[ Page 3305 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions.

Body-shop surcharges on ICBC rates. Mr. Hall –– 3305

BCHMC policy on separated couples. Mr. Lea –– 3305

Telephone operator services. Mr. Mitchell –– 3306

Matter of Urgent Public Importance

Pre-building of Alberta-U.S. border section of the proposed Alaska gas pipeline.

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3306

Routine Proceedings

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

On vote 114: minister's office –– 3307

Mr. Cocke

Division on a motion that the committee rise –– 3311

Mr. Levi

Mr. Barber

Mr. Lockstead

Division on a motion that the Chairman leave the chair –– 3319

Mr. Howard

Matter of Urgent Public Importance

Pre-building of Alberta-U.S. border section of the proposed Alaska gas pipeline.

Deputy Speaker rules –– 3329

Division on Deputy Speaker's ruling –– 3329

Appendix –– 3330

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Prayers.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is a lifelong friend of mine, the former mayor of Williams Lake, the stampede capital of the world, Mr. Herb Gardner. I'd like the House to welcome him here today.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome some young Richmond residents to the galleries today: Sandra, Melissa and Joshua Chamberlain, and Kevin and Heidi Cohen.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: In the gallery today is the very beautiful wife of my administrative assistant and her parents, Orville and Marion Pederson, from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I hope the House will help me make them welcome.

MR. LEA: I ask the House to join me in welcoming a businessman from Vancouver and a person who has business interests in my riding, Ken Saunders.

Oral Questions

BODY-SHOP SURCHARGES ON ICBC RATES

MR. HALL: I'd like to address a question to the Minister of Agriculture in his capacity as a director of ICBC. This is a continuation of the problem we discussed yesterday. Have any negotiations been planned or dates fixed for discussions between ICBC and the Automotive Retailers' Association to put an end to motorists having to pay surcharges to body shops for repairs to their cars?

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

MR. HALL: In view of the minister's statements during estimates regarding an open-door policy, has the minister decided to meet with the Automotive Retailers Association to investigate the cause and the source of this financial burden on the motoring public?

HON. MR. HEWITT: With regard to the body-shop rates, we have had discussions and meetings with representatives of that organization in my office. That organization has met with staff of ICBC and the new president of ICBC. The matter of body-shop rates was reviewed for a second time, at my request, at senior management and board level. The end result of all those discussions was that we could not see justification for increasing the rates beyond $25.60 per hour. We did increase them from $23.60 to $25.60, effective April this year. I'm sure the second member for Surrey recognizes that when increased rates are put through, the only party that incurs additional cost is the, motoring public.

MR. HALL: In view of the minister's answer yesterday that the claims centres would direct motorists to body shops charging the supposed ICBC rate and because the ARA and ICBC admitted today that claims centres are no longer able to supply this information, what steps has the minister taken to ensure that motorists needing repairs to their vehicles now know where they can be obtained without having to pay a surcharge?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the motoring public is advised about this surcharge that has been charged — but not by a majority of the ARA member body shops. They are given advice to the fact that there is a possible surcharge and they of course can seek out or have assistance, if it is given, from the staff of ICBC, in order to go to an autobody shop that charges the rate of $25.60.

I just would like to comment that the cost of body-shop repairs, if it is increased, of course reflects in the premium of the motorists; therefore all motorists would have to pay increased premiums to cover this increased cost. We did review it. We review it annually. The rate was adjusted after a Woods Gordon study was done and after examination of body-shop rates relating to the ICBC autobody shop, and we think the rate is fair. I'm not just sure how far down the line we can go until we have to take a stand, which is being done by management in the board of ICBC.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon a hand delivered message was sent from ICBC to the group representing the industry that deals with the customers. It said that no more negotiations could take place this year. My questions are not on behalf of the Automotive Retailers Association; my questions are to ascertain what can be done to protect the public who are now having to pay two bills instead of one bill. What I'm trying to do is to elicit from the minister what actions the government is taking to try to prevent double billing not only in this field but in other fields, as they appear to be quite complacent about that.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, just to advise the member, ICBC staff is doing whatever is possible to ensure that the motorist who has a damaged automobile goes to a body shop that charges the $25.60.

BCHMC POLICY ON
SEPARATED COUPLES

MR. LEA: I have a question for the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing. On April 15, 1980, the British Columbia Housing Management Commission passed a policy that basically says this: if a marriage breaks up while a couple is living within B.C. Housing Management Commission housing, neither spouse can apply for housing within the commission unless he has the written permission of the spouse whom he left. Could the minister tell me whether he, knows of any other landlord in the province with such a policy?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, needless to say, I am not aware of the policy of all the landlords in this province. Therefore I would have to take that question as notice and bring a reply back to the member.

MR. LEA: Could I ask the minister what the government's present policy is in regard to this matter? Does the minister, speaking on behalf of the government, agree that when one applies for accommodation within the B.C. Housing Management Commission he must have the written approval of the spouse whom he left? Does the government agree that that should be the case?

[ Page 3306 ]

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, we have a board of directors administering the affairs of the B.C. Housing Management Commission. They have certain rights and liberties to establish certain policies. As I said a little bit earlier, I will have to take that question as notice and get back to the member. I will see whether the policy is one with which I am familiar and on which I can have a frank discussion to see whether it is the right policy. Maybe there is a need to give certain directions to BCHMC, but I don't want to interfere with the freedom of the board. Nevertheless, I will take the question as notice.

MR. LEA: If, after the minister looks into this and finds out what policy an agency of his government has.... I'm surprised that he doesn't know already. But after he looks into it and finds out that this in fact is the case, is the minister prepared to direct that commission to follow the direction of government in this matter?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, the member is asking me to identify what further action the government proposes to take. Until such time as I am able to acquaint myself with any directives that have been issued by the board of directors, and see whether the statements being made by the member for Prince Rupert are accurate and correct, it is very difficult for me to answer that. Future action will perhaps be taken, depending upon the information I am able to uncover from the board.

MR. LEA: I would just like to ask the minister: does the minister feel that his government...? Let'me rephrase that, because in order to feel you have to have a heart. Does the minister feel that his government has the power, if the government feels it's necessary, to direct that commission to follow government's orders?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, the member is asking me for a legal opinion. I think he should consult his colleague to the left of him.

TELEPHONE OPERATOR SERVICES

MR. MITCHELL: My question is to the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications. Yesterday I asked the minister if he had decided to ask the CRTC to hold hearings in the communities of Vernon, Cranbrook, Nelson, Williams Lake, Dawson Creek and Terrace on the question of withdrawal of operator services. The minister told us that B.C. Tel was not under B.C. jurisdiction. On behalf of the members on his side of the House, I would like to thank him for that piece of redundant information.

I would like to ask him if he is aware that when B.C. Tel institutes their new TSPS system and withdraws operators from these communities, people calling for emergency help by dialing zero will be cut off after a 15-second silence, which will not enable the call to be traced. If he is aware of that, has he decided to make representation to the CRTC opposing the implementation of this system by B.C. Tel?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I cannot verify the accuracy of the member's assertions.

MR. MITCHELL: For the benefit of the minister's information, if he would read some of the literature that comes across his desk from the various systems, he'll get it.

On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to make another suggestion. Bell Canada implemented a similar system in Quebec at a cost of $36 million. The operator response time became slower overall. B.C. Tel has stopped recording the operator response time, so there is no way to prove that there would be an increase in service quality as the company claims. Has the minister decided to oppose the TSPS system before the CRTC until such time as B.C. Telephone becomes accountable and can come up with the information that is needed to see if it is better?

HON. MR. McGEER: The B.C. Telephone Company is a regulated company and is accountable at the present time to the CRTC. It is the policy of the British Columbia government that the B.C. Telephone Company should become accountable to a regulatory body within British Columbia, but that's not the circumstance today. In the meantime, however, I am confident that the B.C. Telephone Company can do better than Bell in giving service to its customers.

MR. MITCHELL: I would like to bring to the attention of the minister that the government of British Columbia is accountable to the people of British Columbia. It is the responsibility of the minister to give leadership in opposing something that is going to be a detriment to the people of this province. I have had....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Does the member have a question? This is question period, hon. member.

MR. MITCHELL: Yes, I have a question, Mr. Speaker After twenty-some-odd years of service I have found many, many, many people have cried for help by dialing zero on the telephone. Is the minister aware of the number of calls for assistance that are put through the telephone company by dialing zero and the danger and catastrophe that is going to happen to our emergency service if this is allowed to go in before we have a 911 service put in?

HON. MR. McGEER: I want to concur with the member that the government is accountable to the people of British Columbia. That is precisely why the member is opposite where he belongs. Apart from that aspect of accountability I would be very pleased to do what I can to elicit information with respect to how many emergency calls are placed over the system at the present time and bring that information to the House.

MR. MITCHELL: On a point of order, I would like to bring to his attention that we all in this party are opposite where we belong, but we will be back on the government side.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of standing order 35 to ask leave to move adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member state the matter?

[ Page 3307 ]

MR. D'ARCY: This week the National Energy Board will make a decision on the pre-build of the Alberta-U.S. border section of the proposed Alaska gas pipeline. This pre-build is advantageous only to Alberta at the expense of the interests of British Columbia and of Canada as a whole. This pre-build will result in Alberta gas displacing B.C. natural gas in our traditional U.S. markets, which will lead to large losses in B.C. government revenue and a decline in economic activity in B.C., as gas exploration and revenues concentrate in our neighbouring province of Alberta.

The B.C. government has made no effort to protect the interests of B.C. by way of making a public declaration of opposition to the pre-build. I therefore ask leave, under standing order 35, to discuss this matter of urgent public importance in the Legislature.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I will take the matter under advisement without prejudice to the member's urgency aspect, and bring a report to the House at the earliest opportunity. I thank the member as well for advising me of his intention to raise the matter under standing order 35 prior to the House.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: With leave, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to introduce a guest.

Leave granted.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Speaker, it's a great pleasure for me today to introduce a very good friend of the Okanagan Valley and education. Seated in your gallery is Mr. John Watson, bursar of Okanagan College. Joining Mr. Watson in the House with us today are his wife Sandy and their two young children, Patrick and Heather. I would ask hon. members to remember the presence of these young children in the gallery and also to join me in making them feel welcome on business and a holiday.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today we have two guests from Norway, Mr. and Mrs. Tore Oveson, who are guests of two constituents of mine, Mr. and Mrs. Thor Sollien. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

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.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Chairman, I wouldn't want my vote to pass without the opportunity of answering further a question from the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) yesterday. I know they're very anxious to have the vote passed, but I thought perhaps I should discuss just for a moment, if I may, the question of Armstrong, which was dealt with at some length. Because I'm not familiar with all the areas in British Columbia to the same extent that others might be, I thought that I should look into Armstrong and see just how deprived it was in terms of medical services, because I felt that the member left the impression — I'm sure quite unwittingly — that Armstrong was some very remote community that was starving for health services.

There is no question that the member wants to have a new community health facility, and I already gave the answer in a letter to him and to others last fall that, while I desired that to happen, it did not come to pass. But I thought that I should let the chamber know just what health services are available.

Mr. Chairman, you may be interested to know that there are four physicians resident in Armstrong with privileges at their hospital; there are two dentists in Armstrong, five Vernon-based physicians have consulting privileges at Armstrong and Spallumcheen Hospital in Armstrong; three Enderby-based physicians have courtesy privileges at the Armstrong hospital — Enderby, incidentally, is 10 miles away, Vernon about 15 miles away. A specialist consulting service in radiology is provided from Vernon; a specialist consulting service in pathology is provided from Kelowna. You might be interested also, Mr. Chairman, to know that the Armstrong and Spallumcheen Hospital is a community hospital with 16 adults' and children's beds and five bassinets. As I mentioned, a little under 15 miles away down the road is Vernon Jubilee Hospital.

Now the community health services provided in this area: first of all there is full-time public health nursing; three-quarter-time home-care nursing; visiting public health inspection at one day per week, and clerical services are provided on a part-time basis.

Mr. Chairman, yesterday one might have got the impression that there were no services provided in Armstrong. I want the chamber to know that these services have been provided in the past and will be provided at the present time and into the future. Of course, it would be nice indeed to have the new facility that the member wants; I supported that a year ago and I support it now. I want the member to know that when the opportunity arises for me to make that case, I will make it again. If I don't do a good job, I'm very sorry. But I rather think that I have reason to be optimistic that the next time around both the member and I will be happy with the results.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, today I want to deal for some time with that scandalous event that was created by the former Minister of Health: the Heroin Treatment Program.

I wonder if the current minister has the annual report for the Alcohol and Drug Commission before him, because maybe it would be wise for him and me to study the annual report of this commission and find out whether there is any conflict or contrast that we can draw from it. I wonder whether the minister has the same two copies of the annual report that I have. I have the original, and I have the new one — the one that the minister tabled in the House. The original is identical to look at from the outside, but when you get inside, Mr. Chairman, there are quite a few changes.

It's fortuitous, isn't it, that the Alcohol and Drug Commission have their own printing press, so they can go ahead and waste people's money — as they have in every other aspect of that commitment they have to their treatment program — and they can even waste people's money in the printing of two conflicting and contrasting reports.

[ Page 3308 ]

Here we are with the original report that I received some time before this one was tabled in the House. When I got this one that was tabled in the House, I thought I would leaf through it as well, thinking that I had covered the report. But I found that the minister hadn't seen the original report, possibly. In any event, the minister who was responsible for this particular development is the one that signed this report. Let me say that the minister at that time was the Hon. R.H. McClelland — "Minister of Health," it says on both reports.

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me take you to page 2, if the minister would look at his report.

HON. MR. MAIR: I'm just getting mine, Dennis.

MR. COCKE: I hope that the minister has access to both, as I have.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Let me read for the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser): "The annual report of the Alcohol and Drug Commission, 1978-79."

HON. MR. FRASER: Let's see it.

MR. COCKE: "The annual report of the Alcohol and Drug Commission, 1978-79."

AN. HON. MEMBER: Same report.

MR. COCKE: Same report.

AN HON. MEMBER: Different content.

MR. COCKE: Different content, but the same report.

Now, Mr. Chairman, while the minister is waiting for his report so that we can go over some of the changes, I would like to point out that in 1976 there were hints.... I had many hints in 1974-75 that the then health critic had some ideas about how he was going to save the world in terms of the whole heroin problem in B.C. In 1976-77, when a White Paper was produced, we indicated that that White Paper in and of itself indicated that the approach was dead wrong; that the whole approach to the treatment of heroin addicts had failed. It had failed as close to here as Matsqui. It certainly had failed in Kentucky, California and New York, using the compulsory treatment program.

I suggested at that time to the then minister: "For heaven's sake, attack heroin where you should attack it: on the street, not with a compulsory treatment program for a health problem. Find the source and dry it up." Mr. Chairman, let me read to you what has occurred, because fortunately we do have the police working on this problem at the same time. "B.C. Heroin Use Drops." That's a headline on May 26 in the Victoria Times.

"Buried in the latest statistics about rising crime in British Columbia is the startling information that the illegal heroin problem is on the way down.

"There have been no banner headlines, no optimistic statements by the government or the police, no assurances that the law enforcement agencies have found the key to what has in the past been described as B.C.'s greatest social evil. Yet the number of heroin offences dropped last year by a whopping 70.5 percent...from 824 offences to 243...."

In the minister's White Paper, before they brought in this treatment program by law, what did he say? In the White Paper, if he had cared to read it himself at that time, it said that the heroin on the street was so diluted that there were hardly any people in this province hooked on or addicted to heroin. We pointed that out to the minister at that time and he chose to ignore it. He chose to expend millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on a loser. The taxpayers are poorer; the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) comes out and indicates that he's going to have to curtail the hiring of staff. I contend a lot of the reason for that is because of this government's bungling ways of handling virtually everything they touch. The best example I can find is right here in this particular program.

I will talk about — as some of my colleagues will later this afternoon — some of their programs — for example, the Brannan Lake program. We'll talk about some of the other aspects of this Cadillac program, and it is a Cadillac program wherever it goes. It is the program that's well financed and draws the staff. The other drug-related programs are left destitute as a result of the way they're handling this program. I think it's just a shocker, I really do. We'll find in communities like Kelowna, for example, there are three parallel programs: the local agency, the alcohol and drug program itself, and the heroin program. The heroin program is there proselytizing other drug addicts — that is either alcohol or barbiturates, or whatever other drugs people become addicted to — as part of their program in order to justify their existence. Senior management in that program are encouraging treatment of non-heroin users. Why is that? It's because they cannot find the heroin users to treat, that's why. They want to beef up their figures. I get this from a number of sources, from a number of communities wherever this program is running.

We find $2 million funding — or thereabouts — for Brannan Lake, with 150 staff and roughly 35 patients on an average. It's been increased slightly lately because of the fact that they're trying to expand the program to take in others. I'm pleased with that aspect, and to some extent I'm pleased with this minister's attitude toward the whole program, as he seems not to be bound up by what can best be described as the "Hoskin's syndrome." That, Mr. Chairman, was that all you had to do to cure a problem was put them behind bars, keep them there for three years, and when they came out they'd be cured.

HON. MR. MAIR: Hoskin would agree with you anyway, Dennis.

MR. COCKE: I was pleased to see that. Again, we both know what we're talking about.

The provincial coordinating centre on Broadway is doing all their research with their further $2 million budget. Their print shop in Vancouver creates two separate distinct runs of an annual report. They are all part of this disaster, of this wasteful, silly attempt to elicit public support for this government. How that minister sold this plan to his colleagues in cabinet is beyond belief. At that point I have to hold the minister somewhat responsible because he was part of the government that brought in this disastrous program.

I also contend that they need an audit. I believe that when the transfer was made from Human Resources there were some funds there that should be checked. I also suggest that

[ Page 3309 ]

we should look at the figures on treatment — figures that I saw, not in this report but in another report floating around; figures of the contrasting numbers of people treated or helped in some way by the Alcohol and Drug Commission. On the alcohol side 14,000 people were treated; 14,000 people were treated on the heroin side, in a roundup of the real heroin addicts. Yet where is the budget? All you have to do is look at your estimates. That program is the major user of funds. We'll go into some of those figures later. I am just using this to show how wrong we were to have accepted — and we on this side did not accept lightly — that silly approach, that silly measure taken in the name of health care. It was a disgrace and continues to be a disgrace. It is a bit of a scandal when you consider that they can't even put out one annual report without having to print a whole new edition in order to get out some of the more controversial aspects of the report.

I also want to ask a question about Pacifica in New Westminster. Pacifica is the name of a new alcohol and drug treatment centre. It will be run by the Fraser Valley Alcoholism Society. They have been running a program in the New Westminster YM-YWCA. They have a residence attached to the New Westminster YM-YWCA. That residence is no longer serving transient youth. As a matter of fact, it never did, because by the time it was built transient youth had decided to live elsewhere. What has happened is that the ministries of Health and Human Resources and other governmental agencies in the province have used that facility, and used it well.

I see no economic, sensible reason for moving out of the New Westminster YM-YWCA, where they had a program that was going relatively well, as far as I understand. But no, they had to build a new edifice. They are not even building it. A major real estate firm in New Westminster, Wolstencroft Realty Corp., owns the land, is building the building and no doubt has a long-term lease with the Alcohol and Drug Commission. What kind of a sweetheart deal is that, when the very same commission in Kelowna with its Crossroads Society built their own? Why should it be built by a very supportive — incidentally — real estate company in New Westminster?

I checked to see who we're dealing with here. The Fraser Valley Alcoholism Society, incorporated on August 2, 1977 — 13352-6 — has the following directors: Mr. Edward Eakins, Joseph Frances, Ralph Muir, Mary Jane Mulligan, Kathleen Stubley, Brian J. Monks and Fred Bokenfohr. They are registered at 180-6th Street in New Westminster with no encumbrances.

This society decided, because of government suggestions, that they should set up the kind of program that I outlined. I charge that they could have done it equally well where they were, and they needn't have put the government to the expense of long-term leasing of a brand new edifice when something was properly in place. Now, Mr. Chairman, the government is going to be running around trying to find out how to fill those rooms with some other problem group.

I guess I could read into the record the directors of Wolstencroft Realty: Walter Webb, James Tutton, George Waterfall, Patrick Doyle, Gordon C. Cameron and William C. McConnell. Their office is at 317 Columbia Street in New Westminster.

I don't think that Wolstencroft Realty should be developing a health program for this province. I see no necessity for it, particularly when there was a non-profit society in New Westminster known as the YM-YWCA providing adequate service using the drug and alcohol people.

So that is part of this whole situation. The minister probably has his report by now, but I do Want to contrast just for a second, again, just for the record, the Kelowna situation. In Kelowna you have Crossroads, a non-profit society. You also have the Alcohol and Drug Centre in Kelowna run by the Alcohol and Drug Commission, and you have the Cadillac program, the Heroin Treatment Program coordinating centre. The last two are staffed with public servants. They are competing for people with drug-related problems. Imagine that, three funded services competing in one area — and this isn't true of Kelowna alone; it is true of the entire province because of this silly Cadillac program that had access to the money while the other programs did not have that kind of significant access. I am pleased the minister now has somebody in there taking a good look. But I hope he digs very deep about that New Westminster problem, and about a number of these other situations.

[Mr. Hyndman in the chair.]

Just so I don't lose time on this particular aspect of the debate, let me take the minister to page 2. Does he have both volumes?

HON. MR. MAIR: No.

MR. COCKE: He does not. He has a volume that on the top of page 2 says: "Heroin Treatment Program — subheading, "Introduction." I don't have that. I have: "The most important event in the development of the Heroin Treatment Program was the passage of Bill 18, the Heroin Treatment Act, by the provincial Legislature on June 28, 1978. The act was proclaimed into law on July 27, 1978." It goes on and on. He doesn't have that. He just says that the Heroin Treatment Act, Bill 18, was passed by the provincial Legislature on June 28, 1978, and was proclaimed into law on July 27, 1978. "The act allows for free means of entry into the program." Mine goes on to say: "The Heroin Treatment Act provides for the confirmation that a person referred to the program is in need of treatment for narcotic dependence. Once this is confirmed, it then provides for a period of three years of required treatment." His doesn't say any of that. "The act provides for procedures to refer the individual assessment by evaluation panels, committal treatment and sanctions for failure to comply with the requirements of the act."

Then he has another paragraph. It is headed up "Referral." His says: "Individuals may enter the program." Mine says: "Individuals may enter the program when they come of their own volition, when they are referred by the courts for assessment or when they are given a notice to appear by a police officer." That happens to be out of the one the minister tabled in the House. Also, there is a whole paragraph in mine that talks about referral by police. I don't see any heading on page 2 that talks about that at all. That is here for the record. As a matter of fact, I have made a number of copies if anybody wishes to take a look at them individually.

On page 31 see "Committal" and three paragraphs on committal. I am not going to read them out. Here on page 31 see no such thing. I see nothing at all related to committal.

Then we go on to page 6. On page 6 of the minister's copy he has a lovely picture of a lady sitting at a window. On page 6 I don't have that lady sitting at the window. I have "Geo-

[ Page 3310 ]

graphic Distribution" and in "Geographic Distribution" — which you have on the former page — I have a change. "An evaluation panel will be appointed for each centre." I don't see that in this one. Because of the fact that the virtues in this one required more length to explain, they had to substitute a picture in the new one. Just in case the minister needs to look again, there they are — both the same report, except that I have a check mark on one to remind me which is which — which I got first.

HON. MR. MAIR: How do you know which one you put the cheek mark on?

MR. COCKE: I know which one I put the cheek mark on, because I got that long before yours came out.

HON. MR. MAIR: You've got that written on your hand.

MR. COCKE: Yes, I have that one..."Note here."

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to bring this to the knowledge of the minister, and I'm going to reiterate that I feel rather sorry for this minister getting involved in this situation. There's no way we can withdraw our criticisms, but I do feel rather sorry that the minister has to carry the can for his predecessor, who was warned and warned that he was way over his head and was taking terrible advice. He now has the government in a terribly embarrassing position.

Mr. Chairman, do I recall any absences or anybody on the government side not voting for that Heroin Treatment Act when it came through? They all listened to the warning. Now some of them wish that they had taken the other course.

I would just like to suggest that, when the minister is doing his investigation of that whole program, he go across the province and find out whether or not the large funding that has gone in there has adversely affected his own alcohol and drug treatment programs and also those programs that have been provided by non-profit societies. If he finds that, I hope that the Alcohol and Drug Commission very quickly swallows that program, gets rid of it once and for all and gets on with the treatment that people in this province need — and that is treatment for other drugs. Alcoholism. We're the purveyors of alcohol, and alcoholism is far more wasteful, damaging and costly in every respect.

You see, Mr. Chairman, what that previous Minister of Health thought was: "I've got a sexy political proposition here." And with that sexy political proposition he went hell bent for leather, and he carried the government with him on a program that has set back treatment for people who are ill — people in this province who are addicted to any number of drugs.

Mr. Chairman, later on, after some of my colleagues have spoken, I'm going to bring you an experience of a friend of mine who had this terrible pain and lived with that pain for some years. It became increasingly worse and finally they found what it was. It was a benign tumour behind his ear. When they got rid of the pain they got rid of his first problem. But he was totally addicted; he took 18 capsules a day of a prescription drug. When he went to the Heroin Treatment Program in both Vancouver, on Broadway, and in Surrey, he was handled like a criminal. And that was criminal. If that's the best that our Cadillac program can do for people in this province, then the minister has to take a real hard look at it right now, and the quicker the better.

HON. MR. MAIR: In looking at the volume I have of the annual report — and I don't have the benefit of the one with the check mark — I think, from what the member has read, and perhaps he can read me some more to show where my theory has gone wrong, that what happened was that the Schneider case came about after the original draft of which he has a copy. As I recall, an arrangement was made at that time that the program would only deal with two methods of entry as long as the case was being heard — voluntary entry and referral from the criminal courts — which in essence meant that the dummy that my colleague from New Westminster has was no longer accurate and that a better summation was that contained in the one that I tabled in this House. If there is some material departure — by that I mean if there are statements of fact which are alleged in the one that he has and are changed in the one that was tabled — well, that's another story and I'm sure he'll tell me about it. I think that is probably the explanation for it. As I say, I don't have a copy of the one that the member refers to — the untabled document. I do have a copy of the tabled one, and it seems to me that that is probably the explanation, that it was changed as a result of the decision made in anticipation of the Schneider judgment, which, of course, is now on its way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In any event, if that's not a reasonable hypothesis I'm sure that the member for New Westminster will tell me about it.

Dealing very briefly with the question of Pacifica, I don't have an answer to the question he raised. However, I'm asking the staff to look into it. When I have it, then I will bring it to the chamber.

Regarding the question of the program itself, Mr. Chairman, I think that I should tell you that as the member opposite knows, there is a new man in charge, Dr. Bonham. Unfortunately he's not with us at this particular time, but I want you to know that he's been instructed by me to look into the entire question of the Alcohol and Drug Commission — not just the Heroin Treatment Program but the entire commission. Don't raise your eyebrows, Mr. Member for Victoria. I don't want to anticipate any decisions, but I have asked him to report back to me as to how we can best treat, in British Columbia, what is. a multi-drug-use problem, without any preconceived notions, and to report back to me by the end of July. I understand that he's on target with that report, and I'll have that assessment at that time. I am taking it, from my personal prejudice to be sure, from the point of view of it being a multi-drug problem. Now whether or not that implies criticism of anything that's gone on before, or anything that I have said before, or anything that anybody's said or thought before, is for you to judge and to make of what you will. But I am telling you what my position as health minister has been since I took over the ministry, and what it is now. The problem is a multi-drug problem. It is alcohol. It is heroin. It is cocaine. It is soft drugs. It is pep pills. It is prescription pills. It is a great number of things.

One of the first things that impressed me when I became minister, in visiting some detox centres, was finding'out that the same individual who came in on heroin the day before yesterday is in on alcohol today, and will probably be in on some pills he's conned out of the doctor in a couple of days' time. That obviously means that we have to assess the program, not because the programs in the past necessarily were wrong, but perhaps times have changed. Perhaps the very thing that the member for New Westminster has talked about has effected that change. There's been much better police

[ Page 3311 ]

work, and it is very much more difficult for people to get either a supply of their favourite drug or a supply of sufficient strength in order to satisfy their wants in the past. In any event, my instructions have been that there is to be a complete assessment on a multi-drug-problem basis by the end of July. When that assessment comes to me, of course, we look at it in the ministry and I'll make recommendations to the government. No doubt policy will follow from that point.

I think that that pretty well touches all of the matters raised, unless I have an answer on the Pacifica. Have you got that? Perhaps what I'd better do, rather than try to read my deputy's notes on Pacifica — his handwriting is somewhat analogous to my own; it's indecipherable — is sit down and let somebody else speak for a while and I'll decipher the answer and be pleased to answer other questions as they come up.

MR. COCKE: I certainly understand the embarrassment of the Heroin Treatment Program, and the Alcohol and Drug Commission as a result of that program.

Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, this report was tabled recently. As a matter of fact, the two reports were both printed recently. In any event, as far as the dates are concerned, just so that the minister has an opportunity to have a look at the two contrasting reports, I'm going to have a Page hand them to the minister, and while the minister's reading them, Mr. Chairman, and thinking over the whole problem, I move the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 25

NAYS — 28

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

MR. LEVI: I would have hoped that the minister would have taken the opportunity in this part of the estimates to tell us a little bit about some of his thinking with respect to the particular program which has been under debate: the Heroin Treatment Act. He did answer by saying that what he has done is to ask Dr. Bonham, who is, I think, one of his assistant deputy ministers, to give him an overview and report back on what can be done in terms of the multi-drug problem. I would remind the minister that when the idea of the Alcohol and Drug Commission was first conceived back in 1973, there was a report that was tabled in the House and then in the first annual report.... I would refer the minister to the first annual report because in that annual report they talked about the aims and objectives of the Alcohol and Drug Commission. I don't think it is good enough for the minister simply to say to one of his deputy ministers: "Well, go out and do a report. Evaluate what is going on and come back to me." There is nothing too new under the sun about what has gone before yesterday. The main thing is that you've got to have some movement. I would like to refer the minister to the annual report of December 31, 1974. I quote from page 7 in the introduction:

"On April 17, 1973, the Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia passed the Alcohol and Drug Commission Act empowering the commission to do the following: (a) operate programs, entering into agreements with departments of government, hospital, agency, university and laying out the general parameters for that provision of service; (b) provide financial assistance for any persons or organizations mentioned in clause (a); and (c) conduct or arrange and fund programs for the dissemination of information."

In June of 1973 some commissioners were appointed to serve the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Six of those appointees remain on the commission; one has resigned. That is the now first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber). We appointed commissioners who had some experience in the field. Not all of them, mind you, but certainly four of them had actual work experience in the field and that, we felt, was important to bring to the decision-making, to bring to recommendations for the government people who actually had worked in a street setting with addicts, with young people as well as the older addicts, those in institutions. That was the way the commission started to do its business.

It was predicated on an idea that the commission will initiate whatever takes place; it was really not prepared to fund any kind of service in respect of doing something that had already been tried and failed. That was a basic tenet of the operation of the commission. We are not interested in trying something that somebody else tried and that failed. You 6d to look for some new programming. We spent quite a bit of time discussing how we would deal with the heroin treatment problem. It is not something that we literally galloped into any more than galloping into the alcohol problem. As a matter of fact, if you look at the kind of innovative work that was done in terms of the alcohol thing, probably the significant program was not the provision of detox centres, where there were all sorts of zoning problems, but rather the provision of a small operation — and I emphasize the word small — operating out of the Oak Bay Manor, in which the desire was to provide a treatment program for people who were working but who stood a very good chance of losing their employment because they had an alcohol problem. That was the one basic innovative move that was made in terms of the alcohol problem. The provision of buildings is another matter entirely, but that's what we did in terms of that. In

[ Page 3312 ]

looking at the Heroin Treatment Program, there were a lot of problems with that. All sorts of innovative programs had been tried in British Columbia and the rest of the United States, and some even in places like Holland and Sweden, in a very small way. What I want to say to the minister is this: the key to the operation of the Alcohol and Drug Commission had to be in terms of whatever program you were going to do; it had to be small and capable of some kind of operation and getting into gear, not a large program which required an enormous amount of bureaucracy to make it happen.

When the former Minister of Health brought in his act for heroin treatment, not only did we do for him a very practical analysis of the kind of problems that he was going to run into, but we'd hoped, in the course of that debate, to get from him some answers about what he had in terms of new, innovative ideas for dealing with heroin. That's what we kept asking him. In such a serious subject.... I remember the debate; it was very fiery. What we tried to do was to avoid some of the one-liners and get the then minister to see that he was walking into a minefield. We on this side could not understand why it was that he was impelled to do what he was doing. Why did he suddenly want to get into that minefield of the terrible problem of heroin treatment almost as soon as he'd taken over his job?

We'd had prior warning about it. It wasn't new; we knew the minister had something in mind, because when he was over here in the opposition he was part of what I characterize as that red-necked group over there that wanted to go for compulsory treatment. He was part of that group. There were four of them. There was the minister (Hon. Mr. McClelland), the member for Langley; Dr. Matheson; Dr. Conrad Swartz; and Mr. Hoskin — four people who met quietly, early in 1974, at a Vancouver hotel. Nobody was invited; everybody was excluded.

AN HON. MEMBER: Plus Les Bewley.

MR. LEVI: Yes, they had a legal adviser, and they were going to advocate the compulsory treatment of heroin.

Interestingly enough, a few months before that meeting there'd been another meeting. That meeting was held in the Empress Hotel. I spoke to the chairman of the Alcohol and Drug Commission and the commissioners and said: "Look, why don't be bring together a lot of the people that have a real, deep interest in this problem? Let's go all over the place in terms of people with experience." So we invited people from agencies, and the member for Oak Bay, who was a doctor and had a serious interest in it. We invited a man that I and the Leader of the Opposition worked with for a number of years in the private agency, the John Howard Society. We invited former members of the RCMP drug squad. We asked them to come and make a contribution. We invited the assistant commissioner of the RCMP and the Vancouver police.

They met all day, over in the Empress. The object of that was to try and develop, if you like, a justice system statement — I say justice system because a lot of them were policemen — as to what the government should do about drugs. They issued a statement which I later on read in the House, and they were very clear about it. They said: "Let's look at it as a medical problem; it's not a criminal problem."

Okay, we got that kind of an agreement and we moved on from there. There were no easy solutions to it. I had said at one time that if we could not find the right kind of treatment programs the people in this province, down the road — I said this in 1973 and we're now in 1980 — would have to look at the possibility that what we'd better do is to find some mechanism through which we give the addicts the drug and stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to beat the problem at what is really the wrong end. We went through all of those debates. It's now fairly reasonable to suggest that heroin addicts may eventually have to have the drug. Seven years ago it was almost like heresy to say it, but people do say that now. People say: "Well, it's something we should think about." Yes, it is something we should think about, because if it costs somewhere between 60 cents and 70 cents a dose to give somebody a drug, why do we have to have somebody chasing around the streets trying to gather $35 to pay for a cap?

We know all the figures about how much it costs, how much money is made, the fifth largest industry — the figures have been used in this House — $250 million to $300 million made from the drug trade, and literally hundreds of millions of dollars of police, court and penitentiary costs. I asked the question once of the former Attorney-General. I said: "If you people have ever taken the trouble to examine through the banking system, or to talk to somebody in Ottawa, how much of this money is pushed through the banking system?" After all, where is all this money? Well, it was not something he was terribly interested in. We didn't really go very far with that one.

So what we were doing in those days — I talk about '73, '74 and '75 — was to try to think the problem through a little bit. The former minister wasn't in government more than 10 minutes when he announced that he had the solution. Somebody had whispered in his ear: "You know, we can make these guys take treatment and it'll work. We know that because they do that in Japan." The former minister took a trip to Japan along with Mr. Hoskin. They went over there, they came back, and we never heard another word about the Japanese compulsory treatment program. They didn't report and didn't tell us what was going on there.

AN HON. MEMBER: I wonder why?

MR. LEVI: Well, one of the reasons — although he didn't say so at the time — was that the International Narcotic Control Agency in Geneva was receiving information in their annual reports that the Japanese were having some problem with young people on heroin. There were some problems. It was not quite as straightforward as it appeared. It's still a problem. But he grasped onto this particular mechanism. He said: "We're going to try compulsory treatment."

Now we have offered a number of suggestions over the years. We've heard a lot through this long session so far.... We keep hearing from those people over there about "negative opposition." I can think of scores of positive proposals that have been made from this side. I particularly remember that during the debate on the Heroin Treatment Act one suggestion to the minister was: "Go make a reference to the supreme court and test the constitutionality of it. Go find out what it's all about. After all, what does it cost?" "No, we're not going to do that." So you went through the whole business of having an appeal, bringing it in and having it heard by the supreme court; it had been thrown out. Now it's okay again and we're going on to the Supreme Court of Canada. So we've got an incredibly interesting intellectual and legal exercise which doesn't lend itself in any

[ Page 3313 ]

way to the treatment of heroin addicts. The only people who benefit from the whole program are the lawyers, either those lawyers who were hired to do the business and get all sorts of money from the government to appear in front of the courts, or the lawyers who work in the Attorney-General's department who've been told: "You can't write the act this way; you've got to write it that way." To the heroin addict it doesn't make any difference. There was a whole diversion from the original problem.

Then, of course, we made another suggestion. There was no suggestion on this side that we disagreed with a program of treating heroin addicts. We didn't disagree. What we were arguing with the minister about was for him to first take a look at the legal side of it, but if you're going to do it, do it on a small workable scale.

The irony is that at the end of this great debate that's taken place for three years on the Heroin Treatment Program they have as many addicts in the program as we suggested to them they should start with: take 25 addicts; spend $1 million or $2 million; do something innovative with short-term achievable goals; don't build a massive bureaucracy and then daily have to argue from a position in which your knowledge is practically worthless. I'm talking about the former Minister of Health; what he knew about drugs was pitifully small. But somehow he felt that there was an opportunity to gain some political points. I would suggest that in the 1979 election you probably had people turn away from your party because of the mess he made with that kind of program. I'm still confounded as to why he did what he did. The only reason I can suggest is that he was gullible, he got sucked into it, he got very worked up about it and said: "We're going to do it." He kept saying, "We're going to do it," did it and fell flat on his face. It has cost the taxpayer a great deal of money and — as a result of that expenditure of money — deprived many other worthy patients, victims of other forms of drug addiction, of the treatment they should have been getting.

MR. KING: He had a weak Premier that he bulldozed into it.

MR. LEVI: Well, I think they looked, Mr. Member, and they saw what they interpreted as a piece of political opportunism. But he's got to remember that a lot of those people who kept yelling about this thing were voting for them anyway. They didn't buy the idea.

But bear in mind, Mr. Chairman, that we did not object to the idea of an attempt at a program. And what did we go through here? I hope we don't go through the same thing with the minister. We tried to get answers day after day: "What are you going to do there? Are you going to take over the centre? What are you going to do?" The only thing that we could get that was concrete, in the midst of what was a serious debate, actually developed into a bit of a giggle in the chamber. The only thing we could find out from the minister was that somebody was going to learn to play the guitar there. That was the tragedy of the kind of debate that we attempted to have on a fairly high level.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

There are a lot of people in this Legislature on this side who've worked — many of them — all their lives with that, and it is frustrating to have to see that kind of thing when adequate amounts of warning.... It's not improbable from the point of view of the government, if they seriously think that it's possible, that there are ideas on this side which have validity and which they should pay attention to. I don't get that impression at all from over there that they're prepared to give any kind of credibility to the ideas that come from over here. That's the kind of battle we fight. Day after day we can do the opposition thing, and from time to time when very serious issues come up there has to be a meeting of the minds; we can learn from them occasionally. You know, we can stop the great big across-the-floor thing and really look at programs, ideas and policies that are very serious. That's what we attempted to do when we had the debate on the Heroin Treatment Act.

Now here we are today, and we're again looking at the Heroin Treatment Program. I know he's a new minister, but I would have thought that he might have armed himself with a little bit more knowledge so that he could talk. He hasn't talked generally. Last Friday I asked him questions which were, I suppose, somewhat philosophical: what has he got in mind for the health system? Or I can ask him now what he has in mind in terms of alcohol and drugs.

He's got some good guidelines. The early work of the development of the commission is well documented. Many of the ideas that were envisioned were not carried out. We were not prepared to hurtle ourselves into all of these problems and somehow come up with hit-and-miss solutions. I asked the commission when I was the minister to really actively consider looking at all sorts of options. We looked and they developed a paper, for instance, on the possibility of heroin maintenance programs. They did other things too, but I asked them to do that one thing. I had discussions with the federal minister about it, they weren't ready at that time. If they're not ready, then you obviously don't launch it; you've got to take the public with you on this.

In the midst of all this, after that discussion, we've gone through four years of looking at an attempt by a badly informed minister to deal with heroin treatment in some way. It's clothed in some democratic way but really based on the idea that you can compel people to take treatment. Here we are in 1980.... Perhaps the minister will tell us: there are maybe 35 or 40 patients in there. I'm pleased that the number of drug convictions is down; it would seem, anyway, that there was that kind of tendency going on three or four years ago. I gather, and I think it's still the case, that in terms of dealing with addicts, the addicts don't go through the horrendous withdrawal problems that they went through.

We spent the past hour in this House talking about heroin, and I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that heroin is an extremely small and frankly rather insignificant problem when we look at all of the misery that comes out of alcohol, and the new kind of misery which has been with us for 25 or 30 years, which is prescription drugs. But I think, as my colleague from New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) said, there is something exotic about the idea of talking about heroin in this Legislature. The first thing that one has to do when you involve yourself in the whole business of heroin treatment is to stand in front of the mirror and admit to yourself how little you know about the problem, not to come up with quick, fascinating ideas that somehow there are some solutions down the road. There aren't any.

I've been associated with this thing since 1955, when I worked with young people who were drug addicts even at 14 and 15, and later on, when I became a parole officer, I saw in the penitentiary the same young people I'd worked with

[ Page 3314 ]

through the court system. Certainly it was worrying in those days — the virulence of the problem was apparently far greater. Then we went through the sixties, which was the whole multi-drug use problem, and we still go through serious problems. We have a cocaine problem; we still have an MDA problem. I'm informed that we have serious problems in some of the drugs that we thought we'd got rid of, and they're coming back again.

But the question that I would like to ask the minister.... I would like him to try, if he can, to give vent to his feelings a little bit and think about it; we won't nail him to the wall. We want to find out what he thinks of the problem in terms of heroin. Where does it fit into the scheme of things in Alcohol and Drug, and what has he got in mind?

We couldn't deal with the other minister. He was totally closed off to listening to anybody. He wasted public money and he really, in many ways, left the province, in terms of other provinces in Canada that had the problem, with a badly scarred reputation. We still have that. They talk gently about "those nuts on the other side of the mountains who think that they can do what we haven't been able to do in 20 years." Then he brings in a compulsory Heroin Treatment Program and then backs and fills and eventually goes down to what is really nothing more than a voluntary admission program.

All of this could have been accomplished without all of the noise or cost if there was an opportunity for somebody to do some thinking and start out in a very small way. That's the option that the minister has. I don't know how far afield he's going to go to get the information that's going to give him the varied opinions he's going to need to make decisions. I would hope that he does go to people who are involved in the field, as well as other people who were and are not but have had an opportunity to view the system. There are many capable people in this province and in other provinces who should be utilized if he's going to do that kind of review. If it's the kind of review just to save time, so he doesn't have to deal with it right now.... Then he's going to come back and tell us that we're going to something else. You've got to be very candid about what you do, because we want a great deal more candour about the major problems in terms of drug addiction, in terms of alcohol and prescription drugs.

As I understand it, it was the minister's idea. I read a quote once that there was an opportunity to use part of Brannan Lake for people who have prescription drug problems. If we do that — if we are going to tackle the prescription drug problem — then we better look very closely at some of the problems related to the sale of these drugs and the practice in terms of the medical profession, not just tackle it from one side. There are a range of things that have to be dealt with with prescription drugs. It's not simply attempting to withdraw people from some kind of drug that they've become addicted to, but rather what the prescription practices are. That's a serious one too.

That has been debated. I think that two years ago the former head of the Canadian Medical Association made that very point when they had their annual meeting out here. I see there are problems there, but you can't deal with them in isolation. You can't just have as a possible solution that somehow we have a place where people can go and withdraw, because that only deals with those people. It doesn't have anything to do with all of the other people who are becoming addicted out there because of the use of prescription drugs. We had the case recently of Roche — of people dealing with a drug — and they were fined. There are serious problems in that area.

It would help, I think, if the minister were prepared to talk about it — if he's thought about it — and to get some views from the opposition about this, because, interestingly enough, this is one area, among some others, in the estimates of this minister, apart from what we've had from my colleague from New Westminster, in which you have five or six people with a great deal of experience in this whole area of drug addiction who can make some contributions in terms of the debate. But if the minister is going to tell us that he's got it under review, then we're not going to get very far. But we still have to get our ideas across. Certainly in terms of programming in the alcohol and drug field, small is beautiful. It's beautiful in business. It's certainly beautiful in terms of the approach, of the innovative ideas of that treatment. There is no need to spend large amounts of money. It's possible to have one or two small programs operating at the same time, perhaps, using entirely different techniques.

The innovation is that now, after seven years of the Alcohol and Drug Commission.... Where it's gone, I suppose, if we were to look at some kind of political perspective from the left way over to the far right.... What happened in 1975 and 1976 was that they cleaned out everybody who was there before. They brought in the hard-liners, and they accomplished nothing. Now there should be an opportunity to do some kind of synthesizing. Mind you, I'm not overly optimistic about those people who were the hard-liners. They don't change their minds that easily.

For the future, I would say to the minister — through you, Mr. Chairman — that what happened over the past three years in your ministry, in attempting to deal with a problem like heroin, was the sad story of what's always happened over the years in terms of this problem. It makes good headlines. Some say it makes good politics. I don't think so; I don't think it makes particularly good politics at all.

But if you're going to go down into the future, do it in a small way. Look at something innovative and let's try to stay out of the courts, because it's too costly to have to go through the court procedures. If we're going to have to wait for the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on this, we may be debating this in 1982. But I suppose that should not stop that depart ment from doing something about the problem of heroin and the other one. I'd like to have something to say about that later on.

MR. BARBER: This is, I suppose, a bit of a we-told-you-so day for the opposition and it is easy enough to fall into that trap. I will try to avoid it as best as I can. It is at least humanly understandable why members of the opposition might want to observe just for a moment in today's debate on drug abuse that a number of us attempted to point out as forcefully and as articulately as we could three and four years ago what was wrong with compulsory treatment and why it simply could not work in our culture. As regrettably and tragically as that fact may be, it is a fact nonetheless. As I say, it is kind of a we-told-you-so day for the opposition because even the Minister of Health, to his credit, has stated publicly that he too believes there are serious problems with the compulsory treatment program. He too appears to acknowledge that the Brannan Lake scheme is a failure.

I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but we can listen as well as anyone and read between the lines as well as almost anyone. It is clear that this government has conceded that the program simply does not work. It is even more clear that the

[ Page 3315 ]

government has conceded via the senior authorities who formerly operated that program that it can no longer work within their jurisdiction. They have quit; they've resigned; they've gone away; they have been frustrated, They have failed and so has the program. This is the last time I'll tell you that it's a we-told-you-so day for the opposition.

It is refreshing that at least the government is not attempting to contradict the obvious and demonstrated record of what was said three years ago, who said it then and who predicted — as it turns out knowledgeably, scientifically and accurately — what would happen two and three years later. What we predicted has happened. What we prophesied has come to pass. There are some reasons for that and I want to go into that briefly and then make a number of positive proposals to the government. We do so in the spirit that recognizes there is a new Minister of Health who has a new attitude. We do so on the basis of the information we are given today that the minister is conducting a full review of all the programs and interests and ambitions of the Alcohol and Drug Commission. We do so in a positive spirit that wants to put forward in a conciliatory way some practical and serious alternatives to a program that clearly has failed to date.

I would like to point out to the minister, if I may, that I have a very strong personal interest in it, but I've not much spoken on this in the five years I've been a MLA. As my colleague points out, I was appointed and was proud to be appointed as one of the first commissioners of the Alcohol and Drug Commission. In fact, for the first 15 months I also served as its manager and did so without pay. I accepted no extra pay for that job because my own interest in public administration was such that I wanted to help it be set up as well as I could. So I acted as manager and commissioner in the first year and three months. I had also, for five years previously, worked for a group in Victoria called Cool-Aid, a self-help youth organization in the capital city which was initially terribly unpopular and extremely controversial. Everyone hated it. We were fire-bombed twice, our staff were regularly beaten up and it was a difficult moment for the first couple of years. Cool-Aid gradually became respectable and Cool-Aid in recent years has won a number of awards including international awards from the British Commonwealth itself. The staff of Cool-Aid won the Commonwealth award for outstanding youth service among the 32 nations of the British Commonwealth in 1975. Our organization was nominated for that award by the government of Canada on the basis of Cool-Aid's proven success in dealing with disturbed and disaffected young people, many of whom use dope and alcohol, all of whom had problems and came to us. We managed to help a few in our day.

I've strong feelings about it because I worked with those kids for five years. I had two people die under my own hands in Cool-Aid, one guy whose heart I was trying to pound back because, you see, his so-called friends had dropped him off on the front porch and sped off into the night in a fast car and said: "Look after him. He's OD-ing." He died. He was 17 years old. I had another guy also, who was much older, dying from alcohol. They both passed away right in front of us. We couldn't do anything about it.

I have very strong personal feelings about this but I haven't spoken much at all in the last five years on this subject until today. I am persuaded today that it is possible to persuade the government to consider some new options. It was apparently not possible before, but I have some confidence that the new Minister of Health is prepared to take a new look. It is in that conciliatory spirit that we put forward this body of argument that we present today. It is for those reasons that I speak now for the first major time I've spoken on the matter.

I want to refer for a moment to a fundamentally religious problem. It is important, I think, occasionally to review public policy in terms of the religious aspirations, by which I mean that sense of animated spirit that some people find coursing through human life and which occasionally instructs us in a valuable way. I want to quote from the best of sources, Augustine, who wrote a splendid book, the title of which in translation is The City of God. Augustine, in that seminally important work — important not just for the church of which he is now a sainted member, but for anyone interested in the history of western religious thought and philosophy — basically postulated in this context one important thing, Augustine said that without God options are limited; without God choice is diminished; without God impulse is restricted.

What Augustine argued is that without some spirit, some authentically animated force, we lose choice and we lose option. Members of this House may or may not believe in a literal, named or codified God. That's not the issue I'm trying to push. What I'm trying to do is demonstrate that for 1,500 years the greatest thinkers of the western world have recognized that without some motivation of heart and spirit, some command of desire and enterprise felt, things are diminished and lack success. Augustine was not the first, but he was certainly one of the greatest writers to point out that important principle of human ambition. I think he was correct, and it is that principle, expressed in a religious context that is appropriate today, that I want to raise for a moment.

Without that will, that personal command, inspired however you may believe it was inspired, things of a difficult order cannot succeed. Or so it seems in our culture. They may succeed in other cultures. I don't know; I've never lived in any other. But I do know that for our own, the finest thinkers and the deepest authorities who examine and remedy human behaviour have pointed out for centuries that in the case of this issue, if no voluntary, inspired, pushing thing moves you, you hardly move anywhere at all. So if that happens to be part of the nature of western civilization, then you have to ask whether or not the contrary force called compulsion — the force, the fate and the weight of the law — has any relevance, bearing, or any possible import. Let me talk about why, just maybe, it might not.

Another of the arguments that you find when you read The 0 (y of God is the argument that tells us that human success is limited for other reasons as well, including the reasons put forward by some persons — usually described as original sin, but. I think, in more modern, precise and sensible awareness it might simply be called human flaw or original flaw. It seems to be a difficult thing for a lot of us — I certainly include myself absolutely — to admit that it is just theoretically possible there are problems that have no solution.

It's a difficult notion for western people because we've always presumed that if we work hard enough, apply the capital, energy, wit and imagination of our people, we can build any object, succeed in any field, do what we want and tame the planet to our will. Only in the last couple of decades have we begun to realize that man can't do that without poisoning the planet and abandoning any possibility for future life on it. We've now learned you just can't do all those

[ Page 3316 ]

things; we're limited in that way. It seems what we have yet to learn in a profound way is that it is just possible there are certain human problems that have no apparent remedy.

Let me illustrate in a crude and obvious way. We have, as yet, no cure for cancer of the liver. When the cancer has started to metastasize, when the metastases are pursuing their course in the lymph and the blood, it's game over. There's no known cure; no-one survives, except maybe occasionally by some intervention. But that's a fluke and a lucky miracle; it hardly ever applies. Science has no cure for cancer of the liver. We have no way to reverse kidney disease or emphysema. These are human conditions for which we find no present remedy. Sometimes people in the medical field will stand up and freely confess: "Yes, it's true; we can't do anything at all. The only thing we can do is hold your hand as you die and make it as comfortable for you as possible while you do so." It's hard for people to say that. I was talking about that just yesterday in another context — the palliative care unit at Victoria General. It's hard for us to admit that sometimes we can't do all the brave and necessary stuff that we'd like to.

It may be just possible that there are certain addictions that are not apparently curable. The worst of them, in terms of being commonplace and widespread, is certainly addiction to alcohol. Heroin pales away into nothingness beside the massive problem caused by alcohol. Nonetheless, as my colleagues for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) and Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) have pointed out, heroin grabs the headlines, so we have to talk about it, because people want to make sure that we're interested and, as their representatives, concerned. I'm going to offer the possibility that the two premises, the historical route for which you can find in, among other works, The City of God, are just possibly still correct today.

First, without inner animation and spirit your choices are limited. Secondly, it may just be that there are some human conditions of great and tragic misery that we cannot reverse no matter how hard we wish it and how much we try. We just can't.

Now if those two things are possible, which it seems they are, then the problem of policy becomes a very delicate thing. I want to refer to that for a moment now and talk about what our administration did.

Our government basically.... I wasn't a member of that government, for the information of the minister. I wasn't even a member of the NDP; I didn't join the party at all until 1975. Nonetheless, our government — because I identify with it pretty darned strongly — made two basic cases to the people of British Columbia, and they were these: first of all, in regard to illicit drugs, we will create the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit, and for the first time in an organized way attack and break the back of organized crime in British Columbia. Our Attorney-General had the guts to create CLEU, to pull together the Joint Forces Operation, and to establish in a very powerful way a commitment on the part of the government that we will attack organized crime at its roots, and that most certainly includes organized crime involving trade of the opiates.

That was the first major statement made by our government, and it was important, necessary and highly successful — highly successful by any standard. That's the first thing the New Democrat administration did.

The second thing was to create an Alcohol and Drug Commission which, as my colleague has already said — but let me put it in my own words, as one of the members of the commission, and as its manager for a while — was an attempt in an integrated and small way to coordinate and pull together a lot of programs in three ministries — those of Education, Health and Human Resources — and to act outside the bureaucracy, not having to waste a lot of time bowing to bureaucrats, pointlessly and stupidly, because that didn't get the job done. Instead, in as tough-minded a way as we could, making mistakes along the way, no doubt, we attempted to coordinate those three basic instruments of government that dealt with the human condition called alcohol or drugs. That's what the Alcohol and Drug Commission was about: small, separate and coordinating — able to go directly to the ministers involved without worrying for a moment about the red tape, the protocol or the politics.

I was pleased that anytime I wished I could phone up my now colleague from New Westminster or my now colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam and say: " I need half an hour; I want you to give it to me. Here's the problem. I've got to come straight to you." Now if I were simply an on-line public servant — an A03, managing a commission, or some hack in a bureaucracy — I would have had to work through my superior, and he through his, and his through his, and finally it would get to the minister six months after it had to be done. That was stupid and a waste of time. We didn't bother with that approach. Instead we said the Alcohol and Drug Commission would operate in a really remarkably independent way in regard to presenting options. The government of the day was willing to hear us directly and personally. We did. I don't know how many times I met with Norman — dozens and dozens of times — when he was minister, to make the case as best I could, together with my colleagues on the commission.

I urge the minister to consider this. If, for whatever reasons, the Alcohol and Drug Commission is not at the moment operating in such. an independent way, don't consider that the remedy is to remove its independence. Consider instead that perhaps some new statement and some new commitment to that independent role could be valuable to you.

In a field as changeable, difficult, tough and political as is alcohol and drug abuse in this province, don't tie down the people who are trying to deal with it by yanking them into the public service and the bureaucracy. If you do, you will cripple them; you will bore them; you will enervate them. If you do, you will make it difficult for them to do their jobs. Keep it separate and apart, and give them as much liberty as you can to move as rapidly as they can as times and things change. That's important. That was, I think, one of the fundamental advantages of the approach taken by our administration, and I hope you keep it. If you have to strengthen it, do so, and you'll do so with our support. Because it worked, I think, for us. We got a lot of stuff done in a very short period of time. We did it at relatively little expense. The first budget was — what? — $2.1 million; the next was $3.2 million.

We did so in a way which, I think it can be demonstrated, continues to form the burden of what success the commission has had. To the best of my knowledge, every single program currently operated by the Alcohol and Drug Commission that succeeds in any way is based on a program that we started — now five and six years ago. The only one that has failed is the program that we rejected; that was compulsory treatment. All the rest is based on the initiatives taken by our administration. So I'm boasting; I'm proud. It worked. But it didn't

[ Page 3317 ]

work because we were especially able to do it. It worked because many had done it before and we learned from their experience and their success. We rejected their failure and put it together as best we could.

It was a good thing that our commission had the liberty to go directly to members of cabinet when we wished, to make our case as well as we could. It was a good thing that we could go and say: "Look, here's what's slowing it down in the bureaucracy. Here's how the red tape is bungling it again. Here's what's wrong with the traditional way of doing it, and here's what we propose in its place. Now that you've heard us, will you agree?" Sometimes they agreed and sometimes they did not. Nonetheless, they always listened and we didn't have to waste time tripping and tracking through the bureaucracy.

Another aspect of the then policy that was important and that I commend to the minister was this: it was appreciated and stated by our government that it was a combined effort, particularly on the parts of the Ministers of Human Resources and Health, but also to some extent Education, because we were concerned about drug abuse in the schools, and the opportunities to use the public school system to provide education directly on site to kids who may be able to take some advantage of it. That was important. But it was a combined and integrated approach within cabinet. I certainly remember making representations to my two current colleagues and as well the then Minister of Education, Mrs. Dailly. They were all interested.

Once again, I urge the minister, when he's examining the matter, to consider the possibility that that second basic aspect of structure, the coordinating and integrating role of those three agencies of government, Health, Education and Human Resources, is just possibly a good thing that needs strengthening and not simply abandonment because for different reasons under a different minister it doesn't appear to have worked. I think it's just possible that it's basically a sound approach.

Let me reiterate and then move on to something else. The two basic arguments made by our administration were: "First of all, we will enforce the law to the hilt and we will attack organized crime in the drug industry wherever and whenever we can." That's why CLEU was created and the Joint Forces Operation was put into place. That's why today we have, I think, far less prevalent a problem than we did eight or nine years ago in regard to the total numbers of persons addicted to the various opiates in B.C. But it's still not perfect and, of course, dope still gets in. Nonetheless, it was better than doing nothing. The second thing we did was establish the Alcohol and Drug Commission and give it as much free rein as possible within government. That was a good thing, too.

When one debates health policy one has to conclude that the only reasons for advocating this or that policy are, firstly, scientific reasons, and secondly, political reasons. As far as I can tell there's no other opinion that has weight. Your argument is fundamentally, originally and factually scientific in nature and/or it is political. None of us is going to criticize a government for being political, because that's your business. But we have yet to find even one piece of scientific data that gives any stature or credibility and offers any scientific basis to the program announced by the former Minister of Health. We can't find one.

Is there more evidence required that it doesn't work? May I say it again? In California it did not work and they spent hundreds of millions of dollars in order to fail. In Lexington, Kentucky, they carried on a program for almost 20 years that did not work, again at a vast public expense. They made the same mistake most recently in New York State, where it is now not working. Why is it not working? Let me reiterate. Maybe it's just because Augustine and the other great philosophers were correct. If you're not motivated to change you don't change; if you don't feel it within you it doesn't happen; if it's not inspired, voluntary, deliberate and personal it doesn't succeed; and if it is imposed and compulsory in our culture it will not work, as regrettable, tragic and miserable as that conclusion may be.

So it didn't work in California or Kentucky and it isn't working in New York State and sure enough it's not working in B.C. What would a rational person conclude on the basis of all those observations and that scientific data? You might conclude that it isn't going to work, or you could, I suppose, for reasons of the other evidence, which is political, try to pretend that it will work and that you have an answer to a problem that no one has yet been able answer in any Nuith American jurisdiction. In none of 50 states and 10 provinces has a single workable answer yet been found. What does work? The members of AA know what works — the 12 steps work.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: My colleague says he's at step 18 and it still hasn't worked. Try again, Don.

The steps work because Bill W. was right. In the forties in New York, where he put it together, he understood what human motivation counted for and what voluntary spirit was required. When Bill W. put together the AA program he understood the discipline that would have to be obtained through peer and group pressure in order to sustain the initially personal and individual motivation, how the group could support the individual and that principle of human interaction. AA is the single most successful drug-abuse program in the world.

How much did it cost the taxpayers of British Columbia last year for the single most successful program that does work? Zero. Nothing. We do contribute to the Al-anon clubs and affiliated organizations — Alateen and the rest — but for AA itself.... There are some 30 groups in my own riding and I've had a chance to attend some of their meetings. I'm terribly impressed by what they do, because they care, their feelings are authentic and the group succeeds. It costs the people of B.C. precisely nothing to enjoy the benefits of the most effective drug-abuse program in the world, which is AA.

What did it cost us for compulsory heroin treatment at Brannan Lake, which may or may not be legal? The budget was $14 million in the first year. But what has it actually cost so far? Two million dollars, was it?

Interjection.

MR. BARBER: Well, we don't know. My argument isn't primarily budgetary. It is on a different order, and my argument, repeatedly, is this: it is apparently the case that where human motivation is not found, human remedies cannot be applied. That applies to booze, prescription drugs and most certainly to opiates and their derivatives. It didn't work in California; it isn't working in New York State; after 20

[ Page 3318 ]

years of trying in Kentucky they finally shut it down and admitted it didn't work; and now, of course, it's not working here.

There is another problem, which is consistency. One of the things that bothered me about the doomed-to-failure, compulsory Heroin Treatment Program was the fact that the government, for whatever reasons — aside from having no scientific evidence whatever to support its position; at least, the then minister had no scientific evidence — chose to ignore two far more crucial problems. Why, for instance, did the government not introduce a compulsory alcohol treatment program? The number of abusers is far greater; the human toll and tragedy that results is far more profound; the costs in hospital and long-term care, the costs in days lost at work, are far, far larger than with heroin. Maybe it was political. It would be hard for a government to bring in a compulsory alcohol treatment program, because that, of course, is a disease that is terrifically more acceptable in Canada than is the disease of heroin addiction. But if the government wanted to be genuinely consistent and arguably tough-minded about it, they would have brought in a compulsory alcohol treatment program. However, it may just be the case that they didn't want to lose the election. They couldn't possibly build enough facilities, in any case, to contain the tens of thousands of people who would end up being locked up as a result of that Program. So they didn't take that approach; but if they were philosophically consistent they would have.

There is another problem too, and it is dealing with what are pharmaceutically called the hypnotics — Darvon and Valium and Librium and all those other trade names that describe drugs which in their physical consequence are more damaging than heroin and in their human consequence are at least as damaging as heroin because of what they do to the family life of people who become addicted to prescription drugs. No, there was no compulsory treatment required for people who are addicted to hypnotics. Instead, for political reasons only, the most notorious drug was chosen and that was heroin. For political reasons, a program was set up that everyone knew could not work — with all respect — because it had never worked where human motivation was lacking. Where motivation is pres'nt you don't need a compulsory program. That is a tautology, eh? You don't need a compulsory program where the person is inspired to seek help. So much for the tautology.

I would like to conclude by asking the minister today to accept the spirit of our proposals and the body of some of those proposals which will be made at greater length later on in this debate. I would like him to join with us in stating on behalf of all the people, through this Legislature, that both parties are concerned about drug abuse, both sides are concerned about alcohol abuse and both sides want to find a remedy. Both sides should surely choose a body of remedies that has some chance of success, however marginal. Unfortunately, the compulsory heroin treatment remedy had a less than marginal chance of success. We want you to make a new start with the Alcohol and Drug Commission. We commend you for the review. We offer observations about why it worked when we set it up and why it could work again, and we offer, in a spirit that is positive and conciliatory and non-partisan, some specific proposals to make a new start and get it going again in the interests of all the people of the province.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I will be brief, because this topic that I'm about to discuss relates exactly to what the previous three members have discussed — the Alcohol and Drug Commission problems. I want to tell the minister that while I will later, during the course of his estimates, be dealing with other problems in the province and in my riding, I am going to stick strictly to this one topic at the present time.

I think I should open my remarks to the minister by stating that the problem I am about to discuss relates to one community, but it is symptomatic of a problem that is happening to most other rural communities in British Columbia. I chose this particular problem because the people have documented the case so well over the past two years. It relates to a detox centre for the community of Bella Coola. While I don't ordinarily believe in lengthy quotes from correspondence, I am going to quote this into the record because they so well and concisely documented the problem. What really bothers me about this, Mr. Chairman, is that while that government and that minister wasted millions of dollars on a program that appears to be illegal — and it's certainly not democratic in any event, in my view — requests for funds for a service like the the proposed detox centre for a community like Bella Coola, where they have severe alcohol problems, as they do in many small communities for a variety of reasons, are ignored in spite of phone calls, personal discussions with people within the ministry, the minister himself and the Alcohol and Drug Commission. Most of my correspondence is acknowledged, but that's about as far as it goes. All of my pleas and requests for funding through the Alcohol and Drug Commission and the ministry have been ignored. They say they haven't got the funding.

I could go back over the correspondence on this one item for the last two years. I won't do that, but I'm going to read you — just so it's on the record — a quote from this document from the Bella Coola alcohol and drug services committee, which also, by the way, includes the Bella Coola General Hospital board of directors and the United Church of Canada. I'll just read the one section of this brief to the ministry and to the Alcohol and Drug Commission:

"A. The problem.

"Bella Coola is an isolated community located in the northern region of the commission's provincial breakdown of services. It serves as a centre for a catchment area of Anahim, Nimpo Lake to the east, Klemm, Bella Bella, Owikeno, Ocean Falls, and Shearwater to the west. Williams Lake, 300 miles to the east, has the closest out-patient counselling service, but cannot serve this area. Vancouver, 300 miles by air, 600 miles by road, has all types of facilities, as do Prince George and Kamloops, but is also a great distance away from the Bella Coola catchment area.

"Travel costs in this area are prohibitive."

At the time this letter was written, it was $210 return by air to Vancouver, and that has risen dramatically over the last couple of months.

"...$10 return airfare to Williams Lake, etc. "

They go on at some length about figures.

"But not only that, these facilities are used spasmodically and often after a wait of one or two months for an opening. The alcohol and alcohol-related problems are evidenced in court convictions, repeated hospital admissions and out-patient treatment, school

[ Page 3319 ]

dropouts, family breakdowns, child abuse and neglect, gang rapes, suicides, unemployment and job instability.

"The use of other drugs — marijuana, LSD in conjunction with alcohol — is also increasing. It is a vicious circle of prolonged drinking, crises, suicides, severe illnesses, hallucinations, etc., admission to hospital and treatment, then back to the same environment and routine."

In effect, what they're saying, Mr. Chairman, is that these people they admit to hospital are dried out and then go back into the same old routine — no facilities whatsoever,

I'm not quoting here, but the minister may recall — on second thought, it may have been the previous minister whom I discussed this with — that when we were discussing the construction of a new hospital — which is in progress for the Bella Coola area at the present time, by the way — we asked that a part of that unit or an addition be for a drug and alcohol centre because of the severe nature of the problem in that area. Once again, Mr. Chairman, the answer was no, we don't have the money. They've got money for bridges and tunnels to keep some member elected here because he threatened to resign; they've got money for all of those things. We've got money for ministers to travel to Europe and Asia and around the country; and they don't even table a report on their return, because they didn't do anything. But we haven't got money for the treatment of our own people. What a government!

Anyway, to get back to the quote here:

"Often they will request or agree to treatment while in the crisis stage; but by the time arrangements can be made to attend a treatment centre — often one to three months — the patient is again back in the cycle and lost until the next time around. Of course, expensive travel only adds insult to injury. Therefore we feel sure the commission will agree: with no program or facility designed to specifically meet these needs, the gap in service is obvious even to an outsider."

And, Mr. Chairman, I must say the gap in service must by now even be obvious to the minister.

This is really a genuine and severe problem. Two years we've been battling on this particular problem, and quite frankly, these people are doing their work, they're competent people. We've got nothing from the ministry while they squandered multi-millions on a program that nobody wanted or needed, isn't working and is probably illegal.

I received further correspondence on July 7, 1980, a copy of which went to the minister and the Drug and Alcohol Commission, from the Bella Coola detox committee. I'll just quote one or two short paragraphs of this very recent correspondence on this matter:

"Enclosed is the Bella Coola detox proposal for 1980. Our proposal for last year was rejected, as you know, but the need has not changed. The situation in our area is still critical, and while we do not have the resources to do an in-depth statistical study of all alcohol-related suicides, hospital admissions..."

By the way, a good friend of mine, the chief counsellor, committed suicide last week; it was alcohol-related. Again that was in one of our communities in that area of the coast.

"...police and court cases, child abuse, industrial accidents, school dropouts, unemployment, etc., the problem is a very real one, and one that is being ignored by the ministry."

A copy of this letter went to you, so I'm sure you will reply.

"We have had a total lack of cooperation from the Alcohol and Drug Commission in trying to develop a program of alcohol rehabilitation."

I could go on and on, but I think by now the minister has the point I'm attempting to make here.

I've talked about one community which happens to be in my riding, but I have visited many, many small communities throughout British Columbia with similar problems. A minister should not, in my view, get up in this House today and say, "We'll look into it," or, "We'll consult and do another study," because we're being studied to death. Get up in this House today and say: "We'll give Bella Coola that money; we'll provide funds; we can do without a fixed link to Vancouver Island." Nobody wants it anyway, at $3 billion minimum, maybe $5 billion or $10 billion — who knows? Work for people a little bit, try a little bit; that wouldn't hurt you politically either. You're not going to get many votes out of that fixed link to Vancouver Island, but you're going to get a lot of votes out of working for people, Mr. Minister. I'd hate to get you re-elected, but if you do a good job I might vote for you.

Finally, since there doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest, and we do have an emergency motion before this House which should be dealt with, I move that the Chairman do now leave the chair.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 25

NAYS — 28

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Chairman, no doubt there will be a short pause while those who wish to leave can leave. I think perhaps it might be best if I just waited for a moment. I wish everybody who wants to clear out would clear out.

MR. MACDONALD: You can empty a House. Can you fill one? [Laughter.]

[ Page 3320 ]

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to deal with the remarks of the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead). Contrary to what he wants me to say, I am going to say that I will look into it and re-examine it. But in saying that I want him to know that I am aware of the problems that prevail not only in that community but in a great many other communities. If I could just be light-hearted for a second, I haven't been to Bella Coola for about 20 years, and the fact that it is now a catchment for Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake must be a great credit to the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser). It certainly wouldn't have been 25 years ago, unless you consider people who fell off the road on the way down from Anahim as being caught falling into the catchment. In those days one did not consider Bella Coola to be in any way a neighbour of Anahim Lake, that's for sure. It was a journey filled with stark terror. It may have changed since then. If it has, no doubt the sport fishing has suffered as a result. In any event, yes, I will take another look at that and see if I can do anything, particularly for Bella Coola.

I would like to tell the members of the chamber something about what I've done in the relatively short time I've been in the ministry, with respect to the question of health delivery services to natives, because I think that's implicit in what you were talking about. One of the basic problems in Bella Coola relates to Indian health. It is the same problem as in Alert Bay and a great many other areas.

To give you an example of what we are up against, when the situation in Alert Bay reared its head the last time and I knew that Dr. Goldthorpe was coming down with his report, I took the opportunity of going back to Ottawa to talk to the federal Minister of Health and Welfare, Monique Bégin, because it seemed to me that the whole thing was rather silly. Here we were giving, I think, despite all the debate that one hears in the House, darned good health services to the people of British Columbia. Yet somehow we got into a cross-fire every time it involved natives, and particularly every time it involved natives who are status Indians.

So I went back to her and said I recognized there was going to be quite a brouhaha when this report came down. Dr. Goldthorpe admitted when he came out to British Columbia that he had come from the other side of the Rockies, didn't know what he was doing, and was going to learn as he went along. He knew that when he brought down his report there were going to be a lot of bruised feelings and unhappy people, and not too many solutions.

With that in mind, along with my senior staff I met with Monique Bégin and suggested to her that we take a joint approach to the whole question of delivering health services to native people, including, for example, detox centres in some areas, D&T centres in other areas and hospitals in others. If they insisted on being in the game, if they felt they had a constitutional or political obligation to be in the game, or whatever it might be, for goodness' sake, if they weren't going to get entirely in the game and deliver the health services entirely themselves, then either let us do it — and I undertook that we would do it, subject to suitable financial arrangements being made in consideration of that — or, if we couldn't do that, let us approach it jointly. Let's get together and have a joint federal-provincial committee set up, and let's involve the native people in each area. Let's start off with a pilot project at Alert Bay, because that happened to be the place that was most immediately in everybody's mind. We agreed to that. As a matter of fact, we worked out a press release that this was exactly what we were going to do.

I want to tell you Mr. Member, through you, Mr. Chairman, I'd scarcely got off the airplane back in Victoria before the good minister had announced that she was going to do it all entirely by herself, that the federal government had an obligation to do all of these things and she was going to take care of it unilaterally. I sent her a telegram asking her what went wrong with the agreement, and haven't received an answer to this day.

Sure, I know you're going to say: "Well, all right, you're going to have to grab hold of the problem yourself if you can't get help from the feds." But, you know, and I'm sure your colleagues when you were in government knew that it just isn't all that easy. I'd rather know that the feds were on the other side, instead of thinking that they were on our side until it came time to pony up with the money or pony up with the help. I'm not trying any Ottawa-bashing, I'm just giving you one example of a cabinet minister in British Columbia going back to Ottawa to try and get some cooperation in this particularly difficult area so that we could actually deliver services, not just a lot of rhetoric and a lot of talk to make some mileage with constituents, and do some good. I'm afraid I was very disappointed indeed.

In any event, in answer to your question, yes, Bella Coola has got a particularly difficult problem, as some other areas do, but I'll take another look at that. I'm sure the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) knows that the new hospital will contain ten acute-care beds, three extended-care, and three beds currently labelled as intermediate-care. If there is a priority for detoxification, which I think is one of the problems that you specifically raised, then there's no reason why these beds could not be used for that purpose. I don't think that solves your problem entirely, but it's a start. So we have been thinking about you, and have been concerned about the problem.

I'd like to move back to the remarks made by the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) — I've got it right, finally! — and I'm going to accept his invitation. I hope that when I accept this caveat extends to the remarks I make in answer to the request of the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) that they be fairly casual — not be etched in stone, not be taken as government policy, past, present or prospective, but as just some of the ideas that I have relative to this problem. It may very well be that I'll come up with some different ideas when I'm better informed or, perhaps, differently informed, but if you wish to know some of the thoughts I have, I'd be very pleased to discuss them with you.

I think that I did talk a little about some of my thoughts a little earlier. I don't believe in 1980 — and I'm not even sure that it was ever true, although that's with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight — that it's a uni-drug problem, or even just a dual-drug problem, or even just a three- or four-drug problem. I think the problem is one that involves a great many chemicals, and I've often wondered whether or not the choice of the term "alcohol and drug" is really a good one, now that we think about it. It seems to separate one from the other. All it does, I suppose, in one way is emphasize that the most dangerous and the most devastating and costly in every imaginable way — monetarily, psychologically, and all the rest of that — is alcohol. If the purpose was to set alcohol aside to make it sound worse, that's probably not a bad idea. But I rather suspect that most people think that it's....

[ Page 3321 ]

MR. BARBER: That's exactly why we did it in the name.

HON. MR. MAIR: Well, I rather suspect that the general public doesn't look at it that way. I think that they sort of still think that the alcohol problem is something that really is a much nicer problem, in the sense that it doesn't happen to the kind of people that the drug problem happens to. I don't believe that, Mr. Chairman, through you to the members opposite. I happen to feel very strongly that the chemical dependency problem — which is probably a better way of putting it, although perhaps not as sexy — really knows no class, race, creed, or financial boundaries; it touches every segment of society. There's no real difference between the housewife, if you will, or the businessman who pops some pills, and the person on Gore Avenue or Cordova that mainlines it. There's really no difference at all. They've both got a problem. It may even be that the reasons they have that problem are very similar, even though they're very different in terms of their background.

So I feel pretty strongly that it is something that's got to be approached on a multi-chemical basis. In saying that, it's more than just my own thoughts. While I don't have the experience in these matters that the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) does, I did spend my youth and the times I was in my late years in high school and throughout university, in the summertime, working in an area that was a very serious drug area. If you're wondering, I worked at American Can Co. — you know where that is located in Vancouver, I presume — and that was, at that time, the centre of the recognized drug problem. In those days we didn't recognize a drug problem other than the people we threw in jail for either distributing or trafficking in heroin, or taking it. We didn't recognize it as we do today.

So at least I grew up in an atmosphere, for part of my years as a youth, where the drug problem was very much before us. As a matter of fact, I remember working at American Can with a very interesting fellow, who the lawyers in this room may remember, if there are any in the room right now: a fellow by the name of Bill Henderson, who was very unique because he was involved in that shoot-out on the flats in Vancouver back in about 1946 or 1947 where Ledingham and Boyes were the two policemen killed. As I recall there were three people apprehended and all three were sentenced to hang, including Henderson. Henderson was acquitted in the Supreme Court of Canada by dint of the efforts of a former member of this House, now a judge. The basis of his acquittal was that before the shooting took place he had already been apprehended and was under control. He therefore was able to escape the gallows. Jay Gould was the lawyer — now a judge — who defended him. The point is that I remember watching Henderson being hounded by the authorities every year thereafter. No matter where he went he was always hounded, always pushed up against the wall of the old Hadden beer parlour and searched for drugs and so on.

While I don't pretend to be an expert at all because I didn't have anything to do with treating drugs, I certainly didn't grow up in some glass house where I was sealed off from these problems. I guess like most lawyers I've thought about the problem a lot. I've read a bit about it and I must say that since I've become Health minister I've read more.

I took the opportunity when I was in Britain — shortly after I was sworn in as Minister of Health — to go and see the people in the Home Office in London. I had a very interesting day — not just an hour or an afternoon but a day — with a Mr. Spear who, incidentally, if you're going over there, goes by the rather interesting nickname of Bing. He won't tell anybody why he's called that. He must have sung songs at some time or another. We spent a whole day talking about what I perceived to be their attitude towards heroin and other opium derivative addictions and what I thought their program was. I found out that my thoughts and most of what I've read in Canada about their program were clearly wrong. It was a much different situation than I had been led to believe. I certainly came away with the impression that they had a pretty good handle on the older addicts in Great Britain but they had no handle whatever on the young Kensington crowd. They were now getting taken in.

I certainly became very aware that while we had done a great job in Canada, and in British Columbia particularly, in the police area in bringing the supply of heroin under control, we are in great danger of that going out of control again. The Iranian situation was one of the contributing factors where people, instead of taking money out of Iran, are taking heroin out because it is a lot easier to smuggle out and there is a great profit in taking out a very small quantity of smuggled goods. I recognize that while we can take great solace at this point in time by reason of the enforcement success of the various city police forces — the RCMP in particular — we have no reason to be overly optimistic. We may be right back into the problem again very, very quickly and if it does come back it'll come back like lightning. It won't come back gradually. It will all of a sudden be there. So, as I say, in coming up with what thoughts I'm going to try to articulate this afternoon, I don't come with any great expertise. I do, however, I think, come with some sort of sympathy for the problems as I have seen them and some little understanding at least. I guess in trying to analyze the problem from my point of view, I find myself asking myself more questions than being able to come up with any answers.

I think the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) articulated a lot of the things that concern me. Is there a right way to approach this? Is there some answer that is out there somewhere? Or is it perhaps just that it's a constant matter of experimentation to try to find the best method of not getting rid of the problem but of dealing with it and, as best you can, controlling it. Maybe it's not something where we should have optimism that the problem can be solved, much less even brought under real control. Maybe there will always be a Davie Street like there's a Picadilly, like there's a Canal Street in Amsterdam. Maybe it's not a question where we can ever really see the end of the problem but all we can really do is do the very best we can to (a) contain it and (b) prevent people through persuasion from getting into that system.

[Mr. Nicolson in the chair.]

Maybe it isn't even a health problem. I've thought about that long and hard because here it is my responsibility and I certainly don't wish to escape it, but maybe it is a societal problem that goes much deeper than health. Maybe health is simply the treatment of the problem and not really area where we should be addressing it. Maybe it is more through education. Maybe it's through something we haven't even thought about. I don't know. All I know — I certainly yield to those here and elsewhere who have a better handle on the situation than I do — is that it is a very perplexing problem indeed.

[ Page 3322 ]

As I say, it certainly blankets all political systems. You can't look to the communist system or to a fascist system or to even a much more primitive system that still exists in some places in the world and say: "Look, it doesn't exist there so we can get our help there." It does exist there. It may not be heroin that exists there, but something exists there to take the place of heroin for those who, for perhaps psychological reasons, find they must depend upon something extraneous. I am not a hard-liner by nature. I would like to find some way that is going to best accommodate all of society's aspirations in this matter.

I don't know that it's going to do the chamber or this debate any good, or add anything to the proceedings, if we redebate the Heroin Treatment Act. We can if we wish. I think you've already done that to some extent. I suppose if .you want me to join into the debate you expect me to expound a number of mea culpas and that'll make everybody feel better. But I don't know that I want to do that, and I don't know that it's particularly necessary.

I think, really, what we have to do is to keep looking, trying and hoping that there is a better solution. Some of the things that you have said are very impressive and I don't mind saying it. I don't say this in the silence of this room because everything that's said in here is taken down. I can't escape my colleagues when I say to you that I think a lot of what you have told me today does impress me very much as things we ought to look at. I do think that perhaps sometimes we make our judgments in terms that are too traditional — using maybe a thing like Brannan Lake, for example. Once again I'm just thinking out loud. Maybe there ought to be a Brannan Lake, even if it's very, very expensive, so that there is some beacon that's held out for mothers and fathers, for example, who may want to turn their kids in without turning their kids in. You know, you could call up somebody and say: "Look, my son's in trouble. My daughter's in trouble. I want him to have an opportunity to be treated. I don't want the police to get involved. I do want a doctor to get involved, I do want help. Have you got somewhere he can go that is away from this neighbourhood and his friends?" and all the rest of it. Maybe you have to spend a lot of money to have that beacon in the sense that the money per capita is not particularly well spent. Maybe you don't have many people for the dollars you spend, but maybe the hope that you hold out by having that does some peripheral good that's very difficult to measure. I don't know, but those are the kinds of things that I think we have to think about.

I mentioned earlier that I have Dr. Bonham under very strict instructions to come down by the end of July — and I hope he's on target. I know he's on holiday right now. I hope that's not going to affect the target date, but I don't think it matters because it's only a matter of a few days. He'll give me a broader overview of the whole situation. As I said a little earlier, I hope he will give me an assessment that is a complete assessment. I hope that it addresses some of the things that you did today, Mr. First Member for Victoria (Mr. Barber), even though they may not come up with the same conclusions.

While you were talking I thought your arguments were very seductive, that the commission ought to be something outside of government and not in a position where they have to go through a long line of bureaucrats in order to get to the minister. Well, maybe you can do that within government too if you put it in the right spot in the organizational chart and you make sure that the commission does have direct access to the deputy minister and the minister without any intervening people. These are some of the things, but not the important things, that I want him to address.

What I want him to address is the entire problem of chemical dependency in the province of British Columbia and give me some suggestions around which we can formulate some policy. Some of it's been pretty good. Even in places that society has failed in the past it's succeeded. It's only failed because we don't think it's done as well as it ought to have done. Still, the fact is that everybody's been motivated. I don't think that even in your most critical remarks today of any members of this government or anybody else, you would suggest that the motivation wasn't there. We're all trying to solve the problem, but from time to time some of us say, "Look, you're not doing it the right way," or, "The way you're going to do it is not the right way," or, indeed, "The way you've done it was the wrong way." The fact is we're all motivated, and I don't think we should be frightened of failure.

I'm not trying to defend or in any way deal with programs that have gone on in the past. But I say this as a matter of my own philosophy; I don't think we should be afraid of failure. I don't think that as a Minister of Health I should be afraid of coming back into this chamber a year from now, if I'm fortunate enough still to be in this position, and saying, "Look, I tried something and it didn't work," or, "It didn't work as well as I thought it would work," or, "Yes, if you look at it strictly on a cash increment basis it was no good at all. We spent $10,000 per person saved and that's shocking and disgraceful." I don't think I should have to worry about that. Within reason, I think that we have to understand that we're dealing with failure all the time. It's only that we're trying to get the least failure we can. I'm not putting that as well as I might, but I think the member opposite understands.

The member for Victoria talked about some conditions which simply were irreversible. I suppose the most obvious irreversible condition is death, and this is the ultimate failure which medical science can only postpone. Maybe we have to start looking at the whole question of chemical dependence in the sense that it's not something that we can completely eradicate but, by God, we can do a hell of a lot better. We can zero in on the areas where we can do better.

We've spent far too much time on what are the more glamorous addictions or drug problems, and this goes back as long as I can remember in nearly 50 years on this planet. I can remember as a kid in Vancouver being warned by parents not to walk down the flats to the Fraser River because the dope fiends would jump out and jab a needle at me and make me into a dope fiend. These are the kinds of things I guess all of us have in the backs of our minds to varying degrees. Nobody ever reminded me that the guy who worked for my father and disappeared for weeks at a time because he was a hopeless alcoholic had every bit as much of a drug problem as the so-called dope fiend. Nobody told me about those things in those times. I guess it's only now that many people in society — through you, Mr. Chairman, to the members opposite, particularly the first member for Victoria — are beginning to realize just how serious many of these chemical dependencies are that, hitherto, we never thought of as problems at all.

I've often been criticized, and indeed — I say this fairly — by my own colleagues, for attitudes that I've taken — we've talked about this earlier — about advertising alcohol. I just don't understand how we can have a substance used by society, used by myself, that can cause so much trouble and

[ Page 3323 ]

be so cavalier and casual about it. I don't understand how we're still in an era where we can laugh at the drunk on television. I don't understand why that's funny anymore. I don't understand why people can still walk into the office, or wherever, on Monday morning, and say, "My God, I got so blasted on Saturday night I don't remember how I got home," and everybody laughs at it. I find it very difficult to understand.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MAIR: I am rambling, Mr. Member, but I think that's what you asked me to do — to try to give you some thoughts.

I want to talk just for one second about compulsion, because while I am dubitante about it concerning heroin — I've said so right from the very beginning — I think it does have a place and it's not in the cure of any chemical dependence problems, but it is in the protection of the general public against those who do have it. Without any ideas as to whether or not this is going to bring the wrath of God, the NDP and the House upon me, I'm going to say it anyway. I think the time is long overdue that we start treating impaired drivers — people who drive their cars while they're impaired by alcohol,, drugs or anything else — far more seriously. Quite apart from the fact that to throw an impaired driver in jail is going to do absolutely nothing to address itself to the reason why he got impaired in the first place — that's something entirely outside of that — I think that the time has come when the impaired driver, if not the first time, certainly the second time, should never be allowed to drive again, It works in other countries and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work here. I think the first member for Victoria alluded to that when he talked about the operation of the RCMP and the curtailment of the supply of drugs. I think the same principle applies when we're talking about impaired drivers. I think that here probably the major demonstrable social evil of alcohol — not the major one, because I'm sure there are all sorts of underlying ones — is the loss of life and limb and the injury that comes simply by people driving a car when they've had too much to drink. If they do it once they certainly shouldn't be entitled to do it again.

I suppose maybe we can get a little more dialogue going now that we've had our rising, reporting of progress or whatever we did, and got the people in and out again. Maybe we can chat a little more about it. But I hope, through you, Mr. Chairman, to the first member for Victoria, that I've given you some idea that at least I'm open-minded on the question of how we deal with this problem; I am motivated to do something about it; I confess my general ignorance on the subject — and anyone who doesn't I think is arrogant beyond belief; and lastly, I am doing something to determine, from people who ought to know more than I do and I'm sure do, what the best methods are for approaching the problem.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I always enjoy listening to the minister. He's a very easy and voluble conversationalist and his thoughts move along — I think he identified them as "rambling" toward the latter part of his speech. But I'm also reminded that there's not much of substance there, that a very easy way to suffocate a question is by almost talking it to death. I'm not questioning his feeling or motivation, but I'm wondering about action on these very difficult social problems.

When the minister was in charge of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, I believe it was, during the debate on his estimates at that time questions had been raised about alcohol. I wanted to see what the minister said at that time. It was a very brief commentary, but I think it might be worthwhile to read it to probably indicate that there's a similarity in approach to what I've just heard this afternoon. On page 1921 of Hansard for June 1, 1978, the minister, in replying to various points, included therein the following:

The question of liquor education — I'm very pleased to have your point of view, Mr. Member, and I hope that you will take it upon yourself to let my ministry have your thoughts from time to time. I invite all members to do this as we approach the conclusion of putting together our education program. I'm not going to comment on whether I agree or disagree, because after all there are so many points of view on the question of liquor education....

He goes on like that. I submit that that — in the abstract and in isolation — is probably an acceptable point of view. But the problem that we are faced with demands more, Mr. Chairman, than just the general observation and the nostalgic reminiscences about CNR flats in Vancouver and a trip to London visiting the Home Office and that sort of thing, trying to grasp information about a particular situation about a social problem.

An examination of the question of multi-drug use, or chemical dependency situations, is a fine thing. I don't think that it should prevent action in the areas where we know something about the problem. Probably an approach of this nature is an easy way out of an embarrassing situation with respect to the Heroin Treatment Program, because the minister himself, while the Heroin Treatment Act was not his bill to pilot through the House, nonetheless was a participating architect of that bill; he helped to draft it.

HON. MR. MAIR: I did?

MR. HOWARD: You didn't help to draft it? Well, if the minister says he didn't help to draft the Heroin Treatment Act, I'm wrong there. Is that what the minister's telling me? I apologize if I'm wrong on that one.

HON. MR. MAIR: Just to clear the matter up: no, I had no part in drafting it. Certainly after it was drafted and was going through the normal committees, I was as involved in it as any member of cabinet would be. But the original drafting, or anything that went on prior to that — I don't recall having anything to do with it.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I was misled by what appeared in Hansard of June 13, 1978, where the minister said in discussion of the bill, after he had indicated he fully supported it:

I want to tell the House that whether they agree with me or disagree with me, I hope they know me as a person who does have honour, who is a serious professional in my own outside profession and who takes my duties in this House seriously. I want to assure the House that I have looked at this entire bill with great care. I participated in its drafting and have looked at all sections with a great deal of temerity. I can now stand unhesitatingly in support of the bill.

That was why I said that the minister was a participating architect in the drafting of the bill, because that's what Hansard reported him as having said when the bill was proceeding through the House. All I'm saying is that the

[ Page 3324 ]

minister was fully in support of the legislation that is now being further examined insofar as its use and its impact is concerned.

After listening to the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) relating how the heroin treatment at Lexington, Kentucky had failed, how a program in California failed, and how a program in New York failed, and the like, I want to say that there is an area in the world where a cure has been discovered. Most heroin addicts of some long standing — that is, those who have been heroin addicts for some time and who have been arrested and incarcerated from time to time for possession, or trafficking, and know something about their own feelings with respect to it — will admit and say quite candidly that there are two ways to cure heroin addiction.

One is by stopping. That's simple — one is by having the internal motivation to stop, which is what the member for Victoria was saying. One is to have the same motivation generated within people by an AA program with respect to alcohol.

The second cure is what the addicts identify as the "Chinese cure." The Chinese, at one point in their history, having had opium imported into the country — and that's an historic question; there's no need to examine it here at this time — developed a cure that if people were addicted to opium they simply lopped their heads off or shot them. That cured that individual. That was the irreversible move. He no longer took dope. It also had a mitigating effect upon those who were thinking about it, or who may have been closely associated with it. They could see the terminal cure taking place.

Because most addicts will, as I say, candidly state that, and admit that to be the case, it places in a different context, I think, the question of treatment and whether or not treatment can lead to a cure.

We've tried a variety of treatments. We've tried heavy jail sentences in this land — in North America and in Canada. We've tried substitute programs of methadone, and in that instance found that the cure was almost worse than the ailment, as far as the debilitating effects to the individual were concerned.

We've tried a massively costly program within the federal prison system by having in the province a drug incarceration centre at Matsqui under the federal system and placing there what was called a pilot treatment unit headed by a psychiatrist, staffed by sociologists and psychologists on a more than one-to-one basis. Heavy and intensive emotional and psychological treatment went on. At a cost of I don't know how many millions of dollars, we found that that was discontinued because it failed. It went on for some period of time.

We need to look at the Brannan Lake facility and ask ourselves by what method people can get there, in a hypothetical sense, not in the absolute sense of the act itself. I am not talking about the legal part as to whether the act will finally be held to be valid by the Supreme Court, or any portions of it held to be intra vires of the province. I am talking about it in the general sense, that one can get to such a facility and such a centre by one of two ways. One can voluntarily go and say: "I have a problem; I am addicted to drugs. Will you give me some treatment?" The other is by way of being sentenced and the courts or the peace officer under the act at the moment saying: "I have reason to believe this, so you are going over here for examination," and so on. It is voluntary or enforced.

Experience with other drug-dependence voluntary programs that have been in existence in times past in this province has shown that attendance by addicts was in direct proportion to the amount of drugs on the street. When there was a scarcity of drugs on the street they volunteered for the program. Why? Because they had withdrawal symptoms and they couldn't get it on the street but they could get some chemical support system within the program. As I mentioned earlier, at one point it was methadone; before that it was suki and it was some other stuff, but it was not the cold-turkey withdrawal that used to happen. So they volunteered, not for treatment, not for a cure, but in order to get drugs they couldn't get on the street because the supply had dried up.

We have gone through the sentencing program, one of sentencing addicts for simple possession or for trafficking. We have sentenced them under the federal system to the Matsqui Institution, as I mentioned earlier. We found that to be a complete failure. What I am saying to the minister is that we need to examine this in an entirely different light than it has been examined in earlier. I advanced during the last session — I don't want to reiterate at this point, because it is on the record — what I thought about heroin treatment. The minister at that time responded that he had examined what I had put forward as an alternative approach, and the government had agreed not to accept it. This was in an earlier stage. He just didn't buy the idea. The simple aspect of it was that if you take the profit out of hard drugs as they exist at the moment, then at least you won't have the associated criminal activity of shoplifting, robberies, breaking and entering, purse-snatchings and this sort of thing in order to find the money to supply the habit. He disagreed with that proposition. I don't want to go into that one again, but I say that that is one we need to look at.

I want to talk also about the question of liquor. I read a statement earlier that the minister made in the House. I don't think anybody questions that, as the LeDain commission determined and as others have determined before and since then, liquor is probably the single most destructive drug or chemical that we voluntarily take into our systems that exists anywhere in the world. It is causing misery in this province, and has for a long period of time. There is no need to go into a recitation of the difficulties that have occurred and will continue to occur with respect to that.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Let me, though, apropos of what the minister said with respect to the federal government and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development — or whatever one now has Indian Affairs matters under its jurisdiction — say that I regret very much that the federal government took the course that was outlined by the minister following the discussions he had with them. That's a disgraceful course of action to have followed. I have had enough experience with the federal government in the field of Indian affairs not to be surprised by it though. There is a bureaucratic empire within that department that doesn't want anybody to touch it, and Madame Begin could very readily have agreed with the minister and then found herself scuttled by the federal bureaucracy in Indian Affairs, which, largely speaking, if every Indian in Canada suddenly disappeared from the scene, wouldn't find out about it for ten years; they have no concern, basically no interest — I'm talking about the top bureaucracy in Ottawa and some of its regional offices — in matters

[ Page 3325 ]

affecting native Indian people. So I'm not surprised that that may be what has happened.

I'd like to read to you, Mr. Chairman, a statement that was prepared and, I think, beautifully done, in the sense that it tells the story dramatically. This is from the native alcohol addiction program operated under the aegis of the Gitskan-Carrier tribal council of the upper Skeena River native people, and was presented to their convention last fall. Let me just read — it's a four- or five-page document — the introduction, because I don't think anybody in this House could put more eloquently the situation confronting not only native people here in this regard, but many, many others in our society. It says:

"The media had been telling us about poisons that surround us: oil spills, industrial wastes, smog, etc. There is a poison far more serious than any of these, a poison more destructive, more expensive, more damaging than any of these. In the Hazelton area that poison is responsible for 296 days in hospital at $145 per day, which equals $43,000 for the first six months of this year. It is involved in court cases, marriage breakups, car accidents, suicides and suicide attempts in our communities. It has effects on the stomach, the brain, the liver, the nerves, the heart, the blood vessels and the blood itself. If it were a new drug just discovered it would never be permitted to be sold, because it is too dangerous. The poison we are talking about is alcohol. It is responsible for the destruction of more lives, it is safe to say, than any other single factor in our society."

It goes on in that vein, telling us about what they're trying to do, and how difficult a time they are having with it. It sums up, I think, the essence of what the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) said and what others have advocated and what I subscribe to in terms of dealing with this question when they say: "The drinker has to admit that he/she is an alcoholic and is ready to accept help to quit drinking. Until then there really isn't anything we can do, and any intervention is a waste of time."

That statement was made almost out of desperation on the part of the native alcohol abuse program in that area; made out of frustration; made out of their experience that they've had in that community; made out of the knowledge and the fact that the closest detoxification centre to Hazelton is 300 miles away in Prince George; that there isn't any program available to assist with alcoholism in that area; made out of the knowledge and the frustration that even in Terrace the alcohol and drug counsellor's travel budget was cut recently — so I'm advised — preventing that person from going to visit and talk with individuals on a one-to-one basis, to do the things that that person is supposed to do to help.

The minister earlier agreed to oppose the idea of electronic media advertising of beer and wine. Good. I don't think that goes far enough; I don't think we should participate in any way in advancing further the consumption of alcohol. I congratulate the minister for having said, as he did in the House, that he disagrees with the proposition put forward by the chairman of the Crown corporations committee that beer be sold on the ferries. That is simply advancing the possibilities of further consumption of booze.

Let's look at media advertising generally. The purpose of advertising by liquor and beer and wine interests is to sell more liquor. There is no question about that in my mind and, I don't think, in anybody's mind. No matter how they do it, how the advertisement is dressed up — even lately portraying the difficulties and the dangers that come from alcohol — the purpose is to sell more booze. This is from the newsletter of the Alcohol-Drug Education Service here in this province, the issue of December 1979. They put here on page 2 — I am sure the minister is familiar with this — magazine advertising data, June 1979, one month only. Of the top ten product categories of money spent on promoting booze, the beer, wine and liquor industry was number two. Cigarettes and tobacco was number one. But the liquor industry, in June 1979, spent $22,162,000 on advertising. That was up from $17 million the year before. That is a pretty hefty chunk of dough to put out there to say: "Please drink my product." Perhaps that is one of the reasons, plus others-plus, I think, a failure on the part of this government to come to grips with this question — why in 1979 British Columbia had the highest per capita consumption of wine of anywhere in Canada, so the Alcohol-Drug Education Service tells me, the source of their statistics being Statistics Canada and the provincial liquor control boards.

Last fall the government embarked upon a $500,000 program of alcohol awareness. Contrast those figures of $500,000 once in a year with $22 million in one month. When the set of advertising from the liquor industry is to sell more liquor and the other advertising is presumably to make us aware of the dangers of liquor, how insignificant that is. Even if the program were properly drawn up.... I want to submit that that program last fall was an absolute disgrace. I think it contributed more to alcohol consumption than it did to deter it. I am talking about the theme I saw on television programs and in the B.C. Government News and in newspapers and so on — that you can say no to the drink you don't need. That sounds fine. The other implication — so I am advised from a psychological point of view — which sinks into the head almost subliminally for those who may have a tendency to have that drink is that you can't say no to the drink you need. Who is to decide whether you need the drink? The individual himself. I really do think that program was psychologically wrong in its direction. I know the minister said at some time later that they did a survey — the B.C. Government News carried that information — and the survey said that 79 percent of those who were asked were aware of the week-long campaign. That is fine; they probably were.

I am talking about the impact on two bases; one is the value of spending $500,000 on an advertising program in a year compared to $22 million in one month by the liquor industry. Just what does that mean? What I think you should do is say to the liquor industry: "You, the liquor industry, are the beneficiary in dollars of your advertising program. The general public is the beneficiary of misery arising from the use or misuse of your product. If you, the liquor industry, are going to benefit on the bucks side of the question, then you'd better put in some money to cover the misery side of it." I would say to the liquor industry, "For every dollar you spend on promoting and advertising your product, you put another dollar into a fund administered by the provincial government to run a counter campaign," so that there's dollar for dollar being paid by the liquor industry "If you're going to profit, then you'd better put some money up to mitigate and lessen the effects of what your advertising program is doing."

In that way I think we could run a dollar for dollar campaign. We wouldn't be digging directly into taxpayers' money as we did with that $500,000 program, which in itself

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was minor and infinitesimal compared with the total program of the liquor industry.

I think, probably, I should say too, Mr. Chairman, that when we get on subject matters like this, I'm not talking from any earlier or current position of total abstinence. Like many others in our society, I think that there is probably a very fine line that you could easily slip over at any given time. I think we need to recognize that. I'm not trying to preach from a position of assumed purity in this matter, as I'm sure other members are not trying to do as well. Although I can certainly say that with respect to heroin, that's from a position of absolute, total abstinence, but not on the other question. It's a matter of trying to put forward what I think are some suggestions and ideas as to how to approach it. I would not delay doing something awaiting the analysis of the total drug situation. I would move now and do something in a direct way certainly in the question of advertising. That has an effect; we all know it. If the liquor industry is going to be permitted to continue abusively to advertise as they are doing, then they should be prepared to put up some of the money to deal with some of the consequences as a result of their advertising.

HON. MR. MAIR: I suppose the main point raised by the member for Skeena had to do with alcohol and its abuse, because I think we canvassed the question of heroin. If I'm wrong in that regard, then, of course, I'll be very happy to take any further questions.

I'm not sure that if you were to go to the liquor companies and say "put up dollar for dollar" you'd do any more than add a dollar to the price of every bottle of whiskey. It would thereby be absorbed by the people that use it and, while we all like to pretend it's somebody else, I tend to think it's probably the majority of people in British Columbia. I've always thought that maybe a better way of doing it was to enforce truth in advertising. Get away from the lifestyle ad and call upon the liquor industry to advertise along these lines: "If you drink Blatz's beer, maybe you don't get cirrhosis of the liver nearly as quickly as if you drink somebody else's"; or, "If you drink Blatz's beer, maybe you don't have nearly as bad a hangover"; or, "You can drink more of Blatz's beer before you have to get into the Alka-Seltzer" — actually dealing with the real issue that is dealt with by most advertisers who are pretending that they are dealing with a product preference instead of a lifestyle.

When you see a car, deodorant or soap advertised, they don't try to pretend that you win the girl, car, game, handsome man or whatever by reason of using the soap; they try to tell you that their soap does a better job of cleaning than somebody else's does, that their car gets better mileage per gallon or what have you. The alcohol advertisers want to perpetuate the myth that they are trying to preach a change in brand preference, but at the same time they put it all in the lifestyle context and never tell you what is particularly better about their brand than the brand they are trying to have you give up.

In any event, I don't know whether the member was serious with the dollar-for-dollar, but I must say that my personal preference — and much of this is beyond my control — would be that there be no liquor advertising at all in the media. It's as simple as that.

MR. BARRETT: The member apologizes. He was called out on something.

HON. MR. MAIR: I'm sure, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, that he has already evidenced an ability to read Hansard and that he will read it.

In any event, I think the answer to the problem is simply that. I have always been very critical of those who say: "It's not fair, because what about cablevision? What about the ads coming in from the United States?" I think that is simply a matter of switching. You say to cablevision: "You can't reproduce them. You have to switch them off and put something else on in their place." I don't see anything to be ashamed of in having as the law of the land that you are not going to have lifestyle alcohol advertisements on your television or radio, and taking every reasonable step to prevent that from happening. I really get tired of people who say: "Look, we better have it in Canadian television because, after all, it's coming across from the States in any event." To me that's like saying: "Let's all go out and spread measles around here, because if we don't we're going to get it from the States." It seems to me that if we have got the problem we should take the steps that we have at our disposal to cure the problem.

I guess the next question that's going to come up is what to do about tobacco advertising. I recognize the problems that that raised, along with liquor advertising, in the printed media years ago. I don't know how you resolve that one. I suppose philosophically I would have to say that I'd like to see us get rid of that too, because there's no question about it, nobody has ever suggested that the smoking of tobacco did any good. As a matter of fact, it is universally held that it does a lot of harm. Yet we all recognize that great economic downers come from banning its advertising. It was banned in late 1971 or 1972, I think, and restored by the members opposite when they were in government, and I don't know what we could collectively think of to do about that. But in any event, I think I could best answer the member for Skeena by saying that with respect to liquor advertising, while we may disagree as to the way it can be handled, we certainly agree that it's wrong.

He dealt very briefly with the Heroin Treatment Act. Yes, I did support the bill. I supported the bill because I thought, at that time, two things. First of all, the arguments that he quoted from me were generally along the question of the civil liberties. I still feel very strongly that there was no invasion of civil liberties, and every court so far has agreed with that aspect of it.

As far as the compulsory aspect of it is concerned, I perceived a problem that was very large — certainly historically, perhaps not large now — and I hoped it would do some good. So whether I'm right or wrong is, I suppose, neither here nor there. It's a question of motivation, which we talked about before. My support was motivated by the proposition that it would do some good.

I guess, just in my final remarks, Mr. Chairman, in answer to the member for Skeena, as he talked about many of the other methods that we had adopted over time to deal with some of these problems — methadone and so on.... One of the problems is that each program, as it comes along to deal with these difficulties, is hailed as the avant garde program that's going to solve all of the difficulties.

I can remember when methadone was put forward as being the ultimate answer to the heroin problem. You're going to get people off the addictive drug and onto a maintenance program, and then you're going to get them off the maintenance program and everything was going to be ticke-

[ Page 3327 ]

ty-boo. It just didn't work. But by the time we found out that it didn't work, we'd spent an awful lot of money and energy, and probably in the long run done an awful lot of harm.

I guess it goes back to what I said a moment ago, Mr. Chairman. I don't blame people because it didn't work out, because I think their motive was to try to solve the difficulty. It's very easy to turn back and blame. But more importantly, if we're going to approach these problems with a fear of being blamed later if our approach is the wrong one, then I don't think we'll ever come up with the inventive — innovative, if you will — programs that are going to be necessary to try and bring the problem under control.

MR. COCKE: I would like to comment on one or two of the things that the minister has said this afternoon in terms of the question of the Heroin Treatment Program. The fact that he vacillates in terms of the compulsory aspect of that treatment program and uses some arguments that I would consider somewhat specious in terms of his particular direction.... I can understand why he's embarrassed and I'm going to deal with that embarrassment in just a few minutes from now in terms of the minister responsible, You know, the minister talked about 20/20 hindsight a while ago in response to.... Oh well, now we can all look at it and say to ourselves: "Maybe we were wrong." We don't need 20/20 hindsight. We don't need it now and we didn't need it then. What we needed was 20/20 foresight. What we needed to do was find out if it had ever worked and it hadn't. Even the remotest trifling research would have shown that.

The minister says that methadone doesn't work and he's probably quite right. In most jurisdictions it doesn't, with the one exception of Dr. Dole's methadone program in New York. I'm not dealing with the compulsory treatment program in New York — that billion dollar mousetrap that was the major rathole of all of North America; I'm talking about Dr. Dole's particular program. He didn't use the carrot and the stick. He was very humane. What he admits, as well as every other expert on the subject, is that methadone is more physically debilitating than heroin. The reason we don't use heroin as a treatment program is because methadone is acceptable in the public's mind. All methadone is is a plastic imitation, synthetic heroin. That is really what it is, but we can get away with using it and we can't get away, in the public's mind, with using heroin. I would be very, very concerned with my own attitude and aptitude toward the problem if I were to get up and suggest the use of heroin, because I believe that people would gravitate to this particular area and we could get ourselves into a great deal of trouble. I go back to what I said in the first place: dry it up on the street and hopefully work with the people we have in a volunteer fashion, using our wits and using such programs as have been suggested by the Alcohol and Drug Commission that we set up.

Just before I get into the aspect that I think we should all deal with, I'd like to report to the House that I haven't got my two conflicting annual reports back from the minister. I'm embarrassed because I lent them to the minister and he hasn't seen fit to send them back. Oh, he's going to do that. I hope he's had all sorts of time to read them.

HON. MR. MAIR: I put ticks on all of them.

MR. COCKE: You put ticks on all of them so I won't know which is which. I want to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I've checked when the Supreme Court ruling came down; I am talking about the Supreme Court of B.C. That ruling by Mr. Justice McEachern came down on October 10, 1979. The report here is as of March 31, 1979. Obviously after March 31, 1979, the report was printed. Then they thought they'd better modify it before presenting it to the House and so we got a modified version presented to this House in April of 1980. I'm not squawking that the report's a year old. By the time we get it that's not unusual. I am saying the report was changed and it cost a lot of money, money squandered as usual in order to sort of clean up the act.

Mr. Chairman, where else has it been squandered? Well, we do a lot of talking about Brannan Lake. Here's just a little bit of a file on Brannan Lake. This is a file going over some of the history and some of the things that have happened out there. I'd like to discuss the Brannan Lake Residential Treatment Centre for a moment or two. This is the keystone, the integral part, of that master plan that was invented by the member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland) — the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources now, the then Minister of Health. This Brannan Lake Treatment Centre has had nothing but internal problems, staff hirings and firings, medical planning personnel and others coming and going. One of the firings concerned Dr. James Cornell of Nanaimo, who had been the centre's chic f medical doctor. It was claimed at the time of his dismissal that Dr. Cornell was being manipulated into giving addicts under treatment various medical and psychoactive drugs. He claimed that he was following a medication program laid out by the Ministry of Health at the time. So that's the kind of program that we're looking at.

We are looking at a program that was in such chaos they didn't even know within the Alcohol and Drug Commission, or within the ministry itself, just what was going on. What they did know, and it didn't take them long to learn, was what a disaster program they had started.

I won't go over history any more than I have to, other than to say that we stood in this House and warned and warned the government. We indicated to them that just a small amount of homework would have done — homework around what happened in Lexington and California.... I can remind you of a statement that I made here in 1976, where after having spent $80 million in Lexington, Kentucky, on a 20-year compulsory program.... The final report when they closed it down was what they had learned about compulsory treatment for drug addicts: first, that a compulsory drug treatment program does not work; second, that heroin addicts had a sweet tooth and they particularly liked chocolate cake. That was a lot of money to spend — $80 million — to find that out. California spent many times that amount, and New York has spent over $1 billion. Each and every time, every expert looking at the program told them: "It won't work." It didn't work. And then we had to reinvent the wheel here. What kind of wheel was it? A square wheel, and it doesn't work. I don't think that you'd put a square wheel on your automobile, Mr. Chairman. Nor, for that matter, would you put a square wheel on light rapid transit. That's precisely what we did in this Health ministry.

I believe that the opposition have go recourse other than to call for the resignation of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) — heaven help this province after what he's going to do to us there — due to the fact that he got us into a Heroin Treatment Program that was a monumental waste of money. It cost this government a good deal of embarrassment. How can we ask for

[ Page 3328 ]

anything less? If he won't quit he should be fired by the Premier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are on the estimates of the Minister of Health.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that is exactly the ministry that we're discussing. This minister is suffering the results of an ill-advised program set up by the former Minister of Health. He was duped into it.

This minister is also partly responsible and partly involved. He would like us to feel that he has had no hand in this proposition whatsoever. He signed an order-in-council, however, on March 3, 1980, which provided Mr. Hoskin — the author and one of the major contributors to this program — a $4,700 a year increase just before Mr. Hoskin resigned. I believe he resigned sometime in April. Do you know what the Minister of Health said then? He said: "He requires a much-needed rest, no doubt. He is over the age of retirement. " I suggest to that minister and the first minister that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) requires a much-needed rest. He should follow his friend Mr. Hoskin into retirement.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Would you pair with me while I go to rest?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I would consider pairing if I had not personally warned that minister a dozen times.... Over and over again we begged, suggested and cajoled. We said: "Don't get into a program that's bound to fail. Don't get into a program that's a monumental disaster." The minister alluded at that time to some successes in Japan. When you compared the two, there was no comparison whatsoever — and no success either. I understand that there was a successful heroin program in China. Unfortunately that was a compulsory program at the end of a gun. I don't think we would want to see that kind of situation here.

We said at the outset that a voluntary program would be an assist. We said that a voluntary program was needed for the whole spectrum of drug addiction, which included alcohol and all the other addictive drugs. We said that our research told us that it wouldn't work. Can you imagine, Mr. Chairman, what's going to happen to the energy resources in this province by the time that member gets through?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are on vote 114, the estimates for 1980-81. If we could stay with that, hon. member, it would be appreciated.

MR. COCKE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I suggest very strongly that the present Minister of Health is a victim of circumstances that were not of his creation. He's in an unfortunate position, handed a program that was doomed to failure before it started, a program that now he's asked to manage, and that he's trying to get out of by suggesting to his senior deputy minister that he should do an investigation. Now, Mr. Chairman, the minister said to us that he expects a report shortly. I suggest that he could give us a report right now, if he really wanted to.

MR. BRUMMET: Don't do it.

MR. COCKE: "And he won't do it," the member for North Peace River says, and so I guess maybe he won't.

MR. BRUMMET: I said, "don't."

MR. COCKE: But, Mr. Chairman, when that report comes down I hope it is made available to the members of this Legislature who have been very much involved in this entire program. How long have we been involved? We were involved in the beginning of this program when we were still in government, because all of a sudden out of the blue, the member for Langley at that time started promoting the program that he, once minister, put into place.

We also knew, Mr. Chairman, and so does the present minister, where he was getting his advice. I ask the present minister, Mr. Chairman, whether or not he still employs Judge Bewley as a consultant. Is he still a consultant for the Heroin Treatment Program — the judge who suggested not too very long ago that the incident around the Deputy Attorney-General was a minor affair?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Good judge, bad judge — I suggest he's a very bad judge of a treatment program for heroin addiction.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: He's probably faced more problems and disasters....

MS. BROWN: He's created more problems too.

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

MR. COCKE: The consultant to the Heroin Treatment Program, Judge Bewley, was the first choice of that government to do the redistribution. It was the second choice that got the job, but the first choice was Judge Bewley. Instead of that, he's a consultant to the program.

I would hope, first and foremost, that the present minister gets down to earth and very quickly puts us back to a point where we're no longer the laughing stock of the country, the continent and, for that matter, the world, with this crazy program invented for about the fortieth time in this province, copying program after program that failed. I would hope that the minister would get rid of it and get rid of it fast. We will have more confidence, because at that point we will feel that health care is being once again considered somewhat of a priority. It's been a joke that all that money, all those funds, were expended on a loser, while at the same time people in our province were having difficulty finding a bed in a hospital or getting elective surgery.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: You ought to know a loser, Dennis. It takes one to know one.

MR. COCKE: Well, you know, minister, I'll lose long after you do. You're losing next time, my friend, and I ain't. The Minister of Municipal Affairs has gone around and angered the entire country, and now finally his constituency has come to grips with him.

It isn't going to last. And I ask that minister to stand up tomorrow and tell us what he thinks about the Heroin Treatment Program. I ask any one of those government supporters or ministers to stand up in this House and tell us what he thinks about that Heroin Treatment Program. I have listened for the first time to some sense today from the present minister. But I haven't heard it up until now.

[ Page 3329 ]

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser), who is part of that problem between here and Seattle, shouldn't be saying anything in this House until he cleans up his own nest.

Mr. Chairman, we haven't seen the end of the debate on this particular program. We would like to see to it that the minister understands the problems with which he's confronted, which we've been informed of by our constituents both in and out of health care in every area in the province. We would like to have some answers around the programs — not dual programs within a community, but three programs in most major communities, all competing for the same patients. What a waste of money. What a waste of talent.

We would like to know why the Cadillac program is proselytizing the programs of the Alcohol and Drug Commission. We would like to know why the programs put on by non-profit societies, partly funded by the government, are being proselytized by the....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: What does that mean?

MR. COCKE: The minister would like an education, Mr. Chairman. I haven't got much time. That means stealing patients, for your edification.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, does it?

MR. COCKE: Yes, it does. Mr. Chairman, that minister should resign right now. That minister should know the meaning of the word. He doesn't even understand that. Mr. Chairman, he didn't understand what he was getting this province into in the first place.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'll tell Webster what you said. Shame on you.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, if Jack Webster feels today like he felt yesterday, then he's wrong too.

HON. MR. MAIR: I think it was Noah he was referring to.

MR. COCKE: He might have been referring to a number of Websters.

In any event, Mr. Chairman, in the world of words that man should go back to the library and check what any of the Websters might say about proselytizing.

I would hope that when we get in here tomorrow this Minister of Health will have talked his colleague into resigning, getting out of there, just for the anguish that he's caused not only him but everybody else in the province.

Mr. Chairman, he did it, and I'm glad.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

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

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, today the hon. member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) sought to move adjournment of the House pursuant to standing order 35, in order to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely the pre-build of the Alberta-U.S. border: section of the proposed Alaska gas pipeline. It has been ruled on a number of previous occasions that the statement of the matter must not contain debate nor import argument.

I note also that the estimates of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) have yet to be dealt with in Committee of Supply. As a normal legislative opportunity to discuss the matter will thus arise, the motion would also be out of order on this ground.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I challenge that ruling.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, the matter before us is not challengeable. It is not a ruling, and thus the Chair cannot be challenged on that particular item. That is my ruling.

MR. HOWARD: Then we need to make the other challenge, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are challenging my ruling on the ruling. There is a way. Hon. members, shall the ruling of the Chair be sustained?

Deputy Speaker's ruling sustained on the following division:

YEAS — 28

NAYS — 24

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

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to file answers to questions standing in my name on the order paper.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Williams moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:06 p.m.

[ Page 3330 ]

APPENDIX

21 Mr. Skelly asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following question:

Between January 1, 1976, and March 31, 1980, how many orders have been issued by the Director of Pollution Control, pursuant to section 13(g), Pollution Control Act, R.S.B.C. 1979, chapter 332, to whom were the orders issued and for what reasons?

The Hon. C.S. Rogers replied as follows:

"I am advised that while records may not be entirely accurate, only one order is known to have been issued pursuant to section 13(g) of the Pollution Control Act. This order was issued on April 27, 1978 to Pacific Coast Terminals Co. Ltd. to require the phase-out by December 31, 1978, of 13 untreated sanitary sewage discharges to the Fraser River at New Westminster which had been in existence for many years.

77 Mr. Skelly asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following questions:

1. What were the actual 1980 counts of elk in the East Kootenay as classified by cows, bulls, and calves as taken by flights over the region in February of each year?

2. What is the total number of elk in the East Kootenay this year as determined by Fish and Wildlife Branch counts?

3. What numbers of elk classified by bulls, cows, and calves are present in each of the following Management Units: MU 4-1, MU 4-2, MU 4-3, MU 4-20, MU 4-21, MU 4-22, MU 4-23, MU 4-24, MU 4-25, MU 4-26, and MU 4-34?

4. How many deer endorsements were authorized by the Fish and Wildlife Branch, Region 4, for 1979? What were the harvest returns on these endorsements?

The Hon. C.S. Rogers replied as follows:

"1. Elk surveys undertaken in the East Kootenay in February-March 1980 sighted 1,397 cows, 736 calves, and 156 bulls.

"2. According to Fish and Wildlife minimum population estimates for 1980, there are 12,005 elk in the East Kootenay.

"3. A detailed breakdown by bull, cow, and calf is unavailable. The minimum elk population estimates for 1980 in the Management Units specified by Mr. Skelly are as follows: MU 4-1, 765; MU 4-2, 615: MU 4-3, 600; MU 4-20, 1,000; MU 4-21, 1,050; MU 4-22, 1,680; MU 4-23, 3,000; MU 4-24, 460; MU 4-25, 460; MU 4-26, 765; and MU 4-34, 460.

"4. Full data on deer endorsements in Region 4 for 1979 is not available. However, comparable data is available for 1978. In 1978, 2,220 deer endorsements were issued in Region 4. A total of 560 deer were taken by hunters with endorsements representing a success ratio of 28 per cent."