[ Page 3695 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Application for North Delta neighbourhood pub. Mr. Levi –– 3695

Mr. Barrett –– 3696

Committee of Supply; Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs estimates. (Hon.

Mr. Nielsen)

On vote 44: minister's office –– 3697

Mr. Levi

Mr. Leggatt

Mr. Mussallem

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Nicolson

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Hyndman

Votes 44 to 53 inclusive approved –– 3717

Committee of Supply; Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services estimates. (Hon. Mr. Wolfe)

On vote 170: minister's office –– 3717

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Cocke

Mr. Lea

Tabling Documents

Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services annual report, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 3721

Appendix –– 3722

TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Prayers.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: In the gallery today are a group of 31 Japanese university students. They are here on a cultural exchange program, visiting the great constituency of Delta at Tsawwassen. They are being hosted by families in the Tsawwassen area, and are participating in English language lessons daily, given by qualified teachers. I know the House will be very pleased to welcome each and every one of them, and also the co-ordinator of the program, Phoebe Hamilton.

MR. KING: In the gallery today are a couple from the fair city of Cranbrook, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Mathias, who have been long-time New Democratic Party workers in that area. Undoubtedly they are here to watch the performance of the House and to report on the conduct of the little people in this institution. I wish the House would welcome them.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the House to welcome a young man from Nanoose Bay visiting today, Mr. Michael Orrick.

MR, BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, to our Japanese guests, in extending the opposition's welcome too, may I say watakushi wa honto ni arigato desu.

Interjection.

MR, BARRETT: It tells them how to vote.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) is not in his seat today, because it is a very important day in his life. He and his wife Kay are today celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary, and the member almost had that long a gap between his first election and his return to this House. Mrs. Mitchell, we all know, was at one time an attendant in the House as well. We wish them the very best for today and their future. They've had a very happy marriage to this point. I hope that nothing they experience in this chamber will alter that experience.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, visiting the gallery today is the Hon. Don Johnston, the president of the federal Treasury Board. I gather that Mr. Johnston and his wife and children are enjoying some lovely British Columbia sunshine, and I'd like to extend to him a very warm western greeting on behalf of all of the members.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join with me in welcoming today Mayor Gus Boersma from Fernie, Alderman Frank Lento and city clerk and administrator Ian Turner. I would also like to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Mathias to the precinct this afternoon.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Speaker, also in your gallery today is Mr. Lloyd Manuel who many of you know as the executive vice-president of the B.C. Hotels' Association, and I'd ask you all to welcome him. I'm sure he's here on a lot of business, and some of it's probably a bit frothy.

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I think it's very appropriate that as Minister of Health I should ask the House to join me in welcoming back to the chamber the member for Coquitlam-Moody, who has been, as you know, ill. We're very pleased to see that he is back and that he's well, and I'm delighted to be relieved of the obligation of giving his leader legal advice. He was getting along very well with it, but now he can go back to your bad legal advice. Welcome back, Stuart. We all missed you.

MR. LEGGATT: I only wish to add to that my thanks to the many members who sent me cards and to say that reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated.

Oral Questions

APPLICATION FOR NORTH
DELTA NEIGHBOURHOOD PUB

MR. LEVI: To the Minister of Health, it's memory time. Can the minister tell the House whether it is a fact that on or about May 3, 1978, he wrote to Mr. Pridie rejecting an appeal for a neighbourhood pub licence in the following terms: "For the past year our policy has been strongly opposed to neighbourhood public houses in shopping centres. While some exceptions to this rule remain in the form of previously licensed establishments, we intend to stay firmly by this policy guideline in the future." Does the minister recall sending this letter?

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, I'd have to ask your guidance as to whether or not I must answer questions of previous responsibility. Because I do happen to be able to answer this one very simply, I will, but I'll ask your guidance thereafter. My simple answer to you now is that I simply can't remember, but somewhere in the files of the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs I assume that some letter exists.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Beauchesne's 5th edition states, and I quote for the edification of all members: "A question must be within the administrative competence of the government. The minister to whom the question is directed is responsible to the House for his present ministry, and not for any decision taken in a previous portfolio."

MR. LEVI: Mr. Speaker, the minister has a selective memory. Last week he remembered a memo that was sent in 1976 regarding Mr. Ellsay, Doesn't he remember this one?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member.

MR. LEVI: A question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Is it a fact that you approved a liquor licence for a neighbourhood pub in a shopping centre on 88th Avenue and 120th Street in North Delta, and was the applicant a Mr. Gerry Olma, a key Social Credit organizer in Delta?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'm not quite sure what that question means. Perhaps it is a matter of where the punctuation goes. Is the member asking me if Mr. Olma is a key Social Credit organizer in Delta?

MR. LEVI: We'll try it again.

[ Page 3696 ]

MR. BARRETT: What is your name?

MR. LEVI: Are you the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs? Why are you the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs?

We'll try again, slowly. Is it a fact that the minister approved a liquor licence for a neighbourhood pub in a shopping centre at 88th Avenue and 120th Street in North Delta? That's one question. Do you want to try that one first?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, pre-clearance was granted.

MR. LEVI: Can the minister tell the House whether the applicant, Mr. Gerry Olma, is a key Social Credit organizer in Delta?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: No, I can't tell you that, Mr. Speaker.

MR. LEVI: The member doesn't know. Can the minister tell us this? Did he meet with the hon. member for Delta (Mr. Davidson) and Mr. Olma — who had worked on the campaign of the member for Delta — to discuss an application for a licence?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I have no recollection of such a meeting.

MR. LEVI: Is the minister saying, Mr. Speaker, that he did not meet with the member for Delta and Mr. Olma? I'd like to get that clear.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I have no recollection of any such meeting. The only time, I think, that the principals, the member and myself were perhaps together was at the appeal.

MR. LEVI: Can the minister tell the House if he received a request for an application from a Mr. Jerry Pridie in respect to a neighbourhood pub licence in substantially the same area as the one that Mr. Olma paid for? Did the minister receive such an application?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I have no record of receiving such an application. Applications are made to the branch rather than to the minister; the minister only becomes involved when there is an appeal of a rejection. It's possible that this gentleman made an application to the general manager.

MR. LEVI: Can the minister tell the House whether he had any representations by a Social Credit MLA on behalf of Mr. Pridie in respect to his application? Does he recall that?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: No, I do not recall that.

MR. BARRETT: When he granted the appeal to the successful applicant, was the minister aware that a Mr. Pridie had previously applied to the department for substantially the same location for a pub and had been turned down? Was he aware that there had been an application by someone else prior to his granting the appeal to the subsequent successful applicant?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I don't recall that being introduced as evidence during the appeal; we'd have to check the recording of that appeal. The appeal dealt with three issues, none of which was to do with previous applications in the area. I don't recall that being brought forward as a major part of the appeal.

MR. BARRETT: Can the minister tell us who from the liquor control board was present at the appeal?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: No, I'm afraid I don't have the people's names with me. It would be a matter of record. I believe, from my memory of the appeal, that the inspector for the area was there, and either the general manager or the deputy general manager.

MR. BARRETT: Can the minister state whether or not at any time, during the appeal, after the appeal or before the appeal, he was notified that a certain Mr. Pridie had made a similar application, which had already been denied, for a pub in that location — by anyone before, during or after the appeal?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Not so that I recall this as being an item that was brought up. It's possible it could have been mentioned, but it's not a point that has stayed with me as being important to that appeal.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the minister stated it's possible that point was made to him. Would it not occur to the minister, if the point was made to him, that a cabinet colleague, who previously held that position, had granted...?

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Well, did it not occur to the minister, if he had learned about it. to check why the original application by Mr. Pridie was turned down?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of appeals which take place under this particular act, and there have been applications denied previously in certain locations where someone at least has been successful in an appeal; and there have been occasions where part of the application. by way of information to the person hearing the appeal, is that previous applications have been turned down. Notwithstanding that information, some appeals have been successful.

I might point out, Mr. Speaker, that the appeal, which is heard by either myself or my deputy minister, bases itself on the specific application, Sometimes there are many circumstances as to why a person may or may not be successful in his or her application, some of which may be previous rejections in the area; but it is not always that way.

MR. BARRETT: I'd like to ask the minister if he knows of any other appeal successfully pursued through the appeal process that was initiated by a brand-new applicant for the

[ Page 3697 ]

same project, when the original applicant for the same project was turned down — both in the original application and the appeal. Is there any other case where someone else has taken up the same project and been successful where a previous attempt by another person was turned down on appeal?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd have to check the records to find out if such a precise situation has occurred. However, I understand that in this particular instance we're not looking at the same proposal. My understanding is that the application, which was successful by way of pre-clearance, was for a separate building — not necessarily the same building, although the location may have been close. I also understand that the previous application by Mr. Pridie was turned down twice by Delta council, so I don't think the circumstances are identical.

MR. LEA: I thought you didn't know anything about that one.

MR. BARRETT: I want to ask the minister how long it takes for him to continue to recall. Earlier he didn't recall having had this brought to his attention; now he's admitted that he knows that the council turned it down twice. Did your memory just recount that now?

I have another question as well. Maybe you can pull yourself together and be a little more sober on this.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: Sober thoughts, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister: when did he change the previous minister's policy that no pubs were to be located in an area such as this, where the applicant was successful on the second application — a shopping centre?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: In response to the member's questions, I do not have information before me as to whether I have been advised of Mr. Pridie's application. I referred to his inability to be successful twice because that material was provided to me. For the member's information I'll read the balance of the information with respect to Mr. Pridie, which was provided to me just prior to entering the House today. I am advised that Mr. Pridie is a former vice-president of the North Delta ratepayers' and also a former vice-president of Delta NDP constituency.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BARRETT: Is that a factor? Oh!

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I am advised that Mr. Pridie was before council in 1976-77, wanted to rezone property next to the catholic church to put up a pub, and was twice unanimously turned down by the council, because his proposal was a kind of ramshackle affair. The reason council considered Olma's application favourably was that the entire shopping centre was completely rebuilt and it was a different situation. The location where Mr. Pridie wanted to have his pub is apparently an old rundown building which was also the NDP campaign office. [Laughter.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

MR. LEVI: I really appreciate the minister's sense of recall. We started out asking and he didn't have any answers. Now he puts in all sorts of stuff we don't want to know about! [Laughter.] But what we have from the minister now is a policy of "NDPers need not apply." I think that's what he's saying.

Is it still the minister's policy that neighbourhood pub licences will not be granted in shopping centre areas?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The general rule is that we will not consider applications for neighbourhood pubs as a tenant in a shopping centre. Notwithstanding that, there are applications whereby it may be for a separate building near a shopping centre area, but not part of the shopping centre. The general rule is that they will not be considered, but each application must be considered on its own merits.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe tabled an answer to question 72 on the order paper.

HON. MR. SMITH: May I have leave to make an introduction, Mr. Speaker?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. SMITH: I want to introduce a colleague of mine, Joan Stephens, who is in your gallery. She is an alderwoman in the district of Campbell River.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS

On vote 44: minister's office, $140,092.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, before I make a few introductory remarks I would like members of the House to recognize two of my staff who are to assist me today, deputy minister Peter Bazowski and legal counsel Mr. David Edgar.

Last year I had the pleasure to address the members of the assembly with respect to the ministry. During that time we spoke about initiatives which we were proposing to improve the administrative services offered by the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Most of these initiatives have been implemented, although not all have been completed. Indeed, we are very pleased with the progress so far.

Our ministry is primarily one of administration and regulation. We have quite successfully reorganized our financial, personnel and administrative functions into one unit reporting through our executive management services directly to the deputy. We have also reorganized our policy, legislation and programming planning functions into a single branch. Computerized information systems were introduced into the companies branch; brokers, real estate and insurance office; liquor control and licensing branch; debtor assistance branch; office of the rentalsman: and the Rent Review Commission.

In the field of consumer services we have had reasonable success in pursuing certain matters on behalf of the consum-

[ Page 3698 ]

ing public. We were able to reach an agreement with General Motors on substitute-engines compensation to 300 B.C. consumers. We continue to test-shop television and automotive repair services and prosecute dishonest suppliers. We have noted a marked improvement in the number of cases requiring investigation, particularly in the television repair field. We're somewhat optimistic about achieving a similar improvement in the automotive repair field with the formation of the CAR-WARE automotive repair watchdog that was created in late 1979. By far the greatest number of complaints in our consumer storefront offices are to do with the automobile.

We completed 19 enforcement proceedings in 1979; we are carrying 14 in 1980. We have adopted a new enforcement policy to give us greater flexibility. Our new policy is not a drastic departure from the previous approach. The revised policy encourages a more varied use of the civil remedies provided in the Trade Practice Act, and is therefore much easier to administer.

The greatest emphasis this past year in our consumer affairs program had to do with education. We are attempting to direct our efforts towards younger consumers. To this end the ministry was able to obtain two grants from the committee for the Year of the Child and Family. With these grants we prepared an audio-visual presentation to assist younger consumers: "IOU — Responsible Use of Credit," for high school students; and a game for elementary school children on how to budget and manage money. Both were very well received. In the hopes of educating consumers on some of their more common problems, we have developed a regular "Consumer Action" column which appears in many papers throughout the province.

I think it would be of general interest to members to know that one of the most serious problems we have in the province, relative to the consumer, is debt and what we refer to as debt abuse. Statistics reveal that every man and woman in British Columbia owes between $1,500 and $2,000 in consumer debt.

We're pleased to report that as a result of initiatives undertaken by the ministry, credit granters have agreed to address the problem by participating in the development of free debt-counselling services throughout the province. Our rationale is that those who are responsible for granting consumer credit should have some responsibility in assisting those who find themselves in difficulties because of that debt. Banks, credit unions, finance companies, department stores and other creditors in the province have begun to help provide free assistance to over committed debtors. We're operating pilot counselling programs in Trail and Dawson Creek and we expect to expand very soon to other areas of the province.

On another consumer topic, we've persuaded one bank and one major credit union to revise their consumer loan forms, in terms of language — to use plain English in stating consumer rights and obligations — and we look forward to expanding that.

Another step forward was taken with the proclamation of section 38 of the Consumer Protection Act, giving consumers increased protection when they sign food plan contracts. Recognizing the importance of providing consumer services in areas of the province not serviced by a consumer centre, our grants last year totalled $160,000. Our government consumer offices provide extensive consumer services to the public of British Columbia, including mediation for consumers unable to resolve the problems they have. Last year our consumer officers and aides handled more than 7,300 cases. It helped consumers receive nearly $640,000 in rebates.

Mr. Chairman, studies were carried out last year by the University of Victoria school of public administration on the complaint-handling services of our consumer centres. One of the most heartening aspects of these studies was the high level of satisfaction expressed by consumers who had used the services of the storefronts.

Another consumer satisfaction study was carried out earlier this year with a larger sample, and very positive results resulted from the study, showing that increases in all levels of satisfaction occurred, ranging from satisfaction with the knowledge of the staff to satisfaction with the time taken to resolve a complaint. Thirty-nine percent of those consumers had an income of less than $15,000 a year, while 43 percent had incomes between $15,000 and $25,000 a year.

Mr. Chairman, consumer affairs legislation priority for the future will be the completion of a new consumer code, which will combine nine existing acts and incorporate amendments yet to be determined. Such consolidation will be a great convenience to the business and legal community and will assist consumers in knowing their rights and obligations.

The other part of our ministry is the corporate side. Our main objective last year was to introduce the corporate side to the electronic age for record-keeping and dispersal of information. After detailed development, planning and design an extensive computerized system was implemented in the companies office to manage its labour-intensive functions. Accordingly, electronic retrieval systems are now in place with the corporation registry, name reservation and name search activities. We hope that some of these electronic gadgets will very soon catch up to the pace at which we've been retrieving information manually for so many years. It's a matter of ironing out some of the bugs. On March 1 the new system was fully operational, although it will take two full years before all files have been converted.

The rapid growth of business activity continued last year at the rate of 15 percent per annum. As a result there are an estimated 18 million document entries in the companies office and two million in the central registry. To handle the workload more efficiently we're currently exploring the feasibility of introducing a microfilm system. There are approximately 170,000 active and 100,000 inactive files.

In the area of securities we distributed a discussion paper to the public on a proposal for a new Securities Act featuring a two-tiered system. The reason for adopting a two-tiered system is that Vancouver has many more junior resource companies than other jurisdictions and these companies require a different set of rules and more surveillance than do industrial companies. At the same time we recognize the need to conform to the uniform Securities Act being adopted by other provinces, and our proposal has received very positive reaction from the Ontario Securities Commission and others.

On administrative improvements, we've introduced smoother and quicker licensing procedures to make it easier for real estate agents, salesmen, mortgage brokers, investment dealers and insurance agents to deal with us. Another benefit of the system is that it protects the public interest by

[ Page 3699 ]

providing the superintendent of brokers with more detailed information about such applicants.

Mr. Chairman, another major important responsibility of the ministry is the credit union movement in the province. With assets exceeding $4 billion, it's perhaps the most vibrant in Canada and includes the world's largest credit union. The government demonstrated its confidence in the movement by providing $200 million worth of mortgage money for distribution through this channel — through credit unions. Of course, the movement took part in the distribution of BCRIC shares last year. But because of its commitment to consumer lending, the movement, like all others, is vulnerable to today's rapidly inflating interest rates. Accordingly, we will be initiating changes to help credit unions build their statutory reserve base over a period of time.

In the office of the rentalsman and the Rent Review Commission, Mr. Chairman, we have further amended the Residential Tenancy Act, which will extend rent review procedures. We believe that rent review, as opposed to rent control, is a preferred method to address the serious rental situation in the province today.

Mr. Chairman, no matter which route we take, or what the pressures may be which we apply, one of our major concerns is that the bargaining power of landlords and tenants be equalized. From the tenant's point of view, we have raised the ceiling on rents that may be appealed and extended protection to permanent residents in boarding houses, hotels and motels. From the landlord's point of view, we are anxious to move away from bureaucracy and ensure that there are no financial losses due to technical errors in the rentalsman's office. We have made amendments to simplify the security deposit system, traditionally a source of headaches to the industry, and reduced the number of forms that landlords must handle. These latter changes are not aimed at taking away any tenant rights, but rather at making it easier for landlords to work with the rentalsman and function in accordance with the act.

In our responsibilities in the area of liquor control and distribution, we are examining changes in regulations to support the development of cottage wineries and provide for expanded private merchandising of beverage alcohol products. There are two cottage wineries in operation in the province, and both seem to be very successful.

The liquor control and licensing branch was reorganized last year to help us focus our energies more directly on the problems of liquor administration. Computer support systems are in the developmental stages, which will improve administrative efficiency and streamline licensing procedures. In liquor distribution, we now have agency stores in most outlying communities that meet branch guidelines; but I favour extending these agency stores to even more communities. Needless to say, these stores provide a service that would not otherwise be available in the more remote areas of the province.

To support the province's grape and wine industries, we have granted marketing advantages to local products. Our wine policy is not a subsidy, but rather the application of new approaches to marketing. Some of the advantages accorded B.C. products include giving local producers 25 percent of all available shelf space in government liquor stores, allowing the introduction of new B.C. products in more than one size and a specified permitted number of listings for our wineries.

Mr. Chairman, my ministry continues to act in the best interests of consumers, the renters, the investors and borrowers. We look to greater activity in the perfection of more efficient procedures as we progress this year.

MR. LEVI: It was my intention to start off by talking about scanners, but I guess we'd better go back to some of the substance of the question period so that I can get one or two things clarified now and we can have a little give and take in the debate.

The minister, presumably, was reading from a document. During question period I think he did quote from a document. Perhaps he could tell me what document he was reading from. Would he be good enough to tell me that? He quoted from a document about Mr. Pridie and his political affiliation. What was he reading from?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: A yellow piece of paper.

MR. LEVI: It was a yellow piece of paper. Would you like to table it so that we can see what is on this yellow piece of paper? You were not quoting from the file? You just made some quick notes? You didn't make any quick notes. Slow notes? It's very difficult to get answers out of this minister. We've only just started and he's already denying me the right to know.

I want to pursue. first of all, the....

AN HON. MEMBER: Another longhand amendment?

MR. LEVI: Well, I can oblige. We put your legislators to the test the other day. My gosh, they earned their money. It was only three words.

I'd like to discuss with the minister the question of the electronic scanners. I want not to go over the debate we had during one of the bills, but specifically to be critical of the minister in respect of the things he did not do in the interests of the consumer which interestingly enough were done in the province of Ontario by his colleague the minister down there.

I'd like to draw the minister's attention to a statement made in the Ontario Legislature on June 19, 1980, by Hon. Frank Drea, Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, when he released a study he had done: "Interim Report on Computerized Checkout Systems in Food Markets in Ontario, June 1980." In winding up his comments, the minister said that the ministry continues to keep before it the interests of debtors and consumers. I continue to be very critical of the minister in respect to what we have to refer to as a scanner scam. In other debate we have heard the minister make reference to the right of supermarkets to bring in the scanner, which is a kind of computerized checking operation. I have no disagreement with the right of supermarkets to do this if it's an aid to their business. That's fine, and they're perfectly within their right to do it. What I do object to and will continue to object to, particularly in view of the minister's statements of last week, is the whole question of whether the prices should be on the goods and not just on the shelves.

In Mr. Drea's statement to the Ontario Legislature he said:

"Today I would like to table the interim report on the computerized checkout system in food supermarkets in Ontario. The members will recall that in my statement on computerized checkouts last December, I said we would review very carefully the use of the computerized checkouts in Ontario, and report on our research before this session ends."

[ Page 3700 ]

Just as a digression, Mr. Chairman, we have had no such report from the minister in British Columbia. He told us that they've looked at it, but no such report was done. It's an issue here as it is in Ontario. Mr. Drea goes on to say:

"I also indicated in that statement that the ultimate decision on the operation of computerized checkouts lies with the consumer, not with the industry or with the government. The interim report on computerized checkout systems in Ontario is the result of a survey in London, Ottawa and Stoney Creek and input from consumer organizations, labour and industry."

I think this demonstrates, at least in Ontario, where they have the same questions being raised in respect to scanners, that they decided to do a study, which was subsequently made public.

Mr. Drea goes on:

"I think a little background explanation is in order here. The use of computerized checkout systems in some Ontario supermarkets has made it technically possible to eliminate marking prices on individual food items. Instead, the price can be determined at the checkout counter by using electronic scanning equipment — the Universal Product Code markings on food products and the store's computer price file. " That is a description of the operation. Under this arrangement, shoppers have to rely on shop prices — I and basically that is the issue we are dealing with here. As I've said before, you don't spend 15 years educating the shopper to do comparison shopping and make note of the price on the goods and then suddenly have to retrain the shopper to go back to the shelf price.

Mr. Drea goes on:

"Under this arrangement, shoppers have to rely on shelf price markers in the store and on itemized tape receipts for price information. The result has been some concern regarding the possible abuses of the computerized prices-off system, such as more frequent changes in food prices and price increases on all stock to match prices on new shipments. The food industry, on the other hand, is convinced of the benefits of larger shelf labels and expanded tape receipts. They maintain that these will compensate for the lack of item price marking."

He continues to make a number of observations, but I want to go to the end of his statement where he talks about the study itself:

"Mr. Speaker, my ministry endeavours to ensure that consumers have access to full, accurate and up-to-date information essential to making informed purchasing decisions."

This is the key question: informed consumer decisions in respect to purchases.

"As a result of the technological developments, many interested groups have come out strongly against the removal of prices from individual food items. The Consumers Association of Canada's position is that consumers want and need item prices to compare and to detect errors in the store and at home. They feel that the item price is a consumer right, and they favour legislative solution.

"To determine how consumers actually feel about item pricing, we surveyed 900 consumers. The major results of this survey are as follows."

I will digress for a moment. The ministry initiated the survey. In this province, the survey was initiated by the Consumers Association of Canada. There was a further attempt at a survey through the Vancouver Sun, in which a coupon was printed in the paper and people were asked to reply. There were about 4,000 responses. However, the ministry felt that the question was a strong enough one from the public — albeit initially from some of the consumer advocates, but later on from people who were concerned about it — that they initiated a study, which I think is very much a function of a department of Consumer Affairs.

If they want to be able to argue the point for or against.... Bear in mind, Mr. Chairman, that this minister has argued for not interfering with the corporate right about prices; that's the position he has taken. The prices can stay off; he has no intention of making them put them on. Mr. Drea goes on to say:

"Consumers have a strong preference for keeping item prices on, although computerized checkouts and the elimination of item-price markings are not significant factors in consumers' overall evaluation of the test stores. Almost 90 percent — 87.9 percent — of respondents, when asked the question directly, said that it is important to keep prices on. Only 6 percent of the respondents favoured a computerized prices-off system, and the remainder were about equally divided between the computerized and manual system so long as the prices remained on the items.

"Although respondents recognized the benefits of the new technology — greater efficiency, more accurate pricing and expanded information on the tape receipts — they questioned whether this increased efficiency would translate into lower food prices. "

Mr. Chairman, that is also a fundamental question in the introduction of this. We've been told by the stores that to introduce these machines costs around $350,000. Presumably, from the point of view of the supermarket, it adds to their efficiency; there are many, many advantages to it, and nobody will deny them the advantages. After all, it assists them in inventory control; they say it's faster in terms of the checkout. The question is: why is it that they want to enter into a dispute with the consumer about removing the prices from the goods? The argument is that it's another cost factor; if you introduce the scanners and have to keep the prices on the goods, it's more expensive. We have not been told by the supermarkets just what savings they have or what additional profit they can make from the introduction of the scanners — and I want to go into that in a moment, as soon as I finish Mr. Drea's remarks.

I want to go back to Mr. Drea's statement:

"Most respondents found that comparative shopping and price verification are more difficult in those stores which do not have item pricing. In other words, what consumers have told us is they are not now in favour of removing the prices from individual items. Before everyone begins asking me what I intend to do about electronic checkouts, let me ask the real question: what is the supermarket industry going to do about it? And I want to know what they're going to do about it by August 1."

Now, Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure whether you're familiar with Mr. Drea, but he has a penchant for, sometimes, hyperbole. He's a very interesting man. He has had about

[ Page 3701 ]

four portfolios, I think, in the present government in Ontario, and in each one of them he rattles chains and upsets people. He's a kind of an interesting man. However, where he differs from the present minister is that he's taken the trouble to initiate the study to find out how consumers feel about this.

Now I want to talk about the scanners from another point of view. Previously I have argued and debated, from the point of view of the consumer, the necessity of why the prices should remain on. But what I want to look at now is the other side of the question. What are the advantages to the supermarkets? Presumably they don't go into this very heavy investment unless there are some advantages, and I'd like to quote from an article that appeared in the Canadian Grocer, May 1980. As you know, the Canadian Grocer is the journal for the smaller independent stores. This is not the supermarket news; this is the smaller people who are trying to stay alive. The article is entitled: "Suppliers Can Reap Scanning Benefits Too." We should look at what some of the benefits are. The speaker is a Dr. Edward M. Tauber, senior vice president, Dancer, Fitzgerald, Sample Inc. He was addressing the Grocery Products Manufacturers of Canada:

"Expressing his belief that most retailers would not use scanner-generated data against manufacturers...is confirmed by the fact that several U.S. retail chains using scanners are already selling their data directly to manufacturers or to market-research houses. Tauber offered some insight as to how manufacturers could best make use of the data."

Let me give you an example of what the stores can do, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. members. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam has the floor, and there seems to be considerable background noise. I wonder if members would accord to him the usual courtesies of debate.

MR. LEVI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the cases that Mr. Tauber gave was this: "The plan was to determine what products would best be served by cross-couponing." Now let me explain what they were doing. The scanner data, which goes into the machine after they do the checkout.... What they were able to do in one survey was to take 120,000 shopping baskets that were analyzed from the checkout tapes — it's all in the computer; you press a few buttons and you can find out an enormous amount of information.... It goes on to say:

"Scanner data on 120,000 shopping baskets was analyzed to determine what products tended to be purchased most with each other. It was shown that someone buying diet margarine often bought low-cal dressing. The indication therefore was that there was the likelihood of some success in cross-couponing promotion using the two products."

Put a coupon on one, because when it's low-fat margarine people will get some of the low-cal kind of thing.

What the supermarkets have done.... They now have at hand, as a result of these scanners, data and equipment, access to an enormous amount of information which can only help them in their marketing practices, and presumably increase their volume and profits. We have no discussion whatsoever, no information from the industry, as to what's coming back to the consumer. It's my presumption that nothing is coming back to the consumer, that the introduction of the scanners is simply an efficiency method for them. They're entitled to do that; they're entitled to use it for whatever research they want. They have access to an enormous amount of information. They can program their equipment in such a way that they can understand exactly what the basic purchases of 100,000 people are, or whatever number go through that store. It helps them continually in the whole issue of marketing, and in their profit picture.

I don't understand why it is that the minister takes the position that he does in respect to not requiring that the prices be on the goods. I do not agree with either his argument or the supermarket argument that somehow a cost factor is involved. They haven't said exactly what it is, but we know from the responses of one survey done in British Columbia that most consumers would be prepared to pay half a cent more on each item simply to keep the prices on the goods.

There is no way the minister can escape from facing the issue by simply saying that he's not about to regulate or have a whole army of bureaucrats running around. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about his adequately examining what's taking place in the marketplace with these scanners. We accept that this is something — in terms of the installation of the scanners — that is entirely up to the supermarket. But there is the question which he is responsible for in terms of what happens to the consumer. That's what he's there for. When he finished his remarks he said that they continue to have before them the interests of the consumer. I suggest to you that he does not have the interests of the consumer before him when he is not prepared to take a position in respect to these scanners and the prices. That's the fundamental issue. He has not made available to this House the information on which he bases his opinions. He has not taken the trouble to do what they did in Ontario, which was to do a survey and to make some inquiries. I don't know what Mr. Drea is going to do. It's past August 1; we'll have to phone down and find out. But at least you have to make the information available. He has not done that. I don't think he really gave the Consumers Association of Canada, when he met them in Vancouver, the courtesy of reviewing the information that they made available to him.

We're dealing here with an industry that in this province has sales of more than $2 billion. It's a continuing growth industry. There's always the argument about how much profit the food industry does make. They keep telling us they make a cent or less on the dollar. But then there's the other argument: what are they looking at? Do you look at the profit in terms of the investment, or do you look at the profit in terms of volume? It's a growth industry.

We can't throw away almost 20 years. It is almost 20 years since the late Senator Hart first started to do some real advocacy work down in the United States, which worked itself up over the border. Consumer education and the idea of consumer departments is not a new question. This didn't simply sneak up on us over the past two or three years. This was an issue on which the warning signals were going up in 1974 and 1975, when the first Minister of Consumer Affairs, the former member of this House for Vancouver–Little Mountain, Phyllis Young, first raised some of the questions about it. If these machines are going to be introduced and it's somehow going to affect the marking, of prices, then we're going to see a setback in the industry.

I do not understand the minister's position at all. It's almost as if he's protecting the supermarkets. They don't need any protection; they're big enough. Some of them have

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multinational power, But he's not protecting the interests of the consumer. It's interesting that many of the small stores, and also the people who provide for the publishing of Canadian Grocer, have gone to a lot of trouble to understand the phenomena of scanners, which they've started to analyze. We have not yet got from the supermarkets the advantages that accrue to them. We're not talking about a faster checkout; we're talking about the introduction of a highly sophisticated vehicle which can only add to their efficiency and profit picture. But they haven't said any of that. The only thing they keep harping on is that we have better inventory control.

But we don't know, for instance, about the change of prices that can take place sometimes on an hour-to-hour basis. We don't know whether that happens or not. That was raised during Mr. Drea's survey. We don't want to get into the food business in terms of all sorts of regulations; we regulate certain aspects of the food business. It's very simple for the minister to make a decision. He doesn't have to have a whole army of bureaucrats; he simply has to sit down in the quiet of his office and balance the advantages of the supermarkets against what is considered to be a distinct disadvantage in terms of the consumer. That's all it is. It's an attempt for him to subscribe to the protection of the consumer and he doesn't want to do that.

I'd like to ask the minister — if we can engage in some debate about this — why he feels compelled to stay out of this picture. It's not good enough. The name of the game is not to look at your mail every day to see whether in fact you're getting a series of complaints. We know lots of people that never write who complain. We know there are some values to the use of surveys and poll-taking. Most political parties live and breathe on the basis of poll-taking. Well, it's a useful vehicle. With respect to this issue, poll-taking is very important.

Later on down the road it could very well happen that if the minister persists with the position that he's not going to interfere and say that the prices have to stay on, then he may have to reconsider his position. At the moment we only have 16 of them in the province, but at the rate they're increasing, both in the United States and Canada, we could have all of the stores having them in a matter of two or three years. All consumers will be subject to this operation and then the complaints will increase, because you're covering a much larger group of people.

So I would ask the minister what has led him to the position that he's in now, that he's not prepared to interfere. Given the fact that he's got Mr. Drea's study — I'm sure he has it, and if he hasn't, I'll send him my copy as long as he sends it back to me — why is he not prepared to change his mind on this situation? It's no good looking at your mail. That's not the be-all and end-all of everything that's going on in the community. This decision has to be made on the basis of the facts, on the basis of what's taken place over the last 15 years and what is for the general good.

In this case, because he's the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, we're dealing with one side of his portfolio. We always have difficulty, because they lump the corporate and the consumer side in, which can obviously create problems for a minister wearing two hats, because he has to sit down and, as the Minister of Consumer Affairs, has to ask himself, as the Minister of Corporate Affairs: "Is there an equity here?" No, there isn't an equity. There is not an equity if he persists in his decision that he is not prepared to say to the supermarket: "Keep the prices on."

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

If they continue to do this, at some later date, if they can demonstrate that they've brought it in, I'd like them to be able to tell us one day just how much more money they've made as a result of this, because they are going to make more money; their volumes are going to increase, because their marketing techniques are going to improve. Later on it may be that the consumers will be prepared to forgo having the price on, but generally speaking, to the people I talk to — and I speak to as many people as possible when I go into supermarkets — there is a problem. When you go around and shop, look at something you've bought and have gone to the third aisle and you can't remember what you paid for it, what do you do? Do you have to go all the way back to look at the shelf to see what you paid for it? People do shop that way. What he's doing by his failure to interfere is changing people's shopping habits again. After all, we spent a long time educating people in this.

Can the minister tell us how he's arrived at the decision that he is not going to interfere in this, and on what does he base this?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, with respect to our scanner debate and the controversy surrounding it, I think the member is being somewhat general when he says all the minister has to do is say: "We want the prices to stay on." Granted a minister can say that, but it means very, very little unless the companies, corporations and stores follow that suggestion. For the minister to have really anything to say about it would require legislation. It would require statutory powers and the regulatory powers that stem from that.

Any Ministry of Consumer Affairs in Canada that takes the step to legislate requirements for individual pricing will be faced with the bill which they must produce and the regulations that will go with it. Any ministry must then decide who will be exempted from the regulations or the statute. They will then have to decide which items will be exempted from the regulation or statute, whether to determine that only certain corporations must comply, or whether anyone offering goods for sale to the public must comply, whether it should apply only to food, whether it should apply only to processed food, not bulk food, whether it should apply to all items in supermarkets including the non-food items. Then they must determine whether it should only be supermarkets, and they must define what is a supermarket.

They have to decide whether corner stores should be brought in. They have to decide whether service stations, lumber merchants, home repair service centres and anyone else who is offering goods to the public should be brought in. Someone must decide at some time how broad the application may be. There are literally dozens of food items offered for sale which have never been individually priced by custom. There are many stores which do not individually price their goods, nor have they ever done so.

You must bring in legislation that requires people to perform and you're going to have to have a list of exemptions as long as your arm. Then we must look at enforcement. If we require that each merchant itemize each individual product offered for sale, and upon investigating we look at 100 cans of beans and find two not priced, presumably we then charge him with two offences under the Summary Convictions Act, I suppose — up to $2,000 for each can not marked.

[ Page 3703 ]

The problem is that no province in Canada has put together legislation and proclaimed it. Quebec has produced a statute, but they have not proclaimed it. No other province has attempted this. One state in the United States has —Michigan. The others have not.

Mr. Chairman, it is not a matter of taking sides on the issue vis-a>-vis the consumers versus companies. There are certain obligations the government has with respect to consumers and their purchasing, and the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs takes it very seriously. We try to create statutes and regulations that would protect consumers from any abuse, fraud or misrepresentation. Our various statutes provide avenues for consumers to follow should they feel they are being abused, defrauded or subject to misrepresentation.

How far the consumer ministry wishes to go in assisting consumers to shop is an entirely different question. We were made aware of information provided to us by the Consumers Association of Canada, B.C. branch. We were made aware of the questions which had been asked, and they were made aware, Mr. Chairman, of my attitude toward individual pricing. I've made it very clear that I personally would prefer to see the individual pricing on these articles, but not from a statutory point of view, because I can visualize the headaches which would come to the ministry in attempting to enforce it, even in drafting the regulation with this long list of exemptions.

There are a number of merchants who specialize in low prices on food, and part of their merchandising scheme is no prices marked on individual products. They tear off the top of the carton and offer it for sale with the price associated with it. They have advised me, and I believe them to be quite correct, that they would not intend to stay in business were they required to engage people to put individual prices on. In fact, that was the reason they got into the market, because they knew how they could cut costs. Their customers seem to be very satisfied. I can come up with a survey; I can come up with a poll, as did this gentleman from his eight stores. He had 8,000 signatures or something saying: "Don't force him to do it." He wrote a question that was so loaded that if anyone said yes to it, it endorsed what he was doing completely. I could write a question, as others have, that says: "Do you think there is an advantage to you as a consumer or customer to have the individual price of a product marked on it?" I think the answer to that was 100 percent yes, of course. Who would say no? Of course there is an advantage. Who would say no? But that's not the question that's before us.

Mr. Member, through you, Mr. Chairman, it isn't a question that can be resolved simply by saying: "We want you to do this." We must, in law, require them to do it and we must be prepared to enforce it. We must be prepared to examine that whole marketing area to determine what products and what type and class of merchants should be exempted. I think that's an intrusion at this time, not justified or warranted.

The member correctly mentioned that we're in the infancy, to some degree, of this scanner system. Everyone I've spoken to agrees the scanner system is probably most beneficial to the food industry. The one point they argue — some of them — is that they feel that individual price is of some value to them, and they wouldn't want to see it go. We spoke with representatives from the major supermarkets, and we asked them if they would consider it. We asked, if they insisted on going into the scanner system, that they follow some guidelines from our ministry, and they agreed to that. Among the points they all agreed to were: shelf tags would be clearly readable prices for every item — the non-removable type; they would increase prices only when the stores were closed, as they do now; they would provide items at the lower price if there were any discrepancy between the shelf price and the scanner price; they would provide very detailed tape receipts and deal promptly with any consumer complaints generated by the scanner system. They've all agreed to do that. I pointed out to them that I personally favoured the individual pricing. But that is a personal opinion of mine; it is not backed up by the force of law. They recognize that, as do others.

It's interesting that some of these so-called surveys or polls have been taken at stores which are serviced by scanners. The people who purchase their goods in a store which employs a scanner system are apparently signing a petition or survey saying there shouldn't be scanner stores, or that they're opposed to them. Yet they're frequenting those stores, and purchasing their goods at those stores. As I pointed out, the question as written was such that I'm sure everyone would reply in the affirmative.

It's not an important point, but I don't think we as government, or as members of an assembly, have any requirement to train people how to shop. I think that's something the individual person must take on as his or her own obligation. I think there is a group of people within our society who need assistance with shopping, particularly the old-age pensioners. Price tags on or off items is of some assistance to some; but individual, personalized attention is what many of them require, and that service is offered in many stores.

The consumer arguments war will, I suppose, continue on for sonic time. We're quite prepared, as I've said before, to consider legislation some time in the future if necessary. It's no use attempting gentle persuasion if you're not prepared to back it up with the law, with all the headaches that would be associated with it. If we were faced with facts — not opinion, but facts — about abuse to the consumer, or fraud, or misrepresentation on a large scale we would not hesitate to move. But we would move legislatively; we would move with legislation, and presumably regulations, to stop any abuse, fraud or misrepresentation. We cannot do shopping on behalf of the consumer, nor do we intend to.

Individual pricing on goods was not originally done for the benefit of the consumer. It was done for the benefit of the store, to assist their checkout people in knowing what the price of the item was. Now the scanner does that for them so they feel the individual pricing is redundant. I would suggest that no matter what any store or merchant may do to change the method of selling there would be somebody fighting or protesting against it. The scanner system is very innovative. Because it's electronic it's suspect. I believe that most people who understand the system agree that the shopper is going to have a much more accurate tape receipt through the scanner system than he now has through the manual system, even though it may be minimal.

MR. LEVI: I have just a couple of remarks on this topic. First of all, while it may be that the initial stage of putting prices on goods was to the assistance of store owners, the minister should be reminded that many long battles have

[ Page 3704 ]

taken place, both in Canada and the United States, in respect to proper packaging, pricing and weighing. This is not something that was simply designed for the advantage of the supermarket.

I agree with the minister that the last thing we want to do in this Legislature is to produce more legislation. Good lord, we know that, as a result of consumer protection, since the present government has been in power a large amount of legislation has been brought in — not all of it enforceable, not all of it working. But one of the things that appears to have gone out of the window in respect to the issues we deal with — particularly this one — is the question of whether we can really exact from corporations some kind of corporate social responsibility in terms of the way they operate in the community. It does mean something when a minister sits down with a group of directors or representatives of a corporation and after a reasonable amount of discussion says that surely this is a social responsibility or corporate responsibility, in terms of the community, to go this way. Sure, those are the warning signals, and if we can't get you to do it, eventually we have to legislate.

There was an attempt in Ontario where they drew up a code of behaviour in respect to the scanners, but the people who drew it up decided not to follow it. That's an answer in part to the business of bringing in more legislation — that we start appealing to these corporations in terms of what they think their function is in terms of social responsibility. If they want to make money, that's fine. But they have some obligations to make available to consumers certain information and they must continue that information that they always expected to get. There are not enough substantial arguments that have been put forward by the corporations as to why they take off the price on the goods other than the fact that it's costly. They don't talk about the amount of money they're going to make putting in the scanners and all the benefits of that.

Those are the kinds of discussions that can take place; after all, those are the kinds of ministerial discussions that should be taking place all the time with all sorts of people. It's not always on the basis that we're going to introduce some legislation and would like to consult you. After all, we know that if we remind people that they should keep their own house in order, we don't have to bring in legislation, but those kinds of discussions don't seem to take place. They don't seem to be part of the initiative that is taken by the minister. People who have been in the position that the minister is in in terms of ministerial responsibility know that you do exercise some clout if you're prepared to enter into some discussions about it, but you have to start with some fundamental understanding. The minister, when he says that the prices marked on goods originally were only for the benefit of the store somehow, and that's where it's at, so it's not so terribly important.... It's gone a long, long way from that now; it's gone into a very sophisticated operation.

We're not talking about legislation now; we're talking about making some effort by some kind of persuasion. Those kinds of discussions can be entered into, and there is nothing wrong with that. The minister started to describe one of the most horrifying legislative processes when he talked in the beginning about all of the exemptions and all of the inclusions and who would do the enforcing.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: Mr. Chairman, if that guy can't pay attention, why don't you throw the bum out? My god, he's kept up a constant line of chatter all afternoon.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the point is very well taken. However, I will have to ask you to withdraw the word. It's unparliamentary.

MR. LEVI: All right, I withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. The Chair would remind the hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) that the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam has the floor at this point and all other members should be attentive to the debate that's going on.

MR. LEVI: In order to accommodate the minister who is so noisy, Mr. Chairman, if we were to start discussing the price of bulbs, I'm sure we could get him on his feet and he'd talk to us and tell us of all the difficulties he has with pinning prices on tulips.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: But he's not going to do it. So if he's not going to do it, he's got to keep quiet. Isn't that right, Mr. Chairman? Yes, he's got to keep quiet. You know, since he hasn't been interfering in other people's ministries, he tends to talk to himself. That's very unhealthy and I'm very worried about that.

I appreciate what the minister is saying in respect to not bringing in legislation. That's the great difficulty, because it's not just writing the stuff. My gosh, his ministry has not always been that successful in writing legislation — and I know it's complicated. We tend to write legislation, pass it in here and then we never get it proclaimed because we get all sorts of problems. But there is the other kind of process — not legislation, but negotiation and persuasion and pointing out to people, particularly the large supermarkets and even the smaller ones, that they have an obligation and there is some sense of social responsibility that they should have. Sure, it may be naive to start talking this way, but sooner or later we're going to have to do that; sooner or later we have to talk to people as we do about pollution and the question of the environment and the question of the environment in the supermarkets. In some cases we get large corporations that listen; in many cases they don't, and then that results in legislation, which is not always drawn up in the best way and does not always achieve the goal that it attempted to achieve in the beginning. So that's a mechanism.

I don't accept the minister's arguments that we're dealing with something that's so complicated. We're talking now about the introduction of scanners. There are only 16 stores in the province that have got them. We're not talking about somebody who sells cut-rate food. I was talking about the onset of equipment, which in itself is good but which can lead to problems if they remove the prices. That's the basic issue here.

Has the minister had discussions with the supermarket people about this? He has said publicly, somewhat sotto voce, that he would prefer to see the prices on. Is this based on discussions with supermarkets? Have they actually said to him: "No, we can't put the prices on because it is too expensive; we are involved in a capital expenditure in terms of these scanners and we can't afford it"? There are other great advantages that they don't talk about in terms of the

[ Page 3705 ]

scanners that will make them a great deal of money, and that is not being passed on to the consumer. That is something that we have to have some concern about.

What was the context of the discussions with the stores, if he had any? I think that is worthwhile in our trying to understand the minister's position in respect to this; not that he met with the Retail Council of Canada, but has he spoken to people who operate large stores using these scanners? In respect to his own personal preference, we are not dealing so much with personal preference here. We are trying to get a sense of what is really right. What has become something of the order of things can only create problems for consumers, because they are going to remove the prices. That's basically what we are talking about. We are not looking for a large amount of legislation or enforcement of the legislation. God forbid we have that kind of thing.

Has the minister had any discussions with any of the stores that have introduced these? Have they used the position that it is too costly to keep the prices on? Is that what they've said to the minister? Perhaps he would tell us that.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I think the question of the scanners can be argued endlessly from a technical point of view. Of course the stores have argued that to maintain the individual pricing would to a large degree invalidate the expenditure for their scanner system. There are so many advantages to the scanner system. I mentioned before that not too many people argue about it. If used to proper advantage it is a great tool for inventory control and many other things.

Yes, there is a price tag attached to individual pricing. I appreciate what the member is saying. It can be a very positive thing for certain organizations who work on behalf of consumers, in the interest of consumers or in the area of consumer education. That's what they would like to see happen.

I am not persuaded that it is government's role to ensure that marketing occur in a certain rigid way simply because someone believes that it is preferable. I think that the marketplace to a very large degree must regulate itself. The greatest weapon in the hands of the consumers, of course, is the boycott. In fact, if we were to convert all of our merchants to scanner systems and no prices appeared on individual items, I am sure that some entrepreneur would introduce individual item pricing as a merchandising scheme and probably would attract customers to that, just as they have introduced other schemes over the years to attract customers — merchandising proposals and programs.

I suppose it is an argument that could go on endlessly. To restate the case of the ministry at this time, it is not the ministry's recommendation that we consider legislation — not at all. Based on a great deal of discussion with people across the country and others, we feel that government has an obligation to protect consumers in the marketplace against fraud, misrepresentation or abuse, but not necessarily to assist an individual to the point of shopping on his behalf. We think that we provide adequate service to the people on those counts I mentioned. Should we have reason to suspect or believe that abuse, misrepresentation or fraud is taking place, then we wouldn't hesitate to move in that area.

We are not convinced at this time that the introduction of the scanners is going to cause the problems many envisage. Perhaps we're in error. The information has not been provided to us. We have not developed that information through our efforts and research. Until such time as it is presented to us, I don't believe we will be pursuing it from a legislative point of view. Yes, we have talked to the representatives from the biggest companies; we have talked to representatives from smaller companies. They all insist that the scanner system will ultimately be of benefit to the consumer by some form of cost modification. Whether it is reduced costs or maintaining a lower increase in costs, we don't know. They have all insisted that it would be to their disadvantage if they had to continue the present system while bearing the cost of the scanning system, and I think that our officials were generally able to understand that argument.

It is an area that requires a tremendous amount of consideration. As I mentioned, no government in Canada has come to grips with it, because it's one of those areas that is really terribly difficult to adjudicate. At the present time it is not our intention to require merchants to individually price their products offered for sale. We do believe that the power of the marketplace itself will be felt, should it become the problem that some suggest it is. I suggest that it is not that problem at this time.

MR. LEGGATT: I heard the minister indicate — and I think I'm quoting accurately — that we don't need to teach people how to shop. I wasn't sure whether that was a general principle or whether it only applied with respect to the scanners. I suspect that that's a general principle.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: "Train" was the word used.

MR. LEGGATT: Fine, I'll accept "train."

That obviously is the principle under which this minister operates his ministry. I would suggest that's an abdication of the normal responsibility of a Minister of Consumer Affairs. The reason I suggest it's an abdication is that to say that the free market has sufficient information for those who are shopping to do any kind of comparison shopping — and I refer particularly to grocery shopping — is simply not a correct assessment. It's impossible for the individual shopper to know which grocery store is carrying the lowest prices.

I want to make a suggestion to the minister, and I hope he'll consider it seriously, because it's a very useful suggestion from the point of view of people shopping in supermarkets. That is, the ministry should provide a weekly shopping basket, a comparison of prices in the major supermarkets, particularly in the two urban areas, Vancouver and Victoria, and do a comparison list of a fixed amount of meat, bread and staples, so that there can be some help to the consumer. I defy any consumer to tell me that Super-Valu is selling higher or lower than Safeway. There's no way you can determine that, because what they do is drop the price on one product and advertise it, and then quickly put a couple of cents on another product to make up the difference. Only the ministry could have the objectivity and the personnel to provide this kind of assistance to grocery shoppers in the province. This isn't a unique idea. Many cities in Canada have this facility available. It's simply a case of having a person specifically shop for the same product in the various supermarkets, and having those prices published as a guide to those who are shopping on the weekend.

I'll tell you one thing it'll do, Mr. Chairman. It will reduce the price of groceries, because those grocery stores

[ Page 3706 ]

then start competing with each other — really competing — to see if they can get the best prices on that weekly shopping basket list that the minister would publish in the local papers.

I've never seen this proposal fail to improve the general capacity of the public to do decent comparison-shopping. You can't expect a housewife to comparison shop at every supermarket. She's going to pick one supermarket and she's going to do her shopping there. She may go to that market because it's convenient; she may go because of their advertised prices. Their advertised prices may mean absolutely nothing. Those products appear to have lower prices but you won't know until you do a complete shopping basket in that area to determine whether the total price is lower. I suspect the difference in total price is very little. So I put this forward as a proposal to the minister. I'd ask him to study other cities in Canada, including the city of Ottawa, which I see his assistant would be familiar with.

I would suggest that you don't have to train the shopper how to shop; what you have to do is give the shopper objective information so that he or she can make a rational decision. It's impossible to make a rational decision around your market basket until you comparison-shop in the major supermarket outlets. I'd appreciate the minister's response as to whether he sees any merit in this proposal.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I see some merit in it, although I don't like to take away from the capacity of the shopper or the consumer. The member would be very familiar, I'm sure, with the shopping habits of people. Oddly enough, unless the price fluctuations are major it is not always price that attracts someone to a store. The number one factor is location and convenience to the shopper. Physical attractiveness of the store is very often number two — then the attitude of the staff, selection of goods and then usually price, provided there's not too much difference. I suppose the ministry, through the government, could do a little test shopping and publish its findings week by week, although many of the shoppers do this on their own. There's a certain type of telegram system that works among the consumers, and they know where prices are.

I suppose we're talking about food prices, and food is probably the major concern of most consumers. If the member's suggestion had merit, you could expand it, I suppose, into other merchandise — clothing, particularly children's clothing; building materials; and many, many others. You know, we have an obligation, as I said, in assisting consumers, particularly in attempting to protect their rights under law. But it gets into a different area where you are, in effect, shopping on their behalf. Yes, we could certainly do that type of survey. It would be of interest to us; it would be of interest to the consumer. Perhaps it might bring about some competition, although I don't know whether it would. It would be interesting if we did find there were great fluctuations or differences in prices. We would be then faced with the problem of what to do about it, other than make it available to people. I don't know how they would respond. The areas where you could perhaps apply such a procedure would be the metropolitan areas. You could in the lower mainland, in Victoria, and in some of the larger centres too — Prince George, Kamloops, Kelowna and others. Whether that's what our people should be doing on the consumer side, I don't know. We could do it. I really question whether it's a prudent use of our staff.

I want to just make one comment, Mr. Chairman. I really don't think that we should in any way take away the capability of shoppers to shop and of consumers to know how to shop properly. I think most of them do this in their everyday lives. I think most of them know what they are doing and they know when they're being ripped off. I am constantly amazed at the capability of some shoppers in being able to rattle off the appropriate costs of goods and items, just as a person well trained on the stock market will be able to bang off quotes and bids and asks.

I'm sure the member's suggestion has some merit. I don't know how practical it could be, but it has some merit.

MR. LEGGATT: I just wanted to briefly comment, Mr. Chairman. The idea of the comparison shopping basket for other products may not be as appropriate as it is for groceries. The reason is that there are standard brands in all of those grocery stores and there's no way the shopper has of comparing what is the price on Libby's tomato juice, for example, between the various stores. If you try to expand this principle into clothing, it's much more difficult because there are not so many standard brands.

First of all, I would ask the minister to study the jurisdictions where this has occurred. I think it would be useful if he would consult with his counterparts across the country, particularly the federal minister, as to what effect this shopping basket approach has in regard to the price. I'm somewhat convinced that it has a downward pressure on price. What usually happens, by the way, is that the major supermarkets change position in the comparison table. You may find Loblaw's is lowest one week; suddenly you find Super-Valu lower the next. That's fine, well and good. It really is what the minister loves to promote, the concept of free enterprise. This is really free enterprise. This is really giving the shoppers the information that they must have to try to make a rational decision around price. If they don't want to make a decision around price, of course, they are free not to do so. But many of them do make a decision around price and I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that they are entitled to the help of this ministry to do some price comparison shopping, particularly in the metropolitan area.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Mr. Chairman, I must say that I'm impressed with the knowledge of the minister and his preamble on his estimates. In a portfolio that covers practically everyone personally.... Practically everything in the government touches everyone, but this is one where the individual is touched and every businessman is touched. It is a very difficult portfolio and I admire the minister's attitude toward it.

I must say that I feel a feeling in British Columbia and you see it as you go around. The businessmen have a comfortable feeling that they're not suddenly going to be confronted with a new issue or new problems or new legislation that's going to be detrimental. The consumers feel that the department is eminently fair and looks after their interests where it can. I must compliment the ministry on this new aspect that has taken place in the last few years.

It is difficult to say, but I was interested in listening to my friend from Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) and his remarks about shoppers and shopping baskets and the price of baskets. You know, Mr. Chairman, it's difficult. There is no way we can ever legislate from here what people buy or how they buy it. I would think that if a person used the same effort in the buying of groceries as he does in the buying of automobiles, he would be well trained indeed. The fact is that an automobile is a large purchase and they're all experts —

[ Page 3707 ]

sometimes much more expert than the salesman. But in the case of the shopping basket, they're in there for certain goods, and although the prices may be cheaper in another store.... Can you fight it? After all, when prosperity is as it is in British Columbia, people have money in their pockets, and one thing for sure is that they're going to spend it. That keeps the economy going.

Although I don't say it's for reckless purchasing of anything, I think we can compliment the ministry on its attitude towards the consumer. They have to have the latitude. They mustn't be directed. I don't think they should be barraged with advertisements saying they should be careful with what they buy when they buy. People are intelligent, and they're intelligent enough to know when they're right and when they're wrong. The last thing government should ever do is dramatically interfere with the lives of the people in this province. I think they're able to purchase well, and they are purchasing well. If they want to pay more for an article, let them pay it. That's their privilege.

I'm telling you, not one person walks into a store and walks out.... They know what they've got. They may criticize and complain about the high price, but they do it with a smile — that's the strange thing. When I walk into a supermarket and see a lady walk out with a hundred dollars worth of groceries, Mr. Chairman, I'm completely mystified as to where those hundreds come from. But they get them.

We're not going to teach the people, because they've already been taught. The best we can do is to continue to give the customer — as we're doing today in that ministry — and the businessman a feeling of security that all is well, and that unless they do something wrong they're not going to get into any trouble. That's the new attitude of the ministry, and I admire it very much.

Mr. Chairman, I have a great concern about liquor stores. As far as liquor stores are concerned, if they closed them all up, I'd be happy. But it's a thing you can't do. We know it's an evil in our society. Government controls it; government sells the liquor, and they should. But I think that the liquor control branch, although they do an excellent job — and I have to compliment them on their judgment in almost every case.... It is difficult for them, where they are dealing in millions of dollars, to understand the problems of the small municipality and the need for facilities there. After all, Mr. Chairman, the ministry should be concerned not only with profits — and they do make profits in every store; how can they fail? — but it should also be concerned with convenience to the purchaser. That convenience is lacking, especially in the smaller centres.

A decision has been made — I'm almost certain I read it in the press — not to put a store in Pitt Meadows, not to put a store in west Maple Ridge. Now I think that both those decisions are wrong, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to appeal to the minister to reconsider those decisions, because they are incorrect.

The liquor store, the only one at the time, was at one time located in the centre of the town of Maple Ridge — in what they call the town centre, the nearest you can get to the town centre. That was well located. But I think the branch showed judgment when they moved it to the west end, because the traffic was congested, the store was in a poor place and it was too small. They had to move to the west end of the municipality.

When they did that, it created a new problem. There was too much distance, it being a long, narrow municipality, from one side to the other. So we need, essentially, another store — and I wish the minister would take special note of this — in west Maple Ridge. It's essential for the convenience of the people.

I know that the department makes what they call consumer studies in the metropolitan areas, and they study what is necessary for an area. They do that very well, but they are definitely based on the models of the large metropolitan areas. They do that very well, but when they get to the country area, the towns, they have difficulty. Certainly we see a great injustice done to the convenience of the consumers.

Pitt Meadows in particular needs a store. Now that's a nice, small municipality. It's not big, but it's a very lovely place. There's a certain amount of civic pride there. They want a store. The least the department can do is make sure they get one, and I appeal to the minister.

It's just as essential, if not more so, in west Maple Ridge. I appeal to him to give consideration to these two points and to reverse the decision of the liquor control branch.

It's axiomatic that an MLA should keep out of the liquor business completely and say nothing about it. I follow exactly that, but when I have something to say, I say it here in this open forum publicly. I appeal to the minister. If justice were done for the convenience of the consumers, we would have a store in west Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. It's long past due and it's necessary now. I appeal to him to give it consideration.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the member bringing this problem to my attention, because he is quite right. The liquor distribution branch generally does a very good job in developing efficiencies in its operation. When we get into a large metropolitan area, there is no question that there is a tendency to divide the area into certain quadrants, and work out a number of stores to serve each section, and base the number of stores required in each section on population, consumer demand and profitability. I agree with the member that sometimes in this process the personality of an area may not be considered — the personality, tradition, shopping patterns and other details which might be unique to the area. Pitt Meadows could be a very good example of that. Pitt Meadows is a relatively small community surrounded by a very populated area. There are probably other areas in the metropolitan districts of our province where this could occur. I wouldn't be in a position to reverse the findings and determinations of the liquor distribution branch, in that in this particular area they were looking for a large store to serve a large area.

You have suggested, Mr. Member, that perhaps they should look at smaller stores to serve smaller areas — as we have in many parts of the province. It has not generally been the habit of the liquor distribution branch to encourage the establishment of small stores. It has been a process of growth where larger stores have occurred to take care of a larger area. I will certainly speak to the general manager about that peculiar problem of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows to see if they have rejected the concept of a large store to be located in one of the two areas. Perhaps the concept of smaller stores to serve smaller areas could be considered. I thank you for bringing that to my attention.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I want to return to the item that was raised by the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) relative to the cost of food. While I concur with the suggestions he has made, I would like to go a little further

[ Page 3708 ]

into the problems that are facing consumers in British Columbia relative to the cost of food.

As the minister is aware, there was a fairly extensive study undertaken by his predecessor, jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture, to review the whole cost-of-food position. The minister may know too that I have some differences of opinion with some of the results or lack of results that came out of that study. The point that I would like to raise for the minister's consideration is the direction that is taken by the food industry. As I am sure the minister is aware, and certainly as the report I have just referred to and other reports have indicated, the control of our retail and processing industry in the area of food is concentrated in the main in the hands of a very few large monopolies.

Unfortunately, our whole approach to providing food, as dictated by those monopolies whose prime concern — and rightly so — is making profits, has been directed towards advertising and selling the product that is most profitable. If in fact there is 100 percent profit to be made on selling a package of some kind of Uncle Somebody's Sugar Crisps, then that is the product that gets the front billing in the advertisements, shelf space and all the other gimmicks that go into the whole advertising business. I object to our food being subject to those kinds of decisions based solely on the profit that can be made from selling any given food product.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Certainly what that minister should be concerned about relative to the sale of food is the nutritive value of the food that is being offered rather than any brand name or content gimmicks. I often think that I would like to open a box of cereal some day and not have a plastic car of something akin fall out in my cereal dish.

MR. HOWARD: Try going for a bottle of Scotch.

MRS. WALLACE: The latter ingredient might be the more nutritive of the two, actually.

I am concerned about that aspect. I am concerned when we are leaving the decisions as to what kind of foods will be pushed through the advertising campaigns solely in the hands of the people who are involved with the profit-and-loss picture. That's where it is, and there are no guidelines or controls set up, except for the pure food laws of the federal government, relative to what can or cannot be sold.

There has been a lot said by various people in this House, including the minister and the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem), relative to the ability of the consumer to think for herself in making these purchases. I agree that the consumer certainly has that ability. But when that consumer is constantly subject to, advertising pressure and to name brands... I know I do it myself when I'm looking for something and the brand I usually use isn't there. I automatically pick up the one that I've seen advertised. I don't know whether it's good, better or best, and I don't know how it compares pricewise, but certainly advertising has a great impact on the consumer's choice. When that advertising, as I say, is based solely on the amount of dollars that can be made from selling that product, then I have some concerns about where we're going as far as providing nutritive food. I think that is part of this minister's responsibility as the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

It's interesting to note that over the last few years — and this table goes from 1949 to 1973 — the percent farm value of the total cost of food as represented in the total product.... For example, in 1949 the farm value as a percentage of the total cost of the food product to the consumer was 60 percent. In 1973, which is the latest date to which this table goes, the farm value as a percentage of the total cost to the consumer has fallen to 37 percent, which indicates to me that we're doing a lot more processing and packaging of our food. Certainly those costs are influencing to a great extent the dollar that the consumer is spending in the marketplace. Incidentally, I'm quoting from a Department of Agriculture table, economic research branch.

I think when we look at the degree of concentration in the food industry, we should have some concerns too about who is really dictating what we eat and how much we pay for it. If we look at the American situation south of the border, which I think is pretty parallel to our situation here, you will find that very recently there was a study done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They came up with the figure of somewhere between $13 billion and $21 billion that the U.S. consumer is being overcharged for food as a direct result of food conglomerates. I think that we can run a parallel case here. It's estimated that in the United States each household's food bill is about 7 percent higher than it would be if the manufacturing and processing of food was more competitive. That competitiveness has been removed, not just from the processing here in British Columbia but also from the retail end.

Again referring back to the study that was done — and I think that that perhaps was one of the more reliable figures that came up out of that study — it was something like 76 percent of the retail food sales in British Columbia that went to the large major supermarkets. Now that's a very high degree of concentration, as concentration goes. When we have that situation, Mr. Chairman, I do have some concerns. I think this minister has to take some steps to ensure that there is free competition in the marketplace, and certainly that there is at least a counter-advertising campaign launched which will provide information relative to the nutritive value of food as opposed to the trade names or the gimmicks in the packages and those kinds of things. People are becoming more and more concerned and they would like to know. Instead of having some unbiased information, what is happening — on the television ads particularly — is that the manufacturers, the processors and the retailers concerned are taking advantage of the knowledge that people are looking for a more healthful way of living and a more healthful diet.

They are advertising their brand names in such a way as to indicate that this particular brand of oil, that particular brand of cereal, or another particular brand of something else is more nutritious, without really giving the whole story, because they can keep within the rules and regulations and the laws that govern misrepresentation by a very careful choice of words and very selective use of information. I'm certainly concerned that that is happening in the food industry here in British Columbia and I would urge this minister to take some steps to ensure that consumers are protected from that kind of thing and have alternate information available to them.

While I'm on my feet I just have a couple of other quite unrelated things that I want to raise and I think perhaps I'll do that now. Both are related to real estate. One has to do with

[ Page 3709 ]

the issuance of prospectuses. I'm sure that the minister is aware of the case that I'm talking about, where we had Playfare-Pacific Ventures advising in their prospectus that there was fire protection on the particular property that was being sold and in fact there wasn't. I know it was a misunderstanding. The lines were very clearly drawn, but neither the developer nor the ministry took the precautions that should have been taken under the Real Estate Act to ensure that the volunteer fire department did extend over the entire development area.

A small number of homes are affected; I think about six in the first section of that development were not covered. As a result of the minister's actions, after I had brought this to his attention, the prospectus was changed, but unfortunately we have these six people sitting in there with no fire protection and being faced with much higher costs for insurance because there is no fire protection. A directive has also come out of the fire marshal's office — and I know that's not this minister's responsibility — to say that none of those volunteer fire departments should extend their boundaries, because they're already extended too far.

I'm raising that at this point in time because I would like to make sure that this minister instructs his staff to ensure that when other applications come in, a more thorough check is done to ensure that fire protection is available if it so indicates on the prospectus, because those lines are difficult to ascertain and unless the developer has taken the pains to really inquire, he could well find out that he is saying there is fire protection when there isn't. Then, of course, under the act he can plead innocent and it would make it very difficult for. a class-action suit or any other legal suit to be filed against the developer. Also, the costs involved make it scarcely worthwhile.

There is just one other minor point that I want to raise. I've checked through the Real Estate Act and I can't find it, but I understand that there is, in the purchase of a home, the signing of an agreement for sale, a very short time limit in which the would-be purchaser can renege. I'm not even sure whether there's any time limit. I can't find it in the Real Estate Act; it may be in the regulations. But certainly I think it is important that there should be a minimum period of time where a person who makes an offer to buy a home — which is often a very emotional thing and perhaps one of the largest investments that most families will ever make — can reconsider, because sometimes when you walk through a home with a real estate agent and you're making that decision.... You maybe think it over afterwards, but you're away from the place, and when you get into it on your own after the agreement is signed you may find things that had escaped you or you may just decide: "Look, this isn't really the place for us." I think there needs to be that lead time where a person who has signed an agreement can have that nullified — maybe 72 hours, but some kind of lead time so that an opportunity is there for the person who has signed an agreement to purchase a home.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Government can go so far in holding the hand of the citizens, I suppose. I appreciate what the member said, that purchasing a $100,000 home is sometimes based on emotion, on the spur of the moment, and that can lead to second thoughts. A person who acts on his own behalf in purchasing a piece of property into the hundreds of thousands of dollars without a professional assisting him is probably very foolish. I believe that most professionals in assisting a person making such a purchase would provide enough subjects or conditions on the interim agreement that it would not cause grievous harm to the intended purchaser, and that's probably the best protection anyone can have. I don't know what the effect on the market would be if we had cooling-off periods, if we had a number of days in which a person could renege on his offer. I don't know what effect that might have if somebody else came along and offered a price. If you were selling a home you would probably be very upset if you thought you had it sold only to have the person come back and say: "No thanks, but maybe I've got a counter-offer." The thought is there, but it's very difficult perhaps to introduce into our system.

Any person who issues a prospectus should be required to be responsible for the information contained in that prospectus. I appreciate you bringing that to our attention. The superintendent did look into it and remedied it. There are literally hundreds of prospectuses which go through the system, and in some instances certain information provided must be relied upon.

Individuals within any area do have an opportunity of grouping together and causing an improvement district to be formed for the purposes of fire protection. This may be a partial remedy to the problems in that Playfare-Pacific Ventures thing.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I wonder if I might ask leave of the committee to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I appreciate that the minister presently debating his estimates is busy, sir. Therefore it's with pleasure that I refer to Mayor Gil Blair of the township of Richmond, who is in the gallery this afternoon. Would the House make him welcome.

MR. MACDONALD: I want to second the welcome to the mayor and say hello to him this fine day — and to the minister, his deputy Mr. Peter Bazowski, our House Leader and the squash player sitting behind Mr. Bazowski. I think I've covered most people.

I just have a couple of simple questions to the minister. Last June 23 he informed the House with complete assurance, as it seemed to me at the time, that there was nothing improper about the Grammas pub application. That's what you said, wasn't it, Mr. Minister? Nothing had been found. I put this to you, and I want to ask you a question about it. On April 20 you met with your colleagues and you passed an order-in-counciI allowing a marine pub. There were four applications out there for a neighbourhood pub in the same place, at the landing at Gibsons. That's April 20. I look in my diary and find that's a Friday. I also find out.... This has to be ascertained with complete certainty, but I don't think the Lieutenant-Governor was in town that day; he was attending his duties in Vancouver and could not have signed the order-in-council on the Friday.

The importance of this little sequence of events is that the pre-clearance, which was the ball game, was given to R. Dale Janowsky, the former and future partner of the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair), on April 25, 1978, which was a Wednesday. Bear with me,, Mr. Minister, on my little exploration of the time limits. Friday you pass the order-incouncil. It's signed, maybe, on the weekend. It reaches the

[ Page 3710 ]

registrar's office, say, Monday morning, and between Monday and Wednesday somebody knows enough about it to (a) make a complicated application for the new marine pub — that's Grammas — and (b) have the preclearance granted to them by the Wednesday.

Now, Mr. Minister, I'm asking you for your explanation, because you say this is perfectly in order. Was there a tip? Did somebody know that this had been passed in cabinet, and was somebody tipped off? That's one thing that the minister in his investigation should not exclude, bearing in mind these time limits and the fact that you have honest officials in the liquor administration branch who, I would think, would carry out the minister's wishes.

The second thing is how the application led by R. Dale Janowsky, who lives in Kamloops — not as a lawyer for the Grammas pub, but as a director — and his brother, who lives, it's true, on theSunshine Coast.... It's kind of funny that he should be involved in a pub licence on the Sunshine Coast, but funny things have happened. Some very funny things have happened in this province of British Columbia.

MR. LAUK: The minister says it's all in order.

MR. MACDONALD: So I'm asking the minister, who said that time upon time this has been looked into and nothing is improper: did the Grammas pub group submit a written application by mail, and did they do it on the Monday or the Tuesday? How could a liquor administration, which in ordinary circumstances, I may say, Mr. Minister, takes such time...? They had already rejected the neighbourhood pubs in this area. How could they possibly grant pre-clearance that quickly? The explanations of your predecessor in the office don't help at all, because his first explanation is: "I know nothing about it." The second explanation was that Grammas pounced first and left the four other applicants, one of whom was Reid, who complains quite bitterly, Mr. Minister.... I ask you what you think of this, because Mr. Robert C. Reid was also an applicant for the neighbourhood pub licence. He says: "It appears these applications" — and he's talking about the other four — "have been prejudiced by the quick issuance of the pre-clearance to the Janowskys." Of course they were. They didn't have a chance from that time on because the only people the council would listen to at Gibsons were the people who had the pre-clearance. They were finished. They were still running the race, but they were on a muddy track. They're still out there somewhere; they've never come through the finish line. And they've had no explanation, not even a visit from a liquor inspector, no answers to their letters.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: That's right, and it's very amusing because we know the unquestionable integrity of this government. They're all honourable men;

Mr. Reid goes on to say — and he's being as nice as he can — in June 1978, two months later: "It is strange to say, in the least, that the Janowskys' application can be processed with blinding speed, and the rest of us have had to fight our way up a muddy track." Then he goes on: "Of course, I'm not suggesting that the mere fact that Mr. Rafe Mair's name, the man responsible for the passage of the F licence legislation on the Friday" — I had it on Friday, Hansard — "appears on the letterhead of the Janowsky law firm has anything to do with the fact that Janowsky received his pre-clearance within five days of such legislation passing." Well, even Reid is wrong, because it hadn't passed on the Friday. It still needed the signature of the Lieutenant-Governor, and then it had to go to the registrar's office where the orders-in-council are filed, and then it really should have been gazetted, and that didn't happen till May 13.

Now, Mr. Minister, you've said that this thing is in order, yet I've drawn to your attention that there was an obvious tipoff. Common sense and what we know about life being as it is, there was an obvious tipoff from someone in your cabinet to Janowsky: "Hey, there's a new form of licence that accommodates you, and if you move quickly, the others will be muddy-tracked." How did Grammas know? Have you investigated that? Was it a written application?

The final question I ask you, Mr. Minister, is this: do you not really think those other three applications for the neighbourhood pub were prejudiced, as they think they were, in that before they knew the change in the rules, the game was over? Why weren't they notified before the B.C. Gazette published the new regulation if somebody else was able to act on it two weeks before that regulation was even published? Those are my questions to the minister.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, the subject has been discussed previously. I really don't think any new information has been brought forward today. I can offer an opinion as to the prejudicing of the other applications in this one particular area. I would think that in any relatively small area, particularly physically, where a licence is granted, yes, indeed, it would prejudice subsequent licences because of the restrictions imposed for distance of separation, of licences per population and so on. I would think that once a licence is granted to a relatively small physical area, yes, it would make it difficult for others to get licences thereafter.

To the best of my memory on this particular issue — and it goes back a couple of years — there were a number of applicants who had made application for a neighbourhood pub, and I believe they were all unsuccessful for the neighbourhood pub area.

MR. MACDONALD: Including Janowsky. You couldn't grant it at that time.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: There was change in regulations by way of order-in-council that created a new category of licensed premise — marine neighbourhood pub, or whatever it was called.

MR. MACDONALD: That's the F licence.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: And that was, I gather, if your dates are correct, April 20 of some year — '78, was it?

MR. MACDONALD: Friday, April 20, 1978, was the time the cabinet passed it.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The order-in-council presumably went through and passed at that time. The information supplied to me is that Mr. Munkley was visited the next week by one of the principals of or counsel for Grammas pub, who made an application at that time to convert their previous application for a neighbourhood pub to the category of marine neighbourhood pub; and it was approved by Mr.

[ Page 3711 ]

Munkley soon thereafter — a day or two, after. That is the sum of my information: application had been made under the new category; the information had previously been gathered under a neighbourhood pub application; it was then converted to an application for the new category and approved by Mr. Munkley. As I pointed out in our previous discussions, it was not subject to an appeal; it had been approved by representatives within the ministry. Mr. Munkley took the application and apparently approved it.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, we elicit a little extra information from the minister. The new information that I picked up is that counsel for the Janowskys, who I presume is R. Dale Janowsky from Kamloops, just by happenstance happened to drop in on Mr. Munkley the next week. His law business in Kamloops was not that demanding; he just happened to come into town that time, he saw Mr. Munkley and one day later Mr. Munkley gave him his licence. That's carrying coincidence beyond belief. There was a tip-off, Mr. Minister, to the Janowskys. They were told to move quickly. They knew about the order-in-counciI the moment it came out of cabinet. How else could you possibly explain granting a complicated licence of that kind — a whole new category — without the public being informed, without the other applicants being informed, without it being gazetted? Quite impossible!

Mr. Minister, you have a scandal that you are sitting on. You should investigate that thing thoroughly and come back to this House and explain why politics has crept into the liquor administration of your portfolio. You're mixing politics and liquor.

Let me ask another question. Why was the member for Delta (Mr. Davidson) present at an appeal hearing — under that crazy commissar, appeal-to-the-minister- alone sort of thing that Social Credit has set up? What was the member for Delta doing in support — was he in support? — of the Olma brothers? Incidentally, they are not only very prominent Socreds in that neck of the woods. The Olma who got the neighbourhood pub in the Kennedy Heights shopping centre happens to be the brother of the Ray Olma who made $53,000 commission, when he didn't have a licence, out of the city of Langley. That subject is still under investigation. The Social Credit credentials are as good for the brother in Langley as for the one in Delta. I want to know why a member of this Legislature is in on this so-called nonpolitical appeal procedure to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, for liquor applications that are turned down. What is a member of this Legislature who is a politician doing at that hearing?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the member could explain to me when an elected representative loses his right as a human being and a citizen. These hearings are open to the public. Even you, Mr. Member, would be welcome to attend.

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, come on! Is that all it was?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: They are open to the public. A member may attend, should he choose to attend. Members of the press may attend, and they have attended on some occasions. You see it wrong, Mr. Member; you have an absolutely different outlook on life. I see nothing wrong with a representative of the people assisting people in their dealings with government, at whatever level it may be. I see nothing wrong with that. I recall, Mr. Member, when you said you would never ever take a case from a constituent to ICBC. You said it would be improper. Yet I know other members in this House who have congratulated some representatives of ICBC for assisting them so greatly in assisting their constituents. You might want to do it one way; others might want to do it another way. If you have this great wisdom of judgment, so be it.

The hearings are open to the public. The public includes members, should they choose to attend. If it happens to be in their constituencies, even more reason, perhaps, for them to be there. Perhaps they are interested in what is going on within their constituencies. Perhaps you would prefer something behind closed doors; I don't know. The appeals are open to the public; they always have been. We've gone over that before.

Mr. Chairman, maybe that learned member from Vancouver East knows more about things than others, but my understanding is that orders-in-council, once passed on Thursday, as they usually are on cabinet days, are then made public by Friday or Monday next. If someone were to have an order-in-council prepared and passed, it is made public and perhaps even reported, as many of them are. Perhaps someone would respond to that. I don't know. I don't accept any responsibility for the actions of an individual in this province who has public access to an official within a ministry. If he appears in that official's office, that's his right. If someone is alert, aware....

AN. HON. MEMBER: Or alerted.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Or alerted, or whatever the circumstances may be.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tipped off.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Tipped off by reading a newspaper, for all I know. Mr. Member, if the press reports orders passed, presumably someone reads them. The member says: "They didn't." I have no idea if the press produced the orders passed at that cabinet meeting in 1978.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, perhaps you could call that strange member to order — the one who's making the sounds in the chamber.

The member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), who reads something nefarious into every action of government because it involves liquor in some way, can do so as he chooses. The 1978 application was made from the report I've received from my officials quite properly. The order-in-council was passed on a certain date. I take it to be April 20, 1978. The information was, I gather, public either the following day or the Monday thereafter, and a representative of this applicant appeared in the official's office and asked to have his application converted. I see nothing wrong with that. I don't see anything more wrong with a person who happens to be a lawyer and happens to have a past association with a member than licences which have been produced for former members of this assembly. So what? Just because a person was a member of this assembly, does it mean they do not have the right to make application for a liquor licence?

[ Page 3712 ]

Surely not. There are former members of this assembly who hold liquor licences. There are former political organizers for members of this assembly who hold liquor licences. I say, so what? If people have associations in some way it no way takes away from their right as a citizen to make application for a licence.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. MACDONALD: Who said it did?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Well, this is what you're implying.

MR. MACDONALD: No, I'm not.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: You're implying that certain people, because of past associations, should not know of certain things even though it may be public information.

MR. MACDONALD: It wasn't public information, and you know it.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, orders-in-council, once passed and approved, are not secret. The press regularly goes through those orders to see what was passed by cabinet. If you can't see beyond that, Mr. Member, I can't assist you at all. If you're suggesting that in every application which may be granted there is scandal, then that's fair enough.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm saying in this one.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I guess it's a good talking point and if that's what you wish to do — to look upon a certain application because of names and past associations and point your finger at it....

MR. MACDONALD: And circumstances..

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Oh, and circumstances, sure.

Mr. Member, I can assure you that there, are circumstances involved in every application, rejection and approval. Some of it's time, some of it's personality and some could be any circumstance. You're going to have to come up with a lot better than to suggest that. As I have said previously, as far as I've been able to understand from information supplied to me, the application for this particular marine pub was quite proper. It was granted by the official and as far as I know without any persuasion from any minister at that time.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman,,, the minister is condoning something, here. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs says: "This is a perfectly fair and above-the-board situation." He'll have to be judged by the stand he's taken. You have four applicants for a pub which is wanted by the people of Gibsons. The order-in-council is passed and presumably it's known by some, but it's not in the press or anything like that by the following Monday or Tuesday. By Wednesday he walks away with the licence and the others don't even know the game is over. They don't even know that the game has started. They don't have a chance to say: "We can produce a better pub."

They don't have a chance; they don't even get a reply to their letters, and you say that's fair treatment to the other three applicants. Now really, what kind of notions of justice prevail on that side of the House? We can only draw one conclusion, because any court in the land would say that you have denied the other applicants natural justice, Mr, Minister. You know that. Heck, the game was over for them. Although they had legitimate applications too, the game was over for them before the order-in-council was gazetted. Well, okay, technically, legally, maybe you say that's a proper application; morally it isn't. Morally it isn't right, when you've got four applicants, to grant it to one on the side and then write letters. to the others and say what's happened, or not even reply to the letters. Come on! There is some other explanation there, Mr. Minister, and the explanation is not one that should meet the favour of this House.

Now in terms of the member for Delta, I'm quite aware that if somebody knows about an appeal taking place, they can drop in on that appeal procedure, which is to the minister and is non-political — so the minister assures us — but I ask in what capacity the member of this Legislature for Delta was there. Did he just happen to drop in, the way that R. Dale Janowsky happened to drop in after this order-in-council without having — presumably through osmosis or telepathy — heard about it? What was the capacity in which Mr. Davidson...? Did he just sit down as a member of the public or did he appear to be with the applicants? What's the answer to that question?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I'm not wishing to disappoint you, Mr. Member. The member for Delta attended that appeal. I can't recall who all was at the appeal. There were the appellants plus representatives from the liquor control and licensing branch, but, as I recall — and I've spoken to our people from the LCB that the MLA was in the room when the appeal took place, sitting on a chair against the wall. That was his function and his role.

MR. LEA: Part of the decor!

HON. MR. NIELSEN: There was no representation made by the member nor did he offer any information or evidence.

I would commend members who've taken up interest in their constituency perhaps to attend some of these appeals. It may come as a great shock to our sanctified member for Vancouver East that some MLAs have taken interest in other appeals, not necessarily speaking on behalf of the appellant. In the interests of hearing the appeal they have been present for such appeals under different circumstances and different ministries, appeals which are open to the public. The press was even interested in one liquor appeal and covered every possible minute of that appeal for two days, because they're open to the public, the media and the members, should they choose to attend. If it interests them enough to attend, fine; if it doesn't, apparently they won't show up. But the member for Delta took no part in the appeal.

MR. LAUK: I will just take a moment, Mr. Chairman, on this question of the marine pub licence. You know, these kinds of situations come up every once in a while like a bad penny. We've got a sniff of the kind of attitude that this minister has. He was once running as a federal candidate, and said that it was all right in our political system to lie to the public.

[ Page 3713 ]

HON. MR. NIELSEN: You're lying now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LAUK: I ask the minister to withdraw that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll have to ask the minister to withdraw that comment. The Chair did hear it. Will the minister please withdraw?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I'll withdraw that, and I ask the member to withdraw the statement he alleges I made, which is incorrect.

MR. LAUK: Will the minister stake his seat on it?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Are you going to withdraw it, Shorty, or not?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. member has been asked for a withdrawal. In keeping with our good parliamentary tradition and courtesy in debate, I would ask the hon. first member for Vancouver Centre to withdraw the remark.

MR. LAUK: I'll withdraw it and then check out the quote exactly, and I'll ask the minister to apologize if he made that statement when he was a federal candidate.

MR. LEA: I'll go get it.

MR. LAUK: Yes, all right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The debate continues on vote 44.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, anyone with that kind of an attitude towards the political system in this province is the kind of person who will defend the action that the member for Vancouver East was talking about. He didn't say it was wrong; he didn't say that the action was unfair; the minister didn't even admit that it was prejudicial, except in some vague economic sense. But it was wrong; it was unfair; it was unjust; it was prejudicial and it was the result of inside information. There could be no other explanation. This is the way this minister is content to have this province run — jobs for the "boys," licences for friends, inside information. That's the government. There's patronage in this province that I thought was long gone.

There is no question that the actions described by the member for Vancouver East are a much worse scandal than the dirty tricks affairs or the letters to the editors. This involves a licence to print money, Mr. Chairman. A pub licence is a licence to print money. By the power of the Crown, people can get rich by getting that licence. Therefore there's a tremendous onus and responsibility on the Crown to make sure that everybody who is capable, ready, willing and able to present an application should be heard, and those persons applying should have all the rules ahead of time.

MR. KEMPF: Is that why Bob Williams isn't in here?

MR. LAUK: You don't know what you're talking about.

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

MR. LAUK: That member has been up in this House twice to speak, Mr. Chairman. He speaks seated in this House, and never has the courage to get up and make a speech in the House on any issue. You're not representing your constituents, and you're not fit for office.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the hon. first member for Vancouver Centre, the last remark is most unparliamentary. I will ask if the member will withdraw the remark about the hon. member for Omineca.

MR. LAUK: What remark? I said that he was not fit for public office.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I find that remark most unparliamentary, hon. member. He is an honourable member of this House.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, that's not unparliamentary; that's the essence of the political system in this province. We go through the length and breadth of this province telling the public, quite rightly. that a lot of members over there aren't fit for public office. It's our duty to do so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, what you say outside of this House is your responsibility. What you say in this House is also your responsibility, but you have a further responsibility to parliamentary debate. The Chair has found that comment about another hon. member most unparliamentary, and I will ask you to withdraw it in parliamentary fashion.

MR. LAUK: I will not accede to your request, Mr. Chairman, I will do so only if you order me to withdraw it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the member please withdraw?

MR. LAUK: Only if the Chair orders me to withdraw that statement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair is not ordering; the Chair is simply asking.

MR. LAUK: Then I will not, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Then I will ask you one more time. I would find that grossly disorderly. hon. member, if you were not to withdraw in parliamentary fashion.

MR. LAUK: Well, Mr. Chairman; I don't want to distract this debate from the minister. I'll withdraw it on those terms.

MR, CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. The debate continues on vote 44, the estimates of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

MR, LAUK: For a great many months now the public has been subjected to an outcry against this government and the political party that they represent in this House, for its dirty

[ Page 3714 ]

tricks. But I cannot see a worse possible action than this kind of apparent patronage taking place on a very sensitive issue with respect to liquor licences. This minister has been challenged, and he gets up in a very cavalier fashion and defends the action. That's to be condemned. It's totally reprehensible and it characterizes this government. The answers that the minister has given are totally inadequate, and leave that cloud of suspicion over his ministry and the actions of the liquor branch in administering pub licences.

MR. NICOLSON: There are two matters which I wish to raise, and one of them does deal with neighbourhood pub licences.

About a year ago one of the representatives of the Regional District of Central Kootenay came to me and asked if I would support an appeal being made on a neighbourhood pub. I said no. I said I felt that because of the sensitivity of these matters — as my colleague has said, it's a licence to print money — I would not become directly involved in appeal, but I would certainly represent facts as I see them in terms of my riding. I'm referring to an application for what is presently a restaurant, The Dam Inn, located on Highway 3A between Castlegar and Nelson in Crescent Valley. I said that I would at least send a letter to the appeal outlining some of the facts.

I understand that the application was turned down because of its location next to the highway, and one thing and another. I kind of accepted what I read in the initial letter upon which the application was turned down.

I'd like the minister to realize that in the Kootenays you can't get very far from the highway without getting up into the mountains or into a lake or into a river. It is a ribbon development snaking along valley bottoms, and there is no place, no centre of population, that isn't very far away from a highway. But I kind of thought, well, that's just the way they see these things. Perhaps down on flat land, in the lower mainland, people don't realize this when regulations are drawn up — and I was probably a party to some of the original regulations; that's quite possible.

But, Mr. Chairman, I'm rather disturbed in terms of the treatment of this application when I look at it not in isolation but in the context of other things. Now I have not met the owner of this pub. I have talked to him once, possibly twice on the telephone. The people who have been pressuring me to get this pub licence have been the citizens of that area, who, if they want to go and have a sociable drink, have to travel by automobile about 10 miles or more to Castlegar or 10 miles or more into Nelson. In that area, which is building up very much, they might have been able to take advantage of a neighbourhood pub. A neighbourhood pub could perhaps supply a courtesy car — as I know is done in at least one of the licensed cabarets in my riding; there is a courtesy car and they take their patrons home so that if someone did over imbibe.... But that is certainly not a service offered, to my knowledge, by the beer parlours and other institutions in Nelson or in Castlegar.

There has been a petition of full support for this, and it isn't right on the highway. You have to travel a few hundred yards to get to this location. It's a nice new building. But even at that, I kind of accepted it.

I'm making my statement here in the Legislature. I want to do this in the most public way possible. I don't want to go and see the minister on this issue. There are other things that I might come to see him about, but I want to do this.... If I'm going to say anything about this, if I'm going to talk about the pros or cons of any particular application, I certainly don't want to do it in any sort of a compromised attitude.

What surprises me is that I hear that this one has been turned down largely because of its proximity to the highway. I go driving through Moyie and I see a neighbourhood pub right on Highway 3. Well, I look at the building that it's in. I see it's an old building and it was, I suppose, an old hotel. It's not a great-looking hotel in terms of its outward appearance, but I suppose that it was perhaps at one time a beer parlour, and it's been perhaps down-zoned or whatever to the status of neighbourhood pub. But some people have commented on that. I find out that in another instance in Jaffray, on Highway 3 over in the East Kootenays there is a new neighbourhood pub right on the highway. Now this application is not right on Highway 3. It's on one of the alternate routes. If you're approaching from Vancouver, there's first of all a division at Nancy Greene Lake,, where a good part of the traffic goes down to Rossland and Trail, and the other part proceeds on toward Castlegar. At Castlegar there is a second division, where what I consider the really main part goes directly through to Salmo and onward, and there's Highway 3A, which leads toward Nelson. That's what this particular application is on.

I've been asked by some of the people who live around this, and by the two nearest neighbours, the two people who would have been most directly affected — and they want to see it there. One lady phoned me about it and said: "Can you not support this?" I said: "I'm not too comfortable about supporting or opposing a neighbourhood pub application one way or the other." But there has been a petition signed by the residents: the neighbouring residents want this very badly. What I find very disturbing is when I have to explain to them that, well, it was turned down because of regulations. The regulations are cut and dried.

But how cut and dried are they, Mr. Chairman? Are they so cut and dried that they prohibit the neighbourhood pub right on the main highway, Highway 3 at Moyie, or the new one that's been built in Jaffray? What's so cut and dried about regulations if what goes in one place doesn't go in another? And what about the Grammas Pub application, which people have heard about and asked me about? They say: "What do you have to do to get a neighbourhood pub?"

Well, I'll tell you what I told the owner of that pub. I said: "Go to Mair Janowsky." I said that. I wish he had. He didn't, and he still doesn't have his application through. He's just trying to do it through regular channels. I think that he has another appeal coming; I don't know if it's to some lower level, or to the minister directly. But I want to tell you, when you have things like Grammas pub, when you have visible pieces of evidence of other neighbourhood pubs located on the main Crowsnest Highway 3, then what can you say to people when you have a new building, eminently suitable, good parking off the highway, a good safe T-junction and good visibility left and right, and when it would actually serve a neighbourhood that is building up and is quite a large neighbourhood, in fact — rural as it might be? We have such a problem with impaired driving in my part of the interior — and studies which I brought to the attention of this Legislature in 1976 certainly point that out — that I think such a thing could probably, if anything, improve the situation. So do you have regulations, or are regulations just made to be broken? I cannot, for the life of me, understand why we're going in this direction.

I have sent a letter to you, and as I said, I neither spoke in

[ Page 3715 ]

favour of it or against it in that particular letter, as my address to the earlier appeal stated. But I think that things have got to be treated a little, bit more fairly.

It is a licence to print money, and I would say that people such as liquor inspectors are under tremendous pressure and are susceptible to the worst kind of suspicion. In many other jurisdictions and in many other countries people would be bribing people to get the position of being a liquor inspector. It is a powerful position. In other countries that's the way it would be handled. I think that we have to view every stage in approval of the selling of liquor, and of course we know the alternative. It's not a free enterprise operation; it's a monopoly. You just do not allow the market to dictate who will and will not have the right to sell liquor. It's not free enterprise.

I hope that when applications are made they are looked upon in the context of the place where those applications are being made from. Not only do some of the regulations not make sense in that part of the Kootenays, but they aren't applied; they just are not equally applied.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I believe the member who just spoke sent me a letter a couple of weeks ago with respect to that. I'm not sure if he's received a reply yet. The matter is under review, and that particular application was heard in an appeal sense and was denied for the grounds you mentioned, Mr. Member.

I agree with you. The regulations are intended to be guidelines for the general manager with respect to certain restrictions on licences: distances from other licensed premises, certain geographical characteristics, and other situations. But they are meant to be guidelines, because we — and whoever drafted the legislation originally — recognize that circumstances will vary from location to location. They are guidelines only.

Sometimes, perhaps, in the initial applications for some of these licences, the guidelines are considered to be stronger than just a guideline — a regulatory authority or power, and it restricts some. That's why we do have the appeal process. The appeal will take into consideration the uniqueness of the area.

I agree with you that the restriction from a highway would make it impossible in most small communities in the province to ever have a licensed neighbourhood pub, because the small towns generally are very highway-oriented, and a half-mile from a highway is a physical impossibility in many. So we do take that into consideration.

This other matter is being reviewed by the general manager's staff now, my deputy advises me, so we'll be getting back to those people.

Mr. Chairman, in general, I would like to see a great deal more neighbourhood pubs in the province. I think they have served the people very, very well. I think that the people running neighbourhood pubs have acted in a very responsible manner, for the most part. We do not have a great deal of policing difficulties with most neighbourhood pubs. If there are problems, it's generally the management rather than the location or the clients who attend. Some of them are extremely good examples of very careful craftsmanship in their construction and generally very professional management in their services to the public. I'd like to see more and I'd like to see some less severe restrictions so there will be more opportunities and more competition.

The biggest problem we had to deal with was the marketing in licences, which comes about when you have a restricted market. When you restrict the number of licences in a market area, you're going to get a value attached to that licence. We've had some shocking examples of what we would refer to as trading in licences. I agree with the member who just spoke; in remote areas of this province we should give a greater consideration to the circumstances of geography usually associated with the applicants. For the member's information, that matter is being reviewed. I don't know what the outcome may be, but it is certainly being looked at.

MR. NICOLSON: The second matter I wanted to bring up is very short. It has to do with performance of work. Maybe to highlight it, I'll just briefly gloss over the facts of a case involving Interior Exteriors of Kamloops versus Mr. Androsoff and his wife of Nelson. This actually became a lawsuit in the courts. Briefly stated, because good tradesmen in Nelson are so much in demand, we often have outside tradespeople coming in and doing home repairs, putting up siding and various other things. Interior Exteriors signed an agreement with Mr. Androsoff to do some work. I have a few pictures of the work they did. I must say that it is pretty shoddy when a railing doesn't meet at a 45 degree angle and they have to put a wedge in to make up a gap of about three-eighths of an inch. There were double sealed windows that were not properly set into a proper casing but were put into some sort of a makeshift casing. They were sweating, not because of the nature.... I know that sweating is quite often a problem with metal frames around double sealed windows, but they were simply not installed in proper casings. Parts of the siding were not even straight, and so on.

As a result, Mr. Androsoff cancelled the cheque he'd used to pay this company. They subsequently sued him and he was served to appear in court in Kamloops. Being an old-age pensioner, he did not appear. His son and daughter then wrote to your ministry at the Kamloops office. They contacted the contractor. As they had not appeared in court your office said there was not much more they could do. They had contacted the contractor and there was not much of a voluntary compliance — at least, whatever he did, it was not to the complainant's satisfaction. It is a very bad situation for that senior citizen couple. As I say, I went up and took a few pictures of it and it's very bad.

What I would like to bring out of this is that when the Ministry of Consumer Services was first created, there was at that time some funding for consumer advocacy groups. They had storefront offices in areas that were not served by the ministry. For a lot of people, particularly senior citizens and senior citizens whose first language is not English....

Mr. Androsoff was a Russian-speaking Doukhobor. The lack of a storefront in the region and having to correspond with people as far away as Kamloops, Vancouver or Victoria is so remote that had he gotten into this trouble, he might have been able to contact somebody before cancelling the cheque. If he has to do that by letter, he wouldn't know where to start.

If your ministry would, once again, bring in funding or, of course, another office, that would be great. If you would get some of the consumer groups that are interested going again with some minimal funding, they could set up a storefront office. They could get lots of support through the local newspapers in getting the message out, and then they could work with your ministry — as I would submit they did when the original Department of Consumer Services was created. As it is, this couple probably hate a little bit of every day, every time they look at an ill-fitting railing around their front

[ Page 3716 ]

porch, every time they see water dripping down their front window in cold weather, every time they look at other aspects of this job — on which I have a fairly long file. They just realize that they have been taken, they have been beaten, and it just shouldn't happen in this day and age.

With a fairly minimal investment in the communities serving around 25,000 people, in which you maybe can't afford a full-blown ministry office, if, you were to start encouraging a program of setting up good, responsible people with a proven track record, I think that you could offer a tremendous amount of service — not that these people should go over their heads, but that they could work through the ministry and at least give the people the right advice in terms of what could have been given to this couple. They could have been advised what would happen if they withheld payment or cancelled the cheque. They could have been told what the results of their non-appearance would have been when they were sued by the company and their bank account was seized and attached.

Really, a Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs just isn't worth two bits to us if you are that far from a storefront office. It's really not worth much to somebody in Nelson, Trail, Castlegar or Grand Forks because it just isn't there to serve the people who most need it. If it doesn't have a storefront office it just doesn't work. It's one of the extras. It's a perk if you live in the city, and it's the pits if you live in a small community that doesn't have that kind of service.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Chairman, I have a few brief remarks for the minister, dealing with two items. The first item is hidden warranties, particularly on automobiles. The minister, of course, is very much aware of the situation. I did have the opportunity some time ago of going through a lengthy case, working with people within the ministry on that particular case. I took on that particular case as a test case. I wanted to know if an MLA in this province could take on the Ford Motor Co. and win on the situation of hidden warranties.

In this particular situation the Ford Motor Co. had a defect in a certain model of automobile. Their instructions to the dealers were: if somebody came in and complained, fix it for free. There was a time limit and a mileage limit on this service. This hidden warranty was not advertised. People didn't know about it. In other words, if they went over the time limit and the mileage limit and then had problems with that particular model of automobile, in this case the engine, the Ford Motor Co. refused to take any responsibility.

In this particular instance, the owner of the vehicle happened to be a single parent trying to raise three children. I thought I would fight this one to the ultimate just to see if something could be done. The fact is we won the case. We won that case because the consumer protection section of the ministry did an outstanding job, in my view. I don't have the file here; I think it was a Mr. Nicholls within the ministry. After numerous telephone calls, letters, etc., to Ford, we did manage to settle this case in favour of the aggrieved person.

The reason I raise it this afternoon is not only to compliment the people within the ministry on this particular case, but if it happened to one person it must be happening to thousands of other people in this province. I am getting complaints of the same situation with the Datsun motor company. The motor vehicles have a poor body design. They are rusting out all over the coast. In all fairness, they have had a recall and will compensate some people who have purchased some models, but they haven't covered their whole range of vehicles. The fact is that they should have.

I'm wondering if the minister is aware of this and what can be done from his ministry. More precisely, I would like the minister to consider bringing in legislation sometime making it compulsory that any automobile company, when it has a defect in its automobile, have no such thing as a hidden warranty, but that the customers be written and notified, and that the problems within those vehicles be made public. As I said before, we won this particular case for this particular person, but there must be literally thousands and thousands of people who aren't aware of this hidden warranty situation, and something must be done or should be done through the ministry to rectify that situation.

I want to talk about another thing very briefly, Mr. Chairman. This whole pile of correspondence in front of me deals with liquor pub licences. I'm not going to go through that whole bag again. Copies of most of this correspondence have gone to the minister. But one of the things I don't understand about the criteria of the ministry is that in the.... I'll use an example from my own riding, but I know this happens in other parts of the province. Right off Highway 101 there is a very well-operated neighbourhood pub. In fact, it's so well operated that people in the area police force utilize the pub in their off-hours, because it's a place where they can go without being hassled, and it's run very well. But it is right on the highway. Yet 22 miles south of the same community — Powell River — I know an application for a pub licence went in, also right off the highway. There is no liquor outlet at all in that whole 22-mile stretch, so people living out there have to drive all the way to town if they want to go to a pub or to have a drink at one of the hotels or whatever. In other words, they have to drive the 22 miles, and occasionally on the way home they.... What I'm saying is that it would be better to have a neighbourhood pub in that area. Yet the licence was refused for no other reason.... The reputation of the people was fine. The premises were okayed. It was refused because it was right off the highway. North of the community a licence was granted right on the highway. South of the community it was refused. Now I hope it wasn't because of political consideration, as was raised earlier in this Legislature. But I can't understand the reasoning in those situations. It's not consistent.

Last, but not least, I think the legislation should be changed back in terms of approval of pub licences to what it was when we were government, Mr. Chairman. In other, words, the minister didn't have the final say in the granting of pub licences. That was changed under this government. I think these licence applications should be taken out of the political arena and put back into an independent body or commission. I don't think it should be left to the general manager of the licensing branch either. I think it should go to an independent body to make the final decision, some kind of commission independently appointed.

With that I'll leave the minister with just one last word over that one particular case: when we took on the Ford Co. of Canada, and won, I was extremely pleased about that particular situation.

MR. HYNDMAN: This will be very brief, but I want to take this opportunity to ask the minister a question, and to raise a topic concerning the staff in our various retail liquor stores. I think most of us have the experience that the staff in those stores are friendly, cheerful and helpful and do a good

[ Page 3717 ]

job. But one suggestion that a lot, of the public makes that I think is a worthwhile suggestion is whether or not the LAB might have some form of uniform dress jacket or uniform which the staff could wear, for a couple of pretty practical reasons.

One, of course, is that we now find staff on the floor to assist customers' queries about wine, replacement of stocks, and so forth, and very often it is difficult to spot that floor staff person. I'm sure all of us have had the experience of tapping someone on the shoulder; they're enormously helpful, and you find they live down the street, but they're not on the staff.

Secondly, it seems to me that a lot of the staff spend a lot of time moving boxes — often dusty. The weight of some of what they're carting around is substantial and they tell me that at the end of a busy week they may have some torn or semi-destroyed clothing.

Finally, I think if there was some uniformity of dress or jacket at the cash register, we'd probably go some way to sprucing up the general look and decorum of our retail liquor outlets, which slowly, I think, are moving from being something more than just vast storehouses for booze, to places with some bit of atmosphere and a little bit of interior decor, so that shopping there is not what it used to be in terms of feeling a little guilty about walking into a huge collection of liquor bottles.

I think people feel a little more comfortable walking in to do their retail liquor shopping. If we're going to have retail liquor stores and if we're going to have the staff continuing in a helpful way, I'd be interested in the minister's observations about perhaps providing — and of course, at the cost of the LCB, I don't suggest it should come from the pockets of the staff — some kind of uniform or jacket that might provide helpful identification, uniform dress and be easier on the pocket-book of the staff.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I would agree. I would like to see some uniformity in the appearance of the people working in our liquor stores, and I agree that it should be borne by management — not necessarily uniform, but uniform appearance. The question has arisen previously. I'm not quite sure what the resistance is, but there has been resistance. I'll speak to the general manager and determine if the resistance is the possible cost. I think we should be able to overcome that, and if the staff is agreeable I would think that smocks or jackets of some kind would be well worthwhile.

Vote 44 approved.

Vote 45: executive and administration, $1,196,208 — approved.

Vote 46: Consumer Affairs, $2,845,649 — approved.

Vote 47: Corporate Affairs, $4,828,986 — approved.

Vote 48: rentalsman, $2,712,220 — approved.

Vote 49: liquor control and licensing branch, $1,342,905 — approved.

Vote 50: Corporate and Financial Services Commission, $45,660 — approved.

Vote 51: Auditors' Certification Board, $2,500 — approved.

Vote 52: building occupancy charges, $1,489,000 — approved.

Vote 53: computer and consulting charges, $1,359,000 — approved.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF PROVINCIAL
SECRETARY AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

On vote 170: ministers office, $165,770.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I'm pleased to stand here in committee for the first time and debate the estimates of the Provincial Secretary and Minister of Government Services. If I may, I'd just like to make a few brief observations. As members are all aware, this ministry covers many diverse activities and there may be questions in a variety of areas so I won't want to restrict the ability of members to ask questions on a number of these areas.

Since taking over this portfolio last November, I have had the opportunity to become directly involved in the programs of this line ministry, including sports, cultural and heritage programs, lottery grants and a wide range of government services.

I'd like to just mention three or four of our forward plans which may be of interest to the members of the Legislature. First of all, library automation is a program which was set out in this year's budget. setting aside from surplus revenue the establishment of a computerized cataloguing system for public libraries in the province. Beginning in the lower mainland, this system will be used for a variety of library functions and will bring the libraries of British Columbia fully up to date by automating such library functions as cataloguing of books, inventory and circulation control, acquisition of new materials and budgetary control.

I'm also pleased to confirm to the committee the establishment of a Library Advisory Council to assist the minister in helping British Columbians to build up library services throughout the province that will be second to none in the country. I'd like to mention the members of this board. The chairman is Mr. Ray Woods of Williams Lake; the vice-chairman is Mrs. Dolly Kennedy of Vancouver; Mr. R.S. Cribb of New Westminster is a member; and others are Dr. Don Porter of Delta, Mrs. Daphne Scott of Prince Rupert, Mr. M.J. Whittaker of Victoria and Mrs. Mae Williams of Fernie.

I think in mentioning libraries I'd like to make note of the retirement of Mr. R.L. Davison, director of library services, who devoted some 25 years to the service of libraries in British Columbia. He retired from that office some two weeks ago.

May I call to the attention of members the continuing success of the B.C. Summer and Winter Games. Under the general guidance of Mr. Ron Butlin we're finding that participation in the games in growing annually. I had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremonies of the Winter Games at Kimberley this year and can inform the members that the enthusiasm of the people in that community and of the thousands of people throughout the province who helped prepare the games was unparalleled. The Summer Games

[ Page 3718 ]

this year will be in Kelowna, and the next Winter Games will be in Prince George. The Summer Games in 1981 will be in Courtenay-Comox-Cumberland. I'm told that the Kelowna games will be the biggest games to be staged thus far in the province and that our games are bigger, in fact, than the Canada Games and the Commonwealth Games in terms of those numbers. Grassroots involvement in the British Columbia Games is tremendous. Between 2,000 and 2,300 volunteers are required in each community where the games are held; between 1,600 and 1,800 volunteers are required to run off the playdowns for the games; 147,000 participants are involved in all of the playdowns throughout the province for the Kimberley and Kelowna games.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the government has dedicated this year a sum of $5 million from surplus revenue for the preservation of the Barkerville Historic Park. The staff of my heritage conservation branch are already preparing detailed plans for this very important work and stabilization work has begun on 18 buildings. I hope that the members will share our commitment to this major effort in preserving an important part of the province's heritage.

May I also mention recent heritage acquisitions including the Keremeos grist mill and the Beach Grove archaeological site.

You will note the increases in the budgetary provisions for the cultural programs, and I'd like to call your attention to the fact that I've recently appointed new members to the B.C. Arts Board under the chairmanship of Mr. Norman Young of Vancouver. With the assistance of the board, we will continue our efforts to encourage the growth of cultural programs, not just in the major population centres of the province but through the regional arts councils as well.

This assistance takes place under ten different categories, which include financial assistance for operating expenses; special projects assistances — for instance, the ballet society of Vancouver and the Amity Singers; special professional arts projects assistance; community arts development grants; arts resource touring subsidies; service programs to province-wide cultural service organizations like the B.C. Overture Concerts Society and the B.C. Touring Council; the national service programs to give grants to national cultural organizations; a special conference assistance is given, and special festival assistance; grants are also made to assist with the cost of these cultural conferences, including the Canadian Folk Arts Council and Folkfest.

Finally, there are a number of scholarship programs, including full-time tuition assistance for summer studies, short course assistance, and special awards for professional studies. That's just to give some indication, Mr. Chairman, of the wide range of operating and capital assistance, of special assistance given through the cultural services branch.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to inform the members that a new provincial archivist has taken up his duties since the last session. He is Mr. John Bovey, who will be known to many of you now, and he takes the place of Mr. Allan Turner, who was promoted to the position of assistant deputy minister for culture, heritage and recreation, during the year just ended.

It has been a year of growth and development with respect to the government printing services provided by this ministry. I am pleased to be able to inform the committee that there has been a major expansion and modernization of the Queen's Printer printing plant, and a complete revision of equipment. The smooth production this spring of the Revised Statutes of British Columbia, which I believe are now in the hands of all members, testifies to the success of the improvements that have been undertaken.

I must also congratulate the Queen's Printer, Mr. Gerald Cross — many don't appreciate that Mr. Cross is, in fact, officially the Queen's Printer — and of course his staff, for their services in this connection.

During the year just ended, the provincial government postal branch has moved to new quarters within the precinct. With more space and better facilities, we are already seeing improved postal services, including overnight courier services to Vancouver and much faster office-to-office service between Victoria and government offices in the regions.

During the past year, the former chief electoral officer, Mr. Ken Morton, retired after many years of faithful service in that position. He was replaced in April by Mr. Harry Goldberg, who brings to the position a number of years of experience in election administration at a very senior level in the province of Alberta.

With those few remarks I'll take my seat; but before doing so I want to recognize senior staff members who are here: Deputy minister Gerald Cross and assistant deputy minister in charge of finance and administration, Jerry Woytack, are with me. I think Mr. Allan Turner, assistant deputy minister in charge of culture, heritage and recreation, will be joining us shortly. Absent, I believe, for the moment is Mr. Barry Kelsey, Assistant Deputy Minister of Government Services.

MRS. DAILLY: I first of all want to thank the Provincial Secretary for giving us a good overall view of his ministry's work during the last year. But I couldn't help thinking that anyone sitting in the gallery who knows little about the workings of government — as most people don't unless they have the opportunity we have — would think that perhaps this ministry is interesting, from the point of view of being so varied, but somewhat dull. May I say that I think this is far from being a dull ministry. As a matter of fact, it most certainly hasn't been in the last several years.

It's also a ministry that can be very, very powerful in terms of the other ministries in government. I think we saw that in the past when we had the Deputy Premier, the member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy), who served as Provincial Secretary, and who, in my opinion, quite openly used the ministry for a considerable amount of political patronage. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, this portfolio could lend itself to an overt abuse of the powers given to the Provincial Secretary under the act.

Therefore it brings me to the present Provincial Secretary, and some very serious questions which I wish to pose to him as a start in today's estimates. This Provincial Secretary, we know, has just assumed his ministry for the first time, along with the general change in ministries. But I particularly want to deal with his role in the matter of electoral reform. That's why this is a very vital portfolio. It deals with the whole matter of electoral reform. That minister is in charge of some of the most far-reaching changes in the electoral system in our province. That's why there is no way that this ministry should ever be treated lightly.

Events in this province during the last year have certainly made it very apparent to us that someone in fairly high political office has mishandled the whole election reform procedure in this province.

That brings me to the point of discussing the Eckardt report. We're all aware, Mr. Chairman, that even though the

[ Page 3719 ]

present Provincial Secretary was not the actual Provincial Secretary at the time the report was commissioned, he himself, shortly after the report was presented to the House, did assume office. This minister actually made some statements about the report. So I hope that I will be ruled in order, in discussing the statements which were made by this Provincial Secretary, as Provincial Secretary, to do with his portfolio.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps there should be a word of caution here, hon. member. The administrative action of a department is open to debate during estimates, but discussion involving legislation and matters involving legislation are not debatable during Committee of Supply.

MRS, DAILLY: Yes, I quite appreciate that. I'm not talking about legislation, Mr. Chairman. Therefore I'd just like to move into some direct questions to the Provincial Secretary.

On January 17, 1980, the present Provincial Secretary issued a public statement in which he criticized, "erroneous allegations made in the press that the Eckardt report had been altered between June 16, 1978, when it was signed, and June 20, 1978, when it was tabled. Mr. Wolfe, the Provincial Secretary, said at that time, and I quote again, "there was no foundation in fact," and that it was also "untrue" that changes had been made during that three-day period. Those statements were made by the present Provincial Secretary on January 17, 1980.

But, Mr. Chairman, on January 18 — the next day, Larry Eckardt, former Socred candidate who was appointed as provincial court judge by the Social Credit government subsequently, and had retired, of course, by this time, made a statement in Mexico, where he was holidaying at the time, to a CBC reporter. His statement was that he had made "last minute changes during that three-day period." This was said one day after the Provincial Secretary had stated that it was untrue and there was no foundation in fact that any changes had been made in that three-day period, The very next day, the judge, who was appointed by the Social Credit Party and, may I remind the House, was also a former Social Credit candidate, made the statement that he had in fact made some last-minute changes during that three-day period, and he had delivered the final copy to Grace McCarthy, Provincial Secretary at that time, about an hour before it was tabled in the House June 20.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, the point I'm making is — and this is where I'm leading into my questions to the Provincial Secretary — that the formal statement made by the Provincial Secretary, whose estimates are before this House, was in reality completely untrue. My first question to the minister is: why did you not tell the truth?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are verging on some very unparliamentary debate and I would caution the member that all members in this House are honourable and we can debate their administrative actions only. That type of motive is unparliamentary and I'm sure the hon. member is aware of that.

MRS. DAILLY: To recap briefly, I just want the Provincial Secretary to answer my first question, which simply is: will you explain to us who is right, Judge Eckardt or yourself?

On January 17, 1980, Florence Tamoto, a typist on the Eckardt commission staff, swore an affidavit that she was called in on June 17 — a Saturday — to work overtime typing portions of the report, which were picked up by Judge Eckardt. She said the claim by Wolfe at his press conference that the report was turned into the Queen's Printer by June 16 is "a lie." She said three other commission staff worked overtime with her on June 17. Again, I would ask the Provincial Secretary: who is right here, Florence Tamoto, who actually swore an affidavit stating that the minister had lied, or the minister? I think he owes it to the House to take this cloud off his head which has been sitting there for months.

On January 19 the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams) ordered his ministry to investigate and report on the allegations of political interference. We had the Deputy Premier (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) saying: "Nonsense. There is nothing wrong." She was quoted over and over again. We had the Provincial Secretary saying all the allegations were erroneous. Yet we have the Attorney-General in the same cabinet of the same government considering it serious enough to set up a report and investigation into, as we all know it now, "Grace's Finger."

We've been waiting for well over six months for some report to the House by the Attorney-General. I know that we are not in his estimates now. Therefore I say to the Provincial Secretary — who at the moment is under a very, very grave cloud of suspicion because of the fact that his statements simply do not coincide with the statements of Judge Eckardt and a sworn affidavit by a worker with the Eckardt commission — that he owes it to the House to remove that cloud of suspicion. I'd like him to answer these questions. Also, why is he not working on the Attorney-General, the Premier and the cabinet to release these reports to the public of British Columbia?

HON. MR. WOLFE: It may surprise the member to know that I'm glad she asked that question. As she quite properly concluded, that whole matter was referred to the Deputy Attorney-General, Mr. Vogel, to carry out some kind of inquiry and review the matter and report. Although you referred to a statement that I had made in the previous minister's absence from this country, as I was informed by the Queen's Printer of the sequence of events, as they recalled them, I believe what I said to be true. That was your first question. Did I tell the truth? Well, I believe what I said to be true, and I'm only able to say at this point, Mr. Chairman, that as long as that matter is under investigation by the Attorney-General, I wouldn't want to influence how he would decide in the matter, and I think it's therefore not appropriate for me to enlarge on what....

MS. BROWN: Your whole department is under investigation. What does that mean — we can't do your estimates?

HON. MR. WOLFE: In any event, I can say very categorically, Mr. Chairman, that I believe what I said, in the terms of that report, would be 100 percent true, and until this report is forthcoming from the Deputy Attorney-General, I can't offer any more to the member or to the committee by way of comment.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the Provincial Secretary says that the Eckardt business is under the....

[ Page 3720 ]

There's some kind of inquiry going on — that's what you said — under Mr. Vogel. My first point, Mr. Chairman, is that whatever else is going on, that doesn't make it sub judice. I've searched May and Beauchesne and Kinsey, all of the authorities — I've read them all — and there's nothing in there that makes Gracie's Finger sub judice, because the government won't order a proper inquiry.

Now if this Provincial Secretary had done his duty and wasn't a beneficiary of that finger, or that nose — you just won by a nose — would you not have ordered a public inquiry into the circumstances of that particular piece of gerrymandering, which is going to be remembered by the people of this province for a long, long time? Because whatever is under the Attorney-General's department, and there are all kinds of inquiries and reviews going on there — I appreciate that — you're the minister in charge to whom the Inquiry Act applies. You could have cleared this matter up very quickly, but you're in a conflict of interest, and while you've been in office you've heard former Judge Eckardt, who is now a practising lawyer, make the unbelievable statement which the Provincial Secretary must think was totally ungermane to anything sensible. The only explanation he's ever given about adding that finger on when Little Mountain was already bigger than Point Grey was that "we don't want to break up neighbourhoods." The Provincial Secretary, of all people, knows that the new Arbutus Village is separated from the rest of Little Mountain not only by two streets of Arbutus, but by a railway track — the BCR tracks. You've got about 200 feet. On the east side of Arbutus you don't have the little houses or condominiums the way you do in Arbutus Village. So what I'm saying — and I'm not going to repeat the thing — is that what former Judge Eckardt said about it makes absolutely no sense at all, and it demands a proper public inquiry. Because if you don't have that, then forever the Social Credit coalition in all the reaches of the province is going to be associated with that finger — it's not going to go away, that finger.

The member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) has asked the Provincial Secretary a perfectly fair question on his estimates. Why are you saying something at variance with the former judge? There is a conflict there, and to get up and say that your colleague the Attorney-General (Hon. Williams) has it under some kind of investigation.... It isn't a public inquiry, it isn't an independent judge, it's just some kind of internal housekeeping investigation such as the Social Credit coalition has been using to hide things. There he is, the Attorney-General. How many reviews has the Attorney-General got? That doesn't make the subject matter sub judice. This minister made his statement, which is in contradiction to what was said by Larry Eckardt, and we have a right to ask you, then, through the Chair: on what did you base that statement? Did you examine the facts and circumstances to see that that finger wasn't added at the last minute? On what do you base the obvious conflict between you and Larry Eckardt in what you're saying? Did you make an investigation yourself?

HON. MR. WOLFE: I said earlier that I was informed after full discussion of the matter, based on the Queen's Printer, as I indicated when I was on my feet earlier, that the information I gave was completely correct. The former minister was out of the country at the time and so was the judge. I made a preliminary report on the matter based on the information I had before me. It's a simple fact, despite the political games the members opposite may wish to play with this matter, that until that report was handed to the previous Provincial Secretary on the date on which it's dated, it was still the judge's report.

Mr. Chairman, it is inconsequential to consider what may have taken place with the report in the procedure. You may cast all sorts of allegations regarding other people of this Legislature and influence that may have been brought to bear. I don't know. Those are matters which I presume are being studied by the Attorney-General. I just want to say that in terms of the statement I was asked about, that was the information I had and I still believe it to be correct.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman; I just cannot believe what I've just heard — the minister talking about political games in this Legislature. Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, the political games were played in that government behind closed doors with a built-in guide to look after their interests. The political game was that there were three seats lost through the gerrymander and all of those three seats were held by NDP members. I saw no Socred seat down the tube in that particular gerrymander.

This report that we're waiting for now to sort of give us an idea about what happened.... Whether or not this minister had anything before him is of no consequence to me, but the fact is we've been waiting for a report since January and here it is August, although it should be so easy to deliver. I predict that that report will not arrive in the hands of anybody until such time as this parliament, let alone this session of the Legislature, is prorogued.

That's our trouble. That's I why we're concerned about this question. The minister says that there was nothing before him to give him any other idea than the fact that it was an erroneous allegation. He had nothing before him to show him that it wasn't an erroneous allegation. He had nothing before him at all, unless he happened to be at one of those meetings. All these statements with no foundation in fact are not the least bit impressive, particularly when they're followed by us waiting and waiting for this report that never arrives.

Question period comes and goes. We ask the question of the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams): "Have you got your report yet — one of the 23 or 24 that we're waiting for?" No. Then this minister, who was one of the great beneficiaries of the finger and the downtown redistribution in Vancouver — he and the members for Vancouver South (Hon. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hyndman).... All he can get up and say is that what he thought then he still believes, because there's been nothing to change his mind. Just pure logic'would change his mind, if he would think about it.

When he talks about political games, I'll tell you, Mr. Chairman, when I saw that report, when I heard the decision about that redistribution, I thought to myself that if I had ever seen political games at work in this province I saw it then. The government suffered at the next election, partly because of that and other things. They should continue to suffer until they fess up, until they put their cards on the table and say, "Yes, we were the ones who played those political games"' because they were. All one has to have is just a pure sense of logic. I just ask the minister this simple question: why would he make a remark about political games over this question?

MR. LEA: I'd like to ask the minister whether he, in any capacity — as an MLA, a private citizen or a minister between the time government assigned Mr. Eckardt to bring in his report and the time it was tabled in the Legislature, ever met with Mr. Eckardt.

[ Page 3721 ]

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Chairman, in all honesty it would be difficult for me to recall. I've met Larry Eckardt, as you probably have, Mr. Member, on different occasions. I do not recall that I met him in the period you're referring to.

MR. CHAIRMAN: At this point, I might remind all hon. members that we are discussing the ministry of the Provincial Secretary. The report has been filed in the Legislative Assembly and there was adequate discussion or debate at the time.

MR. LEA: I'd like to ask the minister: were you ever in a room, Mr. Minister, when someone else was meeting Larry Eckardt within that same time-frame?

I couldn't hear your head shake.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Chairman, the answer is the same as the last: I can't recall having been in such a room or such a meeting or.... You recall, I was Minister of Finance during that period of time, and would have had concerns with Treasury Board over moneys that might have been required by the commission, and so on, but I can't remember being in a room with the judge and other members.

MR. LEA: So the minister hasn't any recall in this area.

From the time that the minister made the statement that everything was all right, and that the report had not been changed from the time it was submitted to the time it hit here.... At what point did you find out that the statement you made was, in fact, not true? I'm not saying you lied, but someone gave you some information....

Interjection.

MR. LEA: So you still don't know whether it was true or not — that statement that you made. Mr. Minister, don't you think it's rather strange that you're the person in charge of all of that? You made a statement which not much later a judge and an employee, with a sworn affidavit, said wasn't true. Did you then go back to the Queen's Printer? What did you do then? Did you just forget it? I mean, what action did you take after you ascertained that other people were saying that what you said was not true? Did you make any further investigation at that point? If not, what did you do?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Chairman, there's nothing more I can add to the explanations I've already given. I had full and thorough discussions with staff members of the Queen's Printer at the time, who formulated the statement that I made, and I still believe it to be true.

MR. LEA: Mr. Eckardt said it isn't true. The woman who worked for the commission swore an affidavit and said it isn't true. But you still say it is true. Could you tell us why you think it's.... Did they lie? Who lied? Did somebody give you the wrong information, or did Larry Eckardt and this woman lie? I mean, these are the only two explanations.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Chairman, I think we're talking about dates over two years ago and the semantics of what may or may not have taken place in an interval of a very few days. The significant thing is that the report was the commission's report and the judge's report until the previous minister received it in her office at a date and time of which we are all aware. So that's the important thing.

MR. LEA: But the judge says that it was changed from the time he submitted it to her office until the time it came here. As the minister responsible, don't you know that? You say the judge didn't say that, is that right?

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's getting towards the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, and I'd move the committee rise and report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Wolfe tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services for the calendar year 1979.

MR. LEA: I'd like to ascertain from the House Leader whether there's going to be some special motion for Public Accounts tomorrow morning.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I guess the hon. member wasn't in the House when I articulated this last week. Perhaps he'd check with his own House Leader. There will be, yes. Also, since the hon. member brought it up, I think of interest to all members of the House that we are proposing to sit on Thursday morning as well, commencing at 10 o'clock.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:03 p.m.

[ Page 3722 ]

APPENDIX

72 The Hon. Jack Davis asked the Hon. the Provincial Secretary and Minister of Government Services the following question:

How many Orders in Council were passed in each of the fiscal years from 1970-71 to 1979-80, inclusive?

The Hon. E. M. Wolfe replied as follows:

"The number of Orders in Council passed during the calendar years 1970 to 1980 is as follows: 1970, 4,469; 1971, 4,808; 1972, 4,499; 1973, 4,367, 1974, 4,161; 1975, 3,953; 1976, 3,793, 1977, 3,920; 1978, 3,276; 1979, 3,259; and 1980, 1,361 (to June 20, 1980)."