[ Page 2967 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions.

Lung Association meeting. Mr. Cocke –– 2967

Use of American tradesmen on B.C. Jobs. Mr. Howard –– 2967

Alleged fraudulent applications for BCRIC shares. Mr. Barber –– 2967

Appointment of Tom Butler. Mr. Cocke –– 2968

Alleged fraudulent applications for BCRIC shares. Mr. Barber –– 2968

Freight subsidy for Vancouver Island farmers. Mrs. Wallace –– 2969

Fort Nelson Indian Reserve Minerals Revenue Sharing Act (Bill 22). Committee stage.

On section 3.

Mr. Howard –– 2969

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2969

On the schedule.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2969

Report and third reading –– 2970

Fire Services Amendment Act, 1980 (Bill 25). Committee stage.

On section 1.

Mr. Macdonald –– 2970

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2970

Mr. Leggatt –– 2970

Report and third reading –– 2970

Home Owner Grant Act (Bill 31). Committee stage.

On section 2.

Mr. Barber –– 2970

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 2970

Mr. Mitchell –– 2970

On section 3.

Mr. Cocke –– 2971

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 2971

Mr. Mitchell –– 2971

On section 12.

Mr. Barber –– 2971

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 2971

Report and third reading –– 2971

Liquor Control and Licensing Amendment Act, 1980 (Bill 18). Second reading.

Mr. Levi –– 2971

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 2972

Division on second reading –– 2974

Revised Statutes Correction Act, 1980 (Bill 33). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2974

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1), 1980 (Bill 34). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2975

Special Funds Act, 1980 (Bill 7). Second reading.

On the amendment.

Mr. Cocke –– 2975

Mr. Nicolson –– 2976

Mrs. Dailly –– 2976

Hon. Mr. Chabot –– 2976

Hon. Mr. Mair –– 2977

Mr. Hanson –– 2977

Mr. Mussallem –– 2977

Mr. Lea –– 2978

Mr. Macdonald –– 2980

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 2980

Division on the amendment –– 2981

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 2981

Division on second reading –– 2981

Crown Corporations Borrowing Authority Increase Act (Bill 9). Second reading.

Mrs. Wallace –– 2982

Mr. D'Arcy –– 2983

Mr. Howard –– 2984

Mr. Lockstead –– 2985

Mr. Cocke –– 2987

Mr. Leggatt –– 2988

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 2990

Division on second reading –– 2991

MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Prayers.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm very pleased to share with the House the knowledge that we have two very nice visitors from the United States of America today. I would like to ask the House to welcome Mrs. Sharon Scherexnayder and her son, Tory Casanova.

MR. GABELMANN: I have two introductions today. The first is of a group of students in the gallery from Seaview School in Port Alice, accompanied by their teacher Mrs. Kellas. I'd like the House to make them welcome.

The second introduction I'd like to make is that of my campaign manager, Mr. Paul Barnett. I'd like the House to make him welcome.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I'd like the House to welcome Mr. Bill Keeley, who is a small businessman from Richmond visiting Victoria today.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, we also have in the gallery today a business couple from Smithers. I'd like the House to join with me in welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Macrae.

Oral Questions

LUNG ASSOCIATION MEETING

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health recently broke an appointment with the Lung Association. Will the minister advise the House why he misled the association by indicating he was ill, when he was fit enough to play squash here in Victoria?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the question is very directly an argumentative one. The word "misled," addressed to an hon. minister, is not in order. Would the member rephrase his question.

MR. COCKE: Misinformed, Mr. Speaker. We're just interested in why he didn't attend the Lung Association meeting.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That question is in order.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, on the afternoon in question I felt unwell and sent my regrets.

USE OF AMERICAN
TRADESMEN ON B.C. JOBS

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Has the minister given permission to an American firm called E&L Engineering, a contractor for the United States–based Aspen Ski Corp. on the Whistler Mountain project, to fly in American citizens as tradespeople to work on the construction of the ski resort?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, to the member for Skeena, I know nothing of what he is raising, but I will undertake to find out. I take the question as notice.

MR. HOWARD: Was the minister contacted in the instance of the Vernon Fruit Union at Winfield, where another U.S. contractor named Van Doran Sales and Service has brought in some nine or ten tradespeople who are American citizens? Was that brought to the minister's attention?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That matter has not been brought to my attention either. I will take that question as notice too.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I have a further question. Could I ask the minister, when he receives the information he is seeking, whether he will contact the federal immigration authorities with respect to this general question?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'll make inquiries on behalf of the member. I really can't say much more than that, Mr. Speaker.

ALLEGED FRAUDULENT APPLICATIONS
FOR BCRIC SHARES

MR. BARBER: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams), I have a question for the Premier. I wonder if he could inform us what the policy of his government is in regard to prosecutions of persons alleged to have forged signatures on British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation free-share applications.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, if the member would deal with specific cases, I could help by taking the question as notice for the Attorney-General.

MR. BARBER: Well, there is a specific case. But I'm asking, through you, Mr. Speaker, what your government's policy is — not future policy; current policy, which is in order — in regard to the prosecution of persons alleged to have forged signatures on applications for free shares of the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that the Attorney-General's ministry would review any allegation of any law being broken — that being one of them — and would take appropriate action after reviewing the circumstances.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Could the minister advise the House what report, if any, he has now received from the superintendent of brokers, Mr. Bullock, in regard to the alleged forgery of signatures by an employee of Midland Doherty in regard to some — it would appear — 30 applications for British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation shares?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of having received any report at this time.

MR. BARBER: Well, others are.

[ Page 2968 ]

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Oh, are they? From looking in my files?

MR. BARBER: I haven't received that file yet in the mail; but when it comes, I'll share it with you.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I'm sure it's on its way.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Do you initiate the receiving?

MR. BARBER: I'm always happy to open my mail on a Monday morning.

I wonder if the minister is prepared to inquire of the superintendent of brokers as to whether or not he has received advice from, among others, the regional Crown counsel in Prince George, which indicates that apparently a person in the employ of Midland Doherty forged signatures on applications for some, it would appear, 30 persons who otherwise did not apply for BCRIC shares, but by virtue of the fraudulent signatures wrongly applied now seem to have applied for them in any case. Would the minister tell us whether or not he's prepared to make an inquiry of Mr. Bullock to find out the circumstances of these allegations?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, yes, of course we'll be in contact with the superintendent and he will provide us with such information as he may have on the particular case. I presume we're dealing with some form of a criminal charge or possibility of a criminal charge but, yes, that information will be made available to us.

MR. BARBER: A question to the Minister of Finance. As fiscal agent for the free shares in the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation, can the Minister of Finance inform the House whether or not he has received any other complaints or charges of fraudulent applications for BCRIC shares from any of his officials? If so, could the minister tell us something about the disposition of these complaints as well?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, yes, I recall that there have been the occasional complaints with respect to improper attempts to apply for shares. I believe that the number has been very small and, although some of them may have, in fact, occurred prior to the portfolio change of late November last year, I'll take the balance of the question on notice.

MR. BARBER: A final question to the same minister: can the minister advise whether or not he has received information from the superintendent of brokers in regard to the alleged signing of applications without authority by an employee of Midland Doherty?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, as I stand here answering the questions, no, I don't recall any such instance, but I will check.

APPOINTMENT OF TOM BUTLER

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. Can the minister confirm that Mr. Tom Butler, formerly a PR agent for the Premier, among others, has been hired to advise the government on the new denticare program?

HON. MR. MAIR: Not specifically, Mr. Speaker. He has been hired on a short-term contract to help us with our public information facilities. I would assume that he may well be called upon to advise us on the denticare program in due course, but at this point in time it is not one of his terms of reference.

MR. COCKE: Can the minister advise what qualification Mr. Butler has to consult on health care programs?

HON. MR. MAIR: So far as I know, absolutely none. I'm not asking him to.

MR. COCKE: I wonder if the minister remembers the answer to the original question. I would ask the minister to advise what qualification Mr. Butler has, apart from his connection with Margaret Trudeau's disco hype and Bill Bennett and the world belly-flop championship, which could make his advice useful in relation to denticare in any way.

HON. MR. MAIR: My recollection of my original answer is that Mr. Butler has been hired on a short-term contract to help us with the information services of the Ministry of Health. He certainly has many qualifications for that. I think they are well known to all the people of British Columbia. That answer stands. He can publicize denticare, I presume, if we ask him to do so. So far I haven't asked him to. I've only asked him to help me put together a better information service within my ministry.

MR. COCKE: I would then ask the minister: does Mr. Butler's appointment mean that the denticare program will be all hype and no substance?

ALLEGED FRAUDULENT APPLICATIONS
FOR BCRIC SHARES

MR. BARBER: I have a question to the Attorney-General on the matter I raised earlier. I wonder if the Attorney-General could advise the House as to the policy of his ministry in regard to the prosecution of persons alleged to have fraudulently signed names to British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation free-share applications.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: It is not a question of the policy of this ministry. If activities have been engaged in which constitute a breach of the criminal law, then they will be dealt with accordingly.

MR. BARBER: We are informed that regional Crown counsel in Prince George, Mr. Ewert, in the case of the alleged forgery of signatures by an employee of Midland Doherty in fact recommended that charges be laid, presumably charges of forgery. One is further informed that that recommendation of regional Crown counsel was overturned in the ministry. I wonder if the minister could advise whether or not he has been made privy to the reasons why the recommendation of regional Crown counsel was overturned in this particular case of an alleged forgery in the specific case of BCRIC applications.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I think the member is misinformed. The particular incident which has re-

[ Page 2969 ]

ceived some consideration in the press is one of a number which are continuing under investigation.

FREIGHT SUBSIDY FOR
VANCOUVER ISLAND FARMERS

MRS. WALLACE: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture. It relates to the freight subsidy for Vancouver Island farmers during the CPR work stoppage. On May 8 the minister advised the House that this would range from $7 to $25 per ton and that the federal government has a precedent for such assistance. I'm wondering whether or not he can tell the House if the federal government has decided to make this funding available.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, as of last week we haven't had a response to whether or not the assistance is forthcoming. We have been in touch, as the member knows, with Ottawa in looking at this type of assistance. For the benefit of the member and the farmers involved, I'll follow up on it.

MRS. WALLACE: In the event that you are not successful, Mr. Minister, in persuading Ottawa to make some recompense to the Vancouver Island farmers, are you prepared to consider making such an advance to them from the provincial coffers?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, questions which are hypothetical are out of order.

MRS. WALLACE: Has the minister decided, then, to make such an advance to the farmers in the event that the Ottawa government does not?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, we are looking at the matter with regard to the federal government's responsibility in this matter. I am hopeful that we might be successful in having them provide the assistance that's required.

MRS. WALLACE: My question was: has the minister decided to assist the farmers if the federal government does not make a federal subsidy available? He didn't really respond to that, so perhaps I will ask him if he has decided not to make money available from the provincial coffers in the event that the federal government does not pay the subsidy.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, we haven't addressed that question as yet.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call committee on Bill 22.

FORT NELSON INDIAN RESERVE
MINERALS REVENUE SHARING ACT

The House in committee on Bill 22; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to pose a question to the minister with respect to a provision in section 3 on page 8 following subsections (1) and (2). It reads as follows: "but if at any time an Indian agent is not appointed for the reserve the powers and duties exercisable by an Indian agent under the said agreement with respect to...." What is meant by Indian agent there?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: You're referring to a section of the act?

MR. HOWARD: I'm sorry. Section 3 is on page 8 of the bill, immediately following subsection (2) thereof and just about an inch and a half or two down the page. It starts to read: "but if at any time an Indian agent is not appointed for the reserve the powers and duties...." What is meant by Indian agent?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: It would be an official of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development of the federal government holding the responsibilities of Indian agent.

MR. HOWARD: I don't want to quibble about words, but it's my understanding that there's no such reference in the Indian Act of Canada to Indian agent. It's an antiquated, obsolete term. The usage currently, which has been so for many, many years, is to designate that person appointed to that position of what used to be an Indian agent to now be called an Indian superintendent under the federal act. I just wondered whether there's any difficulty there.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I now have the full import of the member's question and he's absolutely right. If the member will notice, section 3 of the agreement speaks of the Indian Reserves Mineral Resources Act. As you know, that was a very old statute which used the words "Indian agent." So in order to deal with it effectively in this agreement we had to use the same terminology, although it was pointed out to us by the federal officials that there no longer was such a person. Indeed, that's why we went on to say "or the alternative person who has the responsibilities."

Sections 3 to 8 inclusive approved.

On the schedule.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like it to be clear for the record. Scheduled to this bill is the agreement and all of the schedules except schedule C. It had been made clear in section 1 of the bill that the schedule C referred to are the maps, and they were tabled in this House with the agreement on the day the bill was introduced. Therefore any person who wishes to have the opportunity to examine this agreement and all of the schedules will have to refer not only to the schedule attached to the agreement but also to the maps which are now in the custody of the Clerk of this House.

Schedule approved.

[ Page 2970 ]

Title approved.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

Bill 22, Fort Nelson Indian Reserve Minerals Revenue Sharing Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 25, Mr. Speaker.

FIRE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1980

The House in committee on Bill 25; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. MACDONALD: I have one or two simple questions here. My first question to the Attorney-General is: has the Attorney-General read this bill? My second question is: why is it left to order-in-council to design an appeal procedure? As I understand it, for other fire decisions the appeal is to the fire commissioner and after that the matter can be taken to court. Why not simply set out that appeal procedure in the act so that people would have a better idea of how the appeal can take place? I am surprised that such a thing would be left to order-in-council. A section saying that the appeal procedure shall be the same as in the case of the other fire decisions might be far more appropriate than leaving it to a totally undesignated appeal procedure in the act.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: The answer to the first question is yes, I have read the bill. The answer to the second question is that the National Fire Code, which would be adopted by order-in-council, does contain provisions for appeal. We believe that the system we are designing in this province will be a more effective appeal mechanism and it will be instituted in the regulations along with the adoption of the National Fire Code as amended to suit the specific requirements of British Columbia in its various regions.

MR. LEGGATT: I just wondered if the Attorney-General would like to follow up his last answer by explaining to the House what the defects are in the appeal procedure that is laid out in the national code.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I am not in a position to detail the defects that are in the fire code appeal. With the institution of the Fire Services Act we have in the fire commissioner himself a significant change in responsibilities, and we will want to ensure that that is carried forward in the design of the system of appeal.

MR. MACDONALD: Does the Attorney-General envisage an ultimate appeal to the courts under this section, and will that be spelled out by regulation?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes.

MR. MACDONALD: I will just make this point again. That is why I am voting against the section but not the bill. I think that kind of thing should be spelled out in the legislation.

Section 1 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

Bill 25, Fire Services Amendment Act, 1980, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 31, Mr. Speaker.

HOME OWNER GRANT ACT

The House in committee on Bill 31; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

MR. BARBER: I wonder if the Minister of Municipal Affairs could advise us as to approximately how many persons as provided for in 2(b) actually receive the schedule 2 homeowner grant now. I am referring to handicapped persons whose income is determined by the Guaranteed Available Income for Need Act or war vets whose allowance is determined by the War Veterans Allowance Act of Canada. Could the minister advise roughly how many persons under each of those two designations receive the schedule 2 homeowner grant?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: No, I don't have the figures. I will attempt to get them.

MR. MITCHELL: I would like to add an amendment to section 2. It would be an add to line (b). Added to section 2 it would be 1(a), (b) and then (c) by adding a new paragraph. The new clause will read: "is the head of a family and is disabled from full employment for medical reasons."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that motion in the hands of a private member is out of order, because it does involve the expenditure of public funds.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

[ Page 2971 ]

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, are you saying that there is no debate on an amendment of that section?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment has been ruled out of order, hon. member, and the section has been passed.

MR. MITCHELL: I would like to make the same amendment on a following....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that amendment has been ruled out of order for reasons that are before us in our standing orders. A private member cannot add an impost to the Crown. That is what your amendment does. You can speak to the section, hon. member, but not to the amendment. The amendment is out of order.

We are on section 3. The member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, we are particularly happy to see this and other sections in the bill — this section with respect to an apartment building. I gather that the real impact of this, in terms of the needs of the people within the apartments.... I would just like to ask the minister whether this is a condominium or to do with the ownership of the apartment.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, could the member pose the question again? I missed it. I was in conversation about the numbers requested by the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber).

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I gather the direction of this particular section is with respect to an apartment and the apartment dweller. I imagine it means an owner of an apartment, in terms of a condominium or some other co-op idea.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: That's correct, Mr. Chairman.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, I apologize for bringing an amendment that you tell me is out of order, but I feel that if we had an enlightened government, when they drafted this section of the bill they would have realized there are a lot of people out there, because of the stress of our modern-day living and the pressure we live under, who have to take early retirement because of heart conditions and nervous breakdowns — people who are heads of families. In many cases they are single-parent families and younger men in their forties or early fifties who have budgeted through proper planning to retire at the age of 60 or 65. But because of the stress of employment and modern-day living, people have medical breakdowns and have to take early retirement. By taking that early retirement, they can no longer participate in the workforce. I feel that they have as much right to this particular section as a person who went through a normal life with good health and retired at age 65 on an old-age or burned-out pension. I sincerely request that the minister give some consideration to that group of people who, through no fault of their own, are in that predicament and need the assistance.

Sections 3 to 11 inclusive approved.

On section 12.

MR. BARBER: I regret that I don't have my own notes from second reading in the House. I wonder if the minister could advise what, in section 12 or its equivalent under the previous legislation, was the penalty for — as it is put here — "knowingly or recklessly furnishing false information"?

The proposed penalty is now $2,000, which seems to me to be pretty stiff and thereby appropriate. I wonder if this is in any significant way a departure from the previous penalty, and whether or not the knowledge of that, together with the Attorney-General's very welcome and tough-minded statement during second reading about persons wrongly applying for the homeowner grant as 99-year lessees, or at least purporting to be 99-year lessees, might go some distance to making sure there is no abuse of this new principle introduced in the bill.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Chairman, the previous act read: "...$100 for the first offence and a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $2,000 for subsequent offences."

Sections 12 to 24 inclusive approved.

Schedules 1 and 2 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

Bill 31, Home Owner Grant Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed unanimously on a division.

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 18.

LIQUOR CONTROL AND LICENSING
AMENDMENT ACT, 1980

(continued)

MR. LEVI: Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to add very much to what I had to say last Friday. We obviously have some questions that we would like the minister to deal with in respect to the one area that we have a great deal of concern about, which is the confidentiality section. In winding up the debate perhaps he can give us some indication of why this, which we consider to be a very drastic change in the act, is being made; and if not, we will be able to get at it in the committee stage.

There is one other thing that I would appreciate the minister's commenting on, and that is whether over the weekend he has given any thought to the idea that when next year they produce the annual report of the liquor administration branch, they will give some consideration to expanding that report to give both the members and the public a much

[ Page 2972 ]

better idea of the operations of the branch, particularly in relation to the kind of format that exists in the state of Washington annual report, which, I'm sure, the minister can get hold of, which gives a great of detail. Also, we will be able to have some better understanding of the working of, for instance, the listing committee. I think all of this is very important for the members and the public to understand in the operation of that very vital revenue-maker for the government.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing from the minister.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:Mr. Speaker, two areas of concern, apparently, in the amendments that have been brought to the attention of the assembly by members opposite. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam raised the point of confidentiality; and also there is the nature of the report. Mr. Speaker, I think it's important that we understand that we're dealing with the Liquor Control and Licensing Amendment Act. Much of the information which the member was asking for comes under liquor distribution, and I'm sure he's aware of that. But I would have no hesitation in recommending to the general manager of the liquor distribution branch that perhaps more information be provided, and as detailed information as anyone may ask for, provided that in no way would it interfere with general business concepts about information which may be of a confidential nature and would not unwittingly provide competitors within the field with information that they normally could not obtain.

The Washington state system is somewhat different, but I have no concern about making available to the public through the liquor distribution branch gross figures by company, brand, label, or whatever else may be available. That's of no significant concern to me, as to keeping such information unavailable; but that's under the Liquor Distribution Act.

Mr. Speaker, the confidentiality aspect of the bill was debated somewhat on Friday. The intent of the section is to give employees of the branch some rules to go by, as I mentioned in opening debate, in dealing with requests for information. At the present time basically there are no rules. We believe that with the amendments our files will be more accessible than they are at present. For some time the tendency in the branch has been to consider everything in the files to be confidential.

I spoke to some of my officials on the weekend, particularly the deputy general manager. He told me that when he made the suggestions for the amendments, he did so with the policy, as I just mentioned, that more information should be made available. But it's interesting, Mr. Speaker, to recognize that this confidentiality aspect is to be found in most of the major acts that come under the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Just to illustrate to the House that such confidentiality aspects are not unique to this one bill, under the Motor Dealer Act, section 18, it says, in part:

"A person employed in the administration of this Act, including a person making an inquiry, inspection, examination, test or investigation under section 15, shall maintain secrecy in respect of all matters that come to his knowledge in the course of his duties, employment, inquiry, inspection, examination, test or investigation, and shall not communicate information obtained under this Act to another person not legally entitled to it, except...."

And then the exceptions.

Similarly under the Real Estate Act:

"All replies and communications to the superintendent or to a member or officer of the council, with respect to an applicant, for a licence, or a licence under this Act, are absolutely privileged. No action shall be brought against any person in respect of them."

In the Residential Tenancy Act it says:

"A person who is or has been employed under this Act is not a) in his official capacity, bound to attend in pursuance of a subpoena, order or summons issued from a court, whether the subpoena, order or summons was directed to him personally or in his official capacity as a witness for examination, or to produce a document kept, filed or registered by him in his official capacity under this Act."

Under the Securities Act:

"The superintendent, each member of the commission, and every officer, clerk or person holding appointments authorized shall keep secret all facts and information obtained or furnished under this Act, or under the Act repealed by this Act, except so far as his public is requiring him to make disclosure of it or to report it, or to take official action on it."

Similarly under the Trade Practice Act:

"Every person employed in the administration of this Act, including a person making an inquiry, inspection, examination, test or investigation, shall preserve secrecy in respect of all matters that come to his knowledge and in the course of his duties...."

There are similar provisions under the Travel Agents Act. So the concept is certainly not new. The concern within the branch was that there were virtually no rules for the people employed, and an attempt was made to offer them guidelines.

Mr. Speaker, the other aspect that brought about the majority of debate had to do with the appeal procedure. The member for Vancouver East, in speaking, recognized quite correctly that the amendment we're dealing with is one of clarification. The bigger argument, or the bigger question, was put forth by that member as to whether these appeals should be heard. The reason this amendment is before us is to make it very clear that preclearance is part of the licensing process and that the minister who has the capacity to hear an appeal also has the capacity to hear the preclearance portion of the licensing process. That came about because of a challenge — not really a challenge, but an appeal to the commission. The commission found that they do not have the capacity to hear the appeal, and this clarifies it in no uncertain language.

Mr. Speaker, much was made about a specific instance. I might add that the member for Vancouver East was incorrect in statements he made on Friday last about appeals. Appeals are permitted under the act for licensing purposes, to the minister within a prescribed time, and so on. These are licences for licensed premises. I think the ones that probably have been heard almost exclusively since the amendments were made deal with neighbourhood pubs, although there's probably been one or two. The majority of the appeals are heard by the deputy minister at the present time, but the minister certainly has that capacity and can delegate that authority to the deputy. To my knowledge, not one appeal has ever been heard in the minister's office. All appeals are open to the public, and I might say that it stimulates a great

[ Page 2973 ]

deal of activity and interest with the media, who to my knowledge have attended one such appeal. That was the appeal on the Penthouse, which had some interest to some people. The appeals are heard, and when they're heard here in the capital they're heard in the committee rooms, and the doors are open. They're certainly not heard in the minister's office.

The specific thing that brought so much attention has been answered in this House several times by the former minister and by myself in response to questions in question period or questions on the order paper. That is the Grammas marine pub.

A couple of years back an amendment was made to develop a new licence. I think it's "F" for marine pubs — not a neighbourhood pub, but a marine pub to serve the marine trade, apparently. This particular one was granted in quick time by the officials within the ministry who are responsible for granting such licences. Mr. Munkley was the gentleman specifically responsible at that time. He is now retired. The area around Gibsons where consideration was given to neighbourhood pubs, and subsequently to a marine pub, had been very, very active for such premises. The person responsible for the application was very persistent with the officials of the ministry and when an order-in-council was passed creating a new category of licence, the person responsible made application for such a licence. It was considered by Mr. Munkley at that time and was approved. I looked into this because of questions which have been offered in question period previously and I am satisfied that the officials responded properly in this particular circumstance as they respond properly in other circumstances.

I am not aware of nor do I have any information which indicates there was any pressure whatever — I don't care what the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) may say or pretend to say or consider — from the minister responsible at that time. As I said, all appeals to the minister are open to the press and public. This particular Grammas pub was not an appeal situation. It was an original application, and it was processed, and free clearance was granted by members of the public service.

I understand that the Janowskys in question, the people who are the licence holders, are not from Kamloops but have lived for a number of years in Gibsons and, I understand, operate the general store. I am not quite sure if there is something you have to carry around because your name is Janowsky. Perhaps we should consider denying people licences because of their name, which I am sure not too many people would support. There were several comments made by that member for Vancouver East, who at times reminds you of a dropped muffler or an old transmission. You put it in gear and it grinds and makes noise and belches smoke and sparks but nothing moves. It just remains where it is with lots of action, lots of attention but very little substance and certainly no movement. This particular application has been examined time upon time upon time and nothing improper has been discovered at all.

The member for Vancouver East had some comments about the conduct of the former minister, now the Minister of Health. I've read the Blues; I've read correspondence and I've read answers to questions which have been filed in the House. There was a comment made that the Minister of Health is a law partner of another Janowsky. My understanding and my information is that the Minister of Health is not a law partner. The name is still part of the partnership name of the firm of lawyers. I really don't have too much control over that. I've spoken to staff in liquor administration and I have been advised that at no time when the former minister was Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs did he influence any of their decisions. I am sure there was no influence attempted or made under this one but it is a good story to suggest and spread around simply because a person's name is that of a former partner of a member.

Mr. Speaker, citizens in our province, no matter what their name may be, have the opportunity to seek licences from government. They are not restricted from seeking a licence because of their name or because of associations past, present and possibly future. We have members of the Legislative Assembly who have licences from the liquor control branch. I am not suggesting that any such person used their influence or inside knowledge of the system or perhaps made use of former acquaintances who may in some way be associated with the system to obtain such licences. Any citizen has that opportunity and right to make application for a licence. If they fulfill the obligations and have the qualifications necessary, then the public service, which is responsible for issuing such licences, I would suggest has no choice but to issue such a licence provided it qualifies, as they must do.

I think it would be quite inappropriate and very much in error for any of the senior staff of liquor control or the minister, should he become involved in an appeal, to deny a licence to a person simply because, as I said, they were a former member of this House.

The minister has the capacity and opportunity not to hear an appeal for certain reasons. As minister responsible for this act and the appeal process. as a matter of principle I will not hear an appeal if it's from my own constituency of Richmond. The deputy hears all such appeals. I would probably not hear an appeal if it were from a personal acquaintance. The deputy, again, would be required to hear such an appeal. I think that's pretty normal and I think most people would respond that way. In no way would I attempt to influence a person within the administration to grant or deny an appeal, simply because I may be aware of the principle involved, who otherwise would qualify for such a licence.

MR. MACDONALD: Strange kind of court of appeal.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I was thinking on the weekend that the comments made by that former Attorney-General and now second member for Vancouver East about appeals.... I suppose maybe it's a philosophical attitude each member in the House may have about who you should trust in our system. If I heard and read him correctly, I think he was suggesting that when he was responsible for the act. It was determined at that time that you could trust appointed officials, commissions or tribunals without any hesitation. I would agree with that concept that, indeed, the people we appoint as a tribunal, no matter what the act or occasion may be, are trustworthy people. That's why they're appointed and they have a difficult role.

I would also suggest that elected representatives in our system and appointed members of cabinet are also trustworthy people, and I have no hesitation in recommending to our government that appeals indeed can be heard by elected representatives. I have no hesitation in believing in the integrity of our elected members, and I believe that they can hear appeals, receive information and make decisions based on the merit of the case.

[ Page 2974 ]

If some people in public life are somewhat hesitant about permitting similar trust in people of their party, I can't be held responsible for that. I have no hesitation in believing that the elected representatives who sit on the government side and are appointed to assume certain responsibilities in cabinet can be trusted to fulfill their obligations. There may be some political organizations who are sensitive and nervous about those who make up their party and perhaps feel that they can't appoint them to a very sensitive position that requires judgment without prejudice or political consideration. If there are such organizations or parties, perhaps that is a weakness identified. I don't believe that to be the problem within this government and I have no hesitation in believing that an appointed official, as a cabinet minister and an elected member of this assembly, can be put in the position to hear such appeals and make wise, fair judgments.

I know the member said: "Well, it's inevitable that at some time something will go wrong with such an appeal procedure." I'm not prepared either to condemn future elected representatives or those who may be appointed to such positions. I would rather that time answer that question, and that should violations occur sometime in the future, they be judged at that time based on the facts of the matter.

Mr. Speaker, I have interest, but not a compelling interest, about what happened during the days prior to the Great War. I know that the name of Gordon Wismer has been used politically in this province for 25 years as an example of something — usually as an example of Liberal association. I don't know all the details, because I haven't got time to spend going back into old news. I know there were certain examples given over the years about the difficulties in administering liquor, but I would suggest to you that the administration of liquor distribution and licensing in the province of British Columbia is perhaps of the highest calibre in Canada.

One of the members on the other side of the street suggested that certain allegations — and, I believe, convictions — were made in Quebec based on liquor distribution kickbacks, bribes, and so on. It was added that certain information had been sent to the Attorney-General of British Columbia, but what was not added at that time is that charges were never laid in British Columbia. Certainly investigations take place on a very regular basis across the country when it comes to liquor distribution and licensing. It is and always has been a very, very sensitive area, and those responsible must recognize that.

Mr. Speaker, I would say from my investigation of the liquor licensing and liquor distribution system in our province that we run a very clean shop. I think there are many people who have that responsibility and they should be recognized for conducting a very clean shop in a very difficult business.

The other charges which were made about paying legal counsel for their efforts, I think, require no particular remark. If the member for Vancouver East was suggesting that lawyers are overpaid, perhaps he may be more intimately familiar with that than I, but I don't think any partnership of lawyers in the province is getting — I was going to say more than they're worth; I could be checked up on that — more than they deserve; that may be over-generous as well.

I heartily recommend the amendments which have been put forward. It will assist the liquor administration branch in fulfilling their obligations to our society. I know it's an extremely sensitive area.

Finally, I would like to respond very briefly to the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) and tell him that I will very much take his comments into consideration and speak with the general manager of the liquor distribution branch to see if we feel it's necessary and desirable to come up with a more detailed yearly report on the affairs of liquor distribution and so on in B.C. I have no hesitation in taking that on as a project.

I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 28

NAYS — 20

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 18, Liquor Control and Licensing Amendment Act, 1980, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call second reading of Bill 33, Mr. Speaker.

REVISED STATUTES
CORRECTION ACT, 1980

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I move second reading of Bill 33. I'm advised by the House Leader that in discussion with the opposition — the House Leader and Whip — it is proposed that the debate on this legislation will take place in committee.

Motion approved.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, I wonder if the Speaker could direct the attendants or whoever provides us with bills. A number of us don't have Bill 33 in our book. Some do; some don't.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for bringing that to my attention, hon. member.

[ Page 2975 ]

Bill 33, Revised Statutes Correction Act, 1980, referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Under a similar situation, Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 34.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (NO. 1), 1980

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I move second reading of Bill 34.

Motion approved.

Bill 34, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1), 1980, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on Bill 7.

SPECIAL FUNDS ACT, 1980

(continued)

On the amendment.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No.

MR. COCKE: I am absolutely amazed. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) stood in his place a few days ago to speak on the amendment. I would like to remind the House what the amendment is. The amendment states, to paraphrase....

Look at the minister. He is weaseling around, as is his wont. He didn't want to speak on the amendment because he can't speak on the amendment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. The term just used by the member is an unparliamentary term.

MR. COCKE: I will withdraw "weaseling" unconditionally and not try to substitute anything in its place. Let me say this: he is very nervous. He finds it very difficult to defend the government. I just want to remind you what the amendment is all about. The amendment says that we have no confidence in this government to spend $188 million, because of the way they conduct themselves, because of their behaviour. This bill calls for giving to ministers, asking for no recording, no accountability whatsoever, $188 million. My suggestion is this: that we read that amendment very carefully, because the amendment says that we have no confidence in this government because of its previous practices. I'm not going to remind the House about the dirty tricks. I'm not going to remind the House about all the situations that have arisen over the past few months that have made the people in this province very, very suspicious that the government is totally out of control. Their being totally out of control advises us that we should not be in favour of giving them this kind of responsibility, nor should we allow them to exercise that responsibility. I would hope that those who are not responsible, the backbenchers — we know the cabinet members have copped out — will vote solidly with this amendment. It is in keeping with the needs of the people of this province to admonish this government, tap them on the wrists, indicate to them that we're not satisfied with the behavior of this government.

HON. MR. FRASER: Your leader has copped out. Where is he?

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Transportation and Highways is nervous because of our leader being in Japan. He might hear some rumours about your phony coal deal.

Getting back to this bill. It's a hype. We're neither for nor against it, because the minister will never answer a question. We ask him how much. Anyway, I'm sure that by the time we're through you'll all be against it.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Oh, boring. Now the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development.... I don't think there's anyone in the world who regards himself as a small businessman. Every businessman is a big businessman, or at least potentially a big businessman.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Come on, you were too.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I said what? I don't understand them. They haven't even got Butler in here to hype them up.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, that's the reason for the amendment. That's the reason we expected the Minister of Energy to jump up and do his usual routine. He didn't do it, and I suggest he didn't do it because he feared to do it. He couldn't do it; he couldn't bring himself to do it.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order pursuant to standing order 41, which says: "When the question under discussion does not appear on the order paper or has not been printed and distributed" — that's the case here; it does not appear on the order paper — "any member may require it to be read at any time during the debate, but not so as to interrupt a member while speaking." Pursuant to that I would request that the question be read.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The amendment to the motion on Bill 7 is that the motion be amended by replacing the words from "that'' to the end of the question with the words:

"unethical practices have been used to an extraordinary extent in procuring the return of members to this present Legislative Assembly: and for this cause this Legislative Assembly cannot be considered a fair representation of the people. It is therefore unfit that any system of public expenditure should be imposed by this Legislative Assembly until all cause of complaint with regard to the method of electing members of this Legislative Assembly shall be first redressed.

Shall the amendment pass?

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I left considerable time at the end of reading the amendment, however....

[ Page 2976 ]

MR. NICOLSON: I kept my seat while the point of order was being taken. I don't think it would have been proper for me to rise at that time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Nelson-Creston makes a valid point. It is the responsibility of the Chair to see that members wishing to speak so do.

MR. NICOLSON: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that this amendment is one that should pass; it really encapsulates the major problem which has been sort of typifying this new Social Credit or neo-Social Credit administration. I think that not to recognize that something very wrong went on in the last election in terms of election practices, which did definitely have the result of altering the return of certain members — and there is no doubt that had fully ethical practices been engaged in in the last election, some of the closer contests would have been different....

I must say that had my own election been a little bit closer and had I lost by a small margin, the margin of victory or defeat would certainly have been typified by about 20-odd phony and scurrilous letters that were written in a cowardly fashion, posing as if they were valid and signed with names that could not be located by the postmaster, nor in a telephone book, the city directory or on the voters list.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: The hon. member over there interjects about a police investigation. Well, let me tell you that for months the city of Nelson police were not even directed to come and interview anybody in the city of Nelson — until about a week before that report was submitted to the Attorney-General. That's how thorough that investigation was; they didn't even get the orders to do the investigation about it.

So, as this amendment says, until this matter is redressed, we should not be appropriating surplus funds in a manner and in a type of a bill which is so rife with political advantage and political opportunism. To do so would mean that there would be increasing atrophy of philosophy and morality in politics — if we do not change direction, if we do not not only stop bringing in such purely political bills but also stop doing that at a time when some of the close contests of this House could well have been tipped by, I think, unparalleled subterfuge, and in some cases some very obvious, even illegal, acts. So, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that members of this House would vote in favour of this amendment.

MRS. DAILLY: I intend to be very brief, because we have spent many weeks in this House elaborating our concern over the unethical election practices which have come to light, unfortunately many months after Social Credit became the government of this province. This is not a facetious amendment. This is a very responsible amendment, which any responsible opposition would be bound to place on the order paper, because, Mr. Speaker, we have asked questions throughout the last three to four months, particularly of the Premier, to whom this motion alludes specifically, and we have not received any answers to the questions which we consider might clear up the many concerns of the citizens of British Columbia that unethical election practices did take place before Social Credit became the government of this province in the last election.

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the reports of these allegations of unfair election practices have been put in the hands of various investigative committees of government. To date there have been no reports brought back to this House or to the people of British Columbia. The Premier himself admitted that there were so-called phony letters used by Social Credit Party supporters and members during the last election. He admitted it and he actually had to set up, or try to arrange to set up, an ethics committee within the Social Credit Party.

We have also been made well aware that there was an affidavit placed before the Attorney-General's ministry, specifically alluding to unethical election practices, and perhaps political interference in the Eckardt report. Yet we are still sitting here as opposition members being completely ignored. We have heard nothing from the Attorney-General's ministry, nothing from the Premier, to give us any sense that these serious matters have been cleared up. That is why we have a responsibility to place this motion on the floor. Because, Mr. Speaker, if there's a cloud over this province put there by unethical practices by someone, whether in high office in this province or whatever office, and it has not been cleared up, a grave disservice is being done to all the citizens of British Columbia who go to the polls and wish to express their vote. Hopefully, they express their vote for the person or the party that they believe should be elected.

But when there is a suggestion that there have actually been "dirty tricks" involved to bring about the election of a government in an unethical manner, Mr. Speaker, the people of British Columbia are the losers, and so is democracy. That is why we have put this motion before this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sore losers!

MRS. DAILLY: I know that someone across the floor has said "sore losers." Mr. Speaker, we got 48 percent of the vote. We have the largest number of NDP members this House has ever elected. We are far from sore losers. The problem is, I want to repeat, that the citizens of British Columbia are the losers. If any government of this province can sit back and allow even allegations of "dirty tricks" to take place in any election in this province, and still not present to the people of this province and the opposition and their own members the investigation results.... We are still waiting. The people of British Columbia are waiting, and that's why this motion is on the floor.

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'm rather amazed to see this amendment from the opposition, and the attitude which they've taken this afternoon as well. It is an attitude of holier than thou, as if they're a great, clean party and everything is above-board with the New Democratic Party. I want to remind the members of the opposition that not too long ago their arm in Nanaimo, the Nanaimo Friendship Society, made a contribution of $84,000 to one Bob Williams to buy him off so that a seat could be sought for one Dave Barrett. I think they have a responsibility to answer some questions. That Nanaimo Friendship Society is now a great developer of multimillion dollar high-rises in the community of Nanaimo.

I'm wondering, Mr. Speaker, what the source of that $84,000 was, whether that money has been filtered, laundered, through the government into the Nanaimo Friendship

[ Page 2977 ]

Society to buy off one Bob Williams, because Bob Williams was hired as a researcher in the NDP caucus shortly after the arrangement was made. Were those funds that were paid to Bob Williams paid from the government on into the Nanaimo Friendship Society or not? I mean, there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered about that unholy group over there that made an $84,000 arrangement to get Dave Barrett back into the Legislature. I don't think they've answered these questions. These possible rumours about the kind of arrangements and who paid for that $84,000 seat, which is presently being occupied by the Leader of the Opposition, are permeating the province. No, Mr. Speaker, those are questions in the minds of the people of this province. I think they have a right to know who actually paid for that seat which is being held by the Leader of the Opposition. Was it the taxpayers' money that paid that $84,000 for Dave Barrett to occupy his seat in the Legislature? Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

I want to suggest to you that after the failure of those people to respond to very serious charges that have been made against them, this motion is a very frivolous motion put forward by a very frivolous party.

HON. MR. MAIR: I, too, rise to oppose this amendment. It occurred to me as I heard the members opposite talking that in order to make their case they must be able to provide a squeaky-clean alternative, and until I can hear the answers to one or two questions, I can't make that determination as to whether or not they can provide that alternative. I'm wondering if one of the members opposite, while this debate goes on, can tell the House one or two things about their own election practices so we can make that decision. I'd rather like to know whether or not the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) made his constituency office available to his brother during the last federal election and whether or not any provincial funds that go to a constituency office and secretary were thus diverted into a federal campaign.

I'd also like to know....

Interjections.

HON. MR. MAIR: All right, or for the NDP candidate in the area; perhaps it wasn't his brother. I change it to whoever ran in his area. I'd like to ask the same question of the members for Victoria. Did Mr. Blencoe have the use of your offices, your telephone or your constituency secretaries during the last federal election? I'd like to ask the same questions of the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King). Did a Mr. Riis, now the NDP MP for that area, have the use of any B.C. publicly financed offices in Salmon Arm? And I'd like to know whether or not any letters were written in the constituency of Omineca, for example, by people purporting to be Socreds and actually being NDP. I'd like to ask about some letters and I will bring this up a little later. Perhaps my colleague from Omineca (Mr. Kempf) will bring up that concerning letters from one Unruh in the last election, who doesn't exist and who is, in fact, an NDP supporter writing under somebody else's name. Actually, Unruh does exist, but he didn't write the letters.

So I think before we make this judgment that any government is disqualified from spending the public's money by reason of some election practices, perhaps we ought to hear from the members of the opposition as to their squeaky-cleanness.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Skeena's representative?

HON. MR. MAIR: Oh, the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) couldn't possibly answer the simplest question, Mr. Member. We know that. If you did ask him a question, he'd threaten to beat you up. You don't want to get involved with a heavyweight champion from Ottawa, do you? He's the one, of course, that doesn't want to pair. Do you know why he doesn't want to pair, Mr. Member? Because we should all be here voting. Have you taken a look at the voting record of their party during the last couple of months? It's absolutely unbelievable. You know, at one time they only had nine people here. Would you believe that? You know where the others were. They were all up in Penticton, probably drinking beer, playing golf and all that sort of thing.

Mr. Speaker, in closing my few remarks on this debate, I hope that the opposition will enlighten us as to their squeaky-clean tactics in elections so that we can make an appropriate judgment on this amendment.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health has made a very serious allegation in saying that the federal NDP candidate in Victoria had the use of our constituency office here in Victoria. This is untrue. If he has a charge to make I would invite him to make that charge in the hall. There was a federal constituency....

HON. MR. MAIR: Like Macdonald does.

MR. HANSON: If you could defend me from the interruptions of the other member.... He had his place and I sat quietly and listened to what he had to say.

For our federal campaign we had a campaign office at Bay and Douglas and that was separate. It was made clear to our staff that it was a separate federal campaign and any work that they worked on for the campaign was on their own time in the evenings. That was clear from the start. That was the case. If he has a charge to make, I invite him to make it in the hall.

HON. MR. MAIR: When Macdonald makes his charges in the halls, I will too.

MR. HANSON: You make your charge in the hall.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Mr. Speaker, some very serious charges have been made. I am at a loss to understand why the question of the money that was allegedly paid to a certain Bob Williams for his seat so that the Leader of the Opposition could be elected.... This has been mentioned in this House several times, and yet we've heard not one word from the opposition, just dead silence. If they have anything to admit or say, let's hear it. We're not going to be hard on them. We want to know what happened. We would like to know about the Nanaimo Friendship Society. We would like to know where the money comes from. I think we're entitled to know those things. They played fast and loose with charges against us, and we answered them on the floor of this House, but we hear not one single word from them.

I think I agree with the hon. Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) and the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) when they make some very pointed, grave sugges-

[ Page 2978 ]

tions of impropriety. I do not think that their mistakes justified our mistakes, if any, but when we ask these questions they should be answered, and they have not been answered. The question of Williams has been brought up on the floor of this House at least four times, to my knowledge, and has been met with deliberate and stony silence. I think we should know where this eighty-odd thousand dollars came from. We should know why he was paid as a researcher in this House — I saw him in his office myself — and what he was doing with that money and whether he received money and from where, because it was public money. These things have never been answered satisfactorily. There's been broad-brush treatment but not one word from the floor of this House. What are they hiding?

I oppose vigorously the amendment to the motion. I've never heard anything so absolutely broad-brush useless as this ridiculous motion. "Unethical practices have been used to an extraordinary extent. " I have never heard in this House anything more childish, more broad-brush, more ineffective without saying anything. If they want to make a suggestion about an unethical practice, why not say what it is? They come back to this silly, stupid thing of the letters. I don't even want to mention it or come back to it, but here is a party that have stamped themselves here as a totally negative, backward party without a single constructive idea in this session. To come up with an amendment like this disgusts even the member for Dewdney, who is used to these kinds of things. I certainly could not appreciate how they could make a statement of this kind: "Unethical practices have been used." Extraordinary. What are they? There are none.

But here is the tantalizing part. They are opposed to the method of electing members to this Legislative Assembly. What is their method? Is the socialist method different than ours? Does it call for another way of election? Should it be imposed? "It is therefore unfit that any system of public expenditure should be imposed by this Legislative Assembly until all cause of complaint with regard to the method of electing members...." They are suggesting a change in the method, a change in the democratic system. That is what they are suggesting.

AN HON. MEMBER: We just want you to change the law.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Oh, yes. You brush off Bob Williams the same way. You brush off the Nanaimo Society the same way. You brush off all the millions of dollars of expenditure in buildings that party has. We have nothing on our side to hide. We have no buildings bought with public money. Where else did it come from? Don't tell me it came from $10-a-year memberships in the society. It came from somewhere, and we're asking you from where. We don't like to bring these things up. If you have the money properly, spend it, but certainly you should tell. We tell about ours — every cent. Always we are met with dead and stony silence.

I think an amendment of this kind brings forward the question. I want to know about Williams. I want to know about the Nanaimo Friendship Society. I want to know about those things. We have nothing to hide. We've said it all; we've laid it all bare. Tell us about yourselves. I brought it up at least three, maybe four times in this House, and not a single word was there in reply. Where did the $84,000 come from? Who got it? Who paid it? How did you pay the researcher? I would like you to detail it on that table and tell us, because I am completely dissatisfied. I think there has been a misappropriation of public funds.

MR. LEA: As they say, the best line of defence is offence, but it seems to me we have an offensive here that has absolutely no proof. It is wild charges. The member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Mair) gets up and says the NDP used some money that they got through government services for political purposes, and sits down and expects it to end there.

HON. MR. MAIR: Answer the question.

MR. LEA: Okay, if it's question-asking time I have a few questions I'd like to ask. I'd like to ask why the member for Kamloops bribed four people in his riding to vote for him.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, hon. member.

MR. LEA: I have no proof. I'm just asking the question. What kind of dastardly...?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I must ask the member to refrain from that type of language.

MR. LEA: Are there two rules, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the member has indicated through his question that another hon. member has directly bribed. As the member is fully aware, that is not acceptable in parliamentary....

MR. LEA: I know it isn't, Mr. Speaker; I'm just trying to show the ridiculousness. I withdraw it absolutely, but I wish the member for Kamloops would do the same thing and withdraw the unproved accusations that he's making. If he has some proof, then let him bring a motion into this House — make his charges in this House, as he should.

HON. MR. MAIR: I think that the distinction is rather clear, and the member for Prince Rupert ought to understand it. If he were to ask me whether I had done something, that would be one thing. To ask me why I had done it would be to imply that in fact I had done it. I have not asked anybody on the other side of the House why they did anything; I asked them if they had done it. There's quite a distinction.

MR. LEA: Now that we know the distinctions, I'd like to ask the member for Kamloops if he's still beating his wife.

HON. MR. MAIR: No.

MR. LEA: He's not doing that anymore. You did it before, but not now?

HON. MR. MAIR: No.

MR. LEA: Okay. That's the craziness we're getting into in this House. If that's the craziness we're getting into, then the whole House is going to break down into disorder. The member for Kamloops cannot stand up in this House and ask stupid, silly questions, and then get up on his feet and say: "Oh, I have no proof. I'm not accusing anybody of anything. All I'm doing is asking the question 'if'."

[ Page 2979 ]

HON. MR. MAIR: We'll see who's got the proof. Deny it.

MR. LEA: You bring the proof, if you've got it. If you had it you'd have had it in here a long time ago. But I'll tell you what proof we have, Mr. Speaker. We've got proof that the Social Credit forged letters. We've got the proof that campaign funds that never went through the Social Credit Party have gone into the Premier's office. Why don't you answer the questions on that? We've got proof that there was a redistribution of the electoral boundaries, and we've got proof that "Gracie's finger" is a reality. We're not making wild charges. We're asking this government to come clean, and they don't dare come clean, because they're filthy when it comes to electoral practices in this province, and they know it. So instead of answering the charges in this amendment....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, I must note with some regret that the language of the day — particularly today — is straying far from the parliamentary guidelines that we all try to use in this chamber. I would ask the member if he would withdraw the word "filthy," which is certainly an unparliamentary term. Remember that we have all taken upon ourselves the responsibility of maintaining certain guidelines in our behaviour in this chamber, and one of them is our parliamentary language. I would ask all members to abide by those long-standing traditions.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I'm not accusing anyone over there of being filthy. I'm saying the practices carried out by the Social Credit Party in the last election were filthy practices. That's not unparliamentary. There were filthy practices by that political party that sits as government. They are afraid to come clean and answer the questions that have been put to them during the Premier's estimates and by this recent amendment. They're afraid to come clean because they've got too much to hide, so what do they start doing? Making wild unproved questions.

HON. MR. MAIR: Answer the question.

MR. LEA: The minister says: "Answer the question." I'll tell you. We'll be glad to answer any question that the minister has when these questions in this amendment are answered. That's when we'll answer questions.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: Oh, not prove themselves, eh? Is it not a fact, Mr. Speaker, if we're down to questions, that out of the Social Credit caucus went letters that were forged? That's a fact! Is it not a fact that money collected by Adam in Vancouver and Taylor in Toronto found its way into the Premier's office?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. LEA: Oh, not a fact? Then if it's not a fact, how come the bills to be paid out of those slush funds were sent to the Premier's office and processed in the Premier's office? Why is that not a fact?

So I'm going to ask the questions. If it's true, then why don't you get up and say it's true? And if it's not, why don't you get up and prove that it's a mistaken charge?

The fact of the matter is that the Eckardt commission report was changed after it was submitted. That's a fact. Yet, not taking that into consideration, this government — this political party opposite — went to the polls with what has to seem an unseemly report, one where there's question about its authenticity in terms of political morality. Yet did it stop them from calling an election and going to the electors on an electoral report that has behind it all sorts of hidden charges and innuendos? No, it didn't stop them a bit. They still went. And take a look at what's called Gracie's finger on that political report that they called an electoral report.

MR. BRUMMET: Is that a fact or an allegation?

MR. LEA:Oh, is it a fact! It's a fact. All you have to do is take a look at Gracie's finger on the map, take a look at the number of votes that went to the Social Credit, and then try to come up with some reasonable, plausible excuse why Gracie's finger was there in the first place. Not one person on that side of the House has stood up and given any rational reason why Gracie's finger exists on that electoral map. Not one! Oh, but there is a reason. All you have to do is to take a look at the polls within Gracie's finger and you'll see that they went overwhelmingly Social Credit, and they figured they might need those few extra votes to win Little Mountain. So there's the reason for Gracie's finger. There's the reason — pure filthy politics. For a government and a political party to stand up in this House and talk about dirty tricks on this side of the House is almost laughable if it wasn't so sick. Campaign slush funds that have gone into the Premier's office with no recourse even to their own political party were being processed by a civil servant within that minister's office. And they've got the nerve to stand up and say: "We're going to ask some questions on our own. We're going to ask some questions about the NDP." I invite you to come to an NDP council meeting. We do our business right out in the open.

Even in your own party, the president of your party, Mr. Keen, didn't even know that the slush funds were going from Taylor and Adam into the Premier's office, nor what they were being spent for. What about the thousand dollar bills that Dan Campbell was passing out during the election itself? Should we ask the question or is it true? Okay, the question is: did Dan Campbell illegally pass out thousand dollar bills during the campaign? The answer is yes. Where did the thousand dollar bills come from? The campaign thousand dollar bills probably came from the Adam and Taylor slush funds that went directly into the Premier's office. What was their answer when we start asking questions about those thousand dollar bills after they'd appointed Mr. Campbell to his new post in Ottawa? Apparently Mr. Campbell was perfectly satisfactory to them over there until the thousand dollar bills came up. Then all of a sudden, mysteriously, Mr. Campbell's appointment to Ottawa was cancelled — for what reason if not the thousand dollar bills? What is it that Mr. Campbell did that the government found so offensive that they cancelled his appointment to Ottawa if it were not the thousand dollar bills?

AN HON. MEMBER: He got caught.

MR. LEA: He got caught. They got caught writing and sending out forged letters. They got caught. They spent campaign funds illegally during the campaign and they got

[ Page 2980 ]

caught. They changed the electoral boundary lines and they put in Gracie's finger. They changed it at the last minute and they got caught. What do you do when you get caught with your fingers in the cookie jar? As I said at the beginning, the best thing to do when you're under the gun is to come out with your own offence. The best defence is offence, and that's what the government plans to try to do on this amendment, but it won't work. It won't work because everywhere you go in this province questions are asked. Who forged the letters? Why won't the government come clean? Where did Campbell get the thousand dollar bills? Why did Eckardt change the report?

AN HON. MEMBER: Old stuff.

MR. LEA: Old stuff, eh? It may be old stuff but we want some new answers to the old stuff. We sat here for 16 days and the Premier didn't answer one of them. The nerve of that government and that political party to sit over there on the floor of this House with all these unanswered questions; and then to think that they can get away from it by raising some unproved questions of their own is absolutely ridiculous. As a matter of fact, the member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Mair) made the charge in his letter, or to his constituency. It's in print from the member for Kamloops, and the day may come when he's going to have put his money where his pen is and where his mouth is.

HON. MR. MAIR: Sue me then.

MR. LEA: Sue you! It will be more than sue you; it might mean the loss of your seat. That's what it may mean.

Since day one of this government we've had nothing but sleaze and corruption around politics in this province.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, I must again bring to the member's attention — hopefully for the last time — that there are certain terms he must guard himself against when he is speaking in this chamber. There are certain terms that are parliamentary and acceptable and certain terms which are not parliamentary and are unacceptable. The last remark by the member certainly falls into the latter category. I would caution the member once more.

MR. LEA: When a government and a political party gets campaign funds from out of this province and they come directly in to the Premier's office, when they spend thousand dollar bills that are illegal during an election campaign, when they change electoral boundaries — if you can't call that sleaze and corruption then there is no such thing as democracy in this province. It is sleaze; it is corruption of the worst order. It's political corruption.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please! The Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in the heat of debate members do use phrases which I think other members find offensive. This member is noted for that, regrettably. I would ask him to withdraw the phrase "sleaze and corruption from day one," which I have already spoken about. I find it personally offensive and I think the member would too if the situation were reversed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. Again to the member for....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. LEA: If you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. LEA: If there is sleaze and corruption on that side of the House and you don't like it, then get out of the party.

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please!

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, when the Chair rises, it is incumbent upon each and every member of this chamber to remain absolutely silent. I have cautioned members on this matter before; I have cautioned the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) on this matter before. The member for Prince Rupert failed on this occasion, clearly, to adhere to the rule of Chair when the Chair was standing. I now ask that member in his disorderly conduct to leave the chamber immediately.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are currently on the amendment before us.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, the amendment calls up things that are not very pleasant in the history of British Columbia, and I only want to say two things. The first is that when the Premier's estimates were up and he was asked frankly about these matters, he chose not to reply. He had a duty to reply, not just to the opposition but to all the people of the province. I think, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot fail to find an admission of guilt in his failure to reply with respect to those very important questions of public morality that were asked at that time.

The second point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is this. It's a long time ago, but I recall at the beginning of this session that the Legislature as a whole voted to set up a fair elections practices committee — I may not have the words exactly right as to what the intent of the resolution was, but I think it's very close to that. Yet there is not a member sitting in this House, a member in the gallery or a person in the province of British Columbia who believes for one minute that the Social Credit Party and government led by Premier Bill Bennett will allow that committee to sit. The minister doesn't believe it for a minute, does he? So I say there again, in the failure to set up the committee which they themselves endorsed as a public relations measure, there is an admission of guilt.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few comments on the amendment, because the opposition

[ Page 2981 ]

and the member for Prince Rupert have, I think, caused quite a bit of a stir this afternoon. He mentioned that the best defence is an offence. First of all I find some of the comments he made regrettable. We've dealt with and heard of the dirty tricks, I guess, and we've heard about thousand dollar bills, etc., on numerous occasions. We went through some 16 days of debate on the Premier's estimates.

Mr. Speaker, there are two things that I would like to point out very calmly and very rationally, if I can. What I consider to be political dirty tricks were made during the election campaign by the opposition party and by the Leader of the Opposition on a number of occasions. I spoke about them before.

One deals with the natural gas prices. The former Premier, the Leader of the Opposition, went around this province during the election campaign and basically said to the entire public that British Columbia wasn't getting the price it should for its natural gas. He made statements — and they're reported in the press — that we should have gotten at that particular time $3.20 U.S. per 1,000 cubic feet as opposed to $2.65 per 1,000 cubic feet, knowing full well that it's the National Energy Board that sets those prices. That didn't deter him. That really upset me, Mr. Speaker, and made me, I guess, try a little harder, even in my own riding, because I felt that the comments he was making were a dirty trick to the utmost.

What he said to all the people in my riding and across the province was that the taxpayers of British Columbia were losing millions of dollars, that hospitals couldn't be built and that social programs couldn't be achieved because British Columbia and this government in British Columbia were not getting the same price as Mexico was for their natural gas. All the time he knew full well that the Mexican government wasn't getting $3.20 per 1,000 cubic feet for natural gas. He knew it. But you can pick up any paper published during that election campaign and you can read his statements. If any member wishes them I can get a copy and give it to you so you can read what he said in print. It wasn't so much that he said it. It was the way he used it to mislead the people of this province to believe what he said. "Elect me, Dave Barrett" — I will use his name because he was a candidate at the time — "and I will assure you that we will get these revenues and we will provide all these social benefits and all the assistance," knowing full well that he couldn't achieve it at that time. I call that a dirty trick. It is unfortunate, I guess, that sometimes we get involved in a heated debate and bring up things about letters and the use of thousand dollar bills rather than cheques and receipts, etc. That was a dirty trick. As far as I'm concerned it was perpetrated on the people of the province of British Columbia.

The other dirty trick deals with the uranium fiasco where the Leader of the Opposition and his party members went around this province and took their firm stand on uranium mining and exploration in this province, even though they knew we had a commission set up, an inquiry to investigate uranium exploration and mining in this province. Never once did he say that in 1974, I believe it was, under that administration, the first exploration permit was issued to a company to explore for uranium in the vicinity of Kelowna. Never once did he mention that.

Those are the types of things I call dirty tricks. I hope the people of this province will recognize that some of the statements that are made which really are supposed to give an indication of party policy and party determination as to where they are going.... The Leader of the Opposition, on the campaign trail, made some of those statements and I guess some of his fellow candidates at that time made those statements, but that dirty trick was perpetrated as party policy on the public of British Columbia. That is one of the reasons why I want to, for the record, after the member for Prince Rupert's comments, indicate what I think are really truly dirty tricks to the people of this province.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 16

NAYS — 27

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, my remarks will be very brief. I dealt with this matter at length when Bill 7 was introduced many, many weeks ago. The debate has strayed occasionally from a number of the items that are provided for in here. I think we can deal with the specifics in committee.

In draft form I liked the bill. When it was presented to the Legislature I still liked the bill. Even today, after some acrimony, I like this bill. I urge that it be supported. It reaches funds into all parts of British Columbia for a variety of projects which help British Columbia build for the 1980s and beyond.

I now move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 28

[ Page 2982 ]

NAYS- 17

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 7, Special Funds Act, 1980, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call second reading of Bill 9, Mr. Speaker.

CROWN CORPORATIONS BORROWING
AUTHORITY INCREASE ACT

(continued)

MRS. WALLACE: It is some time since we last discussed this bill in the Legislature, and I think that we should perhaps review the context of the bill, inasmuch as we are again being faced with a request to support borrowing in some rather sizeable amounts, this time for three Crown corporations. The first point I would like to make is that this government that seems to pride itself on what it says is a debt-free administration still sees fit to come before the Legislature every year with a borrowing bill which every year becomes larger and larger. I would like to point out that in Public Accounts, in the auditor-general's report, even in the report of B.C. Hydro, there is a statement — and it is the same statement in every one of those documents — that reads: "Guarantee by the province of British Columbia: the government of the province of British Columbia has unconditionally guaranteed the principal, and the premium if any, and the interest on the bonds and debentures and parity bonds." What I am saying is that while the government professes to be debt-free, they are far from debt-free, and every one of these amounts of money that the Legislature has been asked to deal with is really a direct debt to the province.

Of course, those of us on this side of the House during the last few years have taken exception to the continuing increases in this bill and similar bills allocated to B.C. Hydro. It has been our contention that B.C. Hydro has been progressing in a direction that could leave much to be desired, that it is perhaps not in the best interests of the residents of British Columbia to continue voting vast sums of money to B.C. Hydro to continue on their program of large-capital power developments and high-cost transmission lines. The cost of transmission is one of the major factors in these concentrated Hydro projects. When we're obliged to blindly okay the billions of dollars we are talking about for B.C. Hydro, I certainly have some concerns as to how that money is being expended — not only the purpose for which it's being used, but also whether or not it is being used with good economic judgment.

I think that's a concern that was shared unanimously by the members of the Crown corporations reporting committee in the reports which have come to the attention of this Legislature. Page after page and time after time they refer to inept methods by Hydro, without the proper backup. In one instance, talking about the Columbia, they say that no bids were received on contract No. CA-1 because the basis of the specifications was considered impractical by all those submitting bids. Hydro didn't do anything about changing that. They just simply went about financing it in another way, even though all the qualified contractors who might have bid decided that it was not a practical way to proceed.

Speaking about the Mica powerhouse, the same report goes on and says that "since the original estimate was based on a very preliminary design bearing very little resemblance to the power plant, no comparison of individual items is meaningful." This is a quote from B.C. Hydro officials. The report of that standing committee goes on to say: "These statements are disturbing. Doing major-scale business on an ad hoc basis is financially perilous." Yet we are being asked to support a bill that's going to give millions and millions more dollars to this same corporation.

The report goes on. It talks about, in this same instance, the three-phase dam project on the Columbia River. In response to the committee they said: "In 1964 formal sensitivity analysis of Hydro project sites was not required and consideration of environmental subjects was limited to the mitigation of specific features raised at the water licence hearing."

Going on with the report, when Hydro was asked if comprehensive analysis had been made of what the cost of delaying the completion of the Arrow Lake Dam by one year would have been, their initial answer was $17 million to $20 million, and then later they came up with $22.4 million. Even at that the committee was concerned that the analysis was incomplete because they did not estimate the savings that might have accrued had they gone ahead earlier.

The report goes on with those kinds of statements, and yet we find that this committee, which was supposedly going to be reviewing all these problems and doing something about them.... I'm not on that committee, but from what I hear in this Legislature and what the members of the committee tell me, that committee is not meeting; it's not doing its job of following up on these recommendations that were brought down.

The report was unanimous in its endorsation that some action should be taken. At the end of the recommendations and conclusions, the report read:

"If there is one point on which the committee is not only unanimous but adamant, it is that construction projects now being undertaken by Hydro — projects which during the course of the next five years or less will, in effect, double the size of the Authority — must be carried out in a very different manner than that which the committee observed during the inquiry."

To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, that kind of change has not taken place.

I was certainly very interested in a little local problem that relates to this whole business of how Hydro operates. This was the case of some poor driver who fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road, and hit a Hydro pole. Of course, he was responsible for the repair of that pole. To repair that one pole, he was billed with a statement of $734.07. So he queried the amount. I have a breakdown here of the charges. It gives the straight-time hours for each person who worked, the length of time and the rate.... Well, it didn't give the rate — I had to find that out. It talks about, for example, one sub-foreman lineman: three and a half hours — $85.51. Now

[ Page 2983 ]

I was familiar enough with Hydro rates of pay to know that there was something wrong with that. No lineman gets $85.51 for three and a half hours' work. So I made some inquiries. What I found was that Hydro's practice is to add something like 88.5 percent onto their bills to cover administration and fringe benefits. That's for capital work. For repair work they add 81.25 percent, because there's no design involved. That's 81.25 percent to cover administration and fringe benefits. For overtime it's only 28 percent because, I guess, management isn't working overtime. When I suggested that that seemed pretty high, do you know what the response was? "Well, this chap didn't have any insurance. But when these people are insured with ICBC, ICBC doesn't object — they think that rate's okay." So here we have two Crown corporations who are apparently wedded to the idea that it's perfectly all right to charge in excess of 80 percent for administration and fringe benefits.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that that paints a very poor picture of the efficiency of Hydro's operations. Any organization that manages to spend 88 percent of every dollar it takes in on management fees is certainly not doing the job it should be doing. That's far too heavy a percentage of our dollars going into the management structure of B.C. Hydro.

A previous member on this side of the House — I believe it was the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) — talked about the executive dining room and the cost of that dining room. I can remember, from the days when I worked at Hydro, the salary scales for management, which were established on the basis of how many employees they had working for them. The more employees, the higher the pay — not only the higher the pay, but the thicker the rug, the bigger the desk, and the more windows. If you had a really good number of employees reporting to you you merited a corner office with two or three windows. That kind of status symbol is paid for by the people who consume electricity from a Crown corporation in this province. Those are living examples of the kind of things that are happening that cause us to have to pay in excess of 80 percent for management and fringe benefits on any particular operation that's undertaken by Hydro. I'm appalled at that. There is just no way that I can support a bill to increase the borrowing power of an organization that takes that kind of dollars just for its management function.

I'm concerned about Hydro specifically, but I'm also concerned about the B.C. Railway. I think it worthwhile to quote the auditor-general on the B.C. Railway, where there was a very strong plea made that the B.C. Railway was simply not in a position to handle its debt load. On page 18 of the report, section 5.25, the auditor-general says.... Again it's a reiteration of the fact that the province is responsible for the debts of its Crown corporation. It talks about the total debt load and it says that in fact there wasn't enough capital coming in to finance even the existing debt load. They were something like $10.3 million short of funds to finance their existing debt load, so they're having to borrow to pay their interest.

Yet we find ourselves increasing that debt load in this bill. Certainly that was not the recommendation of the auditor-general. The auditor-general indicated that where a guarantor of a loan has a corporation such as the B.C. Railway unable to cope with its debt, then it's the responsibility of the guarantor of that loan to ensure that steps are taken to relieve that debt burden from that particular body. That's what the auditor-general suggested. She said: "A guarantor of debt is obligated to honour the terms of guarantee if the debtor is unable to repay its debt from its own resources. Once this becomes apparent good financial reporting requires that the obligation be recognized as a liability in the financial statements of the guarantor. At present there is no stated accounting policy in this respect." She recommends that that be done.

During the year which she was reporting about — during that last year — the situation did not change. The railway made a small operating profit, but before the government grants it experienced further erosion of working capital amounting to $53.4 million, due primarily to the cost of servicing long-term debt. As a result of that they had the $10.3 million deficit on their financing. So when they're overextended to that extent and there is no move being taken to ensure that the matter of handling that debt is revised as suggested by the auditor-general, then it seems very strange policy to move on into increasing that outstanding debt without correcting the problem that has put it there in the first place, without taking some action, as has been recommended by the auditor-general.

Speaking about debt servicing, Hydro is not completely removed from that problem either. In their report for the year 1978-1979 they say that — just for comparative purposes — their cost of providing services during the year was $855 million and that during that same year the cost of servicing their debt was $286 million, over a third as much as their total cost of providing services. So you can see, in part, where we're getting this 88 percent management fee; included in that certainly is part of this debt charge. I am just very concerned that we are now going to increase their borrowing power without doing anything about putting some controls on Hydro, without doing something about an unmanageable debt for that company — because it is becoming unmanageable. It's going to be economics that's going to change the philosophy about power supply in this country and in this province. It is not economically feasible to continue with this concentrated method of providing power at large central locations and then transmitting it over longer and longer distances in larger and larger quantities.

As far as B.C. Buildings Corporation goes, I'm a little concerned about the management of that particular corporation. I'm concerned about the dollars that are involved. Certainly the increase in the estimates would indicate to me that there is more than just inflation reflected in the dollars that are being allocated to that company. I'm concerned that there is no direct reporting to the Legislature. Certainly the management is one that is open to criticism — how well buildings are managed. It's a very obvious sort of thing that's out front. We've had a lot of concerns expressed over the past few years, since B.C. Buildings Corporation came into being. Until such time as we have a fuller accounting as to how that corporation is handling our public funds, I'm certainly opposed to giving it any further borrowing power as well.

So for those three reasons I am opposed to borrowing for all three of those corporations, although my major concern is certainly the borrowing for B.C. Hydro, where sooner or later government is going to have to have the courage to call a halt and re-evaluate the whole concept of power production and supply.

MR. D'ARCY: I feel as though I could have this conversation with the minister just as easily in his office, since there are very few people in the House at the present time.

[ Page 2984 ]

However, the minister possibly anticipates what I want to talk about. It's a concern I have about allowing British Columbia Hydro to borrow a substantially increased amount of money underwritten by the taxpayers of this province. It's a concern that I have about the continuing subsidy of B.C. Hydro by people in the Kootenays through property taxation. I hope the minister will relate to this, because at one time he was the minister in charge of municipal affairs and he is now the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, like the provincial government, pays taxes on its property in the normal way — exactly as if they were privately owned. They are assessed by the Assessment Authority, and the local municipal authority or regional district, as the case may be, applies the appropriate mill rate, and they get a tax notice the same as everyone else — except on seven of their properties. It so happens that some five of these are located in the West Kootenay area and two are in the Peace River area. I couldn't give the Legislature a precise figure, but the last time I did a detailed calculation, the amount of money was in the neighbourhood of $5.5 million per annum in school taxes and general purpose taxes in the Kootenays and it was about half that amount in the Peace River area.

Were it the case that British Columbia Hydro generating facilities paid taxes at no location in the province, it would be somewhat more equitable; but unfortunately that is not the case. The plants on Vancouver Island at Jordan River, John Hart, etc., all pay taxes in the normal way; the Bridge River–Lillooet area does not have to subsidize B.C. Hydro through not receiving property taxes; and, of course, all the facilities ringed around the lower mainland on the tributaries of the Fraser River do not get any exemption from property taxation. The only plants that do are the Arrow, Duncan and Mica Dams on the Columbia River. Those three projects, along with the Bennett Dam, get complete property tax exemption. We have three other projects — the Kootenay Canal on the Kootenay River, Seven Mile on the Pend d'Oreille and, most recently, the Peace Canyon Dam on the Peace River — which receive general purpose property taxation exemption, but are not exempted on the grounds of school taxes.

Mr. Speaker, since the minister in this case is responsible for both the finance bill involving the increased borrowing capacity for British Columbia Hydro and for real property taxation, I would hope that he would take this point under serious consideration, approach his colleagues on Treasury Board and ask that these exemptions that B.C. Hydro enjoys, which are clearly discriminatory against certain regions of the province relative to other regions, be removed and these inequities be relieved. I would like point out that in terms of a percentage of total revenue of B.C. Hydro, we're talking about an amount which is approximately one-half of one percent. But it is not spread equally around the province; this exemption only applies in the Kootenays and in the Peace River area.

MR. HOWARD: We have had in the province for a long period of time a history of two sets of books being kept by the government or by one of its agencies. The purpose of that some years back was to permit the government, as it did persistently, to argue that there was no debt owed by the province. The late W.A.C. Bennett, when he was Minister of Finance, used that argument consistently: no debt, debt-free. The facts of the matter were that by having the Legislature, in the earlier days, set up a different arrangement with respect to the keeping of books, the debt that otherwise would have been direct debt of the province was transferred and kept on somebody else's books. This permitted the late Premier and Minister of Finance to be able to say there was no direct debt of the province. He obliterated completely any thought about the debt that existed in Crown corporations and other arrangements.

We have a history in this province, since this government took office, of adjusting the financial records to show a picture which was not a true reflection of the actual state of affairs. We have the myth of a direct debt of the province of initially some $261 million brought about by getting rid of cash in advance of the normal times of making those payments, as was enunciated by the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) on more than one occasion, in order to make it look like there was a shortage of cash; payment of funds and the transfer back and forth of a fair sum of money — I've heard $160 million or something of that sort — to ICBC and receiving it back the next day.

We have before us in this bill another situation which basically is an adjustment of the financial records of the province to lead the general public to believe that a certain situation exists when in fact it doesn't. I am talking about debt, and I want to talk particularly about the B.C. Buildings Corporation. The B.C. Buildings Corporation, to put it in brief terms, is a Crown corporation established at the instance of the Social Credit government in order that that corporation, by being a separate agency, could become the owner of the public buildings of the province, in order that it would no longer be the province itself which had possession of the government buildings. If not all of them, at least the great bulk of them got transferred and given to B.C. Buildings Corporation.

B.C. Buildings Corporation now owns what the public used to own directly. Then the government turns around and rents space from the B.C. Buildings Corporation, knowing that there are two sets of books: one the government's books and the other the books and financial records of the B.C. Buildings Corporation. The money we pay as rent shows up in the estimates, called building occupancy charges. Each department has an item in there which is basically rent that we pay to ourselves because we own the B.C. Buildings Corporation. I think there is something in the neighbourhood of $2.5 million-plus that the Ministry of Finance, for instance, will pay out this year to the B.C. Buildings Corporation to rent space basically from ourselves.

The B.C. Buildings Corporation has a debt. It owes money. It borrowed that money from various sources, probably from Canada Pension Plan money. It has borrowed money by way of transfer directly from the treasury of the province. It owes — if I can pick the figure out quickly from the 1979-80 financial report, note 10 to the financial statements — a long-term debt in the amount of $86 million; accounts and notes payable to the province of British Columbia directly in the amount of a 10.5 percent promissory demand note, $46 million; interest-free promissory notes due March 31, 1992, $113 million; and then accounts payable on acquisition of real estate investments, $44 million — for what looks to be a total of accounts and notes payable to the province of $203 million plus the long-term debt of $86 million, maturing — some of it — in the year 2001, 2002, 1998, 1999, and so on.

We all know that debt carries with it the payment of

[ Page 2985 ]

interest. When BCBC borrows that money, they have only one source of income, basically, and that's the people of B.C., who rent the space from this government agency. So the debt of B.C. Buildings Corporation is an absolute and direct obligation and debt of the province and people of B.C. It's carried on a separate set of books, but the debt is there; it's the obligation of the province and of the people; it's the obligation of government to service that debt, to pay the interest on that debt. How does BCBC get the money to pay the interest? They simply adjust the rent, establish the building occupancy charges to each department to reflect the necessary amount of money to come into BCBC so that they can pay interest on the debt and do other things as well.

B.C. Buildings Corporation pays dividends too, Mr. Speaker. They pay dividends to the Minister of Finance in his capacity as custodian of the books of the people of B.C. I see figures of $10 million one year and I believe $15 million another year and so on in dividends from this Crown agency flowing back to the provincial treasury, which permits the Minister of Finance to say: "Look at this beautiful profit making organization over here called B.C. Buildings Corporation. It's paying us back dividends, the people of B.C." But where do they get the dividends from? They get them from the building occupancy charges, and the people of British Columbia are being bamboozled by this government into thinking that there is no debt; that it's able to manage the affairs of the province in such a fantastic way as to have created no debt, when in fact here we have the B.C. Buildings Corporation up to its ears in debt to the point where we've got to increase its debt capacity and potential by another 50 percent, according to this particular bill. They've got a limit of $200 million in there now; the bill seeks to increase that to $300 million. As I read the act, that $300 million limit does not include advances which are made from time to time by the province, but only includes borrowings that the B.C. Buildings Corporation makes from such funds as the Canada Pension Fund and probably the superannuation fund too, although I'm not sure of that. In any event, they borrow the money.

Mr. Speaker, it's that kind of double-talk and that kind of activity in the financial field, about the management of the finances of this province, that makes the general public ask the question about the honesty and the integrity of this government. It makes the general public query whether in fact the straight case is being put to the public. I submit to the Minister of Finance that the straight case is not being put to the general public; that if the Minister of Finance would level with the general public, he would say: "Yes, B.C. Buildings Corporation has a debt; yes, it has to pay interest on that debt; yes, it pays dividends back to the treasury, but the only place it gets its income is from the rent it charges the treasury — it's the same money flowing back and forth." But because they set the organization up this way, it permits the government to paint a picture other than the true picture. That's been the history of Social Credit in this province in terms of the bookkeeping arrangements, telling the general public where it was financially, and being honest and open with the people of this province about the simple question of debt.

Apart from the fact that $261 million, which I believe the government placed on the books in 1976.... Apart from the myth that that debt in fact existed and it was necessary to borrow in order to satisfy a shortfall, and apart from the fact that it was simply juggling the cash flow back and forth in order to accommodate a fictitious figure, here we have, with the B.C. Buildings Corporation and this bill before us, a direct and absolute question of indebtedness. That indebtedness was caused by this government; it was brought about by poor fiscal management, an inability to be honest with the general public and a desire to flavour the situation, to set up two sets of books and say: "Oh, no, that's got nothing to do with us."

I'm not dealing with the question of Hydro or B.C. Rail, which, as we all know, have borrowed money from time to time. While they are separate organizations, there is an endorsement and a backing given to the borrowings of B.C. Rail, I understand. I'm just talking about B.C. Buildings Corporation, the debt of which is an absolute and direct obligation on the part of the people of British Columbia. That kind of chicanery and double-talk shouldn't be countenanced. The more it is permitted, the more it is perpetuated, the more this government delights in doing it, and the more they add to the general public's feeling that this government really can't be trusted to tell the full truth about the situation as it exists. That is reason enough for not being able to support that bill.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might have leave to introduce some guests.

Leave granted.

MR. HALL: I'd like the House to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert from Surrey. They are in the precincts, having just left the gallery at the conclusion of the member's speech.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I wonder if I might also say to you that had I been here for the division on Bill 7, I would have voted against that proposal.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's not a point of order, hon. member.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why didn't you get here on time?

AN HON. MEMBER: Where have you been?

AN HON. MEMBER: Playing golf.

MR. HALL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I was just accused of playing golf. I am not a Scots person. I believe that golf is a good walk spoiled. If the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet) is within the sound of my voice, I wonder if he would like to know that I am in the precincts of the building.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: On Bill 9, I hope, the member for Mackenzie.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I am going to be reasonably brief on this particular bill. I would expect that we'll be dealing at length and in depth with B.C. Hydro and these other agencies under debate of the spending estimates. But I thought it would be appropriate, since this is a borrowing bill, to discuss some of Hydro's charges and costs to people in this province, and a couple of other items which I will get to shortly.

The press and everybody in this House are aware that we have a similar bill before us every year. Hydro proceeds to borrow another $100 million or $200 million — whatever the

[ Page 2986 ]

figure may be. In fact, almost three-quarters of the current debt of this province is because of the borrowings of Hydro. It places quite a strain on this province and the people of this province. As of April 1 this year, we have had another 7 percent increase in our electrical rates, in spite of the fact that the government, and the minister particularly, tell us that they will be forming an energy utilities commission — whatever that is. But that commission is not in place and that legislation has not been brought before the House. So Hydro goes ahead, increases its rates and proceeds with projects which, in my view and the view of many people of this province, should not be proceeded with. I can give numerous examples. I will give some of those examples in a few minutes.

Of Hydro's total electrical sales for the year ended March 31, 1979, about 27 percent were residential. About 73 percent of those sales were non-residential, such as industrial, bulk and commercial export. However, about 98 percent of Hydro's net income from electrical sales came from the residential users. Only about 2 percent came from the non-residential users, such as industrial, bulk and commercial export.

What bothers me about this is that Hydro's pricing policy should be reversed. What I am saying is that those people who use less energy should be paying less, instead of what we have now where those people using more energy pay less and those people using less energy are paying the bulk of Hydro's net income.

Hydro is now talking about building facilities all over the province. Site C is a good example. It is currently involved in Revelstoke building transmission lines. You are aware, Mr. Speaker, that just this morning in my own riding there was a protest about the construction of a proposed transmission from Cheekye to Dunsmuir. That peaceful protest did take place with no altercations. People were not expressing their dissatisfaction with the line so much as their dissatisfaction with the government's and B.C. Hydro's unwillingness to hold proper public hearings.

I am fully aware, and so are many members of our caucus, of the future energy requirements of Vancouver Island. Three years ago our caucus asked for a moratorium on the proposed transmission line to Vancouver Island until we looked at all the alternatives. There are many alternatives that should and could have been looked at. It has been proven to my satisfaction that we have enough energy to do us until at least 1990 without any further expansion at this time. Be that as it may, the line is under construction at the present time. The problem here is that B.C. Hydro, in actions condoned by this government, is spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on projects that were not justified. You will recall that the Ministry of Energy asked the Environment and Land Use Committee to commission Mr. Marvin Shaffer and company to do a study on the proposed transmission line to Vancouver Island. When that study was finally released.... You will recall that for weeks the minister denied having that study in his possession....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We are talking about an expenditure of B.C. Hydro, Mr. Speaker, in my view.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be fair, Don.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I am being fair. The fact is that the minister had that study in his possession for some time and didn't make it available until after the session terminated last July 29 or something. He never did produce that study of the south.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will all hon. members get back to Bill 9 and the principle of the borrowing bill.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The point is that Hydro and the government never did justify it, in spite of the fact that that report indicated that that line should not proceed without justification, financial and environmental, as was recommended by Mr. Shaffer in that report. No proper public hearings as to that particular transmission line have ever been asked for.

The reason I raise this, Mr. Speaker, is that this expenditure.... We were told at one point, two and a half years ago, that this total project would cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $350 million. Lo and behold, perhaps a year and a half later, we find in correspondence that was made available to us from B.C. Hydro that the project was going to cost $700 million in Hydro's estimates. It had doubled in the space of a year and a half. However, that same memo — a copy of which I have here, by the way, but I won't read it at this time — suggests that this is a confidential memo and should not be made public because there would be another public outcry because the cost of the line was doubled to $700 million. We now know that the total cost of that project is going to be at least $1.3 billion, if not more.

What really worries me about this line is that when B.C. Hydro let its contracts for the underwater section of this line to these foreign companies, they received no guarantees from the companies now constructing those underwater cables that they could be successful. This will be the largest underwater cable anywhere in the world if it is successful. The point is that they don't know if it is going to be successful. We may be spending $1.3 billion of taxpayers' money in this province on a line that may not work. A portion of this $1.3 billion that we will be voting on today, shortly, I presume, will be going towards the cost of the construction of this proposed transmission line. I intend to take a lot longer under the debate of the spending estimates of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) when they're before this House sometime next October, I presume — somewhere in that time frame — to discuss the matter in a great deal of detail.

One other item, though — there are so many here it's hard to know where to start. One of the concerns, particularly of people living along the rights-of-way of transmission lines, is Hydro's continued use of pesticides without proper public hearings. The pesticide committee isn't working well, because there's no mechanism for public input into those hearings. You can appeal, there are things you can do, but the committee as presently structured is not working well. In some cases it is not working at all, because some of those permits are issued almost automatically. Very often what happens is that people aren't even aware that an agency, a company or whoever has applied. Even in California — and we all think of the United States as being behind us in social legislation — their method of public hearings into this aspect....

I'm getting off the track here, Mr. Speaker, but I will get back on in a second, because this does affect B.C. Hydro.

[ Page 2987 ]

Hydro uses these sprays all over the province, without public hearings for starters, and without really knowing the effects they have on people living along those transmission lines. I hope under the debates of the Ministry of Environment to be producing some evidence to discuss the effects of the use of certain chemicals along certain transmission lines in my riding. But that's another debate; we'll be getting into that. The fact is that obviously it's much cheaper for Hydro to use these pesticides and herbicides than to employ people to chop down and clear these rights-of-way.

Mr. Speaker, I find it very, very difficult to support Hydro's coming to this Legislature again for the loan of another $100 million when they haven't justified the spending of literally billions of dollars in the past and the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money that they are going to be spending in the future. So I'll be voting against this bill as, hopefully, will my colleagues.

HON. MR. MAIR: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Mackenzie did not intend to mislead the House, but I do think I should put on the record the facts concerning the Shaffer report to which he alluded. That was not commissioned by the Ministry of Environment; it was commissioned by the Environment and Land Use Committee secretariat. He knows that the independence of that committee is something that he has long been very much in favour of. When I received the report, after learning about it from the hon. member for Mackenzie, I gave it immediately to B.C. Hydro and the B.C. Energy Commission. I gave them one week within which to comment upon it, and the timetable was to release it upon its return from them. It was returned and released. I did not know, and had no way of knowing, that the House would rise in the meantime.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister has clarified a statement. The member for Mackenzie can speak now only to point out something that might have been.... He may not add new information to his last speech.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I did make a mistake in that portion of my speech, and I did want to point out to the hon. member that it was the Environment and Land Use Committee that commissioned that report. The point I was trying to make at that time was that the government and Hydro didn't implement the recommendations in that report. That was the crux of the matter.

MR. COCKE: I rise in this debate with a certain degree of sadness, wishing that we were back to the good old days when the Liberals and Conservatives would be voting against this bill. I can remember the two members for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. Gardom and Hon. Mr. McGeer) and marvellous speeches from the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Hon. Mr. Williams), telling the government decisively that there's no way that they would vote for this kind of excess — no way that they would give the Hon. W.A.C. Bennett the power....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Oh, now we've got information. Mr. Speaker, there was the author of the "sunshine bill" in opposition, who used to say: "Let the sun shine in. Let's get to know what's going on behind those closed cabinet doors." Since he's been there he will not share with us the information, nor will his colleagues.

Back to the bill. Bill 9 is borrowing.... I'm not going to talk a great deal about Hydro; my colleague from Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) did. As far as the B.C. Railway — which, incidentally, is into the glue for another $4 million or $5 million today, I understand — I don't think I will go too much into that.

Mr. Speaker, the most interesting aspect of this bill, as far as I'm concerned, is the B.C. Buildings Corporation. We're increasing our borrowing here from $200 million to $300 million. This was a corporation that didn't exist prior to this businesslike government, which has had increasing budgets, the like of which have been hard to imagine compared with budgets in the past. The reason that they have increased is because they've gone out of control as far as spending is concerned. I say that because they have moved so much of the original budget into Crown corporations that one could not compare. If we say there's been a 15 percent or 20 percent increase, or this, that or the other thing, it's not comparable, because what you're comparing it with is an old budget where we included pay-as-you-go as far as government buildings and ferries were concerned, but now we've got those areas right out of government. So we're asking to borrow another $100 million for the Buildings Corporation.

I suggest that we are becoming so badly in debt in this province.... Debt is debt, whether it's contingent liability or direct debt. I suspect that probably there is no province in the country that's worse off in terms of debt than the province of British Columbia.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: That's why we got a AAA credit rating, I guess.

MR. COCKE: That's why you have a AAA credit rating because the world knows that you're going to be borrowing and borrowing as long as you people are government. You'll be borrowing and borrowing, whether you need to or not, and taxing the blazes out of everybody.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, the member for New Westminster has the floor. Order, please.

MR. COCKE: This particular area is one that I think eventually should be brought into perspective. I don't think that anybody would really mind if the government would admit — own up to the fact — that they're in the glue in these areas to the tune of billions of dollars. What they would prefer to do, however, is talk about past history where they felt, after having rigged the books, that they could show that the previous government had an overrun, a deficit, etc., etc. They have very carefully managed this province in such a way as to move over debt, and this B.C. Buildings Corporation is just the best example that I can see. There's $300 million of increased debt for the province, but now, because it's a contingent liability, we don't own up to it — just exactly the same as B.C. Hydro, the B.C. Railway Corporation and the B.C. Ferry Corporation. Not only do they move out the debt, but they move out all the employees. So you even have a change in terms of operating budget. I would just like to draw attention to the fact that we really are going into the glue.

[ Page 2988 ]

Now just one word about Hydro. There is a very significant increase here, something approximating — I would think, when I just look at it very casually — around three-quarters of a billion dollars. Mr. Speaker, as I said last year when they asked for three-quarters of a billion dollars, it seems to me that's sort of the order of the day with Hydro; I said that I wouldn't be so miffed about voting on a bill which included Hydro borrowing if, in fact, they would do more research for alternate power sources. I'm delighted that they have followed up to some extent on geothermal power development — to a very minor extent, and certainly not to the extent that they should have, when you consider the fact that we will be an energy-starved continent in the near future if we don't take the alternate route in terms of priorizing our research.

A few years ago a number of us from both sides of this House were at a parliamentary conference in P.E.I., and there was a special speaker there, an engineer from the United States, and he made the charge at that time that energy-producing corporations across North America which were responsible for power production, such as B.C. Hydro, were just doing too little research in alternate energy protection. We'll hear the word; we'll hear when we're talking here in terms of a corporation that's in the glue — and it will be by the end of this spending period — for $6.4 billion. That's a figure that none of us can even imagine in terms of magnitude. A very small portion of the budget of that corporation or the utilization of the borrowing of that corporation goes into research for alternate power sources. It's time that we really got together and really went after this whole alternate energy question. There will be no more rivers to dam in the near future, and those rivers that we've dammed in the past will begin to silt up behind the dams. Then what are you going to do?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Well, the member thinks otherwise. Why doesn't the member stand up and say what he has to say?

AN HON. MEMBER: He's in favour of Kemano II.

MR. COCKE: He's in favour of Kernano II and in favour of all the other damming situations. I'm not suggesting that there aren't areas where we should dam; but in the future we have to look toward areas of power production other than nuclear power production.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I wonder if I could have everyone's attention. There is an awful lot of conversation going on in the House, and the member for New Westminster has the floor. While I'm speaking to you, I'll remind all hon. members that May's seventeenth edition speaks to the fact that debate on second reading of a bill should be confined to the bill and should not be extended to a criticism of the administration. The bill before us is a borrowing bill. With that said, the member for New Westminster continues.

MR. COCKE: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I understand what you're saying. I won't be argumentative. However, a borrowing bill is wide open. The precedent has been long established in this House that each of the borrowers in the bill are vulnerable in terms of their behaviour and their direction. You see, Mr. Speaker, when a corporation such as B.C. Hydro asks us for over half a billion dollars in terms of borrowing, then we have to ask questions around their behaviour in terms of their direction, because we're asked to give them a blank cheque to go to the world money market and raise a very significant sum. Having said that, you and I, as citizens of this province, have to pay that money back out of our light bills and whatever. So on that basis those corporations have to be vulnerable and subject to the criticism of the people here. What I've been talking about is just what that corporation is doing with this borrowed money. I'm suggesting very sincerely that I don't believe it's being used properly to the extent that it could be.

I would like to remind the House, Mr. Speaker, that a few years ago — I believe it was in 1971 or 1972 — I made a speech about geothermal power. When we were government we asked Hydro at that time to put a claim on any of the areas that could be reasonably seen as potential geothermal power producers. We had been watching the United States, where those geothermal sites had been claimed by oil companies and by other private enterprise companies to sort of hang onto, do nothing with, and be a great source of energy in the future. When we were government, Hydro did put a claim on most of the potential geothermal sites in this province, as far as I know. Now, around Pemberton, I read their press releases and they're talking about potential power production from that site within a year or two. It is a pilot project. That is the kind of thing we should be doing in this province.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: That is the kind of thing we are doing, says the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland), who hasn't even developed an energy policy for this province yet, who sits around and nags and natters in the House. Why doesn't he get up and talk about this magnificent effort of Hydro?

Believe me, I am delighted for the crumbs from the table, for small mercies, but I believe there should be a great deal more work going on in that area. That's where we should be using some of this money. With confidence that Hydro was really becoming aggressive in search of safe alternative ways to develop power, then I think there would be a great deal more respect for that corporation in this province. Hydro has grown as a subject of disrespect for people generally, and it need not have. The fact that it has an insatiable appetite for money we all know, but I would like to see that insatiable appetite also reflect some different directions in terms of where they are going and what they are searching for, because what we think today is that the infinite source of power may just let us down.

We have, hopefully, generations to follow, and those generations will be far better cared for if we have a progressive corporation managing our day-to-day needs and looking to the future. You don't look to the future in this world unless you are doing a real job of research. I am here to charge that they are not doing the job of research that they should be doing. That's where some of this money should be going, to a far greater extent than it has heretofore.

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say a few words around this question of the credit rating of the province of British Columbia. The Minister of Finance delights in so often repeating this AAA or AAAA rating.

[ Page 2989 ]

HON. MR. CURTIS: AAA is the highest.

MR. LEGGATT: It's a little like the automobile club.

It's interesting that a province which has overtaxed the residents by $500 million this current year would have the highest fiscal rating possible. That is a very, very cost-conscious government which runs a billion dollar surplus. Therefore, when I listen to the government members continually crowing about their rating.... Naturally they are going to get a great rating, but that rating doesn't cut any ice with the low-income people who are about to start paying higher premiums for their hospital insurance. It doesn't cut any ice with the thousands and thousands of people in this province who paid taxes last year when they didn't have to.

It's not much good to stand up and take great satisfaction about AAA ratings coming out of New York. Naturally the bankers love you. They are bound to love you when you operate with that kind of fiscal irresponsibility. It will give you a great credit rating, but it won't help the economy of the province. The Minister of Finance should talk to Chunky Woodward and some of the people who are concerned about the draining of purchasing power away from the public of British Columbia into the hands of government.

I hope we have heard the end of this crowing around this AAA rating.

HON. MR. CURTIS: It's not crowing.

MR. LEGGATT: It's crowing.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Dave Barrett was delighted that he was able to hang onto an AA rating.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's bunk.

HON. MR. CURTIS: It's in Hansard. Read it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Read it to us.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Do your own research. He made that statement in this House.

MR. LEGGATT: In any event, Mr. Speaker....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: In any event, if you were still the government it would be a C-minus.

MR. LEGGATT: The AAA rating doesn't mean one heck of a lot to the residents of the riding of the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: It sure does. That's all you know about economics. You better go back to Ottawa. You're the guy who got them in the tough shape they're in now — your kind of policies.

MR. LEGGATT: That's absolute nonsense. In fact, in Ottawa they always found....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Why don't you go back to the law courts? That's the trouble with this country. There are too many lawyers in politics.

MR. LEGGATT: Bring that member to order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LEGGATT: Thank you. In Ottawa they always found these small-time provincial politicians with their hands out trying to increase the deficit every year. That's what the Minister of Economic Development, as he used to be, was about.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You call that investment in the future economy of this country? My friend, you don't understand a thing about it.

MR. LEGGATT: I understand.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You don't understand anything. You're an armchair specialist, a city slicker lawyer.

MR. LEGGATT: I understand parish pump politics, Mr. Speaker, and that minister is the great exemplar of that button-down shoes, straw hat politics, where he runs around complaining about a federal deficit and spends all his time trying to increase it by getting more handouts. That's what that minister's been doing. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

We shouldn't have deficits, I agree; we should have planning over a period of time. We should go back to reasonable Keynesian economics, which is a five-year cyclical planning system. What we have in the bill is the old flim-flam of moving those debts into Crown corporations.

That's good. I don't say that it's a bad system, but don't pretend you don't have debt; you've got lots of debt in the province of British Columbia. Look at B.C. Hydro: $6.4 billion. That's not small change, and the minister knows that. That's an awful lot of money. That's an awful lot of money that a lot of pension funds didn't get because of the low return on those borrowings, too. But I know the government's concerned about that; they want to do something about the pension funds.

To authorize this kind of borrowing, particularly for B.C. Hydro, is the end of the line for change on an energy policy. I'm glad to see the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is in the Legislature, because until you stop that octopus from growing you're not going to seriously consider alternative energy in the province of British Columbia. You're not getting serious if you just keep giving a blank cheque to B.C. Hydro. Until you get serious about alternative energy you're not going to solve the energy problems of the province of British Columbia. In fact, you're going to ship them out to Japan; that's what you're going to do. You're going to give the coal away.

Under section 2, when you look at the British Columbia Railway Finance Act, striking out $900 million and substituting $1 billion, I wonder if the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) would tell us whether, when this bill came in, he contemplated the losses on the Anzac line that are going to occur as a result of the BCR. Is that why we’re increasing the B.C. Hydro debt?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Why don't you go back and sit on your Gallup poll?

MR. LEGGATT: Well, I would be happy to sit on my Gallup poll and have you guys sit on your Gallup polls and

[ Page 2990 ]

we'll see how the whole thing works out. I don't think we should be crowing, because we're ahead by 6 percent or something. We expect to have a 12 percent lead before the next election.

HON. MR. GARDOM: How much?

MR. LEGGATT: About 12 percent.

HON. MR. MAIR: I'll take a little of that action.

MR. LEGGATT: Oh, you will? But who knows about those things?

The point I still want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that to authorize continuous borrowing for B.C. Hydro means that this government is bankrupt of an energy policy. That's really what this bill means and that's why we can't support this bill.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I suppose that those who have observed this House in a non-partisan way — and I imagine there are a few — would be amused when this debate takes place with respect to the increased borrowing authority for Crown corporations. In this particular case, there is a relatively new one, the British Columbia Buildings Corporation, but the other two have been dealt with over a number of years, including the years when the party opposite was briefly in power, from 1972 to 1975 — the British Columbia Railway Company and the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

I think it's important that, just in concluding this debate, I put a couple of things in perspective, because the member who has just taken his place refers to crowing about the AAA rating that has been given by the two rating agencies. There are just two agencies of any consequence on the international scene. The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has left, but he should also read Hansard. I was in the House at the time, over there, and I recall that the then Premier and Minister of Finance, now Leader of the Opposition, came back and, I believe, in debate on his estimates, made a very significant point of telling the House on the day that the AA rating, which existed in that particular time, was secure in British Columbia. He didn't just say it in passing. He made a very major point of it. Hansard will show it and I recall it. It doesn't matter what kind of a rating one has. You can borrow, Mr. Member, as you know, if you have an AAA, which is the best, or if you have an AA or an A or you have a BAA and so on down the line, even to bonds which are rated C. I am sure the member was just carried away for a few moments.

It is not really accurate to suggest that we have an AAA because the bankers like it. This province now has an AAA rating from Moody's Investor Services and Standard and Poor because there has been the most exhaustive, independent review this spring — not two or three years ago — into the finances not only of the government but of the Crown corporations. It is important that I read into the record — I didn't have an opportunity earlier — from the Moody's bond survey of May 19, 1980, page 1345.

"Summary. British Columbia has managed its finances and debts on a sound basis, paying both its current and capital expenses from current revenue funds only and, as a result, incurring direct debt only once since 1952. Borrowings have been undertaken largely by self-supporting Crown corporations including the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, whose debts are unconditionally guaranteed by the province."

I am digressing from the text for a moment. We don't say anything else. They are guaranteed by the province. We admit it, you know it and the public know it.

"Capable management of the principal Crown corporations has minimized the province's direct financial involvement over the long term. Overall debt appears easily manageable in relation to the province's gross domestic product and personal income. Substantial future borrowings are expected, but mainly relate to income-generating projects. Economic growth in this western most province has been strong, outpacing both Canada and the United States by comfortable margins, and real economic growth since 1971 is second only to the province of Alberta. Also reflecting the strength of its economy, British Columbia's growth rate in the 1970s — the highest in Canada — is attributed mainly to interprovincial migration. Economic performance in British Columbia is forecast to exceed those of both Canada as a whole and the United States.

"The economy of British Columbia has historically centred around forestry and related products. Although some decline in forestry production and related employment may occur in the coming months, strength in other sectors of the province's economy and continued high levels of capital investment should offset apparent weaknesses in the forestry sector. Personal income per capita has consistently remained above the national average."

Now that's not what the Social Credit Party has to say about British Columbia in 1980; that is what Moody's Investors Service of New York has to say. We do not crow, but announce it proudly and repeat it — right into the next election campaign, Mr. Member.

I indicated that non-partisan observers may find this debate rather interesting, because — and, Mr. Speaker, your records would show it too — if you examine the British Columbia Railway Company, did you know that in 1972 authority was sought and given by this Legislature to increase its borrowing authority by $100 million? In 1973, Mr. Speaker, there was another $100 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who did that?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Well, we know what the government of the day was. In 1975 authority was sought and given after a similar debate to increase it by $210 million.

In the interest of time, to very quickly remind the members opposite, British Columbia Hydro's borrowing authority was increased in 1972, when that party opposite was in government, by $500 million; in 1973, apparently nothing occurred; in 1974, $500 million; and in 1975, $750 million. And so, these debates rage on with the opposition pointing out why it should not happen and government saying that in the interests of the continued growth of British Columbia, it must happen.

Mr. Speaker, I made lengthy comments at the commencement of this debate. I now move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division:

[ Page 2991 ]

YEAS — 28

NAYS — 18

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 9, Crown Corporations Borrowing Authority Increase Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.