[ Page 3277 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents.

British Columbia Systems Corporation annual report for the year ending March 31, 1980.

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 3277

Oral Questions.

Revenues of provincial treasury. Mr. Stupich –– 3277

Labour action at Glengarry Hospital. Mr. Cocke –– 3278

Alleged chipping of good-quality sawlogs. Mr. King –– 3278

Body-shop surcharges on ICBC rates. Mr. Hall –– 3279

B.C. Tel service. Mr. Mitchell –– 3279

Alleged polygraph testing of welfare recipients. Hon. Mr. Williams replies –– 3279

Committee of Supply; Ministry of Health estimates. (Hon. Mr. Mair)

On vote 114: minister's office –– 3279

Mr. Cocke

Mr. Lea

Mr. Mussallem

Mr. King

Mr. Barber

Mr. Hyndman

Mr. Barrett

Matter of Privilege

Alleged bias of Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker rules –– 3303

Mr. Hyndman –– 3303

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents.

Occupational Training Council annual report.

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 3304

MONDAY, JULY 14, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Prayers.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, today I have the honour to introduce a fellow legislator from another part of the Commonwealth, Mr. John Mathwin, MP, from Parliament House, Adelaide, South Australia. He is in the gallery. Would the House make him welcome.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: We have in the House today one of Canada's leading authorities on family life. He teaches at the University of Toronto and has been a guest lecturer on family life in most of the countries of the free world. He is in our province for three weeks conducting a course at the University of Victoria on family issues. I would like the House to welcome Dr. Benjamin Schlesinger, who is here with his wife Rachel and his son Michael.

MR. SEGARTY: In the gallery this afternoon are some very good friends of mine from Cranbrook: Carol and Milt Howe, their daughters Denette and Susan and their son Michael. I ask everyone in the House to welcome them here today.

MR. STRACHAN: I ask the House to welcome my wife Beverley, my son Dean and my daughter Jody.

MR. REE: We have a centenary event in North Vancouver, and I ask leave of the House to make best wishes today.

Leave granted.

MR. REE: We have a young lady celebrating her hundredth birthday in North Vancouver, Mrs. Bertha Breedon. It is always a special event, seldom achieved by people today. I ask this House to wish her a joyous day and health and happiness in the future.

Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled the annual report of the British Columbia Systems Corporation for the year ending March 31, 1980.

Oral Questions

REVENUES OF PROVINCIAL TREASURY

MR. STUPICH: I have a question to the Minister of Finance. On what date did he become aware that expenditures presented to this Legislature on budget day could not be financed out of current revenues?

HON. MR. CURTIS: In order to provide a precise date I will take that question as notice.

MR. STUPICH: When he was invited to take the post as Minister of Finance, was he informed by his predecessor or by the Premier that 1980-81 revenues were substantially exaggerated?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, I was not informed. The question is based on incorrect information, Mr. Speaker.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, is the minister telling the House that revenues have not been substantially exaggerated?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, no, I'm not telling the House that.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, is the minister telling the House that revenues have been grossly exaggerated?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, Mr. Speaker, I'm not telling the member that either.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, is the minister telling the House anything?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I pride myself on having been as helpful as possible to members opposite when questions have been put with respect to this portfolio and the portfolios which I held previously. When the questions are logical I attempt to give logical answers.

MR. STUPICH: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think it's time we started all over, then. My original question was: was the minister informed at the time he accepted responsibility for this post that the revenues as presented in the budget will likely be much higher than the actual revenue for the period 1980-81?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I think the member was in the House the other day — in fact, I recall that he was — when I indicated that this government introduced a process of quarterly reporting. We are now some two weeks and a couple of days from the report on the first quarter of the 1980-81 fiscal year, a process that was introduced by this government to provide the kind of information the member seeks through questions.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, is the minister telling us that until that quarterly report comes out he will not know whether or not revenues for the 1980-81 period are in line with, in excess of, or less than the budgeted figures?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, the member opposite, having served for a short while as Minister of Finance and having had some experience as a member of government, will know that revenue and expenditure flows, through the course of any given year, change quite often. Projections are revised depending on a variety of circumstances. I tried to explain to the House last week that one does not put together a budget and expect or reasonably assume that nothing in that budget will remain absolutely unaltered through the course of the fiscal year which commences some two or three months later. I think the member knows that.

MR. STUPICH: On Friday a press release was issued. It was delivered to my desk this morning. The minister indicated in that press release that it was necessary, because of a decrease in revenues below those forecast, for him to apply what he called a crude instrument of restraint. It would seem to me that the minister has more information than he is prepared to give us today.

[ Page 3278 ]

HON. MR. CURTIS: There will be ample opportunity in my estimates. If the House was about to adjourn for some months....

MR. KING: Arrogance.

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, Mr. Member, not arrogance. I'm not through with the question. You can be pleasant in the hall, but you're very rude in here at times.

To answer the question, I consider a freeze such as was introduced with respect to the hiring of new public servants to be not the finest instrument one can use. I described it as "crude." It is. It has been used before; in fact, it was used by the party opposite when it was in power. That does not necessarily suggest that it is the finest instrument that one could use in a time of some uncertainty.

I have made it very clear — if the member has read the entire press release — that we're very hopeful that the freeze on the hiring of new people within the public service of British Columbia can be lifted selectively and gradually, and that it won't last very long. I thought the kind of quick action which I considered appropriate, having received indications that we are in something of a difficult year. It is a year when there are a variety of factors well beyond the control of this House or of this province. There are some difficulties, and therefore this must be seen for precisely what it is: a signal to all my colleagues, to deputies and to the managers of government throughout the province that there is the need for some restraint.

MR. STUPICH: I wonder whether the Minister of Finance heard the Premier's remarks in the previous week to the effect that there was no need for any cutback in government services.

HON. MR. CURTIS: In some jurisdictions wholesale firings are taking place in the public service. That is not necessary in British Columbia. That is not even being considered in British Columbia. What I have done is slow down....

Interjections.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I consider it necessary to send a signal to the government of British Columbia, and to the managers of government, that there is some restraint required at this particular point in time. In the mid-term, in the longer term, I'm extremely optimistic, but there are some warning signs with respect to this fiscal year. It would be irresponsible for any Minister of Finance in any government to ignore those early warning signs.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister has said there will be ample time to discuss this when we're considering his estimates. Since the opposition finds out an adjournment time each day, is the minister telling the House that there will be no adjournment of the House until we have dealt with his estimates?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, clearly that's up to the House Leader, and the member knows that.

LABOUR ACTION AT GLENGARRY HOSPITAL

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Health. Would the minister report to the House the state of affairs at Glengarry Hospital? There appears to be a job action in progress, and I'm informed that the place is locked up. Patients and staff are inside; there is no communication. Can the minister tell the House what's going on?

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I can only tell the House at this point that there is, as the member has indicated, a labour dispute, which has resulted in a very unfortunate situation at Glengarry. My staff are now looking into the matter. I expect to have word within the next day or two, and I'll be glad to report to the House when I do.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Has the minister assured himself that patient care is not in any way jeopardized?

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, at this point I am assured, but I'm not assured that that situation will remain for the foreseeable future, which is why I'm having my staff look into it right now. As the member knows — and as the House will know — this is a private dispute over which the government does not have any direct control. That does not mean we don't have an obligation to make sure that patients in that hospital are cared for during that dispute. That is the thing I'm having my staff look into; that is what I will report to the House.

ALLEGED CHIPPING OF
GOOD-QUALITY SAWLOGS

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Forests. On June 26 I asked the minister if he had decided to hold an inquiry into the chipping of good-quality sawlogs and lumber by sawmill operators. The minister replied by casting doubt on the photographic evidence presented by the IWA which I passed on to the minister.

The minister has now received a letter dated July 7 from Jack Munro, president of the IWA regional council No. 1, which says the minister's assertion is completely and totally ludicrous. Has the minister now decided to hold an inquiry into this matter?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I believe I advised the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke at that time that the monitoring of the use of logs is an ongoing process with the ministry, and it continues today.

MR. KING: Well, Mr. Speaker, the minister is aware that he had a direct request to hold a public inquiry. The suggestion was made that a public inquiry was necessary because certain people within the industry felt threatened and intimidated by retaliation if they spoke out on matters of poor utilization.

Now that the minister has received a very strong letter from an element of the forest industry saying that there is wastage by the chipping of first-class sawlogs, is he prepared to go beyond the normal monitoring he refers to and hold a full-scale inquiry into the wastage of prime sawlog material in the province?

[ Page 3279 ]

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

MR. KING: Has the minister decided to discuss further with the people who are making these complaints the source of their complaints and the validity of those complaints, or is he just ignoring them completely?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the ministry and the minister have constant dialogue with all sectors of the forest industry about many, many subjects.

MR. KING: That's an admirable quality, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister, then, respond to the letter from the president of the IWA, in which he calls the minister's remarks ludicrous, to further elicit from him any evidence he holds that wastage of prime sawlogs is taking place on a wide scale in B.C.?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I respond to all my correspondence.

BODY-SHOP SURCHARGES ON ICBC RATES

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to address a question to the Minister of Agriculture in his capacity as a director of ICBC. When motorists purchase insurance from ICBC, they're under the impression that they're buying protection against accident damage with a specified deductible. The practice of allowing body shops to surcharge individual motorists under the guise of balance billing denies this principle. Has the minister decided to recommend to the board that the corporation reimburse motorists for the full cost of repairs to their vehicles in accordance with the conditions of the insurance they purchased from the corporation?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Speaker, I haven't decided that.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, will the minister agree that this state of affairs, in which the insured motorist now finds himself uninsured to an unknown extent, is a deteriorating situation which should be addressed by the minister, and will the minister advise and confirm that this will be taken up by him at the next board meeting?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I understand from ICBC staff that where a motorist is faced with a damage claim on an automobile, he is made aware by the claims centre that the rate is $25.60. If he goes to a body shop and there is a comment regarding an excessive rate over and above $25.60 an hour, he can come back and be directed to a body shop that charges $25.60 an hour at the present time.

B.C. TEL SERVICE

MR. MITCHELL: My question is to the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications. B.C. Tel plans to withdraw operators from Vernon, Cranbrook, Nelson, Williams Lake, Dawson Creek and Terrace, and substitute a computerized system, commonly known in the industry as TSPS, with centrally based operators. Has the minister decided to ask the CRTC to hold hearings in these communities, so that local residents can have input before B.C. Tel cuts service in the interior?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, the British Columbia Telephone Co. is under the jurisdiction of the CRTC and not the government of British Columbia.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might have leave to respond to a question posed by the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) with respect to the use of polygraphs.

Leave granted.

ALLEGED POLYGRAPH TESTING
OF WELFARE RECIPIENTS

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: The member asked me if I was aware of two circumstances. I think it would be appropriate if I divided my response. The first circumstance to which the member alluded was stated by him as follows: "We are advised that the Ministry of Human Resources officials at the local level have advised welfare recipients, when they report such losses" — these are losses by reason of theft — "that they will not be considered for a special allowance unless they have reported the theft to the police." With respect to that matter I am advised by the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) that that is generally the case.

The second part of this question was to the effect that the police have indicated that so many of these thefts have been reported that they have been using polygraph tests and have done so in consultation with Ministry of Human Resources officials. The answer is that polygraph tests are used as an investigative device by the police in this province, and in these particular cases such use is not as a result of consultation with Ministry of Human Resources officials. In fact in the past year only one such polygraph test has been used and that was with the consent of the person being investigated. As the hon. member knows, polygraph results are not admissible in a court of law but are purely an investigative device. However, in view of the concern that was raised surrounding this particular incident, the following directives have been issued by my ministry to those forces who have polygraph test equipment:

"Henceforth all requests for investigating officers for polygraph tests must be approved by a senior supervisor from the police force requesting its use with a view to ensuring that all other methods of investigation have been fully canvassed prior to the employment of the polygraph. Secondly, before a polygraph examination is conducted the individual to be examined must fully understand that the polygraph is voluntary and that a consent be obtained, either in writing or verbally on tape."

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

(continued)

On vote 114: minister's office, $165,162.

[ Page 3280 ]

HON. MR. MAIR: On Thursday last several members raised with me a number of questions, and I would like to start off today, if I may, by dealing with them in a little more detail than I was able to on Thursday.

The member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) raised, during the course of her remarks, several concerns concerning Burnaby General Hospital, and I expressed my surprise at that time for a couple of reasons. I had felt there was a good relationship and understanding between Mr. Norm Barth, the administrator, and myself. You may recall that I quoted from a recent letter at that time. Secondly, as far as I could recall at that time the hospital was in a good financial situation. I have, as I promised, had the matter reviewed and I'd like, if I may now, to reply in a little more detail to the hon. member.

I didn't have the conversation myself but my staff had a conversation with Mr. Barth over the intervening days. I understand the following is a fair summation of that telephone conversation. First of all, it would not appear that there are any operational budget problems. There is adequate funding for the services which the hospital is expected to provide and the fact is, as of March 31, 1980, the hospital was in a surplus position.

Secondly, day-care surgery has not been curtailed. The hospital does approximately 160 procedures per month and has remained at approximately that level of service. If the hospital were to curtail day-care surgery it would not be due to budget but rather due to the fact that during the summertime there are inadequate candidates.

There is a waiting period of approximately three to six weeks for elective surgery and the hospital is satisfied with that. The waiting list is currently 703, including the 195 for day-care surgery. The hospital does approximately 700 surgical cases per month.

I understand there are no capital budget problems for the present level of service but there is one minor matter which the hon. member raised which was substantially correct. There are still a few unfinished areas following the completion of the expansion program and perhaps these should have been included in the total expansion program. The hospital, I am told, has been trying to get minor capital improvement grants to complete these areas and has requested $54,000 to complete the work. They received verbal approval for $15,670 of this amount and my staff are reviewing the remainder of the request. Hopefully all the minor unfinished areas will be completed in the near future.

The hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) raised a great many questions. I'm sure that if I attempt to answer them today I'll only just touch upon a few of them and we'll get into some more detailed debate. He raised particularly the question of the established programs financing formula. I did take the time to examine the Blues and try to extract specific questions but I may not have gotten them all. One of the questions he asked is: "Are we better off under EPF than we were under cost-sharing?" I think, Mr. Chairman, that a comparison can only be made with hypothetical federal cost-sharing funding after three years of EPF. But in the opinion of the Ministry of Finance analysts, British Columbia's receipts under EPF are higher than, but nevertheless very close to, what the province would have received under a continuation of cost-sharing. Once the levelling-up has been achieved, probably in the next fiscal year, 1981-1982, growth rates will become more moderate and the proportion received by British Columbia will level off or decline.

The Hon. member then raised the question as to whether or not the principles of medicare, namely universality, portability, accessibility and comprehensibility, deteriorated in medicare since cost-sharing. The best answer I can give him is that while this does appear to have happened in other provinces, the principles remain in force in British Columbia to the same degree now as they did before cost-sharing.

The hon. member then raised the question that for health care EPF is based on medical costs and hospital costs only, and it has led to a neglect of preventive programs and low-cost alternatives. The very reason, Mr. Member, we've entered into EPF — or we did at that time — was to give the provinces more flexibility in providing preventive programs, which British Columbia has done. Of course, I suppose the most obvious example of this is the Long-term Care Program. Preventive programs and low-cost alternatives were not cost-shared prior to 1977 when the deal was made.

The hon. member has indicated that payments by the federal government have not increased under EPF at a rate necessary to cope with inflation. I must respond that the arbitrary budget limits were established under cost-sharing before 1977, and they are not now operative. The limits imposed on annual increases and payments to the provinces were imposed under the cost-sharing scheme and were not part of the EPF agreement.

The member goes on to talk abut the indexing of premium payments. He says it's regressive and makes accessibility of medical services easier for the middle class to the detriment of the poorer class. I think I tried to deal with that last week, Mr. Chairman. I'm sure we'll deal with it again. I don't think that there's any deterioration in terms of access at all, and certainly there is no deterioration on the grounds that those who can't afford to pay are in any way prejudiced, because those payments in fact are made for those who can't afford to pay. However, this is not done in the same method — and I think we agreed on this last week — that the member would prefer. We just happened to do it a little differently.

The member indicated at one point that the provinces had not driven a good enough bargain, or words to the effect, and that we should deal with this year, not two years ago. Probably where you're looking at cost increases of 11 percent, you're going to get something like 8 percent from the federal government. You're not even going to make the cost of living in that respect. I think that's a fairly accurate quote. I must say that it's difficult, again, to draw a precise comparison since the two factors do not run in parallel. But assuming that your estimated increase of 11 percent is correct, at least I can say that the revenues under EPF in 1980-81 increased by 11.5 percent.

The member stated that the government had not laid sufficient emphasis in its submission to the Hall commission on the need for preventive health services, and he commented about the vagueness of lifestyle modifications in the preventive sense. I would refer the member to page 7 of the submission to the Hall commission, pointing out that the Home Support Program had quadrupled between 1977 and 1980 and that the Long-term Care Program had developed 16 adult day care centres, 17 group homes, and was looking to much more flexibility and innovation in the delivery of alternative forms of care.

Without going into it in any great detail, I suppose it's always a question of opinion as to whether or not one deals enough with a certain subject, and perhaps we might have

[ Page 3281 ]

dealt at greater length with the Hall commission. I felt satisfied and still do feel satisfied that we gave Mr. Justice Hall a full accounting of our position in that particular area.

The hon. member also mentioned something to the effect that the tax transfer is also earmarked. I thought l had made it clear in the first part of my remarks that that's one part that is not earmarked. This is the source of the flexibility for the province to innovate, if it wishes. So that's one of the areas that is not earmarked.

The hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) and I got into a bit of a.... I don't think it was a philosophical discussion on preventive medicine; I think it was perhaps a little more practical than that. It dealt with whether or not the government ought to be doing more in the area of discouraging smoking, excessive drinking and that sort of thing. We had a little disagreement which we've carried on since Public Accounts as to the benefits of smoking. I thought perhaps I might just run down a few of the areas where we feel that it makes approaches in this area very apropos, and some of the reasons for it.

In talking to experts in the field, it seems that at least three basic areas, perhaps four, are very much affected by smoking. I refrain from using the expression "excessive smoking", Mr. Member, because, as you know, I think that any smoking, even if it's secondary smoke, is excessive. In the areas of heart disease, there is no question that the causal relationship between smoking and heart disease, or at least the aggravation of it, has been long established. On the question of strokes, blood pressure control and so on, there is no question that once again, smoking has an extremely adverse effect there, and there's no doubt that lung cancer is essentially preventable — not necessarily lung cancer caused entirely by tobacco smoking, but certainly it is something that is basically preventable. Also, of course, the effects of smoking on the unborn have yet to be fully assessed.

There are other areas of preventive medicine where I think we are doing a fair job but must do a much better job.

The question of accidents. We didn't get into that, but I don't think there's any doubt now that seatbelts have been proved an important preventive medicine. I think that perhaps it's for others in the government to say that the degree of our enforcement of the law is an issue that we might look at in that regard. We've been taking a rather tame approach towards it, but there's no doubt that ICBC statistics, and indeed statistics all across Canada, indicate that this is an area where we are making some considerable strides.

In the area of perinatal health — deaths of the newborn — a corresponding reduction of handicapping conditions can be achieved in the order of about 40 percent. My staff are working on strategies of coordinating increased perinatal care, with an emphasis on nutrition and more sophisticated hospital care of the newborn. Expert opinion states that for every newborn child's life saved there will be two fewer handicapped children. I think great credit is due to my, predecessor, particularly, for this.

Another area that we don't think of in terms of preventive medicine so often that obviously is a very key area is dental decay. I think we all recognize that a substantial amount of dental decay — I'm told up to 60 percent — is preventable.

Of course, I know that we're going to get into at some length the question of alcohol and drug abuse, so I won't go into that in any great detail now. I've indicated to the member some of my reasons for not favouring additional advertising in the electronic media. I notice that I did not talk about lifestyle advertising, which the advertisers insist it is not — I insist it is.... As long as you always win the game or the girl, catch the fish or whatever the prize is, to my way of thinking it's not just a matter of trying to get you to change brands, it's trying to tell you that the idea's a pretty good one in the first place.

Those are some of the matters that we touched on last week. Just before I take my seat for further questions I would like to raise one issue which I think was certainly touched on — if not in question period alone, I think perhaps in my estimates. That's the question of the university hospital and the suggested cost of $600 per diem. The reason I raise that now, Mr. Chairman, is that it's come to my attention that Dr. Mandeville, who is now the president of the BCMA, in circulating a letter to his colleagues in answer to a letter I wrote, said:

"I am equally encouraged to see that the government is now prepared to accept medical input into health planning, and indeed the winds of change are noticeable in the past month. If they had listened to medical input they might not have been saddled now with the university hospital and its $600 per diem rate. The BCMA presented a brief on cost containment to government four years ago which appears to have been ignored. There has been similar inaction regarding the Black report."

I thought I should bring to the attention of the chamber that this $600 figure has been emphatically refuted by Dr. Price, medical director of the Health Sciences Centre Hospital. I thought, if I might just take two or three minutes of the chamber's time, I would just read his letter, which is addressed to Dr. Mandeville. He says:

"In your recent president's letter of July 7, 1980, you mentioned a university hospital and its $600 per diem rate. I assume this refers to the acute-care unit of the Health Sciences Centre Hospital, University of British Columbia. As the per diem rate for acute-care unit has not yet been determined this is clearly a misstatement. Had you enquired, you would have discovered that hospital per diems are set by the Ministry of Health after review of the hospital's proposed operating budget and is related to estimated workload and statistics for the hospital. As of this writing this review has not yet been completed for the acute-care unit. However, it is most unlikely the per diem, when it is determined, will exceed that of the Vancouver General Hospital, which is currently $253.05 a day."

I pause to say that I mentioned that I think it will be somewhat less than that.

He goes on and finishes:

"It is unfortunate that such an irresponsible and mischievous rumour should be propagated by an official publication from the president's office of the British Columbia Medical Association. This can serve no useful purpose and detracts from the status of the profession."

The letter from Dr. Mandeville that gave rise to this letter is dated July 7, 1980, and the letter from Dr. Price is dated July 11, 1980.

MR. COCKE: The minister has allayed our fears. The minister has told us that it's not going to cost $600 a day to operate the "McGeer Memorial Hospital" at UBC. I don't

[ Page 3282 ]

know where they're going to hide the costs of running that highly sophisticated facility, but I'm here to tell you that if the minister can come into this House and show us a year from now, two years from now, or at any other time, a definitive budget for that hospital that is anything less than $600 a day, taking into account all of its splendour, I'm going to be the most surprised person on earth.

Mr. Chairman, I have talked to experts in the field who have had very close relationships with that — the ultimate of expenditures. One of the reasons for the fact that the province is in such dire shape is they're putting on freezes and all the rest of it at the present time. What Dr. Mandeville says in his letter is the subject of discussion among experts across the province. I have seen this projection go up in the last two or three years from $450 to $500 and now to $600 and I've had a more recent prognostication that takes it to $680 per diem.

I'm sure that if other aspects of running that hospital are taken on by other departments then they can reduce the per diem. The minister told us only two or three days ago that it was going to cost $180 per day and now his own administrator tells us it's going to be $250. That's a $70 increase in the per diem in three days; last Thursday that was his accounting for the cost of operating that hospital. I believe it's a shocking situation and I really feel rather sorry for the minister being the one to have to carry the brunt of this problem.

This was a question that got the now Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) to walk across the floor and become a Socred. He had wanted that acute-care centre at UBC for so long he ached. When given that promise.... And don't forget that one of the first things the Socreds did when they came to power was to tear apart the British Columbia Medical Centre, which would have been good planning and provided a good thrust for the development of health care education and health care work. But no, Mr. Chairman, they went the other way. They destroyed, dismantled and went into these individual areas of that particular thrust. So they built one, and it's a white elephant. And it's going to increasingly become more of a white elephant.

One of the major reasons is that there is not one element of that hospital large enough on its own to be economical and all elements of that hospital can best be described as tertiary — highly sophisticated and very expensive to run. Now if they have the same disastrous experience that history would have told them they might expect.... Such has occurred in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and at McMaster in Hamilton, where they decided to take the hospital away from the people and put it on the campus where they can't attract the patients. Who wants to go to the periphery for health care attention? Who wants to go to the periphery of a community when there's a corridor in Vancouver providing health care? That minister is going to carry the can as long as he's there for a mistake made by his predecessor and their government.

That minister also told us the other day that he didn't want to be misunderstood. He wanted everybody here to understand specifically that he wanted the position of Health minister. He said he almost asked for it. Well, it was relatively common knowledge on this side that he wasn't all that excited. But let me quote his colleague, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). The minister said that he wanted it. In an interview with The Columbian, a little newspaper in New Westminster that I happen to pick up every once in a while, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour said, and I'm quoting: "About Intergovernmental Affairs minister, Garde Gardom — I don't know. I don't think Garde knows much about what he's doing, anyway. Rafe Mair would really like to be in that slot. I don't think Garde really has any strong views on the area, but Garde can work well with the Premier."

Obviously the Minister of Health can't work well with the Premier; and if he can't work well with the Premier, it strikes me that the Premier put him in one of the toughest, roughest portfolios of government — and I know a little bit about that, Mr. Chairman; I held that portfolio at one time, and it is tough. But it becomes increasingly difficult if you continue to make those kinds of mistakes. I hope that the minister stops being an apologist for his predecessor. He's stuck with it; he's stuck with the portfolio that his colleague describes as one that he didn't particularly want. He wants to be on the run, discussing the major affairs of Canada, where his colleague, the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations, finds himself now, bartering, negotiating the affairs of our country — hopefully not negotiating away our country, but negotiating, bartering the affairs of the country.

Mr. Chairman, another thing that burns me about this suggestion that came out of the debate on Thursday....

We notice that there is a member back from New York. How can Times Square live without you, now that they've seen you? And how can they keep you down on the farm, after you've seen New York? That member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet) has had the time of his life; he'll never be the same again.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Will all hon. members please come to order.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the prophet from the North Peace tells me I've got a hot future — whatever that might mean.

MR. BRUMMET: Do you want to know where?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'll have lots of good company from North Peace River.

Nurses are at fault, we hear, health workers are at fault for our tough situation in health care. The hint is left that one of the reasons for the increases in rates to people the increases in the cost of the per diems at the hospitals, the $2 increase in the cost to chronically ill people in extended care, which is $60 a month.... We see two ministers using it as a handle. We see the Minister of Health using it where it best suits his purposes and we see the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) using it as well. That, Mr. Chairman, is an absolutely shocking performance. The minister budgeted $41 million for his increase in this fiscal period, when — and incidentally it wasn't just the nurses; we're talking about all of the health sciences people: the nurses working for the government, the nurses working for the hospitals, the orderlies and all the rest of the people working in the hospitals — that will cost us an additional $135 million. That's $176.5 million altogether in this fiscal period. Sure, it's a lot of money, and sure, they can make charges that this is the reason that we're in such dire shape; this is the reason they put freezes on; this is the reason they increased rates. But you can't have it all ways.

[ Page 3283 ]

[Mr. Hyndman in the chair.]

The minister has to decide whether or not his budgeting was any good in the first place and whether or not he could not prognosticate a lot closer than $135 million out, or come in and say to the House: "Well, we put the lower figure in so that they wouldn't have too much of our carrot to look forward to." But don't come in here and give us that plea that this unexpected expenditure is the reason for all this darkness and gloom. If they couldn't foresee, as everybody else did.... I read Province editorials — that's not exactly the most outrageously expenditure-conscious paper that I've ever seen — acknowledging the fact that there was some catching up to be done; the same thing with the other paper, the Sun; and the same thing with people who are thoughtful about the whole question.

Mr. Chairman, it's not a good excuse, and I don't like to see people working in that very important area called health care, carrying the can for everything bad that happens. If any of us were ill and were getting the care offered in our major hospitals — when they can afford to open a door for us — I doubt if we would resent the amount being paid those health workers. If we do resent it, let's come right out and say so, but let's not use their increases as excuses for our own total incompetence.

I believe that one of the reasons I am as angry as I am about the increases that we saw.... I'm not going to deal with increases particularly today, other than the one for those who are chronically ill — $60 a month. Here is a plaintive plea from somebody in Rainbow senior citizens long-term care lodge in Prince George, British Columbia.

"I am a resident on the committee of the above hospital. I am enclosing a copy of a letter I sent to Rafe Mair, Minister of Health, on June 13 — we registered it both ways so that we would have proof of delivery — which arrived on June 17. Needless to say, there was no reply from Mr. Mair.

"As senior citizens we agree we are pretty disgusted, as I'm sure you will appreciate. Two dollars a day doesn't sound like much, but when you say $60 to $62 a month extra, going from $6.50 a day to $8.50 — which in a year is somewhere near $744 extra — it really hurts. At the same time, on July 1 our hospital costs go up from $4 a day to $5.50. Ambulances go from $15 to $19. B.C. Medical is also up. While anybody is away in hospital, they have to pay both the hostel charges and the hospital daily charges."

What she is talking about here is that she is in long-term care and, in order to maintain her bed in long-term care, those costs per diem go on. If she happens to be moved for a time — six, seven or ten days, or whatever — into an acute-care hospital for some condition, which is not unusual, then those rates also apply. She goes on:

"All this coming in Canada Week, where we should all feel happy and proud. The $35 extra coming at the end of July would be a great help from Ottawa, but when it is taken away again so soon, how do a lot of seniors save for glasses, hearing aids and many other medical aids not covered by Pharmacare — ordinary, everyday necessities? Incidentally, isn't the increase approximately 30 to 33 percent? The rentalsman would only approve 10 percent."

This very articulate old-age pensioner in an extended-care hospital — in a long-term care hostel — writes and not only tells us what she thinks, but sends me a signed petition from her fellow patients or residents in that facility. That says it all.

Where in heaven's name are this minister's priorities? I have had — and I vouch the minister has had — letters from all over this province in that same vein. I could have brought in a stack as high as you like and gone on reading for as long as you like; but I needn't, because it was all said there. It's unfair and unfortunate. Not only that, they turn around and try to put the handle on somebody else — the nurses, the health workers or whatever.

I suggest that that increase, along with the others, has to be very carefully thought out by this government, as well as their policy of indexing from now on. If those people on fixed incomes, who are most affected by this policy, were also indexed, then I would say maybe you have a case. But they are not. Not by any stretch of the imagination are they indexed.

I was reassured a few moments ago when in reply to the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) the minister indicated that all's well in Burnaby General Hospital. That gives one a sense of confidence. That gives one a sense that all is well, because if Burnaby General is going well, surely everywhere they are doing just fine.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

How are things in Vernon these days? Vernon Jubilee Hospital is overcrowded: cancelling surgery, putting patients in corridors, treatment rooms and even in bath areas. It could reach the same critical stage which looms before Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital: a possible moratorium on all elective admissions. We're in a desperate situation, notes the assistant administrator. That was three or four months ago when all was well. Things are bad now, but then they were okay. Things are bad now because all the nurses are on holiday. What was their excuse then? All through the year it has been a disaster. Now they say that the nurses are all on holidays for the summertime. They have a fortunate contract where they can take off. I say balderdash. It's a chronic problem. It has always been a chronic Social Credit problem because of the lack of priority for health care.

We see announcement after announcement: a hospital being built here, more beds there. But when you total it all up at the end of the year, what have you got? You've got a bunch of very discontented Social Credit MLAs wishing their government would place some priority on health care in their particular area. I'll bet you, if we could only hear those speeches, if we could only hear them stand up and say what they really want to say....

What about the Premier's own constituency — KGH? That's short for the Kelowna General Hospital; I'm not all that keen on acronyms, but everybody uses them, so I thought I would just carry right along with the way things are done. Kelowna General Hospital is suffering an acute case of bed-shortage, and no permanent cure is seen by hospital officials for some time. The result is inconvenience for patients and an obvious strain on the hospital itself. "We're under tremendous pressure," says Colin Elliott. Mr. Elliott indicates one of the reasons we're in such trouble; the big problem is that we have a large number of acute-care beds occupied by long-term care patients. There are other reasons. That was two months after the report from Vernon Jubilee. It goes on and on.

[ Page 3284 ]

These are just a few little clippings from Kelowna General Hospital. It's amazing how things happen. Just about the time when the government looked at its worst, there was an announcement of a couple of million dollars to be expended at the Kelowna General for — guess what? Extended-care beds. I don't know how they're doing, but I'll tell you right now that the message came down the pipe real fast when it affected that constituency.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) says I'm not doing too badly at the Royal Columbian. Thankfully we got the Royal Columbian off the ground; we built the basic services. Now the government is going to build a patient tower; we're not doing too badly. I won't hold my breath.

I'll tell you right now, they've announced that one of the best elective surgery hospitals in this province is being converted by that minister to an extended-care hospital. He talked about a pilot project the other day; I tried to find somebody who understood what he was talking about. Pilot project, my foot! It does not lend itself to extended care. It's a six-storey hospital with operating rooms, with wide corridors to move patients back and forth. It is one hospital that is providing really valuable service in this province, and we find that, down the road, because the minister feels that he has to make some adjustments, that hospital is going to go out of service for its present use. Need I now grovel, and say we're doing fine in New Westminster?

One of the major industries in that little town is health care — three major hospitals, plus Woodlands School, plus being very close to Riverview, so that many of the people working there live in New Westminster, plus a hive of cottage industry called doctors' offices, because naturally that's where they congregate. So it is not a constituency that is unaware of health problems, nor is it a constituency that will take lightly to bad decisions by Health ministers.

Well, Mr. Chairman, some of my colleagues are going to deal with some of the local issues around Victoria. But I will say that they haven't been without problems in the capital city — nor are they now — which include extremely long waiting lists for elective surgery and fights over where certain aspects of health care delivery should take place. It is in crisis here as it's in crisis elsewhere.

Mr. Chairman, in reply to what the minister was saying the other day — and I'm raising this correspondence because the minister was saying the other day that they've had a little bit of a problem in the emergency situation at VGH — Vancouver General had a shortage of beds and one thing and another, and so for a few hours they had to divert patients. That occurred the week before last — on July 2 or 3, I believe. I'll allude to two pieces of correspondence. This is a letter dated February 28, 1980 — note that date:

"Dear Doctor:

"As usual at this time of the year" — that's a good way to start; as usual at any time of the year, this being now July — "VGH is desperately short of beds. Elective admissions are being cancelled each day to accommodate patients who are being sent in as emergencies. While these patients are usually sick, some of them are not emergencies in the sense of having an immediate threat to life or limb, or function of vital organs. Many of them do not need the particular degree of expertise which is available at VGH, and could be served — cared for — just as well in other hospitals.

"In order to solve this problem, we are making the following requests: (1) Please do not send patients to the emergency department for admission unless they truly are emergencies as defined above. If the patient needs community assistance or home care in order to remain at home, our social service department can provide the numbers of appropriate agencies to contact. (2) Do not accept transfers from other hospitals just because they have no beds."

Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time. I'll come back to this when the opportunity avails itself. I would, however, like the minister to be very thoughtful about the delivery of health care, and the costing of health care, as quickly as he can.

HON. MR. MAIR: I would like to go back over the questions posed to me by the member for New Westminster. Getting back to the exchange of letters, which I read, I don't think that it's fair to say that there has been a $70 increase in the per diem cost at the university hospital over the last few days, because neither myself nor the doctor replying to Dr. Mandeville are able to say precisely what it is going to be. He has said that it will not, in all likelihood, exceed $250. I have said that I hope it will be around the $180 mark, but I'm not suggesting that we could not be wrong. I don't think there is any question that the $600 per diem suggestion or figures anywhere near that are totally out of whack. As the member said, we'll see.

He raised, with some glee, a remark made by the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). I haven't seen those remarks. With respect to my desire to have the Health ministry, there is only one person who can answer that question and it's not the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, nor the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), nor any other member, or any other person. I can tell you that I was very happy to be made Minister of Health. I said that last week.

I can, if you wish, describe the rather humorous course of events that gave rise to the misunderstanding by the press, who thought I'd gotten into some kind of argument with the Premier when in fact I was sitting in Mr. Tozer's office talking with a number of my colleagues waiting for my turn to talk to the Premier. We can go into that if you like. They took that to mean I was having some kind of argument. I think I can tell you, without betraying confidence, that the discussion took perhaps four or five minutes and when I found out I was to be Health minister I was delighted and I still am, notwithstanding the fact that I agree with the member for New Westminster that it is a very difficult job and carries with it a lot of pressures.

I don't doubt that we could double the budget for the Ministry of Health for this year and still have many problems. We'd still be standing here today with the Minister of Health — whether it be me or anybody else — being wildly criticized by the critic for a number of things. Notwithstanding that, I do enjoy the job. I can tell the member opposite that if I had not wanted the job I would not have taken it. I am not so enamoured with public life that I would have to take a job I didn't want. Furthermore, I think I would find most jobs in the cabinet challenging. If I didn't feel that way about government, I wouldn't have run in the first place. I am sure the member opposite, if he ever, god forbid, were to find himself back in government and he were offered any one of 17 or 18 cabinet posts, would be very happy to take

[ Page 3285 ]

most of them. I am sure he has thought that out in advance. There aren't very many — with the exception of some that perhaps call for an expertise that we don't personally possess — that you wouldn't take because you've thought about that beforehand.

The question of the settlements in the health sciences field and the question of the budgeted amount I cannot answer for the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis). I am sure he will be questioned and he will answer satisfactorily in due course as to the things that go into making up the budget. I can only say that I said publicly at the time that the figure of 8 percent for the settlements was simply a figure to put in the budget because you have to put one in there that is over and above what you've got in. There is no way you're going to put in what you think is going to happen. The people who are doing the settlement can read budgets too. If you put in there that you are thinking in terms of 30, 40, 20 or 25 percent you can be sure that would be the floor of negotiations from that point on. I don't think anybody would criticize a government who did not wish, through a budget, to flag what they are prepared to pay in any settlement that came about. As the member knows, these settlements are reached by forces outside the government entirely. It is an unfortunate thing for the government in the sense that they have to pay these things and to a large extent have to carry the can for the settlements because the public, I think by and large, believes that the government does play a significant role in these things and they don't. I frankly think the government is going to have to examine this process, but not from the point of view of getting directly involved themselves, because I think that once the government became the payor of these things then it is only a matter of time before it becomes a very much worse situation than it presently is. I think we have to be better informed and have perhaps a better liaison with the parties that are involved.

Dealing with the question raised by the member for New Westminster of long-term care homes and so on, it is a very sympathetic sort of case that one makes for the proposition that people are not getting as much as they ought to. I understand that the present old-age security and supplement for senior citizens is now $375.15 a month and has been since July 1. When you take from that the $255 a month it leaves about $120 a month for spending money. This is not a princely sum. I am not pretending that it is, but one must remember that the $255 per month is total maintenance. It is not just a matter of board. It is room, board, care and all those things. While I appreciate the point the member has made I think that, to put it in perspective, we are talking nevertheless about complete care and if one has absolutely no private income whatsoever — I know a great many people don't have it — it is still $120 left over from that.

Dealing with the Vernon Jubilee Hospital and the Kelowna General Hospital, the Vernon Jubilee Hospital has two expansions in the planning stage right now. First of all, there is a new extended-care unit. I understand there are 75 beds in Vernon Jubilee itself and 133 extended-care beds will go to the Dellview site, for a total of 188 extended-care beds which are now are on the planning board. Of course, that doesn't put them in effect. I appreciate that. It's only natural that the member may very well want to get to his feet and say: "Well, what's that going to do next year?" I don't know that I can answer that, but I can say this. We have addressed ourselves to it, certainly to that extent. The expansion of acute-care beds in addition to that will be from 155 to 228 and we've also expanded a number of other services — radiology, laboratory, ambulatory, out-patient and so on — in that hospital. I don't think it would surprise the member to know that I've been in close touch and I'm working with the member for Okanagan North (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) concerning those problems.

Regarding Kelowna General Hospital, again, you might guess that I've heard from the MLA in that area, and I might say that we have approval now to improve the service areas — emergency, out-patient and that sort of thing — which will be completed by the spring of 1981. In addition, we have just completed 50 additional extended-care beds and we have 100 additional extended-care beds approved, which will be available in 1982.

I think that I have dealt with most of the questions. I may have missed one or two, but I'm sure that my friends opposite will bring to my attention those that I have missed.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, when a great many people in this province were convinced that the present minister didn't want the job, they felt quite unsettled that here was a Minister of Health who didn't particularly want the job. That was the inference from the press reports and people, I'm sure, were quite upset to hear that. Having watched the minister in his brief time in the portfolio, they have become even more distressed. Now that they know he actually does want the job and he's interested in it, because he has that kind of record, it frightens everyone, not just a few people in this province. When you go into an estimate, as a member of the opposition you think out how best you can articulate what you see as the problems within a ministry. You try to deal with that in the best way you can and hopefully offer some constructive suggestions where you have the expertise or the knowledge.

I have with me today a letter that I believe sums up the health care system in this province and our hospitals in a much more articulate way than I ever could, because all too often from this side of the House and from the government's side we tend to deal with statistics when talking about something as human as health care. It's very difficult through numbers, jargon and health care talk to really let each other and the people in this province know the kind of problems that individuals within our society are facing when dealing with the health care system under Social Credit. The attitudes of the Social Credit Premier and the Social Credit minister toward an individual, who, in my opinion — in this letter I'm going to share with the House — makes a heart-rending plea for help based on her experience and her family's experience with an encounter with the health care system in this province....

The letter, which I'm going to read to you in its entirety, because I think it's all worthwhile — it says it all about the health care system — is from a constituent of mine, a mother, directed to the Premier of the province. It says:

The Right Honourable William R. Bennett,
Premier,
Parliament Buildings,
Blanshard Street,
Victoria,
March 25, 1980.

Dear Sir:

We've just gone through an experience that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy. We can't help but feel that if this happened to you you would be more empathetic to the plight of the people

[ Page 3286 ]

that your government's hospital budget is affecting the most the patients.

Our infant son had open-heart surgery at Vancouver General Hospital at the age of seven weeks. He was on a heart monitor, which sounds an alarm if the child quits breathing or the heart stops, as were six other children in the nursery. Although there should be a nurse in the nursery at all times to take action if the monitor sounds an alarm, this was not the case, because there were just not enough available nurses on staff.

The second time our son was hospitalized the monitor was on for precautionary reasons and so could be disconnected when we fed or played with our son. One day, after being reconnected, the alarm sounded due to a malfunction in the unit. I waited to see how long it would take for a nurse or a doctor to respond to the alarm. After ten minutes I gave up. The alarm was never answered. Can you imagine what would have happened if he really had stopped breathing and I had not been there?

Many of the children in the nursery were fed by nose-tubes since they were too weak to take food by mouth. Because of staff shortages, the babies were often fed too quickly by a much harried nurse. This caused the babies to throw up after feeding and many of them would end up lying in their own vomit for over an hour, because there was no one available to check on them or to change them.

Lab technicians were also rushed because of staff shortages and the necessity for each person to do more and more work because of it. Because of his heart condition our son has poor circulation in his heels, where blood samples are usually taken at that age. The technicians were supposed to warm up his foot before taking blood. This increases the circulation and makes it easier to get blood, creating less trauma for the child. Yet only one technician felt she could take advantage to do this, and our son had blood work done almost every day for his two and a half months' stay. We saw children sitting in dried vomit and diarrhoea because the staff was just too busy to help them. We overheard staff members complaining about parents calling to see how their children were doing, because they didn't have time to answer questions and do their work at the same time.

Morale among hospital staff appeared to be very low and getting lower every day. Hospitals that are already understaffed are becoming more understaffed because of budgetary restraints. Fewer and fewer nurses have to do more and more work in the same amount of time; this is particularly true on legal holidays. If you want to experience a true horror story, spend a three-day holiday weekend in a hospital. The movie "The Hospital," which is supposed to be a black comedy, is all too often true. The truth is more frightening than any fiction could hope to be.

Many good nurses are leaving Vancouver General Hospital and other hospitals to go elsewhere due to the low morale and extremely heavy workload — not to mention the low pay.

This was written, of course, before the pay raise.

Since Vancouver General Hospital is the primary acute-care hospital for the province, it seems to me that expenditures for high-technology equipment, such as a CAT scanner for Kelowna General Hospital, which serves maybe 100,000 people, could be put to better use in hiring more nurses and support staff. Such capital-intensive expenditures should be reversed for the largest hospitals only.

Perhaps some of the problems of overcrowding and understaffing will be solved by the completion of the new Children's Hospital, but I don't think so. What is needed is not more and better buildings, but more concern and caring on the part of people who control the purse strings. In the health care field you are dealing with human lives, and no one can tell us that there exist dollars-and-cents values on any human life, particularly the life of a little baby. Without children there is no hope at all for the future of mankind.

Because of our son's condition he will have to have more surgery, and the operation will be quite delicate and serious. Are you prepared" — this is to the Premier — "to take responsibility if a lack of staffing means that his monitor alarm can't be answered? Surely there exists a compromise between the present lack of health-care dollars and the runaway costs of medical care seen in the United States. Such a compromise should provide good medical coverage without bankrupting this province. How many children — or adults, for that matter — must suffer needlessly in the almighty name of fiscal restraint? We have seen, firsthand, a good deal of this suffering, and we can assure you that it is already far too many. For anyone to have to endure anything less than the best that today's health care can provide is unthinkable in a modern society.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
Dawn Winkleman,
Prince Rupert.

How could anyone, Mr. Chairman, read that mother's and that father's letter to the Premier and not be concerned? How could their heart not be touched by this letter? It's a story of children lying in their own vomit and their own diarrhoea and alarm bells not being answered because of understaffing and overworked staff in the Vancouver General Hospital. I'd like to ask everyone: What would you do if you were the Premier and your received that letter? I'd like you to think about that a moment, because I'm going to read to you what the Premier did.

Her letter was March 25, 1980. This is dated April 8, 1980.

Mrs. Dawn Winkleman,
218 5th Avenue West,
Prince Rupert,
British Columbia.

Dear Mrs. Winkleman,

This will acknowledge your letter of March 25 in which you set out your experiences at the Vancouver General Hospital when your baby son was operated on for open-heart surgery.

I have forwarded a copy of your letter to my colleague, the Hon. Rafe Mair, Minister of Health, and asked him to look into the situation as soon as possible. I am confident that the minister will be in touch with you directly in the near future.

I can understand the deep concern that prompted you to bring this matter to my personal attention and sincerely hope that your small son's future surgery will be successful. I also certainly hope you will be spared the ordeal which you apparently went through when he was last confined to hospital.

Yours sincerely,
Bill Bennett

Wouldn't that be just a dandy letter to get back? You've laid out the terms, you've laid out the experience you and your family suffered in the Vancouver General Hospital, and you get a letter back from the leader of government saying: "Good luck next time! I hope you don't have the same problem next time. If you do, write me another letter and I'll write you another sympathetic one," I suppose.

HON. MR. MAIR: What's the lady's name?

MR. LEA: Dawn Winkleman. I'll now read your letter to her, Mr. Minister. This was April 23:

"Dear Mrs. Winkleman:

"I've received a copy of your original letter of March 25, addressed to the Hon. W.R. Bennett, Premier, along with a copy of his reply, dated April 8.

"I too share your concern about the care and treatment received by your son in the Vancouver General Hospital, and am asking medical consultants in my ministry to review this matter. Until this review has been completed, I am not in an advantageous position to comment further, other than to assure you that the matter will receive our full attention when the review is complete, and I should be in a position to write you then."

That's a better letter than the Premier's.

[ Page 3287 ]

But what happened? Here's this family, with their child going back in for delicate heart surgery. Can you imagine the fright that you would feel after having witnessed, firsthand, the experience your child had in that hospital? And to get these two letters saying: "Well, there'll be a review — my Minister of Health will look after it." What kind of help is that for the individual person who comes to government and says: "Here's the kind of experience I've had"? You would think that, getting a letter like that, there wouldn't just be a review, there would be an all-out examination, and that in that time that mother and family would have heard from this government as to what was found in that review, and they would assure that mother and father that their child could go back to Vancouver General Hospital and not suffer the same kind of indecencies that he suffered the first time. Would anybody take a chance on putting his child in Vancouver General Hospital if he'd had that experience and that kind of response from government — not knowing, when they took their child the next time, whether it had been reviewed or anything had been done whatsoever? No word after the initial one.

This is a letter from James Flett, president of the Vancouver General Hospital, to Mrs. Winkleman, dated May 26, 1980:

"Dear Mrs. Winkleman:

"Further to our telephone conversation with respect to your letter dated March 25, 1980, addressed to Hon. William Bennett, and the subsequent letter we received from the Minister of Health, dated April 21, 1980 " — I don't know what that letter was; I wish the minister would let me know — "I can tell you now that we have reviewed in detail the comments made in your letter."

The hospital did a complete review. Now I'll give it to you; this is it.

"It was difficult to review in detail the activities of the unit during the period mentioned in your letter. It was, however, recognized by our staff that the staffing of the unit during the period you mention was of acute concern to us. Your son was nursed in a nine-bed nursery in the health centre for children. Miss Murphy, our vice-president of nursing, attempted to review as much as possible the events mentioned in your letter with the staff who were with us at that time. They recognized the seriousness of the comments and concerns indicated in your letter and have been made aware of the anxieties which they caused.

"I hope that your son is steadily improving and will return for the care he requires, which you mentioned in your letter. I would be pleased to meet with you any time you happen to be in Vancouver.

James Flett."

Mr. Chairman, I think this whole situation, as I've outlined it to the House, is incredible. It's incredible that the Premier handled it in the way he did — almost cavalier. You'd think that a Premier would go storming down to the Minister of Health's office and say: "Look at this letter. Are you going to allow that woman to go back in the hospital and take her baby there, not knowing whether the situation has not only been reviewed but rectified? Are you going to get in touch with her and let her know that all those problems are not problems any longer, and that you don't have to be scared out of your wits to take your son into the Vancouver General Hospital because of the lack of staffing and the overwork of those staff?" Mr. Flett says, yes, he was concerned at the time, especially for that period of time. But our information is that it hasn't improved, that things are possibly going from bad to worse. It's not good enough.

It's just not good enough for the minister to tell us he's interested, he really does like his job, he really is interested in health care, and at the same time for us to have a government talking about restraint in health care. We have a government adding further costs to health care for the individual — not a statistic, but for individuals in this province who have to suffer the indignity of going through a health care system that this government can't seem to get a grip on. The past minister was merely incompetent. I don't believe this minister is an incompetent person; I believe he's an able person. But what we want to do is to know why, in this portfolio, he seems to be as incompetent as the last. Is it the Premier? Is it the government itself? Is it the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis)? Just what is it in Social Credit that every time they come to office we have health care crises in this province?

The minister can tell me he cares about the job; he can tell me he is really and truly interested in health care. What are you going to do about it? What have you done about this? There are others; we all have them. I am sure government backbenchers and ministers have this kind of letter. What are we, as a legislature, going to do about this kind of atrocity in our society? There is a person in charge of making sure this doesn't happen. There is a government that mouths that they are interested in health care. When we look at statistics we might get one story, but when we look at an individual case we know they are not carrying out the mouthings in a mandate to the people of this province.

I ask for the review that was done by the hospital. I think this is a very, very serious situation we are discussing. Because of its seriousness and because I think it is an indicator of what other individuals have suffered in our health care system, I think there should be a full review. I wonder at this point whether or not there shouldn't be a full-scale inquiry under the Inquiry Act into the health care system in this province as it exists under Social Credit. They do not seem to place a high priority on health care, only a high priority in mouthing that they do feel there should be one.

We have seen it over and over again: soaring costs in health care, and they always affect the poor and the working poor more than the middle class, the upper middle class and the rich. It is like sales tax. You may put up the charges for medical care premiums in this province; that is nothing to us in this room, particularly. We can afford to meet those payments; most of the people in our financial state can. But to the people at the bottom rung it is indeed a hardship. That is what this government cannot seem to get through their heads. For the poor and working poor, health care costs are escalating to the point where people may not be able to afford them. We can, but there are many people in this society who cannot. It seems very, very difficult to get through to this government that there are some people who are not millionaires, upper middle class or middle class. There are some people who are none of those things. There are people struggling to make it. When these health care costs are added on to them, it is oftentimes more than they can bear. For all of that and for all those increases to the subscribers of health care in this province, we see this kind of story during the latter part of last year and the beginning of this year.

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It is a disgrace. Statistics and mouthings won't solve it. What is the government going to do about it? I don't care whether it is nursing costs.... Damn it, in this society, in this province, if we can't afford good health care then we're fouling everything else up. If we, with our richness and resources, can't afford to give every single individual the best of health care, then we are not doing our jobs in all other areas as a government.

What is going on with that Social Credit government and health care? It is like the bad old days under Social Credit before. We have Liberals and Conservatives in that cabinet over there today. What has changed? Does Social Credit get into your minds and hearts? Does it actually take you over? We had hoped that maybe you new people would have brought a change to Social Credit, but Social Credit has brought a change to you and we're back to the old bad days of health care in this province.

This is only one letter. We will be bringing in more. To hell with the statistics; let's see how the individuals are doing in this province. If there is only one who goes through this, that is too much, and something has to be done.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Sometimes it just gets a little too much and even I, who am prepared to accept a great many things.... There are some times, when we hear the development of debate which is obviously facetious and not grounded in fact, that we must come up with a factual reply.

I would like to say that at any hospital which I have had the privilege to be at or around or in, I find the patients more than delighted with the service they're getting; that is an absolute fact. I talked to you about the hospital in Mission and about the hospital in Maple Ridge. You say that this is not a big hospital like the Vancouver General. It's a very important hospital, with the same kind of people requiring the same kind of care as they do in any hospital in British Columbia. I'm telling you that the people in the Maple Ridge Hospital and the Mission Memorial Hospital love their hospitals and the people who are running them and the things they are doing. The people in Clearbrook, across the river in Delta, in North Vancouver — go where you please. I'm not acquainted with the Vancouver General. I know that if there are problems anywhere, you'll find them in the Vancouver General. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's so big.

The honourable opposition asks the question: why is it that when Social Credit gets into office there are always problems with the hospitals? I'll give you the reply: there are not problems in the hospitals. The only problems are with the opposition misreading the facts of the case.

It was only our party that developed anything that resembles the health care that we have today. What did the NDP do during three and a half years? They succeeded in getting Mr. Foulkes to bring in a report. In substance the Foulkes report said junk the whole thing and start over again; that's what he said. It's fortunate that the NDP was not left in power to start such a massive undertaking, which would have resulted in the greatest debacle that ever hit this province. It would never have happened, because it couldn't have been done.

Does our party stand still? No. I've just got to ask who developed the really great things in health care in the province of British Columbia. Who brought in the system? Our party. Who brought in extended care? Our party. Who brought in intermediate care? That intermediate care is one of the finest things that ever came here. I don't speak to hundreds of people about it, but the ones who come to me — and they are many — tell me that it's a most marvellous and humane thing when people can be looked after in their own home or in the facilities. Everybody is looked after; there are no exceptions. There are always some who want more. It's an excellent system — intermediate care and intensive care; good programs. How can anybody argue about it? How can anybody decry it?

I've been in this House a good many years. I could almost say to the Minister of Health that the speeches made today could have been recorded and reported as being exactly the same every year; there has been no change in tone, quality or substance.

The health care system here is the envy of North America; certainly it is the best in Canada. There's no extra cost, no extra charges by doctors. It's just a good health care system.

I know that the Minister of Health saw that it became necessary to increase the per diem rate charged to people in the hospital. I don't think that it has brought in an awful lot of money. But I do believe that it was fair and just; those who can't pay it don't pay it, but those who can do. I'll tell you sincerely that the many people to whom I talk about it....

I've tried to get a negative answer. But almost everyone who uses the hospital — and I know many — would say to me that it was mighty little to pay; it's merely a token according to the level we're being paid today. Those who can't afford it are not charged a nickel; those who can are entitled to pay just a little.

I must say that I can't sit here and take this debate from that negative opposition. It simply reiterates the same thing this year as last year and the year before and the past 11 years I've been here — the same speeches, the same words, not improving.

We hear a heart-touching letter from a father. I don't like to hear those kinds of letters, but maybe there are some facts in them. I don't deny that in the massive structure of our health care system there is one that goes wrong. I believe that's possible. But I believe that in the large majority everyone is well satisfied. We've got an excellent system that's under very good dispensation — properly run, excellent hospitals. We should be well pleased and thankful that we have a government that can do it.

HON. MR. MAIR: I'd like, of course, to deal with the questions raised by the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea). Quite candidly, there's no way that one can deal with the question he raised, unless one has the full knowledge of the facts. I'm not saying that what the lady and gentleman alleged happened didn't happen. I have no way of knowing whether it happened or not. Nevertheless, it was a very serious situation. For the sake of argument, I'm going to accept the fact that it did, and that there was a serious situation.

I would have thought, though, that if it was something like that was happening with any regularity in our hospitals around British Columbia one would have seen a demonstration on the Legislature lawns and there would have been people knocking my door down on a regular basis to bring to an end the disgraceful situation within the hospitals. This, of course, hasn't happened. The reason it hasn't happened is because, by and large, for most days of the year, most hours of every day, and most minutes of every hour, the hospitals of this province are very well run indeed. I don't doubt that there are times in the day-to-day operation of a hospital when

[ Page 3289 ]

things happen that the hospital wishes didn't, things that have alarming prospects and maybe even sometimes alarming results, but I don't think that, if one were to take the letter of this couple at its face value and accept everything that is said in there as being absolutely accurate, it is fair to conclude that there is any serious wrong within either the Vancouver General Hospital or in hospitals in general. It certainly would indicate that there was something wrong at that time, something that should have been addressed at that time as something that was very wrong at that time. But I don' t think that it does any more than that, for a number of reasons.

If the situation in the Vancouver General Hospital or any other hospital is anything like that, the fact that the government doesn't know about that on a daily basis by reason of mass demonstrations and things of that nature, quite apart from it being an indictment of the minister and the government, would be an indictment of every nurse, orderly, doctor, visitor and patient who happened to be in that hospital for not coming to their MLA or to their minister or to somebody in authority and screaming from the rooftops that this sort of thing was going on.

Now I say that in no way to deny that the story told by the Winklemans is true — I don't know. All I can say is that one must conclude that it is a very unfortunate isolated incident, if in fact it did happen as indicated. One would also have thought, I think, Mr. Chairman, that if the situation that the Winklemans put forward occurred with regularity in either the Vancouver General Hospital or in any other hospital in the province of British Columbia, the Minister of Health would have been literally bombarded with supplications from the local MLA. I would have expected that if this had happened in the Vancouver General Hospital on any kind of regular basis other than an isolated instance, I would have had the Vancouver members, particularly those for Vancouver Centre (Messrs. Lauk and Barnes) and Vancouver Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy and Hon. Mr. Wolfe) and so on, literally on my doorstep day in, day out, hour in, hour out, until the situation was rectified. So I think that I've got to say that it could very well be that the situation indicated by the Winklemans did happen. If it did, it is truly and sincerely a very regrettable situation and ought never to be repeated. However, I think we can conclude that it was an isolated instance by reason of the facts and situations that I have just given to you.

I don't mean in any way to suggest that these things don't happen in other hospitals from time to time. When something goes wrong in a hospital, it is a horror story; we are human and we do err. We do have problems and staff shortages that we don't foresee. We may have somebody who goofs off. We may have all sorts of things that happen. When those things do happen, then the situation that develops is always not just unfortunate.... That's not a strong enough word. It is potentially calamitous; we all know that. I think we all know by watching television programs and reading the newspapers and periodicals that this sort of thing repeats itself around the world from time to time. One only has to watch "60 Minutes" on television on Sunday night to recognize that from time to time this kind of thing happens everywhere. When it does happen, you have to make sure that it is not happening on a regular basis and that it is an individual and isolated breakdown.

Perhaps we should be doing more; perhaps we can do more. But to think that the member for Prince Rupert would have meant a general indictment of hospitals or even of the Vancouver General Hospital as a result of that, I hope, is a mistaken conclusion to come to. If he is going to indict me personally for that, well, that's fine. That's fair enough. That's what I'm here for; that's what he's here for. I'm not going to get into a debate on that. But I think I can say, from the short time I've been Minister of Health, from the hospitals I have visited, and from the people I have spoken to in those hospitals and the patients I have spoken to — and, indeed, from the hundreds and hundreds of letters I have received — that we really have hospital care in this province of which we can be truly and justly proud.

My staff informs me, of course, of something that ought to go on the record. Along with many other hospitals, Vancouver General is a fully accredited hospital under the Canadian Council on Hospital Accreditation. It couldn't have that accreditation if it were in any way behaving as the member for Prince Rupert indicates that it was supposed to have on this occasion. Certainly it could not retain that accreditation if that sort of situation were to persist anything beyond the most isolated of incidents.

The member for New Westminster then indicated that.... I thought I went over this before, and I won't deal with it at any great length unless he insists on the question of health services and the costs. The statement that I have a note of is that people may not be able to afford health services. I want to assure this chamber and the member opposite that that simply is not so. That will not happen. We've gone into the question of premium assistance, which has already been extended to a considerable degree in very recent days. On the question of user charges, the government, whether it's through Human Resources or some other method, will see that nobody is ever deprived of ambulance services, hospital care, or anything of that sort by reason of their inability to pay. So I think that while we do disagree on how we get that done.... I accept that. We have a basic philosophical disagreement as to how you do that. You would have it, I presume, come out of general taxation, whether a sales tax increase or an increase of personal income tax or corporate tax or whether you would impose another what I believe was a regressive mining tax or whatever; you would have it come from a different source and no one would pay directly out of his pocket. I suggest to you that that is just conferring an immediate benefit on those of us who can afford to pay. I don't think that is right. Particularly under our system, those who cannot afford to pay are never disadvantaged by that reason.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

I just would like, before taking my seat, to thank the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) for raising the points he did. The experience he has had in hospitals is, as I say, very similar to my own. It is not to say there aren't problems and concerns raised. Of course there are, and they were raised, I'm sure, when the member for New Westminster was the minister, and I'm sure they were raised with every other Minister of Health in British Columbia since time immemorial. But I think the fact of the matter is that if you look at the balance of the letters and communications we receive from all sources and the few complaints, generally, that are received, quite apart from any political differences we may have we can all, regardless of party, be very proud of the hospital system and the delivery of health services in British Columbia.

[ Page 3290 ]

MR. KING: Yes, indeed, it has been a good health system in the province of British Columbia, but the great concern the opposition is trying to express today to the minister and to British Columbians generally is that that first-class health system is breaking down under the current administration. I was rather appalled at the response the Minister of Health gave to my colleague for Prince Rupert when he had outlined absolutely scandalous treatment that a family of British Columbians experienced during the treatment of their infant son at the Vancouver General Hospital. The minister got up and defended that terrible experience by saying: "Well, I am confident it is an isolated case."

My colleague read the minister's letter to those people, which promised there would be a review of the circumstances surrounding those specific allegations. That was last April, Mr. Minister. Where is the review? What were the results of that review? Or did you consider it so frivolous that you didn't even bother to carry through with the commitment you gave to those concerned parents? If you did indeed conduct a review, how about being good enough to share that with the House so that not only those parents but the people of British Columbia may be assured that that kind of maladministration because of the stringent purse strings of Social Credit is not going to be visited upon some other family in the province? That is what we require of you, not cheap blandishments.

How many cases does the minister want before he recognizes a crisis? He says: "I never had any demonstration on the lawn." Therefore presumably the minister takes it that everything is hunky-dory in the health industry. Does he want them to have to come over and demonstrate on the lawn of the Legislature before one can be assured of first-class health care in the province of British Columbia? Does the minister feel that a family who have just had a son undertake delicate, serious heart surgery are in any position to drop all their parental responsibilities and come running over here and start picketing on the lawn of the Legislature? What callous, crass nonsense. What do you think you are dealing with, a group of affluent lawyers? Or perhaps the mining industry? You are dealing with sick people who are in no position to come and demonstrate on the lawn of the Legislature. It should be enough of a signal to the minister when this kind of letter comes to his attention.

I am appalled at the response he gave. Then he said: "Well, if these things are going on, why aren't the professionals in the hospitals telling me about it?" I'll tell you why: because that minister, with his uncontrollable temper — his volcanic temper — erupts on any criticism. When the doctors in the city of Victoria outlined the terrible delays in elective surgery, he immediately set out to shoot the messenger in that case. He attacked the doctors; he said they were becoming political. It was a voice in the wilderness. When the nurses of Vancouver General Hospital outlined the burden placed on them because of shortage of staff, lack of facilities and lack of adequate training to produce enough staff to run the hospital efficiently, the minister attacked them and said they were waltzing off for a holiday, or this, that and the other thing. Those excuses have come from the minister's office.

Mr. Minister, you have had signals from the professionals in the industry that all is not well.

My colleague has outlined a very personal and traumatic experience that one family encountered. In virtually every field of health care there have been severe and harsh cutbacks by Social Credit.

Let me go through a brief file about one small community in this province that has been trying to obtain a local, community health care facility. In 1979 the city of Armstrong, next to the location of the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) — and she should be aware of it because she's had correspondence on it, the same as I have — and the regional district wrote to the Minister of Health asking that allocations be made in the budget that year for the construction of a small acute-care health facility in Armstrong — diagnostic; just the basic 10-bed facility, I think, is what they were looking for. I wrote to the minister and supported that application, as did the regional administrator of the district hospital:

"I am responding to your letter of November 22, 1979, addressed to my colleague the former Minister of Health, Hon. R.H. McClelland. It is gratifying to know that you endorse the regional hospital district's recent submission stressing the need for a new health care centre in Armstrong. As no doubt you are aware, my ministry, along with the B.C. Buildings Corporation, is engaged in a major health centre capital construction program throughout the province, presently amounting to approximately $27 million. Such projects are carried out on a priority basis, and it is envisaged that commencement of the Armstrong centre will be made in the 1980-81 fiscal year, subject to fundings being approved. I have requested Dr. H.M. Richards, Assistant Deputy Minister, Preventive Services, to keep you informed on the future development of this specific project."

Well, it had been turned down in 1979-80, and the minister gave me that commitment that it would be included in estimates for 1980-81. I took it as a commitment; I accepted it in good faith; but lo and behold, it's turned down again in this fiscal year.

The local people have been advocating this minimum health facility for their area for the last three or four years. They receive commitments, only to be undercut because of some budgeting restraint that the government introduces after the fact.

I want to read a letter from Mr. Blattner, who is the mayor of the municipality of Spallumcheen — and that is the district that's written — to the minister. I think this outlines the frustration related to this area of health care in the same way that my colleague has done with respect to the personal experiences of patients in overcrowded, understaffed facilities. It's addressed to Dr. Bonham:

"Further to your letter of June 13, 1980, and earlier letter of May 14, 1980, I must first comment by expressing extreme disappointment. To my knowledge, a new health centre for Armstrong-Spallumcheen has been a priority since 1973. It was in the estimates previously, and according to your letter it did not even make it to the estimates for the fiscal year 1980-81. I must assume it was turned down internally. I appreciate your offer to place this most needed service facility in the 1981-82 estimates' priority list. However, I must say our confidence in promises is at an all-time low."

That's the mayor talking.

"We have received local, regional, union board of health and hospital board support, and I wonder if the issue is purely financial, if the request has been dealt with by the Treasury Board, or if in fact it was delayed internally or politically.

[ Page 3291 ]

"We have to explain to the community at large and would appreciate some answers to our doubts. Please let me know the person or body responsible for denying the project at this time, and for what reasons. I am looking forward to an answer that can be defended to the public and bring us closer to planning for this facility, the need for which has been amply demonstrated."

Again, the administrator of the hospital district wrote to the minister on June 26 of this year.

"Dear Mr. Minister:

"At the regular meeting of the regional hospital district board held on June 25, 1980, the board again expressed concern over the lengthy delays in receiving approvals from your office" — I hope the minister is listening — "and the cumbersome procedures in implementing projects. The board also expressed concern over the lack of progress in obtaining a health centre for the city of Armstrong.

"The board therefore respectfully requests that a meeting be arranged between yourself and representatives of this office to fully discuss the problems and endeavour to resolve the same. Please advise when and where it would be convenient for you to meet with us."

I wonder if the minister has responded. They're talking about cumbersome, sloppy procedures, and constant delays through cutbacks in spending in terms of obtaining the minimum health facilities in that area.

HON. MR. MAIR: What's the date of the letter, Bill?

MR. KING: That particular letter was dated June 26, 1980.

Mr. Minister, what provokes me about the cutback in virtually all areas of health care.... I realize that dollars are finite that there's no infinite supply of dollars. We all know that. We have served in government too. But what provokes me to no end is the priorities that the current Social Credit government places with such distorted fashion on such projects as the fixed link from the mainland to Vancouver Island, a project of the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications.

There's money for Dr. McGeer to put up a couple of seconders out here on the lawn at $10,000 a month so he can play politics and appeal to a certain constituency in the fight with the federal government, but not enough dollars to build a basic health care facility up in the interior of the province of British Columbia and not enough staff to look after this infant child who, my colleague outlined, suffered shocking treatment in British Columbia's largest hospital. Where are your priorities?

We have this government in the last six months committing themselves to convention centre after convention centre, to a fixed-link crossing between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and to lord knows what other kinds of grandiose schemes for the entertainment and the political interests of certain members on that side of the House, while at one and the same time they are squeezing health care dry in this province to the detriment of people. What kind of priorities do you have?

Do you place more value on a football stadium in the city of Vancouver than minimum health care facilities for the aged and the young in this province? I know dollars are finite.

I know there's a limited supply. But for goodness' sake direct them to where they're going to do the most good for the people that pay you and provide the revenue in this province, and that is the taxpayers. It's not tourists who built the country; it's our own people, and they are entitled to good quality health care. You are eroding it, Mr. Minister. You either lack the courage and commitment to stand up before your colleagues in Treasury Board and demand the budget you need, or you're indifferent and callous and don't care. It's one of the two. Certainly there are ample incidents of the kind of neglect and erosion of minimal health care services in this province that should make that minister hang his head in shame.

We've had increased premiums, which the minister is good at. He's going to put it on a businesslike basis. Let the user pay. And he says: "If they can't afford it, so what? No harm done." That's what the minister told us a couple of minutes ago, didn't he? He said: "Only for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, it doesn't hurt." Well, Mr. Minister, I have news for you. My colleague raised a point about Kelowna General Hospital a while ago and, in case you're unaware of it, that serves as a regional referral centre from Golden to the Okanagan, along with Vernon and Kamloops occasionally.

I received this letter from an elderly gentleman in my own constituency, and I'll read it to you for your edification. It's addressed to the Kelowna General Hospital. It says:

"Sirs:

"Being a patient in Kelowna General Hospital last summer, I was required to fill in an admittance form asking what accommodations a patient may choose. If a four-bed room is not available, the patient has to pay the difference. I have checked a number of other hospitals here and in the lower mainland. I find it is not the general practice. This, to me, is very unfair for a pensioner or whomever. Why is this practice followed at Kelowna General Hospital?"

I looked into it for the gentleman. I found out it's not only Kelowna General Hospital now, but this is an approved practice by the ministry. In other words, if the kind of accommodation that the patient requires for elective surgery is not available, then he has to pay the rate that he is housed in, even if that's a private room.

A letter came from the hospital. It says the BCHP instructions to hospitals for admission of patients who are not classified as emergencies read as follows:

"Explain to the patient a choice of two alternatives: first, to agree to take other accommodation that is available and pay the appropriate charges until the desired type of accommodation becomes available; or secondly, to postpone entering the hospital until he can be admitted to the type of accommodation desired. I am unable to comment on whether or not other hospitals follow these instructions. Perhaps some hospitals turned a blind eye to the instructions, because of the inconvenience of rescheduling booked elective procedures, which would result if the patient opted to postpone his hospital admission. "

Now here's a case where this gentleman refused to enter the hospital. He couldn't afford it. He's an old-age pensioner on a limited income. There were no ward facilities — as they used to be called — available. There were only semi-private or one bedroom or two. He couldn't afford the rates. He had to put off his elective surgery.

[ Page 3292 ]

I want to tell the minister that since he raised the general rates for medical care in the province of British Columbia, more and more people on fixed incomes, more and more of the poor in British Columbia, are indeed postponing elective surgery. They are postponing medical attention that they should be receiving, which in my view, Mr. Minister, would be cheaper, because if you wait until a problem becomes acute, the cost of coming to grips with it is only higher, as is the danger of infecting and spreading diseases and so on to other areas of the community. Preventive health care is the cheapest in the final analysis. Your punitive levies on health care are fine for millionaires, of which there are about 16 on that side of the House. They're fine for you. But I wonder how long it is since you've had to get out and earn a living as the average person in British Columbia does. You've never had to live like a pensioner does; $4 or $6 a day to you is nothing. But I want to tell you that when you budget down to the last dollar so that you can clothe yourself, buy groceries, and pay the heating fuel costs, you are not in a position to undertake that additional unanticipated spending.

Your deterrent fees are a deterrent against health care. They're not a deterrent against abuse; they are a deterrent against the poor and the aged in this province, who need health care more than anyone else. It's a shocking situation. At one and the same time that you are forking out hundreds of millions of dollars for grandiose athletic programs and God knows what else to buy votes in the province of British Columbia, it's a shocking performance.

I say that Minister of Health should do anything but stand up here and say it's a fine health care program and we're doing our best. You're not doing your best, Mr. Minister, or you would be fighting for the necessary budget to deliver the minimal services that are necessary. We've demonstrated on three occasions — and we have more; we have lots more — that minimum standards of health are being denied in British Columbia. That is not good enough for the opposition if it is good enough for you.

HON. MR. MAIR: Going back to the question of the Winklemans, of course I certainly didn't intend to convey — in fact I don't think I did — the impression that I felt they should have demonstrated on the Legislature lawns. What I said was that if the situation that they indicated prevailed throughout the province of British Columbia in hospitals to any degree, I would have expected that sort of thing to happen.

But I now have, I might say, Mr. Chairman, the Winkleman file in front of me. One thing that escaped my attention when the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) was reading the letter from Mrs. Winkleman dated March 25, 1980, and may have escaped the member's attention, although I'm not sure of that, is that this referred to a situation which occurred between April and June 1979. I was under the impression when I listened to the member talk that it was a current matter that the Premier was asked to look into and that somehow we had not done. I don't suggest that there was any deliberate misleading; I'm just suggesting that I had understood that that was the case.

MR. KING: Your letter was this year.

HON. MR. MAIR: My letters were this year, Mr. Member; that's true, and so was made very clear.

Now I have the letter here that I wrote to Mrs. Winkleman on June 26, 1980. I also have a letter written by Mr. Flett, who is the president of Vancouver General Hospital, to Mrs. Winkleman on May 26, 1980, which I think is the letter that the member for Prince Rupert read into the record. I'd be happy to read this letter or table it after the estimates — whatever you wish; you can indicate that to me later. But what it does indicate is that while Mr. Flett is extremely distressed and did investigate this matter as thoroughly as he possibly could, he was very much handicapped by the fact that it was almost a year old and the staff and people who were present at the time of the alleged incident simply weren't there to give us any answers, which made it extremely difficult. I am sure the members opposite, being fair, would acknowledge that that is a very difficult thing for anybody to do — go back a year and justify that very, very serious complaints have been made.

I must say, if I may be somewhat light-hearted, that I was surprised to hear the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) accuse me of having an uncontrollable temper. I don't ever recall throwing rule books at the Speaker in this House, and I don't recall ever challenging anybody to a fight when I was called a nasty name, as I have been from time to time. I remember calling the member opposite a nasty name. I think I called him a moral coward one day and he challenged me to a fight outside the House immediately.

MR. KING: On a point of order, the minister has just called me a moral coward and I want to indicate to the minister that while I take no exception to that I would point out that at least I have morals.

HON. MR. MAIR: I presume he means that he has morals but he is cowardly about them. I don't know what that means. I don't repeat that accusation now, because it was said in the heat of a debate at the time. I only point out that if we are going to talk about people having uncontrollable tempers, those who have demonstrated it by not being able to keep it when having an argument with the Speaker and throwing their rule book up ought to be rather hesitant, I think, to criticize other people.

I would like to deal with the question of the Armstrong Health Centre. Perhaps the member can correct me if I am wrong, but there are two situations at Armstrong of which he complains. One is the health centre. Armstrong is a subunit of the Vernon Health Board. I must say that this centre, contrary to what I and my ministry might have wished, has been given a low priority by the people who authorize the payment of the money. I am sure that when the member opposite was in government, from time to time he was not given the priorities by Treasury Board that he felt were proper. That is why you have Treasury Board, to establish an overall priority. That has not been given.

I do understand that there has been a meeting arranged with me after estimates, whenever that may be, to discuss the delays in planning for the acute-care and extended-care problems they have talked about. I understand that the Vernon Jubilee Hospital has indicated that the approval mechanisms have approved in their planning and everything is progressing well at that particular stage.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MAIR: I gather that the member for Okanagan North (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) seconds that motion.

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I would like, because of the general criticisms offered by a number of members opposite concerning expenditures of the government of British Columbia in the health area, to just give some facts and figures so that we know whereof we speak. I am going to just give the percentages of the budget spent in health for a period from 1970 approximately through to today. I caution the members that figures up until 1973-74 — that is the first three figures I will give — will not include Medical Services Commission payments, but they will thereafter. Here are the percentages of the health budget of the overall budget in these years. The period of 1970-71 was 19.69 percent; 1971-72 was 19.41; 1972-73 was 19.40. Then came medicare and a number of other things, including a change in government. Medicare particularly comes in here and it goes up to 23.97 percent in 1973-74; 22.62 in 1974-75; 20.94 in 1975-76; 24.58 in 1976-77; 24.51 in 1977-78; 26.67 in 1978-79. According to our best estimates for the current year, the percentage will be 30.02 percent. I don't know what better yardstick — admitting, as the member for Shuswap Revelstoke has indicated, that you can play with figures — you can get than the percentage of our total budget which we are prepared to spend on health care. I might just put this in dollars, recognizing, of course, that there is a huge inflation factor. Nobody need remind me of that. I think that it is nevertheless a pretty interesting statistic to note that in 1972-73 the total health expenditure in the province of British Columbia was $400 million. We estimate for 1980-81, which is our current year, the total expenditures will be $1.75 billion. This is well over four times as much and we haven't had 400 percent inflation. We have had inflation, but we sure haven't had it to that degree.

I want to just go back to the question of the Vancouver General Hospital because it has been called into question on the Winkleman case which is, as I say, very, very difficult if not impossible to answer at this stage of the game. I think one should know that the capital expenditure program going on in the Vancouver General Hospital over a three to four year period is about $100 million. We are going to have the emergency opening next year and new patients' beds are already in the functional planning stage. We expect they will be onstream soon. The budget has increased at VGH from $113 million per year to approximately $120 million per year. Recognizing that Vancouver General Hospital is the referral hospital for British Columbia, the largest acute care hospital and all those things, and recognizing that it is also a very old hospital in many areas, I think that a rather substantial undertaking is going on now by the province of British Columbia. Improvement is needed, but improvement is taking place.

MR. KING: I have just a short follow-up, Mr. Chairman. I read the letter that the minister directed to me regarding the Armstrong community health facility. The minister has now changed his story totally; the minister said it's not a high priority. That's what the minister just said, and that will be recorded in Hansard.

HON. MR. MAIR: Not with me — with Treasury Board.

MR. KING: Ah, just a moment now. Mr. Chairman, here's the letter the minister wrote to me on December 10, 1979. I've already read the letter, but I'll just read this sentence again: "Such projects are carried out on a priority basis, and it is envisaged that commencement of the Armstrong centre will be made in the 1980-81 fiscal year, subject to funding being approved." That was a commitment last year that during the current fiscal year, as far as the ministry was concerned, this project was indeed a priority and you would be recommending funding.

You get up now and say that this is not a priority, when other projects have certainly gone ahead; when there was every indication to all of the local agencies working on construction and development of this project to believe that they had the support and encouragement of the ministry — this was last year — and this year's budget would be a realistic time frame for construction. It would be absolutely inappropriate for the minister to suggest that they've been given that encouragement, that support, when in fact they had no priority. It would be deceitful to string along local publicly elected agencies into doing all of the work necessary to develop the plans for a local health facility and assume they had the support. Indeed, when I got the minister's letter I believed that was a commitment. It sounds to me like a commitment from a minister of the Crown, something that always used to be able to be relied on in the province of British Columbia. There was a time when a minister's word was good, and you accepted his statement at face value without having to read between the lines and seeing if you could ooze out somewhere else.

This was a commitment, Mr. Minister of Health, and you've gone back on it, and now you have the gall to stand up and say: "Well, it's not a priority." Treasury Board doesn't run the Ministry of Health; it's your responsibility. If you haven't got the gumption to win and to justify before Treasury Board the minimum standards and expenditures for health care in this province, then you're admitting that you're not worthy to be the Minister of Health. Certainly Highways doesn't seem to be suffering; last year his colleague the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) extracted over $100 million in special warrants to finance blacktop. How come he's got all the pull, Mr. Minister of Health? How many special warrants did you get?

What kind of distorted priority has that government got anyway? They're fraught with distortions and false values. When I look at them, Mr. Chairman, I start to understand; but God help health care in this province.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Chairman, the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke has called into question my integrity and my honesty, which I take exception to. I won't ask him to withdraw, but I think the record should note that I did take exception to it. Otherwise I might be taken as having agreed with him for once.

Mr. Chairman, I'm very glad that I'm a member of a government that has a Treasury Board that works — a Treasury Board that examines expenditures and, from time to time, says you can't do the things that you want to do. Quite frankly, if I were allowed to do all the things that I would like to do, having no regard to financial restraints, I'm sure that the Health budget would be three or four times what it is. There is a limit to the public purse.

Now the member has indicated that I have misled somebody, and he's quoted from a letter where I said "subject to funding being approved." I think that is pretty clear.

I wrote to Mayor Blattner on July 9 answering his letter of June 27, saying: "I can only reiterate that your request to replace the Armstrong health centre was made in this ministry's 1980-81 submission to Treasury Board." I had under-

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taken to do this. "The board, however, did not approve the project for this fiscal year."

Yes, I fight for all the projects I put forward; yes, I win a great many fights; yes, I lose some of them. If I didn't lose some of them, my God, we would be bankrupt tomorrow afternoon. You may say that I should have fought harder for this and less hard for something else, or there are other priorities that you would have established and you would have preferred, and I accept that; that's your viewpoint, and you're very much entitled to it. But to suggest that I have misled you or led somebody down the garden path or given every indication of support and encouragement to people just doesn't square with the facts, Mr. Member. The fact of the matter is: yes, I did say that I approved of it subject to funding being approved; yes, I did ask for that funding to be approved; it was turned down; and there we are.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I have not received the courtesy of a copy of the minister's letter to Mayor Blattner. I did receive the minister's letter of December 10 last year, where he promises: "I have requested Dr. H.M. Richards, Assistant Deputy Minister, Preventive Services, to keep you informed on the future development of this specific project." I haven't received the courtesy of a copy of your letter to Mayor Blattner. If the minister had lived up to his commitment, he would have explained to the mayor, the local hospital board and myself as the MLA — as he promised to do — that he had lost his fight in Treasury Board. Why didn't you do that? If you've got a valid reason, fine. Then I would like to be taken into your confidence. That's what you promised to do. You promised to keep me informed, Mr. Minister.

As to the minister's remark that I should withdraw some implied criticism of his integrity, if the minister felt slighted I will gladly withdraw. But I would point out that the minister has stood up and called me a moral coward. He's the kind of guy who loves to dish it out but can't take it. Mr. Minister, when it comes to moral fibre we are all responsible for ourselves. I'm not going to get into a debate on that. We're here to try to represent the people of British Columbia. I'm not really interested in what the minister thinks of me personally. I couldn't care less. I don't think I'd go to him for a recommendation.

What I'm more interested in is the policy and some consistency and sensitivity to health care in the province of British Columbia — rather than $100 million extra paid out through special warrant for highways, like it was last year; rather than $200 million here and there for grandiose schemes for football stadiums and trade and convention centres. As fine as all these things may be — I love football; I like to see tourism — I think health care comes first. It's as simple as that. By golly, I don't think it's good enough for the minister to put on a little puppy dog performance here and say: "I had to roll over and wag my tail because Treasury Board said no." You're supposed to be a tough customer, Mr. Minister. You pride yourself on that. You have a temper to go with it. Why don't you show some muscle with Treasury Board? Shame on you!

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Chairman, I must point out again to the member, who obviously wasn't listening, that I didn't ask for any retraction or apology at all. I made it quite clear that I didn't. I can dish it out and I can take it. That's why I don't need an apology from you. If you want to call me names, that's entirely up to you, Mr. Member.

The letter — which was from Dr. Bonham and not myself, if I didn't make that clear — to Mayor H.J. Blattner was mailed on July 9. The copy that I received came to my office July 10, last Thursday. The carbon copies are to myself; Dr. H.M. Richards; Mr. Bill King, MLA — perhaps they should have said William, I don't know, but I'm sure that "Bill King" would find you; Mayor Duke; Mrs. Kelly; Mrs. Jordan; Dr. Smart; and Mr. McDermit. So I suggest to you, Mr. Member, that when you go to your office you will find there in all likelihood, the royal mails willing, a letter from Dr. Bonham to Mayor Blattner, indicating, as I indicated earlier.... I could read the whole second paragraph, but you will see that soon enough, when you get the letter.

MR. BARBER: The minister says his heart is in his portfolio, but I am sceptical. I think that if the minister's heart were in the portfolio, his willingness to be tough with his colleagues, his willingness to be tough in this Legislature, and his willingness to collaborate with the other health professionals in British Columbia would be a lot more evident.

What is evident is the comment of his well-known colleague, Mr. Davis, in the article in The Columbian, and the perfectly straightforward and predictably candid comment that he made. His colleague — a former cabinet colleague, a man with whom he worked and served on the cabinet benches for three years, who knows him well, who probably knows him better than we do — told us, according to that story, that what the minister really wanted was Intergovernmental Relations, but unfortunately it was given instead to someone who could get along better with the Premier.

I also believe that this minister's personal heart and ambition, his interest and imagination lie in the field of the constitutional debate. I believe that because he has told me so in private. I will not repeat that conversation because that is against the rules, but I remember a very pleasant evening spent with you at a private event.

HON. MR. MAIR: You just did repeat it — if it happened,

MR. BARBER: Not at all — I'm not going to quote you directly by any means. But you said then what you said frequently until you became Minister of Health. The minister's own colleague said so in The Columbian just a few days ago. It's well known in any case that the minister's preference clearly lies in another field altogether. I have no objection to take to that and I find nothing wrong with it, except when you realize that precisely because his heart lies elsewhere so does his achievement. We are drawn to observe that the achievements in the Ministry of Health, to say the least, are not really very outstanding. To do a good job, a minister requires at the very least a good motivation, good commitment, fundamental desire and personal demand to make his portfolio an outstanding thing doing a job for the people in an outstanding way.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The problem we have dealing with this minister is that we know he's a bright guy. The Premier and we know he's ambitious, but in the health business most people realize his heart isn't in it; it lies elsewhere. When you have a minister in

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charge of a sensitive, difficult and awkward portfolio like Health who is not emotionally and profoundly committed to the success of that portfolio, the problem is that you get the kind of lacklustre performance we've seen from this minister to date.

Let me illustrate. If his heart were in it, what do you think he would have said when the Treasury Board said no to an important facility in Armstrong, when the people of Victoria have to suffer among the longest waits they've ever had to suffer for elective surgery, because the facilities are inadequate and the staff is not available, and when he saw one of his own colleagues getting $130 million this year and another $120 million next year for an utterly stupid and needless project called the Annacis Crossing? If you had a minister whose heart was in it and he saw one minister getting $130 million for a ridiculous and unnecessary scheme to promote the private automobile where it does not belong and is not needed.... Then he writes to the Mayor of Armstrong and says: "I'm sorry, but I couldn't get you what you needed for your place this year, but trust me. I'll get it for you next year." I'm reading between the lines in regard to that latter statement, but I'm sure the minister will tell us that he'll try again next year. Then you have to draw the obvious conclusion, and it is the one we draw and an increasing number of health professionals have drawn for themselves: it will remain a lacklustre performance as long as the conviction behind it is also lacklustre, lacking in the aggressive, fiery, tough and pushy approach that must be taken by any Health minister who has to labour under the problems of a coalition government.

Let me illustrate what some of those problems are. The Chairman will remember that in November 1978 the then Minister of Health imposed a ceiling of 5 percent on the allowable percentage of increase over the previous year's budget that would be permitted to hospitals in British Columbia. The notorious dictum of November 1978 restricted hospitals to a 5 percent increase over their previous year's operating budget. In the same fiscal year Social Credit allowed a Highways department overrun of 46 percent.

Let's look at the difference: 46 percent for highways, 46 percent for bridges, 46 percent for the automobile and 5 percent for hospitals. Fortunately, the minister then responsible is no longer there and he's currently mucking up energy policy instead. Fortunately, at the very least, the man who tried and for five months held out — but finally as an election loomed closer, the government had to reverse its position — and tried to maintain that indefensible and unreasonable policy is no longer with us. Instead we have a minister who is, by common admission, enormously brighter, more articulate and more able than his predecessor. Everyone knows that, but....

HON. MR. MAIR: I'd rather have it the other way around.

MR. BARBER: There are some reasons we might as well.

Nonetheless, the subterranean disorder and the profound malaise of this coalition continues to make itself evident. This coalition will do anything, spend anything and promise anything for Highways, because that's how it's always been under Social Credit.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Except in my riding.

MR. BARBER: Except in our ridings, but most notoriously in the Cariboo riding, the home of the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) himself, where, disproportionately, more moneys are spent on any other highways district in the province.

However, comparing, examining, analyzing and establishing the priorities of this coalition of millionaires you find, last year as this year, that what Highways wants Highways gets and what Health needs Health doesn't get. That's what it's like under Social Credit.

What are the health needs? They are, among others surely, to pay for this facility in Armstrong. They have been, among others — surely for some time and long before the minister finally gave in to pressure — to open up and add to the facility of open-heart surgery at Royal Jubilee Hospital in my riding. Only after immense public pressure finally reached the breaking point did this government reverse its position and award the funds necessary to extend the absolutely necessary service of open-heart surgery at the second largest hospital in British Columbia, the Royal Jubilee Hospital in my riding. The minister's heart patently isn't in it. His interest and imagination are in the field of constitutional reform; I respect him for that. But we and others concerned about health care are just a little disappointed that the same passion, energy and discipline cannot be found in this performance as Minister of Health. Good cop, bad cop, for a moment.

Let me congratulate the minister on one thing. In Victoria we now have the promise of a palliative care unit and program, to be located initially at the Victoria General Hospital. The purpose of this, of course, is to provide the most humane and sensitive care possible for dying patients. It's modelled on the tremendous achievement in Montreal at a hospital where for the last seven or eight years, I think, they have pioneered what is often called the thanatos principle, to use the Greek phrase, which is the notion of dealing in a respectful and sensitive way with dying people. To their credit, the minister and this government have been willing to put a small but nonetheless appropriate sum into this particular proposal in Victoria city; I think it's a very good thing. It's a good, decent and humane thing that the public be willing to invest money in the special care and special needs of terminally ill patients. Often it's an area where medical professionals are extremely uncomfortable. It is daily and witheringly an admission of their own failure, and of course, no human being likes to see that proof. It is daily and worseningly an admission that one more human life is also failing; that hurts too.

The decent principle behind these palliative care units is simply that family and friends, in an intimate and personal way, within an institutional setting nonetheless, have an opportunity in the last days to share and know lovingly the person they care about. It's really important.

Six years ago I was involved with the group that brought Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to town. I had the opportunity to spend a fair bit of time with her. She is the author of the famous book On Death and Dying. She was the first to establish, in an articulate way, some of the principles of institutional care for dying people, and first to open up, in a sensitive and analytical way, the whole notion that you and I have to be as concerned about the care of living and getting-well people as we must inevitably be about dying and not well people. The medical profession. the family and the

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institutions are desperately uncomfortable in dealing with the problems of the dying. They don't like it; they don't know how and they're not trained to deal with it. Medical schools offer no such opportunities for learning. And, of course, the families themselves feel tremendously disfranchised. It is a good thing that public investment is going into this program; I congratulate the government for it.

Returning to the mainstream of health issues, you have to ask a few more questions about why the minister has to say to the people of Armstrong: "I'm sorry, you can't have the facility which I believe you need. Treasury Board says no." What kind of government would say no to the people of Armstrong and yes to $100,000 for a ridiculous study to examine a tunnel or fixed link to Vancouver Island? What kind of government would say no to the people of Armstrong and yes to an outlandish scheme called B.C. Place? What kind of government would say no to the people of Armstrong and, as I mentioned before, say yes to the unneeded and unnecessary Annacis crossing? What kind of government would say no to the people of Armstrong and say yes to a delightful but hardly vitally necessary stadium in Vancouver? A coalition might do that if they were in enough political trouble. A coalition might do that if they had a Treasury Board that could dominate a supine Health minister. A coalition might do that if they could deal harshly with human services and continue to pay for highways and everything else that Social Credit has always done in this province.

If the minister says he can't find enough money to pay for the health programs that he says he wants to provide, then we'll tell him where he can find the money. Take it out of the Annacis crossing fund, and you'll have the money. Take it out of the B.C. Place fund, and you'll have the money. Take it out of the stadium fund, and you'll have the money. Negotiate a darned tough deal with the Japanese, and you'll have a lot of money. But no, they're not going to do that. Instead, they will continue to write pitiable and lamentable letters of excuse to the mayors of Armstrong and, no doubt, two dozen other communities in this province. They will continue inevitably and predictably to say yes to every demand from the Ministry of Highways and to every special warrant request made. Instead, they will continue to say no to the health programs that the human beings of British Columbia need. Would you have suspected this even of a coalition of car dealers, which is prepared to spend whatever the automobile requests and deny much of what the health system needs? Even a coalition of millionaire car dealers surely would not have been expected to perform as lamentably as this coalition has in the health field. Yet that's exactly what they've done.

Let me talk about one of the human consequences of the coalition's refusal to place the emphasis they should on health and their all-too-great willingness instead to place it on the private automobile. Let me remind you, Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, could I just at this point remind all hon. members that during Committee of Supply the administrative action of a department is open to debate. We cannot, though, discuss necessity for legislation or matters involving legislation. We cannot discuss in Committee of Supply an action for which a minister is not responsible, nor can we discuss a grant on which the committee has resolved or a grant not yet brought forward. We have, within the purview of this committee, been asked to discuss the vote of the Minister of Health, vote 114. I would ask all hon. members if we could, pursuant to standing order 61(2), be reminded that speeches in Committee of the Whole House must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration.

MR. BARBER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for your comments and I agree with them entirely. Now back to mine.

We're examining whether or not Social Credit cares about health. We're debating whether or not Social Credit is prepared to spend for health. We're determining whether or not the moneys they are prepared to spend are adequate for health. To do all of those things we want, in a charitable way, to help the Minister of Health find the money he needs. I've just made a number of perfectly practical and positive suggestions as to the names of the bank accounts in which the moneys can be found. I needn't repeat it because I know the chairman was listening and sensitive to the issue.

This government, had it the guts, would be prepared to spend the money necessary now on health care and would be prepared to cut back in other areas of lesser importance, lesser immediacy, and lesser need. But surprise, surprise, Mr. Chairman, they're doing just the opposite. Surprise, surprise, the Premier continues with the ridiculous spectacle of promising hundreds of millions of dollars in grandiose schemes of which the pharaohs would be proud, and they can't find money for the people of Armstrong. What kinds of standards are those? Any absurd and insupportable scheme the Premier wants to dream up in the morning and announce in the afternoon is okay by the standards of the coalition. Any legitimate need that the local community might determine and the Ministry of Health might endorse is apparently of lesser priority under Social Credit.

It is a legitimate inquiry, Mr. Chairman, this which we are pursuing — that of determining where their priorities really lie, and of whether or not the Treasury Board is to be believed when, via the Minister of Health, they tell the people of Armstrong: "There ain't enough loot for you this year, so goodbye." There's enough loot for the Annacis crossing. Why isn't there enough for this? There's enough for tunnel studies and inevitably, we will hear, enough for a tunnel, but not enough for health. They were 46 percent over the budget for Highways in the last fiscal year, the same year when they proposed to restrict hospitals to 5 percent. There was $119 million over for special warrants for Highways alone. Are we going to see the Minister of Health standing up in the next session of the Legislature, assuming an election hasn't intervened, and boasting about the $119 million extra he could get out for the health needs of the people of British Columbia? I doubt it. He didn't do it last year nor did his predecessor the year before. I doubt it will happen this year either.

One observes that the minister is remarkably self-restrained today. He's usually quick with the ad lib, quicker with the quip, fast across the aisle with the repartee, and he's very good at it. But today he appears to be under someone else's marching orders. Now would that be the Premier? It's hard to know; he's not in his seat glaring at the Minister of Health, which he usually does when he's in his seat, and so is the Minister of Health.

MR. BRUMMET: You just can't handle that New York touch! How many plays did you see?

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MR. BARBER: Five.

Nonetheless, how many times, Mr. Chairman, do we observe that the Minister of Health fails neglectfully and completely to persuade his own colleagues that the moneys necessary for his own portfolio are to be found, when we see the relative performance of the Minister of Highways, who sits immediately to his south in this chamber? Why is that?

Maybe it is because the coalition doesn't fundamentally care about this issue. Why is that? Maybe because the coalition thinks there are more votes in highways. They just might be right. It is possibly correct. It may be tragically correct that in British Columbia health is less of a vote-getter than highways and therefore this coalition, in a desperate bid to spend its way back into public popularity, may be prepared to spend whatever the Minister of Transportation and Highways wants, to prop up whatever obsolete technology he endorses and is less prepared, less willing and thereby less able to spend in Health.

Everyone agrees these are tough times, times of restraint and recession both. Everyone agrees to the necessity to tighten the belts. On this side of the House we argue that you have to cut, you have to be careful, you have to tighten the belt in order of human priority and not political priority. This government is tightening the health belt. This government continues to allow the Premier to promise any ridiculous scheme on any grandiose scale necessary so as to buy its way back into public favour. Of course you have to tighten the belt. Of course you have to reduce where you cap. Of course you must do those things that are necessary when your revenues fall as catastrophically as are the revenues falling of this government. The fact that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) completely bungled his revenue predictions is another issue.

However, when you have to cut you should surely start cutting where it is least vital, where the public expenditure proposed is the least urgent. You cut a B.C. Place before you cut a hospital. That is what we say. You cut a tunnel study before you cut programs to reduce elective surgery lists at Victoria General and the Royal Jubilee in Victoria. You cut schemes for stadiums before you raise the co-insurance rate for people on B.C. Med. You cut from Annacis Island before you cut the staff at Vancouver General Hospital. It is a relatively simple matter if you have priorities and honour them in policy.

Our party has priorities. Our government had priorities. Our Minister of Health, one of the most respected and honoured ministers of Health who has ever succeeded in this province, made it clear where our priorities lie, and in tough times. In 1975 the world was in a tailspin economically. So was Canada and so was the economy of every resource-based state, including British Columbia, in the whole jurisdiction of North America; it was tough for all of us. Nonetheless our government said clearly and plainly: "Even in these times the health of the people comes first and there is no doubt about it." Under Social Credit B.C. Place comes first, Annacis comes first, the stadium comes first and so does the tunnel. Health comes second. Under the coalition, in tough times, they will continue to promise anything and deliver as little as possible in the way of human services. But I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised. When the Socreds were in opposition they also promised anything necessary in order to get back into government.

Let me talk some more about the human consequences of this policy, when Annacis and the stadium and the tunnel and B.C. Place can get anything by way of a public commitment and hospitals can't get what they need. My colleague, the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) and I will be documenting in the days to come — with letters, conversations and material provided by us in the usual way — proof after proof of what happens to human beings who are told by their doctor that they can go in for elective surgery in three weeks' time. We will be talking about what happens when they tell their boss they need a week off. We will be talking about what happens when the parent, say, who might be going in for elective surgery makes arrangements for alternative care for the kids, when the grandmother comes in or a babysitter is arranged or the kids are farmed out somewhere safe and appropriate for the time that the parent — often a single parent — is going to be out of the picture. We are going to be illustrating in human language what it means, therefore, after all those arrangements have been made to take time off work, to provide alternative accommodations sometimes for the children, to commit the financial resources of the family in order that the person who will be away for the elective surgery can be away from the family for a period of time. Then the nurse phones up and says: "I'm sorry, your surgery is cancelled. We've rescheduled it for three weeks" — or three months — "hence."

Of course, sometimes the elective surgery is utterly trivial and minor, and it could well wait a day or a year. Of course, sometimes there is no legitimate call for the surgery in the first place, other than for basically egotistical and cosmetic reasons. I don't want to talk about any of those cases. Instead we'll be talking about the cases of human beings who need the surgery for demonstrable difficult medical reasons but who cannot properly be qualified as persons in need of acute surgical treatment. Especially with the senior citizens of my riding — and I'm here again talking about old folks in Victoria — it's often the result of cumulative and accumulative illness. disorder and disease that takes place over a period of many years. Finally the pain can no longer be borne; the burden of the discomfort can no longer be accepted; the human suffering to which they've been put for many years can no longer be tolerated. So they go in for elective surgery. Or at least they thought they were going to go in for elective surgery, until the doctor's nurse phoned and indicated: "I'm sorry; you can't — it's booked again."

In the days to come we'll be reading into the record — my colleagues will be doing the same — case after case of people who have had to suffer the indignity, the financial cost, and the human problem associated with taking the time off work, omitting certain family obligations and cleaning up their own affairs so they can go into hospital, and then being told: "Sorry, you can't come in after all. There's just no room for you; there isn't a bed to be had." That's what it's like when you have to deal with a government that will spend anything on Annacis, B.C. Place, the stadium and a tunnel study, and when they're apparently not prepared to spend the funds necessary to deliver the programs in the Health ministry which we presume the minister would like to deliver if he could — if only because it's less political hassle, and he's a good politician — and which we know the medical professionals of British Columbia and persons authentically concerned about health care also want him to deliver.

We agree these are tough times. We agree you've got to deal within a tight budget. But we tell you this, and we insist on it: cut Health last; chop away elsewhere to begin with.

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That's the message of the official opposition. It is, I think, the message of the vast majority of the people of British Columbia as well.

HON. MR. MAIR: I'd like, if I may, to deal a little further with the Armstrong situation. I'm instructed that on my desk, awaiting my signature, is a letter to Mayor Blattner which indicates again that I'm quite prepared to talk with them and that I do treat that matter as a high-priority item from my point of view. I don't apologize, again, for losing battles with Treasury Board; I think I win more than my share. But in any event, I have a copy of a letter that I've written to Mr. P. Mackiewich, the administrator of the North Okanagan Regional Hospital District, indicating that I'll be happy to have a meeting with him on a number of concerns he's raised, including the Armstrong one. I know that the members opposite would not like to leave the impression that Armstrong is some remote, desolate village in British Columbia. It's a town — or whatever it may be in terms of its legality — 15 miles from Vernon. It's not exactly way off the beaten path.

I'd like to deal very briefly with what the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) had to say. Incidentally, I'm a constituent of his. I'm not very happy with that, but I can't help it; I moved into his constituency.

MR. BARRETT: Neither is he.

HON. MR. MAIR: I guess, if you get right down to it, we're both a little upset with that prospect, Mr. Leader of the Opposition. It's one of those things that happens.

He was very flattering in a sense, and told me that what talents I have were wasted in the ministry I'm in because I wanted to be somewhere else, and if only I would devote my energies to this ministry I'd be a much better minister. I'm going to tell him that things are much worse than he thinks, because the fact of the matter is I'm delighted to be the Minister of Health. I wanted to be the Minister of Health. I'm devoting every waking hour, every energy and whatever meagre talents I have to being a good Minister of Health. If in doing that I still come up short, please blame it on me and my shortcomings, not on some desire to be a minister of some other portfolio.

I'm sorry the member chose to tell about a private conversation. Quite frankly, I don't remember when that conversation took place. Probably I met him socially on some occasion and we talked about intergovernmental affairs. I must say that if social conversations with him are going to be repeated I guess I'm just going to have to assume that he's not a person with whom I should have any social intercourse, and I'm sorry to hear that. Whatever conversation I had with you, Mr. Member — frankly, I don't remember having it, although it could have occurred on a number of different occasions — I'm sorry that you would see fit to repeat what you felt was the import of that conversation, namely that I wished to be minister of some other ministry. I certainly never told you that. I've certainly indicated to you that I've always been interested in intergovernmental affairs, but to repeat that conversation or to take from that that I would rather have some other ministry than the one I have.... If you didn't mean to mislead....

MR. BARBER: You didn't say it, and I didn't say it either.

HON. MR. MAIR: Well, that's fine. As long as you didn't mean to create that impression, that's fine; but obviously I'm going to feel as reluctant to talk to you socially, if conversations are going to be repeated in this chamber, as you would be to talk to me if I did the same thing to you. I'm not going to tell anybody here what you told me on these occasions. I'll leave that to pique the interest of others.

I'd like to lay this one to rest, in the sense that I don't intend to talk about it any more; that's the question of whether or not I wanted to be the Health minister. I said yes, I did, I've had four ministries, Mr. Chairman, since I've been in this government. That may be because I can't hold a job; I don't know. I've been Minister of Consumer Services, Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Environment and now Health, and I have loved every one of them. I took a great interest in Consumer Services; I got through more consumer legislation in a couple of years than any other government in the history of the province, and I'm very proud of that. I enjoyed that ministry and had a damned good time in it, and many times I miss it. There are many times I wish I had another crack at it, but I've moved on to another ministry. I went to Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and I enjoyed that despite all the fulminations of the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Barrett). I enjoyed every aspect of it, and I have nothing to be ashamed of nor, indeed, anything that I regret.

I enjoyed Environment. Frankly, I wished at the time that I had had a little more time to stay in it, because I particularly liked the fish and wildlife branch. I liked all aspects of that; I enjoyed it very much. I enjoy Health very much. I was glad to get the ministry; I'm delighted to have it. I'm enjoying it and I'm giving to it every energy that I have.

As for the other concerns expressed by the first member for Victoria, I've said over and over again that we've got a lot of problems in elective surgery. The problems that he's evidently going to bring to me, I'm sure in very emotional terms.... Those are emotional cases, so you can't express them any other way but in emotional terms. Sure, they happen, and I think that they happened when your government was in, except this: they did not have the additional impact of the long-term care program, and I quite agree that that has had an aggravating effect. I've said that right from the beginning. I think that my predecessor predicted that that would happen. The alternative was not to have the program and not to strain the system sufficiently to allow that program to commence. Now the question is: are you doing anything about alleviating the situation? That's the better question, because we know the situation is there. The answer is yes, we are doing something to alleviate it; we're working as fast as we can to do just that.

I have some figures here just for Victoria — I think I've already given them to the House — concerning Juan de Fuca. June 1980, 44 beds, approved for an additional 75 which will be open in December '81; 14 extended-care pediatrics at Queen Alexandra; an additional 50 extended-care beds at Saanich Peninsula due December 1981; 594 total Victoria intermediate beds either under construction or in the active planning stage; 234 under construction, 360 under active planning. Yes, it would be very nice if I could say to this chamber that this is all going to be done tomorrow; it would be very nice if I could say: "Look, we had all of these things in place before we put the program in, even though we didn't know what the program would require." But that isn't the case. We didn't have them all I in place; we put the program in

[ Page 3299 ]

and hoped that the system would be able to stand the strain, and with the sacrifices that people are making — nobody will deny it — the system is standing the strain, and the strain is going to gradually abate. We are going to build the necessary homes, and we'll do it as quickly as possible.

Now the member made, I think, a rather typical speech of his lately concerning his dislike for certain capital projects of the government and indicated that somehow other things are suffering because of that. May I just lay this out on the table, Mr. Chairman: our capital construction program for hospitals for the next five years — 1980-85 — calls for a minimum of $100 million per year in hospital construction, and that's a pretty fair chunk of dough. Yes, you can always say it should be more and it should be here and it should be there and it shouldn't be in this place, it should be in another place. I guess those differences of opinion make horse-races, political contests and all that sort of thing, but I emphatically deny that this government, in any sense of the word, is cutting short on health budgets or on health expenditures, or is in any way depriving the people of British Columbia of their just share. Thirty percent of a record budget is going into health care this year, and I think that speaks for itself. We can argue about the priorities and where they should go, but I think $1.55 billion — probably close to $1.75 billion — spent this year is really a very considerable undertaking indeed for the Health ministry, of which none of us need be ashamed.

MR. HYNDMAN: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to add a few comments subsequent to the first member for Victoria. I suppose the reason I'm on my feet is that I take some exception to the inferences he makes about the degree to which people on the government side care about the problems of health care and those who are medically affected and in need of service.

It's interesting, Mr. Chairman, to notice that once again, as we move to another set of estimates, we're seeing a pattern in which more time is spent personally on the minister than on the facts of the case and on policy. It reminds me of the old parliamentary adage: if you are in opposition and the facts aren't with you, you hammer the policy; if the policy is not with you, you hammer the facts; and if neither the facts or the policy are with you, you hammer the minister.

Some mention was made of priority, and there was an inference by the member for Victoria that health-care services were not a priority of the government or of the B.C. Social Credit Party. For the record, may I just refresh the memory of members, first on the question of priority. An examination of the budget documents shows that while the NDP were in power health spending was never the number one priority of that government. Mr. Chairman, just to repeat that, from 1972 to 1975 the budget documents show that the budgetary expenditures proposed by the then NDP government did not rank health care spending as the number one priority. It did not ever rank higher than second.

The present government ranks health as the number one priority. It is the number one priority this year, was the number one priority last year, and the number one priority the year before. If we're going to talk about political priorities in a political debate, I think we can do little better than go to the document that speaks for itself, the budget. In the budgets of the years in question we will see a reflection of the priorities. With the greatest of respect to the first member for Victoria, I think it is perhaps a little unfair to suggest that the government doesn't care about health care and indeed does not make it a priority, when the facts of the matter are, according to the budget, that health care has ranked as a higher priority under this government than under its predecessor.

That fact is reflected also in the dollar volume of spending. During the last fiscal year in which the preceding government was in power the budgeted health allocation was $573 million. This year it is targeted at $1.55 billion — about a threefold increase. Whatever the ravages of inflation, they have not been running threefold since 1975.

Looking at the percentage of the budget allocated to health, the highest percentage of the budget allocated to health by the previous government was 22 percent — never higher. The present government percentage allocation for health care spending runs from 28 to 30 percent.

The independent observer has some difficulty accepting the suggestions of priority advanced by the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) when the facts are that under this government health care spending has always ranked as a higher budgetary priority, first and not second. The percentage allocated to health has dramatically increased from never higher than 22 percent to now in the range of 28 to 30 percent and the dollars allocated are virtually triple. I think the members can debate all they like about policy but I think a bit of a more balanced view of the differences would have been more in keeping.

Before I sit down, may I just add an observation about the Annacis topic which the first member for Victoria again injected into the debate. It is interesting that this year's allocation for budget for roads and highways is 9 percent of the gross total, compared to 30 percent for health. But it might do the second member for Victoria well, when he has the opportunity, to take two or three weeks and go live in the area that is going to benefit from the Annacis crossing, because you know....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the Chair has, with some difficulty, accepted debate this afternoon that is really out of the bounds of this committee. I would ask perhaps if all members could, from this point on during the estimates of the Minister of Health, vote 114, contain our discussion and narrow debate to the Minister of Health. That would be most appreciated.

MR. HYNDMAN: In conclusion I will just make one observation relative to a point dwelled upon at some length by the first member for Victoria, and that is simply to observe that we don't live in a black and white world of watertight compartments. Matters do interrelate and you don't always get to a hospital on the LRT. If you spend some time in the Surrey-Delta area observing or talking to people who, in an ambulance or a car, have had to get to a hospital or medical care centre, I think you might objectively observe that yes, for those people too, there is going to be some benefit from the Annacis project.

MR. BARBER: I appreciate the welcoming applause from members opposite.

I want to apologize to the Minister of Health. I never should have raised the subject of a private conversation. But having foolishly done so, I do not want any false impression to be left that the minister communicated anything of the sort that he wanted the Intergovernmental Relations portfolio. That's not true. I did not mean to imply it and I shouldn't have raised it in the first place. To clear it up, in any case, the

[ Page 3300 ]

conversation I'm referring to took place more than two and a half years ago. I remember we talked about the constitution. It was a very good conversation, but I apologize for raising it at all. I shouldn't have done that.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: I've got a very good memory.

The second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Hyndman) made a completely erroneous comparison. He would have us believe that the relative proportion of expenditures under two administrations for health somehow informs us about today's health needs. He conspicuously omitted mentioning the numbers of programs and the dollar value, real and proportional, that have been transferred to Health from Human Resources in the last three years. If it's necessary we will demonstrate the cash and the proportional value of those Human Resources programs, which have, in the last three and, I believe, four years — if I recall correctly the 1976 budget year was the first that it started to happen — been transferred from Human Resources to Health.

If necessary we'll do this, but I don't think it should be necessary because, again, the central point remains in a tight budgetary year when all of these other grandiose, flamboyant and basically silly schemes are being promoted by Social Credit to rescue its foundering political fortunes. When the Treasury Board says no to the people of Armstrong and the people of here, the people of there and the people of somewhere else, then the fundamental question is answered by itself. They don't care enough, work enough or spend enough to guarantee the absolutely first-class health system that the people of British Columbia have every right to enjoy.

I want to make one more point. The minister reeled off a list of beds currently being planned, currently under construction, or proposed for construction in greater Victoria. The minister may or may not yet have received correspondence I directed to him in my absence last week in regard to one problem at one of those hospitals. It's not a simply a matter of opening up the beds and then presuming that they can be filled in the way that it was intended. We'll get to that shortly, or if I get an answer from the minister before his estimates.... Juan de Fuca out in Colwood — there's a real problem with filling those beds, for some practical reasons.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: Oh, okay. It should have been sent in my absence last week.

Additionally, the minister, while listing all of the beds under construction, did not mention — and we have yet to have this determined by the ministry — the fact that, if I recall correctly, 351 of those 589 beds are, in fact, simply replacement beds. There is not actually anything brand-new about them, except that they're built this year rather than 60 years ago. I'm referring, of course, to the issue of the Victoria General Hospital. To the best of my recollection there is not a single new acute-care bed to be added to the current total. All of those beds currently under construction at Helmcken Road....

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: None of those are acute-care beds. Oh, fine, I want to return to that issue sometime either later today, if we have time, or tomorrow, but a major issue presents itself as well, which is what we can do and what the minister proposes to do with the workable beds and what remains of a workable facility at Victoria General. But again, in regard to the numbers that I'm now informed correctly that the minister did reel off, there is a question with simply filling some of them in an appropriate way. I'll get to that, or if the minister has a chance to look at the correspondence, I'd be pleased with that.

In any case, I principally rose to apologize for having raised the matter of a private conversation in the first place, and I'll try not to do it again.

MR. BARRETT: I want to thank the minister for clearing up a matter that seems to be more in confusion on his own side rather than with the official opposition.

We have never truly speculated, other than the usual observations, on the motive and intention of any person going into cabinet, but the reason it was raised today — and I'm glad you clarified it — was that we read an article authored by a reporter who interviewed your colleague, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), who sits just a few seats down from you. He claims to know you fairly well. He is quoted as saying in The Columbian newspaper, about Intergovernmental Relations Minister Garde Gardom: "I don't know. I don't think Garde knows much about what he is doing anyway." He is quoted as saying that about Garde.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Leader of the Opposition, please. I'll quote from a couple of sources that are near and dear to our parliament. First, from Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, sixteenth edition: "In order to guard against all appearance of personality in debate, it is not the rule that a member should refer to another by name." I will also refer the hon. member to May, seventeenth edition, "Relevance in Committee of Supply," page 739: "In debate of Committee of Supply we cannot discuss action for which a minister is not responsible." With that I will ask the hon. member to continue on vote 114.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I am only responding to what the minister himself attempted to explain. I will be brief. And I won't talk about Intergovernmental Relations Minister Garde Gardom by name any more, I'll just call him...you know, the guy who sits over there.

MR. HOWARD: Do you mean the former Attorney-General?

MR. BARRETT: The former Attorney-General.

This is the last reference I make from the mouth of the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, as quoted by a reporter. The paper says: "Rafe Mair" — and I won't use the name any more — "would really like to be in that slot. I don't think____...." "Blank" is the former Attorney-General. "Blank" is his name in this context, not his performance; let's get that straight. And I didn't say blankety blank. "I don't think____really has any strong views in that area, but____can work well with the Premier."

Mr. Chairman, as far as I read it what happens is that if you can't work well with the Premier you get shuffled around. I remember what the Premier said in this House

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once: "It only takes me two weeks to train my dogs." I guess one of the ways is the Pavlovian method, conditioned reflex. Give them any job and they'll come back salivating to just be in the cabinet. We have this confession from the minister: "I liked this and I wish I could have stayed there, and I liked that and I wish I could have stayed there, but the bell rang and I salivated and arrived at this new portfolio." That is hardly a recommendation of commitment to the job.

Far be it to me to analyze what people will do for status and position. I wouldn't make any observation, but I would recommend the minister have a few words with his colleague down there, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. I don't think it serves the Minister of Health well to have one of his own backbenchers criticizing him publicly. It is going to be very interesting to see how he stands up to vote. He has the luxury of writing letters to the editor making all these comments, but I bet he will get up and vote for him anyway.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Sure, B.C.'s lone wolf is having a party all of his own. He's having a ball kicking the slats out of them out of the House, but when he comes into the House it is Milquetoast himself. Number one Milquetoast kicks number two Milquetoast because number two Milquetoast is now the Minister of Health and scared spitless to stand up to the Premier and demand more help for his department.

After all, when you get that ministerial mantle on you, and you look in the mirror, and you rush in and hear that mysterious voice saying, "Oh, I'm so glad you're the minister, you're the best minister we ever had,'' and you find that it's a self-quote....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yeah.

What do you expect, Mr. Chairman? First of all, he brags a little bit about how much he accomplished as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Oh, it bothers him a little bit that my friend has some questions about pub licences. Oh, yes. "Well, that was in the past. If I get back there, there won't be the same questions." Then he goes on to every other portfolio....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: I think the minister doth protest too much. You got stuck with this mess and it's your task to try and clean it up — some of which I will get to in the specifics, Mr. Chairman, because I don't want to be out of order.

There is one other thing, Mr. Chairman, that I find amazing. My good friend, the second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Hyndman) — and I want to tell you, it takes every bit of charity in my body to preface my remarks with the comment, "my good friend" — comes into this House and gives those sanctimonious non-partisan lectures from that corner about the relative merits of budgets. I would ask that member to save his good words for those who really need them; every single person who's waiting for elective surgery should have a little lecture from our friend in the corner, saying: "Really, you may be sick, but if you look at it in relative terms, you would have been sicker three years ago than you will be three years from now, if you only read the Social Credit budget." Just sit in the emergency room when they come in and they're bleeding away, and the notice is up: "We ain't got enough staff for you." We can just play a record of the second member for Vancouver South saying: "Don't worry. Even though you're bleeding, my heart is with you, and so is the minister's. And as you sink slowly in the west, remember, in relative terms, if you hadn't been injured, you might not have croaked."

That kind of argument I find less than amusing. Nonetheless. you have to put it in the perspective of humour, because if you think that that is really the Social Credit argument, Lord knows we all need help. Tell it to the people in Vancouver who are facing the Vancouver General Hospital closing down more beds during the summer months than ever in history.

What is the excuse? It all comes back to money and a minister who is tough when it comes to talking in public, tough when he's talking in the House, but weak-kneed when it comes to talking to the Premier because the Premier holds his destiny in the palm of his hand. The Premier says: "Listen here, Mr. Minister, that is all the money you are going to get. You handle it with the public and you handle it with the House, or if you are really in trouble, get the second member for Vancouver South to give one of his sanctimonious speeches."

One thing I have learned: out of the two lawyers, I would hire the second member for Vancouver South. If you can get that kind of speech with a fee, I am sure we could win any case in this province. A little tear, relative terms....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: With some lawyers it is money in advance; with others it isn't. You take your choice, Mr. Member.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: I want to be a bit careful here. I do not want to pursue this out-of-order discussion of the relative merits of the two lawyers.

I want to point out to you another thing, Mr. Chairman, about the weak-kneed, genuflecting approach of this minister to Treasury Board. It must be weak-kneed and genuflecting, because when an unnamed backbencher can say to the public of British Columbia, "Unless I get an answer by May of 1980 that a bridge be committed to me by the Premier of this province, I will leave Social Credit" or some other fanciful threat.... It was the member for Delta (Mr. Davidson) who said publicly: "I demand I get my bridge by May of 1980."

HON. MR. CHABOT: Order!

MR. BARRETT: You're darned right I'm in order.

Why doesn't that minister get up and demand: "Unless I have my budget for the Armstrong hospital, I will step out of being Minister of Health"? A government by threat. What clout does the member for Delta have in cabinet that the member for Kamloops doesn't have? Is this the way to run a government, Mr. Member for Vancouver South? Maybe you'd be in the cabinet if you'd threaten instead of genuflect. Here's the biggest moving grease spot in the history of British Columbia, saying: "Here I am; we'll do our best." There's only one person over there who's had the clout to

[ Page 3302 ]

stand up and say: "Unless I get what I want I'm going to pack it up." He got what he wanted, and the rest of the weak-kneed bunch over there say that Treasury Board won't let them have what they want. Come on, you tough guy. It's a bunch of guff we've had all afternoon.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Would the member take his place momentarily. I would like to quote once again from Sir Erskine May, and remind all members that good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. "Parliamentary language is never more desirable than when a member is canvassing the opinions and conduct of his opponents in debate." Once again I will remind all hon. members that we are in Committee of Supply, vote 114, the estimates of the Minister of Health. We are asked by our standing orders to limit and narrow our debate to the administrative actions of the department that is before us.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I take your advice.

I notice even the sunbeams are spotlighting the minister. I notice that even Mother Nature wants to expose the minister — shining that beam down on him, telling him that he too should have the gumption to get in there and fight, and say: "If I don't get my way, by golly, I'm putting my political future on the line." Is it more important for a threat over a bridge to be satisfied than a threat over a hospital bed or somebody's life? What are the priorities of a Premier who holds the strings over the cabinet day by day?

I want to share with the House the fact that I don't intend to use my whole half-hour. It's 15 minutes to 6, but in the time I've got left — and I'll speak tomorrow — I'm going to ask the minister how he can sit there and be so nonchalant in the face of the issues that are brought up in front of him. I'd like to see that old tiger that's had his nails pulled by the Premier stand up and show this House that he's still got something left down there — a little bit of smoke, a little bit of fire — and say that he's going to fight for the hospitals, the old people and others in this province who need a minister to stand up and demand that Treasury Board produce these things.

He comes in here today and talks about the Armstrong Hospital: "Well, I told them in a letter that if I could get money you'd have it." I told my kids that if I could have money they'd have a bike. That's the same story my dad told me when I was four, and his dad told him, and his dad told him ad infinitum, instead of just saying a straight no or yes. You haven't got the money out of Treasury Board, because I don't think you've fought hard enough. You spend your time running around this province saying things here and there about the opposition obstructing. Have we stopped you from demanding money from Treasury Board? Stand up and tell this House of any opposition member that would obstruct you in doing your duty if you got into Treasury Board and fought for the Armstrong Hospital and every other hospital in this province. Obstruction, my eye! If I could say it, Mr. Chairman, I'd say it was cold feet on behalf of the minister to get in there and fight, so he looks for excuses.

What about part of the mess that he took over from the former minister, who's making a mess of the present department? The so-called Heroin Treatment Program up at Brannan Lake, a glorified hotel residence for a handful of people who are heroin addicts, a disastrous program that has been a failure even to the point of Bert Hoskin leaving the ship, is $14 million blown to the winds on a program that has no scientific base, no merit, no validation, but purely a political decision on behalf of that government and through the former Minister of Health because he discovered through a beam of light on his head that he knew how to deal with the Heroin Treatment Program. That is the biggest bungle in the medical care history of the province of British Columbia, perpetrated in the face of professional and political opposition right across this province. It was brought in by that former Minister of Health. We hoped that it would be closed by the present Minister of Health and not a peep out of him. Why are you carrying the can for his mess? Mr. Chairman, I ask that question in plain language. I ask the minister why he's carrying the can for the former minister's mess — and it is a mess. I haven't heard him run around this province in months making speeches about how wonderful his cockamamie scheme of heroin treatment is doing now.

Mr. Chairman, we've had evidence that they've wasted more money out of that $14 million on a handful of people than it would cost to properly staff emergency services in this province. What about an honest, decent tax-paying citizen who has never had a problem with drugs being guaranteed proper medical facilities in a hospital? What are your priorities? If you're the clean-up man, you haven't made a move. You've been dumped on with a mess. You haven't had the gumption to stand up and say: "If I'm going to be dumped with a mess, I'd like the authority, responsibility and the money to clean up the mess."

What an afternoon we've seen! A smooth-talking minister, with his auxiliary smooth talker from South Vancouver, trying to get away with the fact that smooth-talking lawyers never cured anybody's illness. You're not even a good placebo, Mr. Minister.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: That's it! You're right. Supine placebo; that's what your own colleagues call you.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Jack says he wasn't happy there. Then the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith) says you're a supine placebo.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, he did. Even I know what that means. "Supine" means gutless; "placebo" means fake. What are you saying about that minister, Mr. Chairman — withdraw or prove it? I don't have to withdraw, because he proved it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just remember that we should have good temper and moderation.

MR. BARRETT: Good temper and moderation, Mr. Chairman? I have been in good temper and moderation when you consider the things I could be saying about this government and that minister and health care services. Not a peep out of them on the disaster of the heroin treatment centre. The reason the former Minister of Health was kicked out of that job was because of his stupid commitment to pouring money down a hole and keeping his nonsense program going. He blew $14 million on some nightmare that wasn't even drug-inspired.

[ Page 3303 ]

MR. KING: What about the emergency ambulance service?

MR. BARRETT: The emergency ambulance service has been shortchanged money, even though they personally demonstrated their worth to a single cabinet minister. I thank goodness it was there to save that minister's life. How much more proof do you need that the ambulance service and the paramedic service started by my good friend and colleague, the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), are absolutely necessary and desired by the people of British Columbia? Do you think we would have had an ambulance service in this province if the Minister of Health hadn't come in and fought for the ambulance service? Do you think we would have had paramedic services in this province if the Minister of Health hadn't come in and fought for paramedic services? Every minister comes in and fights, but when you fight for people, that should be a higher priority than a $100 million overrun on blacktop. That specious speech we got in defence of the minister! You better hire another lawyer. Getting up and saying: "Well, if we build a bridge we might get them to the hospital sooner.... ..

MR. LEA: What did he say about Social Credit in 1975?

MR. BARRETT: I know what he said about Social Credit in 1975 but then he was doing a different kind of genuflecting. You are never going to make it in cabinet with those kinds of speeches. The door is opened to the cabinet by threatening that if you don't get a bridge you will pack it up. If you were afraid of whether or not the Premier likes you, what better way to test it? In the one case he says: "Yeah, I like you enough; you can stay. The next guy might be a loser." What would he say to the Minister of Health if the Minister of Health walked in and said: "Look here, I want that Armstrong Hospital right now. I want more money for the paramedic services right now." What would he say? "If you don't like it you can quit." What is wrong with that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Say goodbye, Rafe.

MR. BARRETT: "Goodbye," we say to him. Goodbye to the high living, the life down here in Victoria, the benefits of having Charles Barber as your MLA. That is what you are afraid of losing, Mr. Member.

I have some more to say but I understand the Chair wishes a little time to consider my remarks and some others so I'll sit down now. But I'll leave you with this message. In all seriousness, I don't think you are fighting hard enough. I think you should go in there and lay the law down. Any parent of a child that is missing service expects nothing less. Any person out there who has worked to pay taxes expects nothing less. I want to see a fighting Minister of Health, not a supine placebo, as he was described by one of his colleagues, I will have to repeat, even in Kamloops.

Get in there and fight. You say you have a heart. We don't want a chicken heart. We want a real heart in there fighting, and we intend to bring up more issues to get some of these services going again in British Columbia even though you picked up a mess from the former minister.

HON. MR. MAIR: With great fear and trepidation and as supine as I can be, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, on July 3 last, the hon. second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Hyndman) rose on a matter of privilege concerning statements allegedly made by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) appearing in The Province newspaper, dated July 3, 1980. The hon. second member for Vancouver South read to the House the statements in question, tabled a copy of the publication and indicated to the House the motion that he intended to submit if permitted to do so.

I would have preferred not to occupy the Chair upon consideration of this matter, but obvious circumstances do not permit otherwise. There is, however, a duty and ample precedent for the Speaker to remain in the chair to put a question and to make rulings even when the matter affects himself personally. This has occurred on a number of occasions in other jurisdictions, including Westminster, and I refer members to Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedures, fourth edition, page 179.

I must therefore consider the statements attributed to the hon. member for Skeena and determine whether or not a prima facie case of breach of privilege has occurred and be satisfied that there has been no undue delay in making a complaint. On the latter question, I am so satisfied as the complaint was made in the House at the earliest opportunity on the same day as the publication of The Province newspaper, i.e. the third day of July, 1980.

Sir Erskine May, sixteenth edition, at page 124, states that accusations of partiality in the Speaker's discharge of his duty have been held to constitute a breach of privilege and cites a number of examples of that offence. The alleged statements of the hon. member for Skeena, which have been read to the House, on the face of them do so reflect on the Chair and may be found to be an offence against the House in the person of its elected Speaker or deputy and I so rule.

I therefore recognize the second member for Vancouver South.

MR. HYNDMAN: Mr. Speaker, in view of the nature of your ruling, my understanding is that as a matter of parliamentary practice it is now my right to forthwith move a motion proposing that the member in question be judged guilty of a breach of privilege and of contempt. Such a motion takes precedence and is immediately debatable. In the alternative, Mr. Speaker, I may give notice of an intended motion and file the same on the order paper. It is not my intention to move the motion immediately. It is my sincere hope, Mr. Speaker, that as an hon. member the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) will take such steps as are now appropriate, and therefore make it unnecessary for me to file the notice of motion at all.

MR. BARRETT: On a point of order, is the member indicating that he's filing notice of motion tonight?

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DEPUTY SPEAKER: That was not my understanding, hon. member.

MR. HYNDMAN: On the same point of order, for purposes of clarity, Mr. Speaker, may I make it clear that I do not propose to file a notice of motion tonight.

MR. HOWARD: On the point of order, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, in light of what has occurred, that the second member for Vancouver South either proceed with the motion now or henceforth keep his mouth shut about this matter.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member rose on a point of order that was hardly a point of order — with all due respect, hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Smith tabled the second annual report of the Occupational Training Council.

Hon. Mr. Williams moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.