbands' incomes still keep them below the poverty line. And we all have the inflation figures and the high cost of living, housing, food, hydro rates, mortgage and interest rates — which have certainly gone completely out of control. These are all kinds of expenses which we have no control over. Everyone knows that it often takes two incomes to keep a family together. A number of women participating in the labour force, we find from the statistics, are married to men who are making below $15,000 per year, or in some instances, as low as $3,000 per year themselves. These people are themselves below the poverty line and this budget, again, does not take into account the needs of this particular group. Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out before, the whole business of children who are parts of this family, and the fact that they're going to suffer from the continual lack of services and the continual poverty, is something that the government should have taken into account.

Mr. Speaker, the statistics on women who work — even the ones who do have good jobs — are disgraceful. The wage gap between men and women is growing. It's increasing rather than diminishing. Today women who work full-time earn 60 percent of what a male earns at the same job. This is despite the fact that we have all kinds of equal-pay legislation on the books. The annual average earning of a male is $12,656, as compared to that of a woman, which is $7,852. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to remember the statistics which I gave you about the number of women in this situation who are heads of families and solely responsible for the expenses of their families. You would think that the government would take this kind of information into account, because they have it — it's not private, it's public information. Certainly the Minister of Finance should have taken that information into account in putting his budget together.

Mr. Speaker, a study was done by a student — I think it was actually done for the Ministry of Labour, but I'm not sure — in terms of women getting into the work force, and there were two conclusions: one which said most of these women were single mothers, and the other that their largest motivation was in terms of funding. They were trying to get into what are known as non-traditional jobs — not service jobs, not clerical jobs, but jobs that have traditionally been considered the preserve of males. They were doing that because the wages were higher there, and getting no support whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, the part-time category of employment, which certainly is one that would be of most use to this particular segment of the community, is another area in which action is certainly lacking in terms of the government — and I don't want to place all of the blame on the Ministry of Labour, because, really, the reason why the Ministry of Labour gets the brunt of it is simply that it's the ministry that's doing the research and bringing out the information, giving us the kinds of statistics that we need. When you take into account the job segregation, the ghettoization in terms of the occupation of women, the technological innovations in those areas, which are forcing them out of work, the lack of support services, the lack of services that they need if they must earn, then you can understand why so many of the people on welfare in this province are mothers of single parent families — and their children make up the bulk of the people on welfare. If the government were serious about doing something about that, the solution is not necessarily to put more money into the welfare budget for people on welfare, but to do something about job creation, retraining, part-time day care — those kinds of services, Mr. Speaker. They should get their apprenticeship program and that kind of thing going so that these people could get into the job market and could become independent. The members of the government are continually talking about people being economically independent, being able to take care of themselves, and yet we find that for people who do want to do that, just a little bit of incentive, that little bit of financial thrust that is necessary to make that possible for them, is lacking. It certainly has not been included in this budget, which is one of the reasons why I have to speak in support of this particular resolution.

Mr. Speaker, the statistics on the older women who are unemployed are particularly tragic. Although they do not necessarily need day-care centres, because their children are older and do not need that kind of support, they certainly need the re-training and could probably fit into some of the apprenticeship programs. Those are the kinds of supports that would get them into the work force, but, in particular, they need the jobs to be created, and that is a major thing that is missing.

The Employers' Council, in its 1980 report on social trends, tells us that the rights of minority groups and women are going to loom as a major issue in the 1980s. You'd certainly think that the government would have taken that fact into account. There is absolutely nothing about it in the budget, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 1504 ]

In December of 1977 there was a conference of women from single-industry towns — it was funded by the federal government, but the report which they brought down was certainly made available to the government of this province — and they talked about the loss of jobs in single-industry towns, which was creating pressures. They talked about the strains on the stability of families and individuals, and they stressed the fact that what the women were asking for was not more welfare — certainly they needed more mental health facilities and more health facilities — but that more than anything else they needed jobs created and the kinds of support services like day-care centres and kindergartens to go with that. This budget comes down, and again there is absolutely nothing in it to show that that government has any kind of indication whatsoever that in single-industry towns such as Kitimat and Fraser Lake and Mackenzie there are no part-time jobs, there is a lack of day care, there is a lack of training facilities and any kind of job opportunities for these women — and that report has been in the hands of the government, Mr. Speaker, since 1977.

Instead what we get are press releases from the Ministry of Human Resources which say: "Raising a child alone has its hazards, but when a single person has to raise three children, the problem can multiply." And then it goes on to tell the story of a middle-aged woman in a small British Columbia community who loves her children and wants to take care of them but, of course, she can't. The solution to this is to give her a counsellor who helps her to cope with stress and discipline problems. That's not the solution.

The solution to this woman's problems in a small industry town, an isolated community, was tabled in that report which was handed down in December 1977. They made it absolutely clear that what they were talking about were part-time jobs, child-care facilities, training, retraining, educational upgrading, opportunities and, most of all, the creation of employment. That's what they want. They bring down a report saying they need jobs and they get a press release from Human Resources saying they are getting counselling when counselling is not what they need. What they need is jobs, and this budget has not taken that into account.

In particular, there is a small company in Langley known as the Windsor Machine Co. Ltd., and apparently the management is planning on moving this company to Ontario. The result of this, in a report which was presented to the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), is that the layoffs — the workers who would be laid off if the plant moves — would fall most heavily on the younger employees, more than half of whom are female. They came to the Minister of Labour and asked that he do everything in his power to stop — to intervene, to prevent — the transfer of this particular plant from Langley to Ontario.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: I am speaking about the Windsor Machine Co. Ltd., Mr. Minister.

I am saying that this is the kind of thing that I am hoping the government will intervene in, and work on behalf of seeing that jobs are not taken out of the province. I am speaking primarily on behalf of women this time because I think that we have a very special kind of need, but I recognize that jobs for men as well should be protected. I certainly hope that the minister is going to be moving in this direction whenever he is called upon, not just in this instance; whenever he is called upon to intervene on behalf of jobs not being exported and taken out of British Columbia, I hope he will do so. The result of that kind of thing is just to increase our unemployment rate. As I said before, in many instances, the ones who suffer the most in this area are the heads of your single-parent families and most of these are women.

So I don't know whether it's too late or not to bring it to the government's attention — they're so good at overrunning, in terms of their various departments and things, that maybe one should not take the budget too seriously — but I certainly hope that they're going to do a couple of things.

I certainly hope that the whole business of the creation of part-time work right around the province is something that the government is looking at.

I certainly hope that the whole business of the WEAT program which is run out of the Ministry of Labour is going to be expanded so that it goes through all area of the province — everybody needs it. It's been tried and it's working, and I certainly hope that it's going to be expanded.

I see the Minister of Labour is trying to undo some of the damage done by a former Minister of Labour under this government who permitted the Women's Bureau to disappear from view — it was wiped out, eliminated; I see this new Minister of Labour has decided to reinstate that bureau. In British Columbia maybe it wasn't doing anything, but certainly in every other jurisdiction the Women's Bureau has a very vital function, and I am pleased to see that the minister has decided to reintroduce it and has already made a couple of appointments to it. We are looking forward to having that bureau do the kind of job that it should be doing.

In speaking in support of this amendment, I do so because I certainly believe — and I certainly recognize — that there is one group in this province who have been totally failed by this government, and that group constitutes 52 percent of the population. It's true that not all of them want to work, not all of them need to work, but certainly to have the unemployment statistics increase as they have been doing for women in the work force over the past ten years and to have the length of time that they are unemployed increase, as they have been doing, is something that the government should have taken into account when it brought down this present budget. It didn't do so. Therefore I am speaking in support of this amendment.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: If you are having some difficulty hearing me it is because I am full of cold.

What does the budget really tell us? It's a strong statement of our financial position.

MR. SPEAKER: We are on the amendment.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Certainly it must reflect what the people in our province have — confidence in the government. You know, even as a newcomer, in analyzing the budget I can see that revenues are overflowing. I can see that resources are producing and exceeding all previous records. Industrial and commercial expansion is proceeding at a record pace. I say to the members opposite: travel throughout the province and you will see evidence of it.

Major projects are in the planning stage in each of the following areas: forest products, coal, non-ferrous metals, oil and gas, and tourism, each of these are bringing strong economic growth and prosperity.

I think there is something else in the budget which is

[ Page 1505 ]

evident too; it's balanced and it certainly reflects some restraint. When there's a surplus achieved, it must be spent wisely so that something is always available to satisfy public needs should there be a downturn in our export markets. We should never lose sight of the fact that we are strongly dependent on our export markets. We can bear witness to the slump in the forest industry and the export of lumber, and to the prices lumber was fetching on the open market last fall.

The budget really states that we have a surplus, and we, as government, are returning a good portion of it.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam.

MR. LEVI: I wish you would bring the member to the amendment we are dealing with. He seems to be going off there on his own little thing.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I've already drawn to the member's attention that we are on the amendment and not on the budget.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: To alleviate any doubt for the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam, I'm speaking against your amendment. That would be in order. I thought I had to clarify it last time as well, to the hon. member who thought he would try me on for size then.

MR. SPEAKER: May we proceed with the debate?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: So the budget really states that we have a surplus; we as government are retaining a good portion of it. I think it's important that we recognize this fact. We're returning it to the people in the province in one-time government investment programs. As examples, we have new bridges, roads, housing incentives and community programs. It also states that as a government we are confident in our province and its citizens, and so it is financially sound to undertake long-term and expensive social programs. We have denticare coming in this calendar year. There's also reference to 1,700 hospital beds.

Our government's guiding principle for the foundation of a secure and prosperous future rests with a strong and vigorous private sector; we've said it again and again.

Our philosophy, as opposed to that of the members opposite, is that we want the private sector to grow. We've always had the ability to regulate when necessary to ensure fairness to all. I don't think anybody can find exception to that statement. As far as the private sector is concerned, we should never forget that it creates the wealth of the nation, and it is with that wealth that we will successfully implement the social programs we all want. That has been repeated again and again.

The budget with its revenues reflects capital expansion programs announced by the forest industry in excess of $1.5 billion, and probably proceeding further. The oil, gas and mineral industries are now approaching $1 billion in value. We know the impact on our economy will be significant both in new construction and permanent employment. To those who have made such a positive commitment to British Columbia, we trust that they will continue to have the confidence they've demonstrated in the last year.

It's interesting that a periodical arrived on my desk today, the B.C. Building Tradesman, a periodical published by the B.C. Building and Construction Trades Council. I thought I should make reference to a couple of items. In fairness to the members opposite, I think we ought to look at the headline. But like most headlines, this particular one says: "Opinions Are Divided." What are they predicting for 1979-1980? "A provincial construction value of over $4 billion, based on mining, forestry and other resource development."

AN HON. MEMBER: They criticized that.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, they're not criticizing that. I don't think they can.

Another item. A member of the IBEW said: "The large expansions in heavy industries such as pulp mills will give a certain amount of relief for 1980, at least for the balance. We've got 8 to 10 percent out of work now, which isn't too bad" — we're talking about the construction sector, Mr. Speaker, and we all know it is seasonal — "for this time of year. In April and May we will be hard-pressed to supply people in some areas." Surely that is some indication of an economic barometer within the province.

Another one. The business manager for the cement masons says his membership can expect "a pretty good year" in 1980.

One other business manager said: "It's looking damn good for us." That is according to the Labourers' International Union.

With this type of statement being published in the journal of the B.C. Federation of Labour, I think we must be doing a pretty good job. We have encouraged the confidence of the private sector.

One particular statement of fact I find most encouraging. Again, this reflects what an economic barometer does for the province. This was tabled by the hon. member for South Peace River, the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips). It continues to intrigue me: "Drilling Rig Operating Days Summary for the Operating Years May 1 to April 30, 1974 to 1979. " There are only two statistics in this which we ought to have firmly imprinted on our minds. May 1 to April 30, 1974-75: 3,692. May 1 to April 30, 1978-79: 13,883. I don't think we can lose sight because those statements of fact reflect the confidence that the private sector has in our economy. They must also, then, reflect the confidence which the private sector and its citizens have in the government.

In the last four years B.C.'s economy has grown faster and jobs were created more rapidly than in Canada as a whole or in the U.S. B.C.'s performance in fighting inflation has been outstanding. B.C.'s inflation rate, Mr. Speaker, was 7.7 percent in 1979. These are undisputed facts, and I don't think we have to go any further.

The conclusion which I draw, and which certainly must be reflected in the budget.... Why do we have the record revenues that we do? It seems to me the budget is the best indicator of confidence in British Columbia, and the budget.... It can always be identified by the magnitude of investment in the private sector. I mentioned earlier $4 billion worth of construction in 1980. Over the last four years B.C. has generated an average growth of private investment of 17.4 percent; that growth is reflected in the budget as well. The Canadian average, Mr. Speaker, was 12 percent.

The member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) said, when he

[ Page 1506 ]

was commenting on the budget, that we as a province were not doing very much to help the employment scene. Well, let me refer to this item: in forestry, the total amount of money in the first year is something in the order of $145 million under the range and forestry program. That amount of money has got to be spent, but what is it spent on? It's spent on employment. One of the biggest problems I think we're going to have is finding where to use all of those funds during the year. The point I'm trying to make is that that type of money is labour-intensified and it goes in that direction.

I think in support of the budget I must mention this as well. This amount of money, which is a significant sum, measures the depth of our government's commitment to restoring the province's primary resource.

I think there's something else which is in the budget which not too many have made reference to, and that is the $50-million Canada–British Columbia Subsidiary Agreement on Intensive Forest Management. I came across some statistics, Mr. Speaker, entitled "Comparison of Forestry Revenue and Expenditure by Province"; this is 1977. Do you know that prior to this particular agreement, which was secured by this government, particularly through the efforts of our Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), and he'll understand that....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: What's this all about?

AN HON. MEMBER: Let there be light!

HON. MR. HEINRICH: There is light, Mr. Speaker, I found it in the budget.

These figures are from 1977. I appreciate that they are somewhat dated, but they certainly reflect a very valid point. The revenues from the forest sector, which came to British Columbia, were $378.5 million. The expenditure on forestry in that same year was $125.2 million — in other words, the amount of money which is going back into forestry and reforestation. As far as the federal accounts are concerned, the federal government received revenues of $307.5 million, but do you know how much it expended on forestry in British Columbia? It spent $0.3 million in 1977. Reflected in the budget is the first of a five-year program totalling $50 million in reforestation, and that is a significant leap forward.

I would again like to refer to the hon. member for Nanaimo and his comments, which concerned me somewhat, so I thought I would get some facts with respect to employment and the opposite side of the coin, unemployment, within the province. This is entitled "Measures Taken by our Government Have Been Effective in Reducing Unemployment." The actual unemployment rate for B.C. for February 1980 was the lowest recorded for a February since 1974. Now we can't dispute facts. This February, I repeat, was the lowest that it ever has been since 1974. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 1980 was 7.3 percent. This rate is lower than the rate recorded at any time during the last five years, when the rate has consistently been above 8 percent. Between February 1979 and February 1980 the B.C. labour force grew by 59,000 people. However, during the same period of time employment grew by 68,000 people; growth in employment exceeded growth in the labour force by 9,000 people during the last year.

Well, what does the budget say about highways? A great deal. But what I'm particularly concerned about in my particular ministry is: what employment does that expenditure of money do for labour within the province? Highway construction will be funded at a record level in the coming year, with $215 million provided for this purpose in the estimates and a further $100 million from revenue surplus. Well, to the hon. members opposite, what do you think happens with that money? Most of it is involved in construction, and construction is primarily labour-intensive. I make the same reference, as far as the Labour ministry is concerned, with the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith) and the school budget: $232 million for colleges and provincial institutes in 1980-81. Again, a portion of that goes towards capital, capital means construction, construction means labour, and we know this is what's happening.

Another comment made by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) involved funds which were available through the Ministry of Labour, involving assistance to those in programs for employment in the coming year — and he made reference to the sum of $4.5 million. Well, the fact is — if he would care to look at the budget — there is a sum in excess of $40 million; but I think it's only fair to point out that in that $40 million there is a portion which is used for the apprenticeship program. I acknowledge that some of those funds — somewhere in the area of $12 million to $14 million — are used to purchase seats in the colleges for the apprentices. So of the over $40 million, not all of it goes into a work type of program; but it certainly goes into a program to assist the young people in training. But it's a lot more than the $4.5 million that the hon. member alluded to.

I've mentioned before the impact of high interest rates. The hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) expects the government to embark on a total housing program involving subsidy of interest rates, I presume somewhere between 9 and 15 percent or somewhere between 10 and 16 percent. But this province is the only province that I know of across the country that had the courage to embark upon a program. It is going to be somewhat costly; however, it's not without its rewards, and it did help a large number of people. The figure has been bandied about as 3,000, but I think it helped a lot more than 3,000 people. We must remember what the purpose of those funds was: to try to stem the large unemployment which might well have occurred in the lumber industry when the markets collapsed.

I checked some statistics. I wanted to know the total amount of money put out in 1979 in residential building permits in British Columbia. The sum was $1.184 billion. Now if the government were to undertake a program of financing that amount of money at a subsidized interest rate, we would need to put out $1 billion from the budget. In the first year, being the interest differential, it would cost something in the order of $70 million, and over a five-year program $350 million. But do you know what would really happen? The opposition would be screaming as you've never heard an opposition scream before that because the government had gone full tilt into the private sector, the amount of money put aside would be contributing to the inflationary spiral — we would never hear the end of it.

I appreciate that high interest reflects serious problems of inflation. I've said before it's very cruel.

I want to repeat: the provincial Youth Employment Program. Something like $25.65 million is going into the program, and that's a lot more than the $4.5 million to which the hon. member alluded. In the last year of the program 6,500

[ Page 1507 ]

private-sector employers participated. Of the 4,000 employers who completed the questionnaires, over 99 percent felt that the youth hired were learning skills which would assist them in entering the work force.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Hon. member, we'll just make it work a little bit better.

Now the commitment in health, to hospitals. In the budget we find $100 million again. So what do the hon. members opposite think is going to happen to that $100 million? It's going to build hospitals. Who builds hospitals? The construction industry. Who does the construction industry employ?

Mr. Speaker, I sort of detect that the hon. members are receiving growls from down below and are hungry.

Hon. Mr. Heinrich moved adjournment of the debate. Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Mair tabled the rules, orders and regulations made by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, pursuant to the Health Act, for the period February 1979 until November 1979.

RADIATION FROM
VIDEO DISPLAY TERMINALS

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on a matter of public concern raised last week by some members of the press gallery concerning the safety of the video display terminals in use there. It should be noted, Mr. Speaker, that similar units are in use throughout the public service, including my ministry.

This statement will also be of interest to public servants who operate those terminals. The concerns arose as a result of reports of excessive emissions involving Teleram units in the United States, similar to those used in the press gallery. Some subsequent news reports used the term 'microwave radiation' in connection with these emissions, but in fact video display terminals do not generate microwave radiation. They do, however, generate radio frequency emissions.

I might say that I'm not the author of this. You'll soon see why I'm not the author of this.

If I may be technical for a moment, Mr. Speaker, the radio frequency emissions generated in a video display terminal are in the order of 10 megahertz. Bear that in mind; I may ask questions later. The Canadian standard for human exposure is 1 milliwatt per square centimetre, and this is based on the absorption of emissions in the 70- to 100-megahertz range. At 10 megahertz the absorption is some 100 times less. So the safety margin for video display terminals is very wide indeed.

Given the very low frequencies at which video display terminals operate and the low energy intensity of the emissions, there are no biological effects accumulated, or otherwise, from radio frequency radiation that could endanger the operators of these units or persons nearby. Excessive absorption of radio frequency emissions has the effect of creating heat in the human body, and levels of heat that could endanger one's health would soon be noticeable.

My staff tested the press gallery last week for possible x-ray leakage, and found none.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MAIR: That is rather reversing the normal trend, isn't it? What a revolutionary thought. Well, we found no x-ray leakage from the press gallery, Mr. Speaker.

Weak x-rays are possible in defective units where voltage is raised substantially, although most of the rays would be absorbed by the glass screen of the terminal. Ministry of Health staff have previously checked units at Pacific Press, Victoria Press and elsewhere for x-rays and found none — regrettable as that may be to the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom).

For the record, it is worth noting that Health and Welfare Canada has tested 77 video display units, comprising 26 models from 17 manufacturers. No x-ray or radio frequency emissions were detected with the most sensitive instruments. Health and Welfare Canada concluded that "video display units do not appear capable of producing levels of radiation presenting an occupational hazard."

Hon. Mr. Hewitt tabled the annual report of the Milk Board for the year ending December 31, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:50 p.m.