[ Page 4435 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Northeast coal development. Mr. Leggatt –– 4435

Mr. Lauk –– 4436

Budget debate

Mrs. Wallace –– 4437

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 4439

Mr. Lockstead –– 4435

Hon, Mr. Hewitt –– 4448

Mrs. Dailly –– 4452

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 4456

Tabling Documents

B.C. lotteries branch annual report, April 1, 1979, to March 31 –– 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

B.C. Labour Relations Board report, 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act annual report for the year ended

March 31, 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Pension (Public Service) Act annual report for the year ended March 3 I 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Pension (Municipal) Act annual report for the year ended December 31, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Pension (College) Act annual report for the year ended August 31 –– 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Pension (Teachers) Act annual report for the year ended December 31, 1979.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Public Service Benefit Plan Act annual report for the year ended March 31, 1980.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 4458

Erratum –– 4458

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. LEGGATT: I'd like to welcome to the gallery today one of Port Coquitlam's most prominent citizens, formerly mayor of Port Coquitlam and formerly chairman of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, Mr. Jack Campbell.

MR. SEGARTY: In the gallery this afternoon are Mr. William McNamar, district administrator for the regional district of East Kootenay, Mr. Jim Lambe, city administrator for the city of Cranbrook, and Mr. John Hayes, city clerk. I'd like the House to join me in welcoming those gentlemen this afternoon.

Oral Questions

NORTHEAST COAL DEVELOPMENT

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, perhaps in the absence of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) I could direct this question to the Premier. Yesterday the Minister of Finance indicated in an answer that he would deal in his budget address with the question of the taxpayers' burden on the northeast coal project and whether it was commercially viable. In fact, when one examines the budget address, he did not deal with this aspect.

In view of the fact that the federal government has indicated that on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada it will guarantee that its tax investment in northeast coal will be recovered on a commercial basis, will the Premier now, on behalf of his government, make the same commitment that the investment in northeast coal by his government will be recovered through the commercial aspects of the project?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of trying to emulate the federal government's financial policies in any of their aspects because, quite frankly, in most cases they have not proven to be beneficial to the development of the country, nor have they proved particularly beneficial to the people of British Columbia. I will say this about the northeast coal development: I'm going to draw a very interesting parallel here, Mr. Speaker, to give some idea of how the government has attempted to undertake a visionary development that will open up a large part of the province.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I am answering the question.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. BENNETT: If the hon. members wish to interrupt, it may take me longer, but if they wish to....

MR. BARNES: Is that a threat?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're too big to threaten, hon. member for Vancouver Centre — the second member, not the first member.

Mr. Speaker, all of the details of the government's planning for northeast coal will be before this Legislature very quickly when the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) presents his estimates, at which time that type of detailed answer will be undertaken. So let me say what the government has done for the first time, because I would like to contrast it with the previous rail construction that opened up the province, which most of the people of British Columbia supported. It opened up the great interior of the province, and was done without any attempt at extra cost recovery.

Interjections,

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The question was a rather broad question as I understood it, and if the member wishes to have the answer to the question, let's hear the answer, at least. Please proceed.

HON. MR. BENNETT: In fact, even when there were no major developments such as took place in the central interior, I know that in the years 1972-75 major railway extensions were undertaken not only as a pioneer railway, but upgraded to mainline standards in the Dease Lake area with not only no cost-recovery bonus, but in fact the very dream which had been the initiative that developed that railway was lost. They kept building for building's sake and no load was there to carry even at normal freight rates, let alone recovery.

Now this government, in assessing the responsible northeast development of this province. has negotiated and made a condition of the development that there shall be surcharges over and above the freight rate that would cover the operating costs. Those surcharges are placed on the coal with the view that larger tonnages than the initial contracts will be achieved. That means, we've taken a moment in time when a large volume of tonnage is available in order to initiate a project, because if not taken at that time the opportunity would be lost. And we have enough confidence and understanding of the world demand for coal and the ability of the workers in British Columbia to produce that coal efficiently at competitive prices that we will be able to achieve for this province the additional tonnages that will bring back tremendous revenues from those surcharges.

Now that is a first, quite in contrast to policy or lack of policy that was undertaken before.

MR. LEGGATT: I just wanted to be sure that I understood the Premier correctly. I take it from his answer that the taxpayers of Canada will recover their investment and provincial taxpayers will not. Isn't that, in short, what he said?

MR. SPEAKER: Order. please. Hon. members, before the Premier answers.... The nature of the question is itself argumentative, and there's a very fine line as to whether the question is admissible, but having admitted it then we must listen to the answer or, at least, have equal coverage of the answer so that it would cover the question itself. It's a little difficult from this point of view.

HON. MR. BENNETT: First of all, in that rather incorrect conclusion that was posed as a question by the member for Coquitlam-Moody he presumes a fact that is not there. and that is that the government of Canada is initiating great

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development in British Columbia, which they have not done. Naturally there is a national instrument, that I always thought was there for the benefit of all parts of Canada: the Canadian National Railway. Certainly I would expect them with their existing track, to be good enough business people and good enough Canadians to be able to participate in the development. They're a necessary and integral part of that transportation link. I'm not aware of a federal government role in there, unless the member can advise me that they are taking a much keener interest in the development of British Columbia than they have shown over the last few years.

It is true that although the province has applied for provincial management ports, we do not have that authority under the constitution, and as such it is therefore the responsibility of the federal government to develop the port at Ridley Island which this province has pushed for to prevent the disastrous mistake of being short-sighted and just upgrading the grain terminals at another site which would never accommodate any other Canadian supply. We've encouraged at least that part of the planning which would develop for Canada and British Columbia a bulk commodity port on Ridley Island. That bulk commodity port will be available for wood products in all of their development, grain, potash and the many great Canadian products, as well as B.C. coal and upgraded grain terminals.

The province is assisting in developing that port as part of our industrial strategy by participating in the road access, and that is part of the road development that this government is committed to. We've never asked the people in any part of the province to pay for recovery on the cost of highways; we service communities because roads service people. There will be people living and working at Ridley Island and in the northeast. What we will have — the most important element — is a creation of jobs.

I believe this development to be most important. We've taken a major new step in the way of financing development and looking for greater cost recovery than has ever been done. Railroad development, Mr. Speaker, has been financed in various ways in this country and in this province. I want to draw the parallel very clearly, because this is a very important subject to the people of British Columbia.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I know that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson), who is speaking from his seat, is interested....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's remember the purpose of question period. Although the question in itself is argumentative, I must warn the Premier not to go beyond the, scope of the question itself.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I was advised by you in the Chair. I had felt that the question was argumentative, but the first question was very broad. I felt that question period is a time in which people sincerely want information about the direction in which their province is going, and I'm attempting to do that. But if they don't want the answers now, the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) will certainly give them more answers than they've got questions — or negative questions — when we get to his estimates.

MR. LAUK: I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, who I know doesn't agree with the Premier and his unduly critical remarks about W.A.C. Bennett's decision to build the Dease Lake line.

Mr. Andras of Teck Corp. said on February 13, 1981, that his company would receive a $2 per tonne discount or rebate of total freight rates of $15.76 a tonne in the first five years of deliveries. The minister stated yesterday that no such discount or rebate would be paid by either of the two railways involved. Can the minister confirm that there is no rebate or discount to be paid by anyone to Teck or Denison with respect to transportation charges?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, I guess a subsidy or grant depends on what area of the country it's in. All I can say to the hon. second member for Vancouver Centre is that I have to be responsible for what I say, and I would suggest that those in the private sector would have to be responsible for what they say.

MR. LAUK: Then the minister does not confirm or deny a rebate or discount. Is that what your answer is?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the first member for Vancouver Centre that I answered his question yesterday, and I don't think the purpose of question period is to be repetitive.

MR. LAUK: The question to the minister was: is anyone going to pay a rebate or discount to these companies? The minister has refused to answer.

A supplementary would be: has the minister contacted Mr. Andras to inform him that he may be mistaken?

Yesterday the minister indicated that the provincial government would pay the full $50 million cost for the transmission powerline from W.A. C. Bennett Dam to Tumbler Ridge. Does this subsidy to the two mining companies indicate new policy on the part of government, and can future developments expect the construction of powerlines to their projects to be made free of charge?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. first member for Vancouver Centre, I would suggest that any townsite that has been built in British Columbia — and I might remind him of when the instant town of Mackenzie was built.... It is my understanding that B.C. Hydro supplies power to communities in which people live.

MR. LAUK: That would be the public paying the full cost of a transmission line for 5 percent of its use by the people living there. Is that what the minister is seriously trying to suggest?

The most conservative projections are that metallurgical coal from this region will be sold at prices between $85 and $86 per tonne by 1986. The Japanese have indicated that their agreement to purchase northeast coal includes a provision that the price will be fixed at $76 per tonne for the three and a half years following the first shipment to Japan. Can the minister confirm that the price of northeast coal is so fixed?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: In answer to the second member for Vancouver Centre, I have suggested before to him and to other people that the detailed contracts are between the coal companies and steel companies of Japan. It's my understand-

[ Page 4437 ]

ing of those contracts that the price is escalatable based on about 60 percent of the price.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat has 20 minutes left in her time.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm going to have to rush right along, then!

I was speaking about the discrepancies in budgeting as evidenced in last year's budget underexpenditures of amounts duly voted by this Legislature and an even greater amount of overexpenditure as covered by special warrants which have been filed by the minister with members of this House.

In dealing with some of the underexpenditures, I was pointing out some of the problems that have occurred as a result of not expending the money that was voted by this Legislature for various services. I dealt with the Human Resources ministry, and I want to deal with one item in Health. Health is one of the budgets where we have gotten into a great deal of trouble trying to budget sufficient money to meet the health requirements in this province.

The point that I wish to raise with the Minister of Finance and with this Legislature is the continuing refusal of this government to provide a speech therapist and an audiologist in the Cowichan Valley. This has been an ongoing request since I first came into this Legislature six years ago. Every consecutive Minister of Health sitting in this House since that time has told me that it's a much-needed thing, but they regret that they are not able to provide it in that particular year. This year is no exception. I have a letter from the new Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) saying: "Please be assured that this minister recognizes your concern and that of the Cowichan Valley Children's Committee for the communicatively handicapped children in the community...very much regret it, but as stated January 14 to that committee it is not possible to meet the request at the present time. It will be reviewed again next year."

That's six years. This is the year for aid to the disabled; this is the year of the disabled. That's the response. That speaks very poorly for the priorities of this government and its budgetary policy.

In education we're again faced with a larger share of the costs being borne locally. Last year it was something like 37 percent of the total cost that the government picked up this year that's dropping to 33 percent. There's a continual reduction in the payment for services by this provincial government.

There is one item that I want to raise that is of particular concern to residents of the Cowichan Valley, and I feel I must raise it in the budget debate rather than in the estimates because it involves two different ministries, and it certainly involves Finance. It is the problem of the Lake Cowichan road. I'm glad to see that the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) is in the precinct. I don't see the minister responsible for ICBC here. It is a problem that has been going on for a year and a half.

The Minister of Highways, in his wisdom, went in and tore up the surface of the Lake Cowichan road and left it over a year ago last winter in a state where we had nothing but flying gravel. To compound the situation, when they finally resurfaced it the seal coating was so badly done that the gravel continued to fly. We have had a series of paint damage and broken windshields in that area that has been phenomenal. The cost to ICBC last summer for replacing broken glass and repairing paint damage was something like $350,000. This has been a continuing problem since then. I'm sure it must be twice that amount now.

The Minister of Highways has agreed to pick up the deductible portion of insurance for windshield glass breakage, but he is continuing to hesitate relative to paint damage. He is refusing up to this point in time, though I must say that when he went over the road when the cabinet was in the area recently he agreed that he would reconsider. I'm still waiting for that reconsideration. His delays are causing some problems because the release forms for the deductible portion of the glass breakage relieve the ministry of any financial responsibility occurring on that particular day. And if paint damage and glass damage have occurred on the same day, the person who has suffered that damage is, of course, very hesitant to sign that release. So the whole thing is grinding to a halt. In addition to that. there have been tremendous delays in those payments, just for the straight glass breakage — and this is a continuing thing.

The reason I'm raising this under the Minister of Finance — in the budget estimate — is the stand that ICBC has taken relative to paint. Once they recognized the size of the problem and the cost that they were incurring. they felt that somehow they had to get some return from Highways for this. At least that's the only reason that I can see for them deciding partway down the line to declare paint damage as a problem, such that if an accident occurred that damaged the front, the back and both sides of the car. It was considered to be four separate accidents with four deductibles of S400 or $200, depending on what the deductible was — which means that in most instances the cost of the paint job is less than the deductible.

I think that this is a very unfair situation that has developed, inasmuch as in the original stages they covered both paint and glass for one $50 deductible. I have in my hand a report from ICBC that did exactly that: covered both paint and glass with one $50 deductible. If this difference of opinion is occurring between those two ministers, I think it is up to the Minister of Finance as the chief financial officer of this province to take some steps to ensure that the matter is straightened out. And the people who have suffered this kind of damage — damage which the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) has admitted is his responsibility.... It is time that was straightened out. and I'm calling upon the Minister of Finance to bring those two ministers together to take some action on that particular instance which has been hanging around now for two and a half years.

We heard the Minister of Finance yesterday tell us about how they were going to streamline government procedures and cut government costs. Well, Mr. Speaker, that's an interesting statement coming from a government that seems to be able to waste money without even trying. I refer in this instance to the Cowichan Estuary Task Force report. This report was an ongoing report-for some five years that study went on. I have raised it many times on the floor of this House, and many times many different Ministers of Environment have expressed their concern as to how long that study went on. We finally got the study, and on December 9 of last year I put a question on the order paper asking how much that

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study cost. The minister took the trouble to come over to this side of the House and tell me that was a legitimate question, that I would get an answer, and that if he got the answer before the House reconvened, I would have it in writing. I haven't seen it in writing, the question is still on the order paper, and we don't know what it cost. But I can tell you it cost plenty.

Out of that report we got a lot of verbiage, Mr. Speaker, and we got 12 recommendations. And out of those recommendations only one was actually a recommendation for action. Every one of the 11 other recommendations recommended further studies — further review. That's the kind of expenditure that this government is making and coming to no decisions — absolutely nothing — and leaving the whole business of shoreline management hanging in limbo. Problems for industry, problems with the environment, continuing problems, and recommendations for more studies — thousands and thousands of dollars down the tube and not one concrete thing as a result.

It would be very unnatural if I were to speak in a budget debate and not deal with agriculture, and today is no exception. I listened very carefully to the Minister of Finance to see what he would say about agriculture. He made one reference: he talked about the ALDA program being extended and a revolving fund being set up. So rather than the money going back to the government, it would revolve; and this amounts to about a million dollars. That was the sum total of his mention of agriculture. But it's very interesting if you look at the agriculture budget. You don't even have to look that far, if you just look at some of the words in the text where we're talking about tax increases. A lot of people were hit very hard yesterday by this government's budget, but let me tell you that farmers have been exceptionally hard hit.

On page 49, it talks about family farm and fishing operations: over half a cent a litre increase in the tax that family farms pay on diesel fuel, an estimated $1.8 million from family farms and fishermen combined. But worse than that, the coloured gasoline tax is going up by over a cent and a half, to collect, according to the minister's estimates, $48.6 million from the farmers in this province. It is our third resource industry, an industry that has little or no control over the price it gets for its products, and a high user of energy. How are farmers going to continue to operate when faced with this kind of tax increase? They can't get it out of the marketplace. If you're raising carrots or potatoes or turnips, it's going to take just as much gasoline, and you're going to have that extra tax on it — $48.6 million in total out of the agriculture community and no way to get it back out of the marketplace.

Farm income assurance programs, where they exist, already in place, are being cut back and curtailed by this government. The farmer is on the brink of going under, and this is the kind of slap that this government gives to the farm community. I'm shocked and horrified that it would single out a group that is the backbone of our community — produces our first basic essential — and give them that kind of boot with taxes. I'm shocked.

I'm shocked at the actual budget figures. When you look at the estimate book, why are the farmers being asked to subsidize the senior citizens of this province through the ICBC rebate? Because that's what happened in this budget. If you look at the totals, you'd think that the budget had perhaps been increased a little bit for agriculture — a couple of million dollars. In fact it hasn't. It's been reduced, because six million and some odd dollars of that budget is to repay ICBC for the subsidy paid to senior citizens. I don't think seniors are going to like that, and I know that farmers are not going to like it. It's unfair to ask one group of people to subsidize another. That should be strictly outside any of the agriculture estimates.

When you look at the $10 million cutback for agricultural credit in times of inflation and rising interest rates, then you realize just how hard hit the farmer has been by this particular budget.

Agriculture and land go hand in hand, but so do land and housing. It seems to me that there has been an attempt by this government and some members of this government to try to justify removal of agricultural land from the reserve over the heads of the Land Commission by saying that it's needed for housing. I would like to put into the record a few figures about the availability of land in the lower mainland.

Recently the four regional districts in that area — Fraser-Cheam, Central Fraser Valley, Dewdney-Alouette and the Greater Vancouver Regional District — have been preparing regional plans. I have a photostat of the plan here and I have maps of some of the plans outlining the acreage. This was done in conjunction with the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm), who sat in on many of those meetings, together with some of his staff; they were there continuously. It was done in conjunction with Highways and with Forests. The Minister of Municipal Affairs has signed these plans, and those plans reiterate over and over that the whole concept of that community plan is to provide for housing and industrial land without infringing on the ALR and without infringing on the floodplain.

And they've got the land to do it. In those four regional districts they have vacant urban land of about 30,000 acres in total, and if you figure four units per acre, which is not a high density, that gives 120,000 units. In urban reserve and urban 2, there is a total of 34,000 acres times 4, which is 136,000 housing units in reserve in urban 2.

In rural land, where you wouldn't expect as high a density, there are 39,000 acres. Let's assume that half of those are one acre and half are five acres. That works out to a total of 23,500 acres or a total of 282,000 units available for housing in that Fraser Valley area. According to the plans and the figures and the population growth tables there's enough land there, at the present growth rate, to accommodate all the housing needed to the year 2001 — this is as far as these plans take it — with enough area left over to house an additional 384,000 people. This means that if you carry that out at the same growth rate, you've got enough land already classified as urban, urban reserve and rural to take the population growth to the year 2020 without use of floodplain and agricultural land. And yet members of that government have the nerve to get up and say: "Well, we've got to release agricultural land to make room for housing." I think those figures give the complete lie to those remarks. It's a ploy to try and keep an election promise and get land out of the reserve to benefit some of their friends.

I'd like to deal with a topic in this budget that is certainly of concern to us. It's a budget that is hitting the little people as far as taxes go. There are some exceptions, and I give the minister credit for that — he's made a few exceptions. The low-income people are going to get some refund. I doubt that the Minister of Finance is aware that a great many people in this province don't pay income tax; their incomes are too low. Where's their help going to come from? Where are they going to get the money to pay these taxes, estimated by my colleague for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) at something like $850 per

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household? I see headlines in today's paper that it's going to cost you $280 more to buy a car because of this increased tax. Where's the money going to come from? Are they going to be able to buy it? Is the government really going to be able to collect the amount of tax that they are estimating, or are we once again going to find government ministries asked to cut back on services because that money isn't coming in? We don't know.

This budget is a dirty trick on the people of the province of British Columbia. It's another Social Credit dirty trick that is aimed at taking money from those least able to afford it so this government can embark on grandiose schemes to perpetuate their own name.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It's my extreme pleasure to be able to stand in the House on this occasion and support the Minister of Finance in a tremendous budget which is both realistic and responsible in a time when financial conditions are worsening throughout this country.

I suppose one of the key words in the whole of the budget address yesterday was "choices." Somebody has to make some choices from time to time. We made the choice, as a government — and the Minister of Finance made the choice — that we would continue to provide British Columbians with the best possible levels of service in health care, education and human resources, and not allow those services to be eroded despite the fact that there are increasing pressures on the revenues of this province. We made that choice, and then, of course, we had to make the choices about how those services would be paid for. That's an equally difficult choice to make. It's one that the members opposite were unable to make when they were in government, and as a result the financial situation in this province became chaotic. The people understood and rejected that government that was afraid to make choices. This government isn't afraid to make choices, and we'll do the very best that we possibly can to make those best choices available to the citizens we're responsible to.

This budget commits itself to an ongoing program of expansion and development in health services in this province in one of the largest hospital construction programs in the history of this province and, in fact, perhaps in the history of Canada. This government commits itself to an ongoing program of continuing development of our educational services in this province. This budget commits itself to the highest level possible of looking after the needy people of this province through our Human Resources ministry.

Perhaps there are questions we should be asking today of those who are critical of this budget. Which of those services would you cut? What choices would you make? What hospital beds would you close — as is happening in many other parts of this country? Which educational services would you cut? Which Human Resources services would you cut?

Mr. Speaker, would you opt out of the International Year of Disabled Persons? Well, this government decided not to do that. It made the choice to develop programs in this International Year of Disabled Persons that will be the flagship, the model for all of Canada and perhaps, again, for all of the world.

Which of those services would you have cut because you'd be afraid to make the choices that were necessary as you did in other years?

I'm proud to support both the budget and the statement given yesterday by the Minister of Finance. He outlined an economy which is without a doubt the brightest in Canada, without a doubt an economy which holds for the future the only opportunity of perhaps any province in Canada — and I even include Alberta in this — of developing on a long-term basis a sound financial climate and a sound economic climate, a sound diversification of our economy that will allow us to continue to provide those services at the highest level in Canada for years to come.

I'm proud to support a statement we outlined as a government, in which the investment growth in this province is the strongest in Canada. There are record levels of people coming to British Columbia because they understand that here is where the opportunities are, here is where the government has created the kind of climate where people can still grow, where people can still earn. where people can still be part of their community and be proud of it. I'm proud to support a budget which outlines new jobs at record levels over the past several years of our administration — 195,000 new jobs since 1975. I'm proud to be able to support a budget which outlines one of the few areas in North America where there has been real growth in our gross provincial product and where that growth will continue.

Mr. Speaker, it's no accident that this budget and the statement made by the Minister of Finance were able to tell you and the people of this province about those great developments that have happened in this province in the last few years. It isn't an accident. The Finance minister's statement outlined that it came about because of good, sound fiscal management and good, strong partnership between government, business and labour.

Just to clear the air a bit. It also indicated again that despite what we know will be a difficult year in terms of labour negotiations and management-labour relations.... A look at the record shows that if you look at January of this year, for instance, the last month for which we have full figures, it is one of the best months in the history of this province for time lost in labour disputes. It's certainly far better than the situation in the last year of the NDP government. That's no accident; it comes about because of the strong partnership that has been developed among all of the players in our economic process.

In supporting this budget, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to just say a word or two about some of the things that have been said in previous debate, today particularly, and particularly by the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) and to some degree the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace).

We've had an ongoing conversation, I suppose, in this province about how resources should be developed, when resources should be developed, and the way in which that development would be achieved and accelerated. The member for Nanaimo said this morning that coal and natural gas are going out of style. Mr. Speaker, in this province coal and natural gas are going to be the cornerstone of our energy economy for dozens and dozens — perhaps hundreds — of years to come. Going out of style? Mr. Speaker, where on earth has that member been? What on earth has that member been reading? Has he looked into the history of the energy situation in this world at all, or does he just sit in his cooperative holdings office in Nanaimo and read his balance reports of the NDP Society, which is developing its own kind of resources down in Nanaimo? He said that we're increasing our dependency on the exploitation of our natural resources. Mr. Speaker, natural resources are to this province the foundation of our development, of our economy, of our ability to

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build, of our ability to be able to ensure that in the future the people of this province will have the kind of life that we need them to have.

You know, we talk about exploitation of resources, and everybody talks about leaving it in the ground for some future time. Doesn't anybody remember the history of mining in this province, which is the exploitation of our resources? Mining opened up this province; mining brought prosperity to this province; mining was the real contributor on an ongoing and steady basis as an indicator of the economic health and vitality of British Columbia. How long do you hold those resources? Do you hold them for a thousand years, a million years or a trillion years? When do those resources become resources? Only when they become a mine, then they become resources — and you don't find mines, you build them by developing them. And how long do you wait for a good price? Do you wait for $1 a tonne, $1,000 a tonne or $1 million a tonne? Coffee 20 years ago was a nickel a cup; today it's — depending on where you frequent — up to $1 a cup.

MR. LEA: We drink it in a $10 room.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Chocolate bars cost ten times as much as they did when the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) was a lad.

How long do you wait to develop those resources? A thousand years for those children a thousand years from now, or do you do it today? Do you do it when the opportunity is right; when you can provide jobs for your citizens; when you can build your economy; when you can build the kinds of revenues that are necessary for you to discover new mines? Because I'll tell you a little secret. Do you know how you find new resources? You look for them and you find them and you develop them. And the only reason people look for them is because there is a way for the development and the use of those resources. And some day, if I live long enough, I will hear from some member on that opposite side of the House that they finally understand that the way you find new resources is to look for them, and then develop them. Then you find new resources and you look for more and you develop more and you find more and you develop more — and that's how it works. I just wanted to let you in on that little secret. Some day they'll know that. I don't subscribe to that theory that we should always leave our resources in the ground for some distant day in the future when the price might be right. I say that we look for resources, find resources and continue to develop and build the economy of our province.

We can and do make the best of our mineral endowment, because mining is good business; it's good for the province and it's good for this country as a whole. We've got to make sure that we husband those resources in the best possible way so that that development is good for all the people of British Columbia in every way — environmentally, socially, economically and in every other way.

Today, in this province, we're in the middle of an expansion boom in the mining industry that approaches and perhaps very soon — perhaps this year — will rival the boom times of the late sixties and early seventies. The surge of this activity is due in no small measure to the confidence which has been expressed in the economic policies of this government. It's due as well, of course, to that kind of partnership that the Minister of Finance talked about in his budget address yesterday: the partnership between the industry and government and between those people who rely on those jobs and then fulfil those jobs in the mining industry and every other resource industry. We would be remiss today in this kind of a discussion if we didn't keep in mind very clearly what can happen to mining or to other resource activities with a government whose policy is not only nondevelopment but is non-economic growth as well, because it happened right here in British Columbia, during the years from 1970 through to 1975 when the mining industry was virtually closed down. To a large extent, so was the oil and gas discovery industry closed down during those years when the NDP was in office in this province. You can't deny that, because you all know that it's true.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. We have not recognized the member, so the microphone is not on. The hon. second member for Vancouver East on a point of order.

MR. MACDONALD: On a point of privilege. This member is challenging my veracity.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MACDONALD: In the course of making a speech which is supposed to be addressed to the budget, he's challenging my veracity and he's refusing to quote the figures on the growth and capital expenditures...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MACDONALD: ...between 1972 and 1975.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the hon. member please take his seat.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. SPEAKER: It is an abuse of the forms of the House to gain the floor under any other means but that which is provided for under the standing orders. To state that you wish to have the floor on a matter of privilege you must have an attending motion, or it is out of order.

The hon. minister proceeds.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mi-. Speaker, thank you very much. You know I wouldn't ever challenge the veracity of a member of this House. It's against the rules of the House to do that. I can challenge their competence, though, and I do that, because their incompetence forced the mining industry to close down in this province. The incompetence of that government forced the oil and gas discovery industry to close down in this province. There was none happening in this province during those years. In the past few years since 1975, thanks to the policies of this government, we have managed to revive British Columbia's exploration industry in both mining and oil and gas through renewed activity, the right incentives and the right kind of confidence, built on the kind of sound economic judgment that this government has made. We'll work to keep it strong.

[ Page 4441 ]

There was a lot said in the budget about energy, and there were some very, very important tax measures which were contained in this budget which we believe will help to ensure that British Columbians get the conservation message in terms of the way in which they use our very important energy resources. It's sad to say that so far we haven't got that message, not only in British Columbia but in all of Canada. We are today one of the few jurisdictions in the world which has not reduced its dependence on the use of gasoline as our most important resource in terms of our private and commercial transportation. The United States has done an admirable job of consistently, over the last several years, reducing its dependence, and they have done it in some interesting ways. They've done it through incentives, to a large degree. They've done it through decontrol of some of the industrial activities which are held in the United States at the present time, and they've done it through free enterprise measures which have worked very substantially for that country.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: That's correct. An aside from the Premier indicates that there were no socialist measures put in place to achieve those goals of conservation. Rather they were done through free individuals cooperating freely and working together to make sure that that depleting resource was well handled.

Mr. Speaker, the budget statement and the budget itself indicate that we do have in this province some very important strengths in the area of energy. They're well known: our massive hydroelectric opportunities, developments which are already in place and those which are available to us in the future; huge resources of coal; we believe also huge new resources of natural gas not yet discovered; and perhaps even some oil which has not yet been discovered in this province, if we do things in the correct way over the next few years. We have some weaknesses as well, and I guess our most important weakness — and the budget recognizes this — is our dependence on imported oil. Our dependence on imported oil is, to us, like a lot of other countries, the one worrisome factor in developing our energy security in the next few years, perhaps by 1990. We must work to end that dependency on foreign oil and so end the weakness that we now have in what is an otherwise very bright energy picture. In terms of our achieving that kind of security for our citizens in this decade.

We've done some important things, Mr. Speaker, in order to help end that reliance on imported oil. One of the most important in terms of numbers will be the pipeline to Vancouver Island, which this government has now announced. That pipeline to Vancouver Island will save us and the federal government over a billion barrels of oil over a three-year period — I believe that's correct. That pipeline comes as a promise made by this government and by our Premier — a promise kept by this government, a promise not kept by the previous government. For all, the years that government was in power, we heard about the great pipeline that would be built to Vancouver Island. But we never saw an announcement; we never saw a barrel of oil replaced by natural gas. In fact, they deliberately stopped any further discussion of a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island, ending what could have been the opportunity for us to be saving that oil today, and for the people of Vancouver Island to be using cheaper natural gas today.

That great environmentalist group over there, which talks about being so concerned about the protection of our precious coast, had to increase the amount of tanker traffic on our coast to bring crude oil to this island, because they refused to keep a promise they made to the people of Vancouver Island. This government kept that promise.

We're also moving in another important area, the conversion of automobiles from gasoline to compressed natural gas. It may seem like a small figure. If you just think about how many cars there are around right now with natural gas conversion kits. We believe that the incentive in the budget, for instance, in removing the sales tax from conversion kits for natural gas, will be an important one, one which will see some immediate benefits once it is coupled with some of the opportunities already being developed in this province.

For instance, British Columbia Hydro is going to be converting about 50 of its vehicles to natural gas. We are now awaiting delivery of a compressor for the filling stations which B.C. Hydro will be putting in place. It should be in British Columbia momentarily. The first ten vehicles will be converted and operating by mid-May the next ten will be operating by June 1: the remaining 30 will be converted at the rate of about ten a month. This will involve both standard passenger vehicles and vans owned by British Columbia Hydro. We hope that will be the nucleus of a fleet of vehicles in this province. both private and public. which very soon will be operating on dual systems of compressed natural gas and gasoline. If you think that's not achievable, Mr. Speaker, I'd just remind you that in Italy, a country which has no natural gas of its own, there are 250,000 automobiles operating on dual systems of natural gas and gasoline, and have been for 30 years. So it's both achievable and possible, because this government will make it possible.

We have some exciting new ideas coming forward in the private sector, which we believe will lead us to lead the world in the development of the conversion of automobiles to compressed natural gas. There is a new company called CNG Fuel Systems Ltd. headed by Judd Buchanan, a former cabinet minister in the federal government, operating out of Calgary. It is now working with the federal government on the standards and regulations necessary for CNG cars. Once those standards are in place — and we expect it won't take long — there will be refueling stations in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto by the end of this year. There are more plans in place to launch this program in other parts of Alberta and Ontario as well.

It makes sense for British Columbia to get involved in this, because we have the gas. We're pretty confident that there's lots more there to be found. We can deliver it at about half the cost of gasoline. It's cleaner. Pollution control equipment can be removed from vehicles if they use CNG only. Private enterprise can and will do the job. That is another move this government is taking in order to help end our dependency on foreign oil.

I'd like to report that in the previous throne speech and budget speech we announced that the government had been ordered to downsize its own vehicles, and to find more fuel efficient vehicles as we replaced the vehicles which went out of service. I'm pleased to report that two-thirds of the government fleet is already downsized. It is an extremely important contribution to the conservation of gas, and it provides an opportunity for us to move away from imported foreign oil.

I remember when that opposition party over there was government: I'll never forget it. I remember when they said

[ Page 4442 ]

there would be no more mining in this province. I remember when the hon. second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) rose in this House and said that there was no gas in Grizzly Valley. It was a figment of our imagination. That reminds me of statements that a lot of public figures have made saying that there was no more oil and no more gas to be found so we'd better forget it and start looking for some other way or else freeze in the dark. Well, I remind you that it's only about five years ago that one of the largest oil finds in North American history was found at a time when everybody said there wasn't any more. That was in the West Pembina field. It was only in 1976 that one of our continent's largest gas reserves was found in Alberta and British Columbia in the Elmworth field, the so-called Deep Basin. That was found at a time when the NDP and everybody else were saying there just wasn't any more. Of course there isn't any more if you don't provide the incentives to go out and look for it. You've got to go and look for it.

I remind you of what's happening in the United States today because the United States government has put in the kinds of incentives, has concentrated on those traditional areas of oil and gas supply to the point where today there is a surplus of natural gas in the United States. This is a country that two years ago had shortages and was crying for Canadian natural gas. Today there's a surplus and there will be a bigger surplus. Do you know why? Because they're looking for the stuff. Do you know that today in the United States there are probably about 1,000 and maybe more new gas and oil discoveries coming on stream every month. In 1979 there were something like 49,000 wells drilled in the United States. Of those, they found something like 33,000 producing oil and gas wells. In 1980 the figures were about the same.

So what you find is that in two years in the United States they have found something like 26,000 new gas wells and 31,000 new oil wells at a time when you and I and all the doom and gloomers were saying there isn't any more. Do you know why there isn't any more? Because we wouldn't let them look for it. We wouldn't provide the incentives that would allow the seekers to become finders. That's what's happening in the United States right now today.

Do you know what's happening in Canada'? The Minister of Finance made some mention of the national energy program in his budget address yesterday. The goals and aims of the national energy program are ones which every member of this government, every member of this House and every Canadian can share. The goals that are stated in that program are those that would achieve energy self-sufficiency for this country in the foreseeable future. It's sad for me to have to stand here today and say that those goals under the national energy program will not be achieved. Everyone knowledgeable in the industry and every energy minister, I believe, in this country knows and has advised Ottawa that they will not achieve these goals under this program. In fact, not only will they not achieve them but they will impair our opportunity to ever achieve self-sufficiency for energy in this country. That makes me very sad. It's too bad that the federal government has chosen, because it owns the interest — at the present time at least in its offshore developments in the so-called Canada lands, to concentrate all its efforts on those very expensive and very elusive energy sources. No matter what happens, there is no way that we will ever have oil or gas coming out of those expensive sources that the federal government is concentrating on until 1990 and perhaps 1995. If we took a leaf out of the book of the United States and started doing the things they're doing, we'd be finding new oil and gas right here in British Columbia, right there in Alberta and Saskatchewan, in those areas which have been our traditional sources. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever, what we're doing in Canada.

We've wrapped our energy policy in a Canadian flag and we're flying it out there in the most hypocritical statement I've ever seen. We're saying we're going to Canadianize the oil industry. That's a goal that every Canadian can seek. How are we going to Canadianize the oil industry? Do you know what the first move that the federal government made was in order to Canadianize the oil? They went out with their Petro-Canada dollars, which are pretty non-existent right now, and they bought an oil company. Do you know which oil company they bought? The member for Burnaby nods. They probably have a service station right next to your house. It's called Merit Oil — a totally Canadian-owned company, with the president of that company in Vancouver and all its outlets in the province of British Columbia. It's totally owned by Canadians. Is that Canadianization of the oil industry? They don't drill any wells; they sell gas. That's nationalization, not Canadianization. It didn't give you an extra barrel of oil; it didn't give you an extra cubic foot of natural gas.

Do you know what the next company to buy was? A company called Petrofina, with a string of service stations across eastern Canada. Service stations — a very, very small interest in the exploration industry. For a billion and a half dollars we got a bunch of service stations. We didn't need them. What we need is to go out and get some companies out there drilling for oil, drilling for gas, finding it and contributing to our energy security.

Canadianization of the industry is one goal that everyone shares. Do you know what's been happening in this country for the past two years? The Canadianization of the oil industry. Figures up until last year released by Statistics Canada, the federal government's own fact-gathering agency, say that 45 percent of the capital employed in Canada's oil and gas industry is now Canadian, compared with 25 percent in 1978. In two short years the increase in Canadianization of the oil industry in Canada jumped from 25 percent to 42 percent. Do you know that American control in that same period dropped to 42 percent from 59 percent?

Canadianization has been happening, and yet we allow the Minister of Energy for the national government to state blithely that there is only 30 percent Canadian ownership in the oil industry. It was happening, and I know what the Liberal government is going to do when it reaches 50 percent, which it will have done probably this year or next year at the latest anyway. They'll say, "We did it, folks; we achieved Canadianization, " and they'll have a string of service stations across the country which are costing you and I dollars which will flow out of this country to foreign interests — a billion and a half of them — for not one extra drop of oil or cubic foot of gas. How are we going to get that billion and a half dollars to pay for Petrofina? It's going to go on our taxes on our gasoline and it's going to go on an additional Canadian ownership account, which some of you may have read about in the national energy program, which will add additional taxes to our natural gas. It will cost up to 60 cents per cubic foot to buy a foreign-owned company which is not going to give us one more gallon of oil or one more cubic foot of natural gas. Is that a Canadianization program, or is that a program built of folly and hypocrisy by a government which

[ Page 4443 ]

has abandoned the west and is about to abandon all of Canada in its search for energy security?

Mr. Speaker, what else is happening in Canada? Do you think that the oil- and gas-finding industry is not leaving this province, as the federal government would have you believe? Take a look at this little article in the Vancouver Sun: "U.S. Oil Drillers Leery About Canadian Rigs." Do you know what they're leery about? They're worried about over 200 rigs which have moved down to the United States as a part of what is quoted as a negative reaction to Ottawa's energy policy, and they're worried that they're going to displace American equipment because our rigs are better and our operators are better. We've developed the highest technology in the world in this country, and we're in danger of losing it.

I've been informed by what I consider to be pretty reliable sources on a recent trip to the United States that the American council on oil and gas activity is going to recommend to President Reagan that he lift the restrictions on immigration for oil and gas well drilling operators because they need our Canadians down there to operate all the rigs which are fleeing this country because of the detrimental policies of the national government.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Our friend from Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) says they were all gone before the policy came in. Have you been in Fort St. John recently? You'll find out that that's the stupidest statement I've ever heard in this House, and I can tell you that at the present time there are 90 rigs drilling in British Columbia. The Canadian oil-well drillers association — and let me tell you who that association is; it is 99 percent Canadian owned — that's the industry we're driving out of this province and all of western Canada as a matter of fact. There are 90 rigs presently drilling in British Columbia. It's one of the highest levels we've had for some time. But by spring, when their contracts are up, unless something is drastically changed very quickly, there will only be 12 left.

I'd like to give you some figures, if I may, about the level of activity which is presently in existence and what we expect to be in existence. The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors has adopted an unusual practice of sending Ottawa what they call a "casualty report" every 90 days as a result of their national energy program, and we're now up to casualty report No. 4. Drilling rigs which have left Canada from October 28, which was the time of the national energy program, to February 20 are 78. Drilling rigs committed to leave now by April 30 are 53, and next year we're expecting to have a projected surplus of rigs in Canada of something like 135. Those will all be idle or gone from our province, from Saskatchewan and Alberta. Most likely they will all find work in the United States. B.C., unfortunately, is harder hit than the other provinces.

Those are the facts about the national energy program. It is killing our opportunity to develop energy security in this province, and the member for Prince Rupert is the most irresponsible member I've seen in a long time if he condones that kind of activity. I remember that group on the other side when they killed mining and when they killed the exploration activity in this province, so I don't expect much more from them. We know the potential danger that government interference with the resource sector can have, because we've seen it in this province before. And we're seeing it again, unfortunately, in this national energy program in which federal government tampering, through arbitrary and discriminatory taxation and other measures, has caused a very, very precipitous decline in our activity and has seriously threatened our energy security and economic stability.

I want to talk just for a moment about the comments made by the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) about Canada-bashing. Well, in any of the statements that we've made in terms of the constitutional debate and the national energy program debate, we haven't been Canada bashing. We've been Canada-building. I'll tell you that the federal government today has fallen into the socialist trap of tearing down the strong to build the weak, but what you really do when you do that is you just bring everyone down to a level which is not acceptable to Canadians. You don't build a strong Canada without building strong provinces. You don't do it. As soon as you tear down strong provinces, you tear down all of Canada. I feel like I'm a stronger Canadian than a lot of other Canadians, and perhaps than some of them on the opposite side of the House who are willing to give away our resources for the sake of a socialist dogma. offered to the federal government by the Leader of the Opposition.... And I'm damned tired of being called a bad Canadian just because I disagree with the policies put forward by one man in this country who wants to dictate what he thinks is good for all of Canada. And I won't accept that I in a bad Canadian, because I'll fight like hell against those kinds of policies.

I believe in Canada. My party believes in Canada. I love Canada. My party loves Canada. I was born in Canada and I intend to be here all of my life. I will never belong to a party which would give away the resources which were guaranteed to us as a part of Confederation in 1871, simply because they will stick to some socialist dogma and offer to give away the things that the people of British Columbia own.

MR. SPEAKER: Order. please. Hon. members. before we recognize the next speaker may I remind all members that temperate language is that which is desirable in this chamber. I allowed you for just a few moments to learn from your own experience what happens when inflammatory language is used, and I commend the former.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I welcome this opportunity to speak to this budget debate. Before you leave the chair, Mr. Speaker. since this is the first opportunity I have had to welcome you back to the Legislature.... I know you conducted the proceedings here last December, but welcome back. I'm very pleased to see you in good health and good spirits. Mr. Speaker.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I listened quite carefully to the remarks of the previous speaker. the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland), and I found it incredible that not only that speaker but the other government speakers who have spoken in this debate so far have only been able to come up with a rehashing and a refighting of the 1975 election campaign. They have not been able to — and how could anyone? — defend that budget that was placed before us yesterday. So what are they doing? They're refighting the 1975 campaign. They seem to lose sight of the fact that the superb government we had between 1972 and 1975 — three short years of good government.... We've had 116 years

[ Page 4444 ]

in Confederation, and we've had governments like the people sitting opposite us today — that giveaway crew, giveaway gang. They fight for big business and to heck with the people. That's their attitude and that's the approach that they've taken in this budget, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to discuss the overall concept of this budget. It's a regressive budget, a budget that hits the poor, the working poor and the middle income people the hardest. When somebody is making $30,000, $50,000 or $100,000 or in some cases millions of dollars — like some of our friends across the way make over a year or two by various transactions — you'd think that they could afford a 10-cent or a 15-cent increase. It's easy for them; it's barely nothing to people like that. But the few little pleasures that some people have — to enjoy a cigarette, a bottle of wine perhaps.... These are the people who are really going to be hurt by this budget. Those people who require their automobiles to travel to work are going to be hurt by this budget.

I want to make it clear that I don't stand up here and defend smoking and drinking. They're bad habits and we shouldn't do it, but most of us do, as a matter of fact. I'd like to give you a bit of an example, Mr. Speaker, if I may at this point. The minister discusses in this budget some aid to the handicapped, and I'm pleased to see that. I truly am. Let me give you a couple of recent examples. In my riding I have a lady who is 54 years old with some medical problems. Her total income from Human Resources happens to be $331 per month. Her rent has just been increased to $280 per month. That leaves her about $51 a month for utilities and food. She has no family except one son in Toronto. He's young, working part-time and can barely support himself, so she has no other source of income. When I went to Human Resources on behalf of this person, they told me that this is the maximum amount she was entitled to receive because all other forms of grants had been suspended by that government. As a result of all of this she is surviving only because some people in the Salvation Army are helping her out at the present time. So there is one example. I see nothing in this budget for people like that. The only vice this lady has is buying, when she can afford it, a tin of tobacco. It's the only thing she can afford to do other than barely survive.

So that's the kind of thing we're faced with in this province under this type of budget today. This budget doesn't address itself to people like that. I have many other cases along the same vein. I'm not going to discuss them here in detail this afternoon. We'll save those discussions for the debate of the estimates, Mr. Speaker. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: this regressive taxation that hits the working people and the poor people of this province. Furthermore, to compound the felony, or whatever it's called....

What's a better word?

AN HON. MEMBER: Crime.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The crime. There are indexed taxes for the first time ever, as far as I'm aware, in the history of this province. What they've said now is that without reference to the Legislature there will be automatic increases in gas taxes, cigarette taxes, liquor taxes....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, I think that's wrong — without reference to the Legislature. Mr. Speaker, this government would like this Legislature to close tomorrow. They would. They don't want to come here and debate these issues. They're taking more and more of the authority of the Legislature into the ministers' offices.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, I disapprove of fascism anywhere in the world where I see it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The hon. member for Mackenzie has the floor, and we're all reminded again of the use of temperate language.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'm very pleased that you're protecting me from the big bad Minister of Finance over there.

Furthermore, the previous speaker referred to what this government has done in terms of natural gas pricing, blamed the problems on the federal government — some more Canada-bashing. That government, Mr. Speaker, has been Canada-bashing for at least two or three years, hoping to get itself involved in an election issue on that matter. It hasn't worked; the people of British Columbia haven't bought it. What the minister over there failed to tell us during the course of his speech on the budget just a few minutes ago was that when we became the government of this province natural gas was selling for 33 cents per thousand cubic feet. In other words, we were giving it away. Social Credit philosophy — the giveaway gang. We're doing it now with coal. In fact, that coal deal is going to be a much bigger boondoggle than the Columbia River Treaty ever was. It's going to make the Columbia River Treaty look like a penny arcade. It's going to make it took like small potatoes compared to the giveaway in this coal deal this government is getting us into now.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Who set the price of natural gas?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The former Premier of this province, W.A.C. Bennett, didn't even go to Ottawa to attempt to get that price increase.

Interjections.

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I'd like to remind the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) that the member for Mackenzie has the floor. Will the member for MacKenzie please proceed.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I did think that the member for New Westminster made some very good statements, which were absolutely correct. In any event, I appreciate those types of interjections, because we don't have all the information — most of it, but not all of it — and a little help here and there goes a long way.

The fact is that it has been the philosophy of the previous Social Credit government and this Social Credit government

[ Page 4445 ]

to give away those resources at the expense of the people. I think it should be the philosophy of all governments, if we have resources, to have properly imposed taxes on those resources. This budget, for the first time, does not place the burden for those projects on the resource base of this province, but in fact is attempting to raise a $625 million increase in budgetary expenditure out of the hides of the working people of this province.

This ties in directly, Mr. Speaker, with the labour disputes that are currently taking place in this province and bargaining procedures coming up within the next few months. And if you think for one minute that the IWA, the CPU and the construction industry are not going to go to the bargaining table and say: "Look, here's a government that tells us to hold the line; brings in a budget with indexed tax increases in it; we need about 15 to 18 percent just to remain even...." You think they'll settle for less? No way. Any union bargaining committee that went to its membership and said, "Look, inflation is 17 1/2 percent, but we've decided to be responsible; we'll accept 11 percent this year...." You know what would happen to that bargaining committee? Well, I can tell you. And I don't blame the people of this province for fighting for their rights, particularly against the government that is precipitating inflation rather than holding the line where they could.

They're holding the line in some areas. They're holding the line all right; they're holding the line in health care.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Oh, we'll get to you, Mr. Minister of Lands. I've got a lot for you. We have the worst Minister of Forests this province ever had, and he's getting worse all the time because he's practising at it; he's working at it.

Before we leave the subject of natural gas I should point out to the House, as this is my first opportunity, that that government and that minister who just spoke have cost this province, in federal and provincial revenues alone, by their arbitrary decision to award a natural gas line route to Hydro, which has traditionally and consistently underestimated the cost of their projects.... That's another story which I'll get into eventually. They have awarded that contract in spite of the fact that they set up the Utilities Commission to hold public hearings into these matters. They bypassed their own Utilities Commission. Now they say they're going to put environmental studies before the commission. What a laugh! Contracts and tenders are already being called for the Hydro project, and by the time the Utilities Commission comes back to cabinet with any recommendations, the decisions will have been made long-gone, and recommendations, whatever they may be, won't mean a thing anyway.

But getting back to the finances of that operation, because of that extremely bad, horrendous decision for the people of Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Woodfibre, Port Mellon, Sechelt and those areas, about 3,000 jobs are down the tube for starters. Secondly, in terms of revenues to the province it's estimated that just on a fertilizer plant alone — a $670 million project slated for Powell River — the lost revenues to federal and provincial governments will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2.3 billion over the next 20 years. This is according to the prospectus issued to us by the consortium. The consortium, by the way, included Westcoast Transmission and BCRIC. Remember BCRIC, a partner in this particular venture?

So what they've done is set up an operation which will compete against BCRIC. The people of this province bought shares — mortgaged their homes for them, in some cases — on the word of the Premier of this province, primarily, who said it was a good deal. "Buy BCRIC shares, you'll all get rich. Get yourself involved in the market." This also, of course, involves the northeast coal. Northeast coal will be competing with the former Kaiser operation in the southeast coal sector in direct competition with the BCRIC shareholders of this province. I'm just amazed that the value of BCRIC shares is still holding at the level of $5.75 per share, because eventually, at the rate they're going, they'll probably plummet below that. Just think of those ordinary people round the province.... I know of one case. In terms of the BCRIC shares, of a person who mortgaged his home, borrowed $20,000 from the bank to buy BCRIC shares, and is paying somewhere in the neighbourhood of 14 1/2, percent interest at the present time — he's got a pretty good interest rate, actually — and is still paying the interest, of course — this was about a year ago — and the shares themselves are now, as I said, worth about $5.75. So who do you think, he's going to vote for next time around? After Bennett's baby, as it was called.... I remember that. The BCRIC corporation was Bennett's baby.

AN HON. MEMBER: When did he buy them?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Shortly after they were issued.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Why didn't he sell them at $9?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: No wonder our economy is in such bad shape! These guys couldn't manage a peanut stand. Look at them. It's true. The only response he has to that last remark is: "Why didn't he sell them at $9?" My God!

In any event, BCRIC was referred to as Bennett's baby, and now that the Premier of this province is going into direct competition with BCRIC with the northeast coal deal, one of my members over here has previously accused the Premier of child abuse, and I think it's a valid case.

I want to take this opportunity to. In overall terms.... A lot of the items we discuss during the course of a budget debate really belong in debate of the spending estimates of the various ministries. Since my area of responsibility in this Legislature is to be spokesperson for our party and our caucus on transportation and highways, I want to spend a couple of minutes on that topic.

The government's decision to bring back the Princess Marguerite — do you recall that? They called it the floating coffin. They took that vessel off that route. You will recall last year that I was called irresponsible when I said that the final cost on that vessel alone was going to be somewhere around eight to ten million dollars. I have an article here from the Vancouver Sun indicating — if their research is correct — that that is almost the total that the bungling of that single fiasco cost the people of British Columbia — eight to ten million dollars.

Yet here we have people in a remote part of this province in Bella Coola, in this particular case — begging for $75,000 for a drug and alcohol detox centre to be constructed near the hospital. This is a serious problem in some of these small communities. Two years and not a dime, and yet, they wasted on this one venture alone in excess of $8 million of the taxpayers money. Can you believe it? Now, of course, the

[ Page 4446 ]

Princess Marguerite is being refitted — as we said it should have been in the first place — and will be placed back on that route, as is the Prince George which my government purchased, which this government owned at one time and which this government sold. It wasn't even good enough for a floating restaurant for this government, and now it's going back into service on an Alaskan cruise. This gives you an indication of where these groups are at, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Private, shmivate.

Coast transportation is still a very serious problem in my riding. There's no way that we can have rational economic development without the proper transportation facilities. I know that two jumbos — classy vessels — have now almost completed construction and will be in operation this summer, but there are whole areas of the coast of British Columbia that are still going to be without water transportation this year and next year and probably forever. Ever since this government and the federal government withdrew the subsidy to Northland and some other shipping companies in 1976.... Areas like Bella Coola have had no water transportation for almost five years and have none at present — no water transportation at all into that community. A number of communities on the central coast of this province, a number of communities in the Queen Charlottes.... I've contacted the ministry — anybody I could, everybody. What are you going to do? Come up with suggestions. Have meetings in communities. I got ministers into some of these communities. Have lunch, big smile, took off in a jet and away they go. Nothing is ever done! No commitment! They don't take these problems seriously.

Big northeast coal developments — $1.1 billion of the taxpayers' money to subsidize those ventures. Fair enough, good stuff. We'll go ahead with those because we want to send coal free, or at a cost to the British Columbia taxpayer, to our friends over there. There's nothing wrong with supplying our friends and neighbours on the Pacific Rim with the natural resources we have. But at least let's get a fair price for them or not go into those ventures at all.

Just one item in terms of the northeast coal deal. In terms of my portfolio I would estimate, until the minister proves otherwise, that it's going to cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of about $325 million of the Ministry of Highways' funds to construct the 93 kilometres of roads, bridges and townsite access roads that are required. If I'm wrong I would like the minister to get up in this House and tell me so and give me the figures.

The worst about all this is that these are hidden funds. No bill is going to come before this Legislature to say that we are going to require $325 million to build a highway, or another $600 million to construct a rail line, or another — whatever it is — $200 million to put hydro into that area. There is no bill coming before the House. These are hidden costs. Furthermore, I noticed in the budget presented to us yesterday that the increased budget for Highways is only approximately $100 million for the next year. It's quite obvious that in order for the Ministry of Highways to meet its commitments to the northeast coal deal they are going to have to take funds out of other parts of the province, mostly from the rural parts of the province. They can get $130 million right off the top if they would stop construction of the Annacis Island bridge — which nobody wants in the first place. That's a good idea, but I know they won't do that, because then they would lose that seat. They're going to lose it anyway, mind you. But in the meantime the funds are committed. So what is going to happen? They are going to take the funds out of various highway budgets throughout various Highways districts in the province, and they are going to spend this money building highways into northeast coal. That is one of the things that is going to happen.

I ask you this, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister going to take any money out of his own riding? Last year and the year before, in terms of capital expenditures and day-labour, we had the highest spending of any district in British Columbia right in the minister's own riding. This year he's probably going to sink another $40 million or $50 million in his own riding. I would suggest he only spend $25 million this year. There is another $25 million that he could put into the northeast coal sector as a government subsidy to the Japanese people and their coal market and steel industry, and to Teck Corp. and Denison Mines Ltd. It's really blatantly unfair and not right. I think that government ministers when appointed to cabinet have a responsibility to all the people, not just a few people who happen to be ministers or friends of the government.

I just want to spend a minute discussing the Cheekye-Dunsmuir transmission line — a progress report. It's well under construction; clearing is taking place; lots of money is being spent — all those things. I just want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that approximately three and a half years ago when that project was first announced — never justified, mind you; no studies; no real public hearings; but, never mind, the project is underway — the cost was estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $300 million. That's a lot of money — and the horrendous environmental consequences that go along with it. In the Legislature last year my colleague, sitting to my right here, tabled some internal documents from one senior-management type at B.C. Hydro to another, stating that the estimated cost of that transmission line would rise to $700 million — but don't tell anybody; keep it quiet; we don't want to get people out there upset. Okay. Fair enough.

That's $700 million already. Mark my words carefully. I've gone out and looked at the project, I've talked to the contractors, and I can see already the overruns that are taking place on that project in terms of cost. In my view, the final cost of the Cheekye-Dunsmuir transmission line — a project which was never justified; no hearings ever held; no studies ever took place — will be $1.8 billion of taxpayers' money.

I want to tell you right now, Mr. Speaker, when the government brings before this House its annual borrowing bill for B.C. Hydro — and how they are spending our money, the taxpayers' money, borrowed money on which we have to pay interest to people in New York and Europe — I'm going to vote against that bill. You have never justified the Site C dam, the Revelstoke dam, the Hat Creek project, the Cheekye-Dunsmuir, the Kootenay diversion — and the list goes on. We'll get into those topics, I'm sure. You're totally irresponsible with people's money. Talking about surpluses in your budget.... My colleague pointed out this morning that the indirect debt, underwritten and guaranteed by the people of this province, is about $8.5 billion at the present time. You call yourselves good managers. My God, I can't believe it.

One other little matter, just to give you an idea about this government. I'm not going to talk about friends of the party getting their property out of the agricultural land reserve; I'm

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not going to talk about those things. I'm not going to talk about Mr. Spetifore and other people, who happen to be friends of the government, getting rich out there because they can have their property withdrawn from the ALR. I don't want to talk about those things. I want to talk about something else.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Vander Zalm as well? Did you say Mr. Vander Zalm had property withdrawn from the ALR, and he's in cabinet? Oh, you didn't know about that. Well, amazing. I'll be darned; you learn something new every day.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I prefer to believe the member from Victoria over the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Hewitt), but in any event what I do want to talk about is that just recently it was brought to my attention that this government is going to give away 5,000 acres of land — fully treed, waterfront property, in my riding, located at Sechelt Inlet — to the CPR. How do you like that? And the CPR, by the way — for those young people, the pages, who may not be familiar with this — have over the 125- to 150-year history of this province been given land from right across Canada to build a railway for free — fee simple ownership of land. They have a habit of taking land, people's property, from across this country for over 200 years.

MR. HANSON: What do we get back?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: What do we get back? We get back some swamp; we get back two mountaintops, logged of the merchantable timber. They left the snow, though. It's out on the westcoast of Vancouver Island, And what do they give to the CPR? Fee simple ownership with many miles of waterfront property, fully treed. The timber on that property alone is valued by one forester at $60 million. That's just the timber. Of course, after they log it they'll turn it over to Marathon and subdivide it, no doubt, and make god knows how much. It's a prime recreation area on the coast of British Columbia. Fee simple ownership by the stroke of a pen, and if you don't believe me, I have all of the documents relating to that transaction right here.

This government, this giveaway crowd.... You talk about giveaway of resources; this is not as big as the coal deal, of course, but it is another indication of how this government operates. Give it away to your friends. Give away the land. Give away the coal. Give away the minerals. That's this government. That's exactly what they are: the giveaway gang.

Last week I had the distinct displeasure of visiting Ocean Falls in the northern part of my riding. It used to be a pleasure to go up there. The community that was working and striving, and under NDP management even showed a profit, only stopped showing a profit when the Social Credit government became managers of that operation. They have gone downhill ever since, as has the rest of the province.

Here's what I found. Approximately 90 percent of the community was boarded up. I found 143 people, including 31 children in school, left in that community. At the meeting last Wednesday night there were 103 of the adults, which Must have been just about every adult in that community, Despair like you've never seen. Now we're told by Mr. Williston and other people, by the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips): "Oh, we're looking at this, we're looking at that." You recall that when they shut down the operation they gave us at that press conference a timetable of how they were going to.... "Well, here are the things we're going to do. In two months we're going to bring in the flitch and chip mill and have so many people, and start logging operations, etc., etc." They've never kept their word. They've never kept one iota of that timetable, and right to this day not a thing is happening. In fact the government, through the Ocean Falls Corporationm is shutting down the steam plant at the end of this month and the homes won't even have heat for the few people who are left in that community, believe it or not.

I'll quote primarily Mr. Williston, since he is directly responsible to the people in British Columbia for that operation and reports directly to the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development. He told me: "I'm very optimistic and we hope to make an announcement pretty soon in terms of some future activity at the Ocean Falls townsite." And you want to remember, we have a brand new, modern high school — as nice as any I've seen in the province; a brand new small but modern hospital: libraries: recreation centres; wharves — deep-sea wharves as well as the ordinary type marine facilities you find anywhere: all of these things, sitting there in that community idle and boarded up.

He told me: "Well. I'm very optimistic. We've done something about experimenting with low-grade cedar particles, and we're hoping to produce a particle board and perhaps bring in a flitch mill. All of this is coming and I am optimistic."

I asked him: "Well, then what are you waiting for? Why don't you make an announcement?"

He said: "Well, I have to check with the government. I can't make that decision. I have to check with the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, as a matter of fact, before I can make any announcements or decisions." So that board of directors of that Crown corporation obviously can't even make their own decisions.

But there is another fly in the ointment which was just brought to my attention this last week. I understand the reason that Impact Lumber of New Westminster withdrew from a proposed operation that then had in mind for that community, which would have employed about 200 to 250 people.... And you have to remember that operation was purchased by our government for about $1 million and the government is now asking $20 million just for a company to go in there and take a chance on a new operation, when this government should be encouraging somebody to come in there to at least put into effect the announcements they have made, as I said, about sawmills and particle board mills and this kind of thing

People up there at this point, those few who are left, live absolutely without hope. They're only living on some severance pay they received — some on a few investments they have made — because they don't want to leave unless they have to. It's a disappointing approach that this government has taken in terms of that community. I wish every cabinet minister could go up there and have a look at that community. I wish they'd go up there right now and have the intestinal fortitude to stand up in front of a meeting of 103 people, as I did last Wednesday night, and try and explain away their conduct in this whole matter since they became the government. Just remember, Mr. Speaker. that operation made

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money during the three years of NDP government and only lost money under the five years of the Socred government.

There are many other areas I could discuss, but some of this material I'll save for the estimates. I see the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Rogers) is here. It's hard to picture a flood-devastated area and what the results and the consequences of that are to communities. I'll be very brief, Mr. Minister; I see my time is running out. I'll discuss this privately, of course, with the minister, and certainly I have written him, as a matter of fact. I just want it on record. I know the minister did go to Squamish, and I know that he did go into Bella Coola, and I personally went into both communities and had the opportunity of looking at people's houses, meeting with interested community groups and that kind of thing. Mr. Neale of the provincial emergency program and Mr. Brady of the water rights branch have been extremely cooperative throughout all of this, and even Highways, in cases of the repairing of certain dykes and bridges in some of these areas, have been exceptionally good. They're spending a lot of money, but the fact is, in terms of payments to some of the people who were affected severely by flood damage.... I know you can't pay everybody, and the minister made a point here about two months ago. "Grandmother's painting down in the basement got...." You know, they're not going to pay for that kind of thing. We can understand that; even the people who are affected don't like it, but they can understand it.

But I just want assurances from this House that there will be proper funding — because this is the budget — for flood protection for the people living in these areas. Now maybe they should not have built in these areas in the first place; maybe it would be cheaper to buy them out, because there are going to be more floods. But the way the situation exists today, if we do not have proper flood protection for these areas, you'd better buy them out or you'll be paying them off forever.

MRS. WALLACE: They're only going to pay them once.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, I know that. That's part of the problem. Next year they're going to get flooded out again; there is no question about it, unless you have flood protection. Quite frankly, from the looks of the budget I see in front of me here today I don't think that the government is prepared to do that. We're prepared to subsidize the Japanese to get rid of our coal, but we're not prepared to subsidize our own people for flood protection in this province.

Well, Mr. Speaker, my time has run out. The fact is I have a great deal more to discuss with the government and ministers in this House, but we'll save that for estimates.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister of Agriculture and Food.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. You're correct. It's the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and you recall we passed the legislation last year to expand the mandate of my ministry. I think over the coming months and years we'll see some good, concrete results of expanding that mandate to give my ministry a little more impact in the food production, processing and marketing sector of our economy.

I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the Minister of Finance's budget. I think it's fair to say it's a realistic budget and it faces the realities of today. I would like to quote from the inside page of the Minister of Finance's budget as follows: "This is a prosperous province, a dynamic province. Our people deserve public service of the highest standards, and it is our intention to see that they are provided." I think that pretty well sums up and says it all as far as the Minister of Finance's budget is concerned.

I'd like to deal with the public service part of that later. I would like to talk about the fiscal responsibility of this government at this time for the benefit of the members of the opposition when they comment on the track record of this government.

If you look back, it's the sixth balanced budget of this government. You'll recall the campaign promises in 1975 when we campaigned and again in 1979. We campaigned on the basis of fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and accountability of government. We've followed through ever since we were first elected to office in December 1975. But remember when we came into office. Think back to when we came into office and faced a $275 million to $300 million deficit. This government took over and had to deal with that major problem and had to set up a debt on the books of the government. We were committed to pay that off over the next ten-year period. Bill 14, which was introduced yesterday, indicates that another payment of $26.1 million will be applied to that debt.

We have never compromised our position or our campaign promises of either 1975 or 1979 — those of fiscal responsibility, sound management, balanced budget, accountability to the people of this province and provision of an economic climate in which industry and commerce could prosper. In my opinion, the people of British Columbia will continue to recognize the value of that commitment. The value of that commitment in such things shows as the triple-A credit rating we now experience in this province. It's the highest rating possible and allows the Crown corporations to borrow money at very preferred rates. I think that is something that indicates the seat of approval of the financial community on the sound financial management of this government on behalf of the people of British Columbia. By providing that sound management we are able to save British Columbians millions of dollars with regard to the cost of interest at today's rates. At the same time, by looking at balanced budgets we don't have to say to our children that we are incurring debts today that they will have to pay tomorrow. By doing that, by balancing our budget and managing the economy, we have the opportunity to provide enthusiasm in the private sector to expand their activities and to make this province grow.

Let's look at the statement from the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich). Unfortunately he's not in the House right now. He attacked the increase in government expenditures.

Our budget went up to $6.6 billion for 1981-82. It's up from the 1980-81 budget of $5.6 billion, an increase of 16.7 percent, Added to that is Bill 14, which I referred to earlier. It's the $26.1 million needed for debt retirement — the inheritance that we have from three years of NDP administration between 1972 and 1975. It's debt with a cost which is the interest on the balance of money still outstanding on that debt of $209 million. The member for Nanaimo knows that the debt is factual. It is supported by an independent audit and is subject to any comment that the auditor-general would wish to make. It's been on the books for a number of years, indicating the factual aspect of that debt. It is recorded there

[ Page 4449 ]

for the people of British Columbia to see and remember and for this government to have to provide payments to pay off that debt because of poor management by the NDP administration from 1972-75. It is a legacy left over from the socialist government.

Not only did they not believe in fiscal responsibility, they did not understand it. If you'll recall, the Premier of the day jumped from the Ministry of Finance and left the member for Nanaimo to face the music. I often thought it was unfortunate that the member for Nanaimo had to somewhat compromise his position as an accountant to defend the fiscal policy of the former Premier of this province. But comments of the member for Nanaimo today, in my opinion, recognize that it wasn't a compromise. His statements really relate to political expediency, in an attempt to defend the role of that party as government and its fiscal irresponsibility.

HON. MR. BENNETT: History found them out.

HON. MR. HEWITT: That's very correct.

The member for Nanaimo, in his comments this morning, did advocate the end of tax increases. He said we should end tax increases. But he does not give us the alternatives. He doesn't tell us what those alternatives would be. I 'd just like to touch on them. One alternative would be to cut services such as Health, Education or Human Resources, that major part of our budget where you take revenue out of the economy and government administers and redistributes that wealth to provide people-services to the people of this province.

Is that the alternative that the member for Nanaimo was advocating — to cut services? Well, our Minister of Finance in this government says no. I refer you to the statement that was made in the beginning of the budget speech, where the Minister of Finance said: "Our people deserve public services of the highest standards and it is our intention to see that those services are provided." So that answer was not the alternative.

Of course, the member for Nanaimo, in saying we should not have tax increases, didn't offer that alternative. But I suggest this would be the alternative if they were in office. They would take that short-term view, like they did in 1975. They offered to the people of the province a short-term solution, namely deficit financing. Keep the increase in taxes down or do not increase your taxes — then you're a nice guy. And don't tell the people that some day somebody is going to have to pay the piper, because maybe they won't notice or maybe you can put it off long enough that you won't have to deal with it. Maybe something will happen. Maybe you'll be lucky and the economy will rebound so you can pay off this debt and this interest on the debt-financing that had to be incurred. Or maybe, as happened in 1975, the people would look once again and see — if that party was in power — that all of a sudden the fiscal irresponsibility would be back and their children would be faced with paying off a debt in the future.

That's the alternative they would take at this particular time if they were in office. They would look to deficit financing, hoping that some day the economy would rebound without any plan at all, something would happen and they would not have to worry about going to the people and raising their taxes. They would in effect, as they did in the past, mortgage the future. They would mortgage the future of our young people. They would mortgage the future of all the industry in this province. And what for? It's very simple: for political expediency in order to indicate that they are good guys and that they are not going to be concerned about carrying a debt for future generations.

We know that the problem at the federal government level today is the size of the deficit that is being carried. If I recall the figures correctly, yesterday the Minister of Finance referred to $1,500 per household in Canada to service debt. I stand to be corrected because I don't have the Blues right in front of me, but I believe that was the figure he used. Regardless of how accurate that figure is, it is a debt and it must be serviced, which means that revenues that are generated by the economy, by our people of Canada, have to go to pay off a non-productive debt — instead of taking those funds, paying as you go and stimulating the economy with better measures than paying off past debts.

This government, this party, this Minister of Finance do not trade fiscal responsibility for political expediency. The Minister of Finance stated we would continue at a high level of people-services in this province: we will, and the budget indicates that. Yes. there is a cost and that cost has to be an increase in taxation. I don't think there is a member in this chamber, I don't think there is one British Columbian who would deprive the handicapped or the children of our province of their education, deprive the infirm or the sick of services, or deprive the seniors in this province. I don't think they would deprive any of those people of the services now provided. Basically this budget says that that high level of services will be maintained.

Mr. Speaker, we will pay as we go. because we know that is the proper way to administer the finances of the province. We will not be like the NDP between 1972 and 1975. That philosophy, which ended their term in office, was deficit financing now and sock it to the taxpayer later, after you get re-elected. We know why that election was called in December 1975. It had to be called then because they couldn't have faced the budget for 1976.

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayer of this province has been stung once, and I can assure you that never again will he be stung with an administration such as we experienced between 1972 and 1975. As I say, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance and his budget recognize the need for maintaining a standard of service. Just to quote some figures into the record, if you look at the Health revised budget for 1980-81, it was $1.7 billion; it's now moved up to $1.975 billion — approximately a 15 percent increase which would cover the cost of inflation and add additional services to the Ministry of Health. The Education portfolio went from $1.035 billion in 1980-81 to $1.172 billion in 1981-82, a 13.2 percent increase, Mr. Speaker. Human Resources moved from $753 million to $836 million, an 11 percent increase. I am confident that because of the economic viability that exists in this province today, the people can meet this challenge of increased taxation. Like the Minister of Finance and this government, they recognize that social services must be maintained. The level of services to our less fortunate, our handicapped and our seniors will be maintained at the high level that they have been in the past.

The headline in this morning's Province, as we saw, basically said: "This government is facing reality." We're increasing the sales tax, of course, from 4 percent to 6 percent, and that hurts anybody. Nevertheless it does recognize that there is a need to raise those revenues out of the economy to pay for those services. "They increased the tax on cigarettes from 24 cents to 34 cents. or 10 cents a pack." To the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead). that's a pretty

[ Page 4450 ]

heavy load to carry. As a member of this House who stopped smoking some several months ago, I think they should have raised it 20 cents a pack. However, some of my colleagues who still smoke may be a little hurt by that increase in taxation. Really, Mr. Speaker, that's probably where we should be looking. If there was ever a way to probably encourage people not to smoke — and we all know it's bad for you — it might be in the price of the product. Maybe that would slow down some of the people who wish to smoke a package or two a day.

Nevertheless, there is increased taxation, but the reason for having increased taxation is because of services to people. But the Minister of Finance, in presenting his budget, didn't just zero in on tax increases. He looked across the whole sphere of the economy and determined areas where he could be of assistance in reducing taxation, areas where assistance is needed such as low-income earners and the elderly. I quote those two items in his budget highlights that he refers to. First, one being a new provincial personal income tax credit equal to 3 percent of personal income tax exemptions less than 1.5 percent of taxable income. This measure is expected to benefit 40 percent of the B.C. families and 75 percent of the elderly citizens of the province. That's a pretty good move on behalf of the government, Mr. Speaker, in a time when things are tightening up. It may just serve the opposition members well to comment that there is a move by government, even in these times, to assist those people who are in need.

The second area of reduction was to reduce the corporate income tax rate on small businesses from 10 percent to 8 percent. Those small business operations find that in these inflationary times things are a little tighter, so there's a move there by the Minister of Finance to help those small businesses and to assist them in facing these times.

Mr. Speaker, the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) attacked the Agriculture and Food ministry budget and the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) attacked it. I'll comment in detail during my estimates. To the member for Nanaimo, included in my budget now, of course, are the Land Commission funds earmarked for the operation and administration of the Land Commission to enable us to do fine-tuning. When I travel around the province more people come up to me and say: "You know, when they dropped the agricultural land reserve on this province they just simply dropped it. The Canadian inventory maps came down. The Minister of Agriculture travelled this province after the Land Commission was brought into effect and everywhere he went he said: 'Don't worry, we had to do this in a hurry, but we're going to do this fine-tuning.' We never saw him again; we never saw this fine-tuning." He never put it in his budget and I'm sure that in the remarks under my estimates he will probably say: "We were going to do it. We never got around to it." We should send him a badge. Have you ever seen that badge? A big circle — "A Round Tuit." We should send it to him some day.

Anyway, the fine-tuning of the agricultural land reserves is being carried out. The members opposite will have some comments in regards to exclusions, but let me tell you something for the benefit of the members opposite. Of the lands that have been excluded from the agricultural land reserve, 98 percent have been excluded on the recommendation of the Agricultural Land Commission — less than 2 percent in opposition to a recommendation by the Land Commission or on appeal. But, interestingly enough, and we'll get to the figures a little later on, you'll find that some of those exclusions happened under the NDP administration. I hope that maybe at a later date when we get into some further discussion under my estimates I will be able to advise them of some of those instances where they didn't follow the Agricultural Land Commission's recommendation.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Interjections.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Tilbury Island could be one. Wong farm is another one. I'm not familiar with all these. My colleagues over here know more about these than I.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, each member will have an opportunity to speak in this debate in turn.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point I wish to make is that when there is reaction to exclusions from the agricultural land reserve from members opposite and other NDP supporters I'd just like to say, for the record, that the record does indicate that in some instances the previous administration did not accept the recommendation of the Agricultural Land Commission, although now they would never let you believe that.

I would also like to touch on the record of the Ministry of Agriculture over the past few years. I just happen to have with me, for the benefit of members opposite, the statistics, the economic indicators of the agricultural industry in this province, and I'd just like to quote some of these statistics. As I say, this is right off the press, the latest figures, preliminary 1980. We talk about the agricultural land, the ministry and the need for agricultural land under cultivation in this province. It will be interesting to know that, first of all, the number of farms in this province is increasing not decreasing but increasing. It's up 5 percent since 1977. Cultivated farmland is also up 5 percent. So when the members opposite talk about the blacktopping of farmland, the record, indicates that (a) we have more farms in operation and (b) we have more land under cultivation, and also that our farm cash receipts have increased substantially over the past four years. As a matter of fact they're up to $147 million now — that's at the farm gate. If you go beyond the farm gate and get into the production of food I could almost challenge my good colleague the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan), who has the third largest industry in this province, but I won't do that because she sits right beside me and she may get concerned about who's third or who's fourth. Nevertheless, agriculture is alive and well in this province. We have other indicators. Poultry sales in this province are up substantially, apple production, of course, had a tremendous year last year and cattle numbers are up, which, I think, is an indication in this province of some of the long-term planning that we did under the Ministry of Agriculture to indicate that there was support for that industry and we would assist it in growing. We have assisted it, and we are seeing results now. My agricultural critic.... I hope she's not going to leave. Are you going out for dinner or something? That's fine, I'll just make those few comments to the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), and during my estimates we'll get into further detail and I can go on to something else.

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In making those few comments, the point I really wanted to make is that budgets and budget figures in government are not the criteria you judge success by in the productive sector of our province or our economy, For example, forestry, mining or agriculture are the producing sectors in the province. What is in the budget of the government, whether it's more or whether it's less, is not an indicator of the success of that industry. The success is indicated by the activity out in that industry and the cooperation and communication that goes on between that industry and government, not on budgeted dollars by government — although, Mr. Member, if they were in power, it would be the big budget here. You know what would happen. The control would also be here, and those people out in the farming communities wouldn't have the opportunity to expand and grow, because they would be running it all from Victoria.

Mr. Speaker, you judge an industry on its performance, not on how many dollars are in the provincial budget in Victoria. The record in this industry has been good and it will continue to be good. There is better communication and cooperation between the agricultural industry of this province and the government than ever before. As I said before. I'll make further comments on my ministry during my estimates.

Mr. Speaker, included in my estimates, however, there is the item of approximately $6 million for the senior citizens' discount in their payment to ICBC. I think it was either the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) or the member for Cowichan-Malahat who said that this government was subsidizing ICBC. I am the minister responsible for ICBC. This government introduced a bill into the House....

MR. COCKE: Heaven help us.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, the member for New Westminster says: "Heaven help us." Can you imagine that member saying that? When he left ICBC, it was in a disastrous state. We had to loan it $188 million or $181 million. I can't remember. They were broke; they couldn't even pay the claims. You know, it's just amazing; they have such a short memory. He was an insurance man at one time, too. I remember that.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the minister continue to address the Chair?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker.

The item in my budget deals with a payment to ICBC because we use them as a vehicle to pay to the customer the government senior citizens' discount for automobile insurance. It is a government program no different than the homeowner grant, Mr. Speaker. We use that vehicle because that vehicle is the ICBC form and the agent who is in touch with the consumer. The consumers get the credit or the discount at the time they take out their insurance.

So that's part of my budget, but the item is not a subsidy of ICBC; it is using ICBC as a vehicle to pay a discount to the senior citizens of this province for two reasons. Firstly, the seniors don't have the ability to meet the inflationary trends of today because they're on a fixed income in many cases. Secondly, as we do with the homeowner grant. I think we recognize the contribution the seniors have made to this province. We wouldn't be in the state we're in today, and have the economic viability we have today if it weren't for the hard work of our senior citizens of this province. Mr. Speaker, I for one am glad we can provide them with that discount for automobile insurance.

Before I close I just want to touch on northeast coal, because it seems to be a topic the opposition is bringing up. There is $48 million for development of northeast coal in this budget. Mr. Speaker, that is an investment in the future of this province — not a subsidy or a support but an investment which will return dividends in many ways. The figures indicate that there will be 9,000 direct new jobs created in the coal industry in this province. There will be the creation of some 20,000 indirect jobs. I would suggest that that activity in the northeastern part of our province, which is a quarter of the size of the total province, will touch everybody in this province, every family, because of the activity of the direct employment and the indirect employment — the service industries, the transportation industries, the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers. You can go on and on about the amount of indirect involvement in that tremendous economic activity in the northeastern part of our province. There will be opportunities for jobs for our young people, opportunities for them to acquire land, possibly opening up agricultural land in that area to provide food for the people of the north.

There are tremendous benefits. The revenues that will be generated will continue to provide the high level of services to the people of this province in the future, Mr. Speaker.

In my opinion the northeast coal policy is no different than the two-river policy. There was a remark made by a member opposite not too long ago condemning the two-river policy. Just think of the cost of power today if you had to build those dams today. You wouldn't even get it off the ground. The far-sightedness of the W.A.C. Bennett government in those days — the planning, the looking ahead to the future and seeing what our demands were, what our demands would be — resulted in the fact that we have energy in this province and the ability to generate energy.

I believe the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) made a comment a few years ago that energy was going to be the cornerstone of our economic development in this province, and it will be. We have a tremendous opportunity in regard to the northeast coal development. It will be no different than the two-river policy. People will look back in a number of years on the development that occurred in the northeastern sector of this province; and I would suggest to you and to the members opposite, Mr. Speaker, that they will look back and say somebody had the foresight and plan to open up that northeastern sector to provide opportunities for the people. the young people, our children and our children's children.

You know what will happen with the NDP, still in opposition, still sitting, over there. They would say, as they have in the past: "We would have done that had we been in power. That would be the comment. Or, "We were planning to do that. Our strategy was there, but you never gave us the opportunity." They will do that, and I hope some of us are still here a number of years down the road. a little grey.... Well, you'd be grey: I'd be bald but you'd be grey. We'd be sitting here and we'd hear these comments coining across the floor at us, but the track record of that opposition when they were in government from 1972 to 1975 was that bad, and the legacy they left was that bad, that the people of this province will not have them back.

Just in closing. the headlines I mentioned earlier said that government faced harsh realities in this budget.

[ Page 4452 ]

MR. LAUK: In closing — is that all you have to say?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Member, I guess you haven't been listening. I've been going for about 30 minutes now. I'm running down. Or you don't understand, one or the other; I'm not sure which.

The difference between this government and that party is that we do face reality, and this government will not mortgage future generations by deficit financing or deficit budgeting.

In facing the realities of today the Minister of Finance and this government have maintained social services at their high standard for those in need, and for our health and education programs, as I've mentioned, there's the increase in the budget. Our Minister of Finance and this government have also invested in the future to ensure economic expansion in this province. I mentioned northeast coal, and I would mention the improved forest management program, with some $293 million.

With those comments I would close by saying that I'm pleased to endorse this, a difficult budget. It's nice to go to the people and say we're going to cut back, but it's also nice to be a member of a government that recognizes the realities of today and ensures that we bring forward a budget that gives our people in need those social services, gives education to our young people, and ensures that the sick are taken care of in this province. I'm pretty proud to be a member of a government that thinks that way, at the same time not mortgaging the future of this province by deficit financing. I'm happy to support this budget.

MRS. DAILLY: First of all I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance for his beautiful delivery of the budget speech. I think, of course, it is his background in radio. I'm quite sincere about this; I think he does deliver the budget in a very fine way. The unfortunate thing is, of course, if the script had only been up to the level of his delivery, we would be dealing with something much more positive here today.

This is about the fifteenth budget debate I've taken part in. I'm getting on in years, and the only thing I can say is that I am rather sad to have to stand up here and deal with a budget that to my mind is full of cynicism and half-truths and is a coverup. It is a coverup budget, and I'll tell you why I consider it to be a coverup budget.

I think this government has a record of mismanaging the finances of this province to a degree that no other government has ever done. It's complete fiscal mismanagement, and it will not wash anymore. For that government, speaker upon speaker, to get up on the floor of this House and refer back to the years of the NDP.... The people of B.C. are sick and tired of that old record. All they do is compare the records themselves. They compare the records, and there's no question in the minds of the citizens of British Columbia today that that government has taken their taxpayers' money, and above all other governments, has mismanaged it. That's why today, at a time when we are told by that government that the economy of British Columbia is booming, that Minister of Finance comes onto the floor of this House with a budget full of doom and gloom and raises taxes.

The last speaker, I believe, quoted from the Province. He was very selective. He picked out a couple of lines from something that was positive about the budget written by one of the editorial writers. I, perhaps, can take the same licence, and I would like to quote from today's Sun editorial. I don't want to bore the House, because I'm sure all the members will have a chance and will want to read this editorial themselves later on if they haven't read it up to now.

Just to quote some excerpts from the Vancouver Sun of today, it starts off with:

"Who would have thought that this province was so poor that the government had to raise taxes by $664 million? That represents 10 percent of all the government's revenue. Who would have thought that our forests, our mines, our gas and oil would fail us, and that in the coming year they will provide substantially less money than before? The government, in retaliation, has increased taxes on almost everything."

Although the Minister of Finance goes to great means to stress that it's all based on ability to pay, the Sun editorial makes the point that the NDP has always made: that the sales tax affects those who can bear it the least and who are the poorest. This government, once again, despite their protestations that they're concerned about the low-income people and the poor of this province, are the ones who, once again, are socking it to them.

Yes, they have made some changes in the income tax, but when you compare and correlate that with the other increases which were imposed on the people of this province yesterday by this government, the people who are suffering today with the high cost of living, inflation, the lack of housing, and who are unable to buy proper food are going to find all those problems becoming even more intense and worrisome for them. That is the government that has the nerve to stand up here and say they are concerned for the people of the province, particularly those on low income.

Another point made by the Vancouver Sun tonight, and I think it's an excellent point, says: "Yet at the same time Mr. Curtis' disincentives apply the brakes to what we had thought was a recovering economy, they will be increasing the rate of inflation. He admits that his spending plans represent an inflation rate of 16.7 percent." Thus we're getting the worst, British Columbia citizens, of both worlds. I won't quote any further from that editorial, but I think the editorial certainly points out what many people are feeling today after the shock of having the budget presented to them.

This attempt to cover up their mismanagement is done through almost a sleight-of-hand. The figures were thrown at the public. The public is purposely being confused. We hear this rhetoric and nonsense from the minister and the other speakers over there about. "But we have a balanced budget and we will never go into deficit financing," yet, as our financial critic pointed out so ably this morning, they, of course, never bother to mention to the public that the indirect debt has mounted up to approximately $10 billion. How can a government stand up and say to the people of B.C., "We have rid you of debt," when the indirect debt — may I repeat — is $10 billion? That's what I call a coverup and a desperate government. Do you know why it's desperate? Because they know they're going down the tube, and their desperation has led them to this coverup of their own mismanagement.

Then when it comes to the matter of increased taxes it really is rather interesting, because at one time we were told they had a surplus; the next moment we are told the surplus has come down a bit; then we're told that the economy is up; then we're told we need to impose more taxes. So we have to question why. I think there is a considerable amount of speculation on this. One of them, of course, is quite obvious:

[ Page 4453 ]

no government can embark on massive monuments — which they've never asked the people whether they wanted, by the way — they cannot commit themselves to millions and millions of dollars of monuments — football stadiums, convention centres, Transpo, you name it, all these things that the people were never asked if they wanted.... They have committed the people's money and somehow or other they're going to have to produce the money, even though I know that some of it has been put aside in special funds. It's obvious that they're into a lot more than they expected in these monuments, which I call a sort of last-ditch attempt to save themselves for the coming election, whenever that will be.

We've seen them pull this kind of coverup game before. We remember the time that they raised the sales tax and came out with a long sob story about the economy. The last time they raised the sales tax it was all the NDP's fault. They really had a great time in this Legislature blaming the New Democratic Party — that's why they had to raise the sales tax. Well, it was interesting last night. The new tactic now is: let's blame Ottawa, let's have another scapegoat. Do you know why'? They are finding it rather difficult to use the NDP as the scapegoat anymore, because the people of the province simply will not buy it. They are comparing the records. I can assure you that when they compare the records their votes will show which government they feel is able to manage the finances of this provinces.

So, therefore, what is this government doing? They're taking these increased taxes and they're going to have to use some of them for the inflationary costs of their monuments. But also, if they follow their past practice, they will probably come in next year — or the year after, if they can hold on — with a budget that will be very nice, will reduce the taxes and will hand out some goodies to the people of B.C. And they'll say: "There, aren't we great managers? Look what we've done for you. You've got to vote for us. We're the best boys and girls." It worked once, but I don't think the people of B.C. will be fooled again with that kind of cynical manoeuvring of their own money.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: You know, Mr. Speaker, I always find when I speak I hear a little bit of chirping from the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot). He and I have known each other a long time on the floor of this House, but we certainly have a great difference in our attitudes to politics and in our philosophies. If anything points it out more, it's from the time that this Minister of Housing assumed that portfolio.... What concerns me is that this government, which has decided to put their priorities on public monuments, convention centres, etc., is at the same time ignoring the areas of real crisis in this province.

I don't think there is anyone who can sit here today and deny that the most severe housing crisis that we have ever seen in this province and probably one of the worst in the whole country is facing the people of British Columbia. Then we look at that Minister of Housing who is representing the Social Credit government, and what is he doing? It's quite obvious that he's following along with the do-nothing philosophy of the Social Credit government when it comes to the needs of the people in the area of housing. Basic needs are food, clothing and shelter. Perhaps the Social Credit government needs to be reminded of that.

When it comes to housing I can take my own area of Burnaby. I remember hearing the Minister of Housing being interviewed on a hotline show and being asked why he hadn't done anything with a large plot of land that the NDP had acquired and was prepared to develop in Burnaby called the Harold Winch Park. I remember just prior to the election of 1975 we turned the sod on it and we were ready to start there. How many years have passed since 1975? Six years. Do you know that nothing has happened there? Do you know that when the minister was asked on the radio about it, I don't think he even knew where it was or anything about it. He was somewhat embarrassed, and I think he had to go back and check with his officials, Now we hear that there's some statement coming out of his ministry that, oh, yes, there is going to be some development taking place. If the NDP had been in government following 1975 the people would have been living in those houses now. Can you imagine the increased cost not only to government but to the people who are going to have to try now to arrange mortgages on that property?

It's the same thing with my colleague from Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) the Mount Burke project. The NDP acquired it and were ready to go. Unfortunately they didn't have the opportunity. And what happened? It sat there. Did it not just die out?

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: That's right. They killed it. That government killed the housing plans of the NDP that were worked for the benefit of the citizens of my area of Coquitlam and other areas.

They never learn. We've looked at the budget and there's nothing there that gives us any hope that this Ministry of Housing is going to cope with the crisis.

I hope when the Minister of Housing's (Hon. Mr. Chabot's) estimates come up, he will be prepared to explain to the people of British Columbia and to the members of this Legislature why the government he represents has allowed this situation to continue and why the budget we are faced with seems to offer no further hope.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Yes. the gravel-pit thing is something that we know will be discussed later in the session. But I don't want to dig down deep in that gravel and grovel there right now. I think that I will just try and keep it on a fairly high plane in the debate, although sometimes it's difficult to keep it on a reasonable level when you have to follow Socred speakers.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I ask the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing to please restrain himself.

MRS. DAILLY: The housing situation, I think, is one of the most deplorable in this province. We look at this budget, talking about services to people.... And may I repeat again, what are they doing for one of the most serious situations that faces so many of our people?

Then we look at the whole area of human services, and I believe that the speaker following me may be the Minister of

[ Page 4454 ]

Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy). I hope that when she does take her place she devotes considerable time to her portfolio of Human Resources without too much rhetoric, with straight facts, and that not so much time will be spent on the convention centre, because the citizens of British Columbia are the ones who are suffering. The people who are in dire need in this province are suffering because of that minister's obsession with monuments instead of people.

That brings me to a very specific thing that I would hope that minister will discuss with us today. I consider this particular area symbolic of this government's weaknesses and lack of basic concern for and commitment to real people's needs. We get a lot of rhetoric, but there's no basic philosophy or principle behind any of the talk, rhetoric or policies that they produce. The particular area I want to touch on today — because I consider the way the minister and her government has handled it symbolic of their lack of understanding of the true needs of people — has to do with children and parents. I don't wish to go into great detail because I know that when the estimates come up my colleague from Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) will also be wishing to continue the discussion on this matter. It has to do with the abysmal lack of day care in this province.

Perhaps you may wonder why I'm tying this into a discussion on the budget, which is supposed to be primarily discussing taxes and figures to do with increases in taxes and so on. The big point that I'm trying to make is the lack of priorities — the priorities that meet the needs of the people. That is at the basis of this kind of cynical budget.

Because of the economy of this province we know that it is absolutely necessary for many women to go out to work. That's the first thing that has to be accepted. Because there are so many single mothers today — and I think that we're all aware that that's on the increase — there's a tremendous need in this province for day-care facilities. There was a time, when I spoke in this House for a number of years on the need for kindergartens, because I was trying to point out to the.... The Speaker is nodding because, Mr. Speaker, I think you agreed on this — that what happens to a child in its early years is what forms the adult. Any government that turns a blind eye to the needs of children in their early years and does not give the assistance that it is able to give is asking for future trouble. We are helping to create children who may grow up to be burdens on society or to lead unhappy lives themselves because they have not had an opportunity to have their early years in a good environment.

The day-care requirements in the province of British Columbia are so far short of what is needed that it is becoming tragic. Mothers are lining up, phoning, asking people — I have them in my office in Burnaby constantly — "Where can I get my child in a day-care centre?" Most mothers today accept the fact that they're vital to their children. What mother wants to leave her child at home with an inadequate sitter when she knows that if she could get them into a daycare centre where they could be properly cared for and properly educated...? You learn through playing, and children in those early years must have a good environment if they are to succeed later.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't know what that member over there is talking about; he said something about: "That would increase the budget." I hope he can explain that later.

There was recently a report put out by the social planning and research section of the United Way of the lower mainland. I won't go into a lot of detail now but it makes the basic point that we'd better accept today — governments had better accept their responsibility that day care is here to stay. It's not a babysitting thing. I can recall some of the members over there in past years saying: "Why don't the mothers stay home with their kids?" Well, if they can't face the reality of the scene today, they shouldn't even be sitting in this place.

We need day care. We need it so we can ensure a good standard of care for the child whose parents must be absent from the home during a considerable portion of the day. I feel I have to read this because I still feel there are people over there who don't understand the importance of day care. We need it to promote the healthy social, physical, emotional and intellectual development of the child. We need it because it provides an opportunity for parents to obtain a greater understanding of the growth and development of their children, and finally because it provides children with learning experiences in tune with their development.

Day care is as important as the kindergarten year and the rest of the years to come. A time is going to come when the governments will have to accept their full responsibility for day-care years. Perhaps, federally and provincially, we can wake them up to the fact, Now, what I'm concerned about, even though the Minister of Human Resources, I know, is going to talk about the increased subsidy payment.... That is not the entire answer. As a matter of fact, we have to analyze that increased subsidy and see if it's even going to help some of those mothers today who are having great difficulty in getting their children in.

But even with an increased subsidy, what good is that if there's no day care for the child to go to? And I criticize this government for their inability to see the importance of day care. Subsidization is only one small factor. Do you know when the NDP was in government we actually ensured that there were moneys made available to help day care get started in this province? Capital grants and equipment grants — some on the basis of a loan — were made available. That government comes in and scraps it. From then on, any daycare centre that's been trying to get going in this province has had to struggle and struggle to try to create it. They've even come to me and said: "Do you think we can get money from lottery funds?" Can you imagine having to go to a one-shot lottery fund deal to provide a good environment for your child in this province? That's the status of day care in the province of B.C.

I would like to hear a commitment from the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and her government that they appreciate the value of day care, that they understand that subsidies alone, although absolutely necessary — and we appreciate any increase — are not sufficient. They must help and get involved in the establishment of day care. In the long run, many of our social problems from teenagers, etc., in the future will be not nullified, of course, but certainly lessened, if they can start off in the early years properly. So I do hope we can hear, as I say, something from the Minister of Human Resources besides discussions on convention centres. Let's get down to the people problems in her portfolio.

This budget, which is slapping the taxes on everyone, is particularly disappointing when it comes to the whole area of school taxes. We'll go into a lot further detail about that when the estimates come up. But I know myself that the district of

[ Page 4455 ]

Burnaby has always been very careful about their spending habits; in education, they've always had boards of all stripes, but they've always been very careful about seeing that the money that's spent is spent wisely.

I know that they are shocked at the situation that they find themselves in in the municipality of Burnaby today. Do you know that 85 percent of the school costs are being borne by the local taxpayer and only 15 percent by that government over there? Eighty-five percent are going to have to be borne by the taxpayers of Burnaby and only 15 percent by the province. I know my colleague for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), the education critic, will have more details on what has happened to the increase in school costs.

I'm bringing this up because that very government is very quick to go on hotlines and so on and try to move the blame onto school boards. We've seen this happen over and over again. "You must make sure that you elect school boards who are very careful and frugal in their spending habits." Any smokescreen to cover up their own inadequacies in the financing of school costs. I bet there's not another province in Canada where you find the school costs — 85 percent of them in one district — being borne by the local taxpayer. It's shameful, and there's no hope in this budget for it. But then what can we expect when a government is ready to commit themselves to coal developments, monuments, football stadiums and convention centres. How can you expect them at the same time — if those are their priorities — to be able to assist in these people areas? They've made their choice. The Social Credit government has made a choice. Their priorities are with those capital monuments. They can go around the province and say: "Look what we built." Their priorities are not with the basic needs of the people.

The whole area of priorities is something, of course, that all governments have related themselves to. I know that when you, Mr. Speaker, were in opposition and we were on the other side, your side brought up your priorities. But the thing that saddens me is that the Social Credit government, in all the time that they have been in power, still do not have an appreciation of what the basic priorities are for people's needs in this province. They are still obsessed with doing what they think the people want instead of finding out what the people need. For instance, did they go to the people and say: "Do you want us to commit millions of dollars for a football stadium?" There was no vote on it. Did they go to the people and ask them if they wanted a convention centre financed partly by their money? No. You go through all the projects like the northeast coal development. We haven't even had a chance to discuss it in detail in this Legislature. We have to sit here and try to pull out the answers from that government bit by bit every day in question period. What are they afraid of? Why didn't they open up the northeast coal deal right here before this Legislature or a special committee? What are they afraid of?

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: The minister in charge has just said across the floor: "We're going to."

What is the point of getting all the information after the horse is out of the barn? Surely we're here for some purpose. Is he trying to make this Legislature an irrelevant place? Is it to be irrelevant? Are we just to sit here and say okay to everything? How can we make a reasoned judgment on anything the minister of economics, small business or whatever is doing if he doesn't give us the facts? How can any opposition do their job properly? That is one area that this government is particularly weak and arrogant in. Weak and arrogant.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do they go together?

MRS. DAILLY: Yes. It may seem strange, but with this government they go together. There wouldn't be nearly as many problems on the floor of this House and we wouldn't have as much negative debate. I know some people on the other side agree with me. We would much rather, I think, have a debate on the floor of this House representing the people on a positive basis, but how can the opposition do it if we're not given the facts to debate? That's my point. If government would only be more open. If that minister across the floor would stop making so many trips around the world from one city to the other and just sit in this Legislature in this building and meet with members of the opposition in a committee, the people of the province of British Columbia would be far better served.

The other area that really concerns me — and I notice he's not in here just now — is the whole area of energy. which our energy critics will be going into in more detail. But that Minister of Energy. Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) is the kind of minister who arouses the worst instincts in anyone when he speaks. I'm basically a mild person, but I must say if anyone could arouse me not to be mild, it's that man over there, the Minister of Energy.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MRS. DAILLY: The Minister of Energy is famous, or perhaps I should say he's infamous, for half-truths, for evasive answers and for coverups. There's never been another minister who has....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I must ask, in the use of the word half-truths...???

MRS. DAILLY: I was being kind.

MR. SPEAKER: ...is the Hon. Member imputing any improper motive to the minister? Because if she is, I must ask for her withdrawal.

MRS. DAILLY: No. I don't want to impute any improper motive. Mr. Speaker. I was just trying to say that when that minister speaks I find it very difficult to sift fact and truth out of his speech.

He was talking this afternoon about the NDP, and I think it was another minister who earlier said they want to give away all natural resources. Well. again, when I talk about having difficulty in sifting fact and truth, the NDP has never made such a statement. Our leader has never made such a statement. And when the minister blatantly makes that statement in the House, I don't know what you can call it. That's where I find great difficulty in trying to be kind to that minister and to use parliamentary words.

Somebody over there said: "imagine, they want to nationalize the oil companies." Yes, we do want to nationalize the oil companies, and the majority of Canadians are behind

[ Page 4456 ]

us on it. That minister kept saying, "We want to conserve our energy, we want to protect energy," and he kept talking about, "Do you know that most of the companies are Canadian-owned?" I want to point out that it's the opinion of this party that sometimes there isn't too much difference between Canadian ownership and foreign ownership unless we can be sure the companies are there to pay their fair share of the profits they make. In terms of developing energy resources for the public interest, there is really very little difference between the method and objectives of the Canadian capitalist and those of the foreign capitalist, because each has as his object to maximize profits. I don't think anyone over there can deny it. Yet that Minister of Energy, who should be concerned about the people of British Columbia and getting the resources to the people of British Columbia at low cost, is aiding and abetting the opposite.

To maximize profits, the private oil industry has to, and they always do, push for higher prices, more sales through more exports, and more tax concessions. In reality the public's long-term interest of security of energy supply — and that's what that minister was saying he was doing — at reasonable prices is compromised by that catch-22 position of the energy industry. Higher prices and more tax incentives supposedly mean more discoveries, which mean more exports, which mean more shortages, which mean higher prices and more tax incentives. And so it goes on.

Unfortunately we're dealing with a non-renewable resource when we're talking about oil, and the Canadian consumer and the taxpayer in the end turn out to be the losers. That minister simply does not even understand, or attempt to understand, the policy of the NDP when we talk about public control of the oil companies. We are concerned with the consumers of this country and this province. That minister, if we follow what he's doing, is not showing any such basic concern.

It has been shown — and this came out of some National Energy Board figures, I believe — that in general the price and tax policies have provided the oil industry with the cash flow necessary to finance its own expenditures. This means that the oil consumer and the Canadian taxpayer have financed virtually all of the substantial expansion of this industry. Yet that minister constantly prattles about how we must get the industry to expand and develop; it will benefit the people of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, it's not benefiting the people of British Columbia or the people of Canada, because unfortunately the general public has put up the money but doesn't have ownership, despite the fact they put up the money through taxes, concessions, etc.

We are all aware of the report that just came out of the federal government in Ottawa which backs up many of the proposals and statements that the NDP opposition has made federally and provincially and for which statements the Social Credit members have consistently knocked us. The points brought out by the NDP have now been brought out by an impartial commission in Ottawa.

I think it's basically the fact that that government over there may in their own way individually feel that they have come here to represent the best interests of the people of B.C. I give every person credit. I accept that fact. But unfortunately the policies and the philosophies, whatever they may be, that are here in this budget are collectively not helping the majority of consumers in British Columbia. As a matter of fact, I predict that the next year is going to be a harder year in every respect for the average wage-earner. Surely the object of us being here, the object of Social Credit being in government, is to better the lives of the people of British Columbia. Unfortunately this budget is not going to better the lives of the people of British Columbia. In fact, I'm afraid that we're in for a very sad period of higher inflation and higher costs generally, because this government is obsessed with monuments, and basically because that government is financially incompetent. The sooner they are removed from office the better, so that the people of British Columbia can benefit properly from the economy of this province.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm so pleased to be part of the positive party in this House, and to stand in my place in the budget debate on a very positive initiative for the people of the province of British Columbia as we enter this year. I'm really delighted to be in my place. I'm particularly pleased to follow the member for Burnaby North, who talked about public monuments and who in a derogatory way tried to belittle the initiatives of this government.

Let me just tell you that in these few minutes we've been in this House today.... For each hour we have been here the Ministry of Health has spent almost $300,000. In every 24 hours it will spend that amount. In the whole of this day the Ministry of Health will spend almost $6 million, the Ministry of Human Resources will spend almost $3 million, and the Ministry of Education will have a like amount of expenditure. In other words, in those three social services ministries there will be some $76,384,716 spent just in this week on those social services. And in the total daily expenditures of those three ministries — the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Human Resources.... They will spend almost $12 million between the time we sat in the House this morning and the time that we will go to bed this evening. That's some cutback in social services, Mr. Speaker.

There have been no cutbacks in social services in the province of British Columbia through this budget. There are no cutbacks, and that party on the opposite side which pretends to speak as opposition in this House can try to fool the people of British Columbia by their statements, but I have faith in the people of British Columbia who are using the services — those senior citizens. I have people in our ministry who are delivering those services, and I can tell you that the people who are delivering services in the hospitals in this province, the people who are taking advantage of the medical care of this province, the people who look with envy throughout this nation to this province for the social services, know that there are no cutbacks in this province in social services.

But as a typical socialist ploy, during the last provincial election election they went throughout this province trying to tell the people of the province how bad the health care was, how bad the health care is, and that was their main program of politicking and their main program of trying to fight the last provincial election. You know something, Mr. Speaker? I spoke to the Canadian Medical Association, who were joined by the Australian Medical Association a few months ago, and I had an opportunity to meet doctors from all over the world — not just Australia, New Zealand and Canada, but also from Britain and from the United States and from all of those areas in the world that came to visit this province and to take part in that conference. They were amazed at the health service which we provide; they were amazed at that the services that we have in this province; they were in awe of the

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kinds of services — not only the calibre of services but also the number of services. What other government in this country has been able to introduce denticare at a time when all governments across this great country of ours have been cutting social services — all but this province of British Columbia? So I'm pleased to stand here today on behalf of another social services ministry, the Ministry of Human Resources.

I want to address the point that the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly), who has just taken her seat, has brought to the attention of this House. She says that we've been building public monuments. I'll tell you what we have. We have monuments for the service of the people of this province and we intend to keep them up for those people — social services.

It is interesting that the socialists on the other side of this House and those throughout this province can never seem to figure it out. You have to have good business in a province to have social services. You have to have profit in this province in order to have social services. In order to treat the sick, help those who are in need, provide day-care services for single parents and provide the levels of social services that we need in this province and in this country you've got to have jobs. You have to have projects and you have to have a climate for industry where they're going to come and invest their money. That's what we've got in the province of British Columbia. Why, we've never had such a province of prosperity as we have today in 1981 in this part of Canada in British Columbia — not ever. We've never had the level of job security; we've never had the level of job creation.

We talk about the services for the working man and the jobs for the working man. The member for Burnaby North talks about British Columbia Place and the stadium. She talks about an area where we're going to redevelop the most beautiful downtown there could ever be in the whole of this nation. We're going to take away those dirty old tracks and we're going to take away the rat-infested place that we all look down on as we go through that great city of Vancouver. We're going to beautify it and make it into British Columbia Place.

You know it's interesting. Those people on the other side don't understand what British Columbia Place is all about. It's a downtown British Columbia that's going to be paid for by the enhancement of the property that was purchased by the province of British Columbia, and it will be returned in social services — that great profit whereby we have bought the land, will use it for British Columbia Place and will return it to the people of British Columbia in the years to come over and over again. They can't understand that. They didn't understand it when they were government and they don't understand it today. You just can't make them learn. They just don't know. Of course, the same people who would say that a stadium is not needed for the city of Vancouver or the province of British Columbia are the same people who wouldn't vote against it in the last House. What kind of hypocrisy is that?

The trade and convention centre is an opportunity to redevelop that downtown core once again, and to redevelop a waterfront that is Vancouver's front door and that should not have been allowed to get into such a miserable mess as it has been all these many years. But it does more than redevelop a waterfront; it provides $1 billion in new money in just four years — new money, I suggest to you, to be spent on social services for the people of British Columbia. That's where our return will come.

Why should the Minister of Human Resources be interested in a trade and convention centre? I'll tell you why. I'm a member of the Legislature for the city of Vancouver, that's why. I'm interested in having a great return. I just want our Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) to be so successful, I want the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) to be so successful, I want the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) to be so successful, I want the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) to be so successful, and I meant all of our people in the economic development services in our province to be so successful, because I want to return when the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources brings all that money into this government, and the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) brings all that money into this government. I want to be able to give the people of the province of British Columbia the social services they deserve, the ones they have been wanting and the ones they have learned to expect from this government.

It's interesting when we talk about the trade and convention centre — and I think Transpo '86 was mentioned.... Do you know Transpo '86 will bring 15 million new people into the province? They'll go back to their own cities, provinces and countries to ask for social services, but they will leave millions upon millions of dollars. The world will come to us in 1986, and they'll leave millions of dollars to be used on social services, hospitalization and health care for our children and elderly.

It's interesting that we should have all the references to northeast coal. Why is it that the socialists don't understand progress? Why is it that they don't understand vision? Just a few minutes ago I went back to my office, and my eye fell on a book on W.A.C. Bennett. I want to read one little quotation from the book, because no legislature in this country, I suggest, could go wrong in quoting a man who had the greatest vision for a province, as did our Hon. W.A.C. Bennett.

Let me just quote something from when the Peace River was talked about and all of the great projects for hydro and all of the energy plans of the day. You'll recall how many years ago that was. W.A.C. Bennett is quoted in this publication as taking a look at the Peace River for the first time. He talks about the time that he was looking down at that little muddy river and he encountered a trapper.

The trapper said to him: "What are you looking at?"

"Well, " he said, "I've been looking at the river. What do you see?"

And the trapper said: "I see a muddy little river that has been running on for centuries and centuries. I come through here all the time, because I have a small trap-line. But tell me, what do you see?"

W.A.C. Bennett responded: "Well, " he said, "I see prosperous cities, beautiful schools and hospitals, universities; I see women doing their baking in ovens that use electricity; I see thousands of jobs — all resulting from what you and I are looking at right now."

Of course, the trapper at that point in time said to him: "You know, up in this north country we get a lot of crazy people coming here, but you are the craziest person that ever came into the north as far as I'm concerned."

Mr. Bennett said, "Thank you very much, " and away the trapper went. Then you see what W.A.C. Bennett said: "One person can see something, an opportunity, a chance, and another can see only the mud."

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Mr. Speaker, opposite we have people who have talked about the northeast coal development. They don't see the great port development. They don't see the future, the tremendous opportunities for people, for housing and for jobs. They don't see the opportunities in the future for the young people in this province. All they can see is mud. All they can throw is mud.

You know, it's interesting that in the northeast coal development that same party — they were in opposition at the time, when W.A.C. Bennett was leading the government of the day.... We just talked about the lack of vision of the NDP about Transpo '86, about the stadium, about B.C. Place, about the Pacific Rim Trade and Convention Centre, about all the great initiatives to create jobs and to get an even higher standard of living for the people of British Columbia. It's interesting that it was the same party which, when the two-river policy and the energy initiatives were brought to this province, said they didn't have to build it until 1984.

Do you recall that, Mr. Speaker? We would have all been in the dark. We wouldn't have had the electricity, the jobs, the hospitals; we wouldn't have had the schools; we wouldn't have had the help for people in need. We have the tear-jerkers on the other side who call for help for the working people. People wouldn't have been working. Tell me what the cost of energy would be today. What would it have cost us had we listened to the opposition of the day? From that day until this, what would this budget have been? What of the billions and billions and billions of dollars it would have cost the people of the province of British Columbia?

Interjection.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: That member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) shouts and talks and raves on. He tries to cover up all the idiotic statements of the NDP that have been made over that energy policy of the W.A.C. Bennett government. It's interesting. Had we followed that NDP line in those years, this province would have been one of the have-not provinces in this nation today. We couldn't have thought of affording even half of what we have in this province today.

We talk about jobs in this province.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I wish you would call to order the member opposite who is making snide remarks. I think there are some things that I have to say which even that member can understand.

I'm going to talk about an article. I spoke about all these jobs. They are very important to us. They create work for our people. I just want to quote from something that was in the Vancouver Sun on January 20, and it was about British Columbia experiencing phenomenal growth in the number of jobs created during 1980. It was a federal government economist, Bill Nelles, who said that the province accounted for 21 percent of all the new jobs in Canada in 1980, even though it has 10 percent of the total population.

"Total British Columbia employment as of December 1980, according to figures just released by Employment and Immigration Canada, was 1,198,000 compared to 1,141,000 for the same month in 1979.

" 'The growth in employment in December, 1980, compared to the same month in 1979, was 5 percent, ' said Nelles. This is a very, very strong growth. Considering we're supposed to be in a recession, it is phenomenal."

It is phenomenal, but you know what I find even more phenomenal is the fact that that party opposite, the NDP, in the face of this incredible growth and the incredible kind of prosperity we are enjoying in this province, continue to go on in the same old tack they've gone in on for years. But you know, Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you this: I don't think that the people of British Columbia are just as dumb as they'd like to think. I think that they truly understand what the socialist policy is. I think that the people of British Columbia are behind us on the job creation initiatives and the vision of the northeast coal and the vision of the projects which we have on the drawing board now, because a government that is to serve and a government that is to provide services has to initiate the jobs and the investment climate and the employment for our people in order to achieve those social services.

And now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk a little about my own ministry specifically. But before I get into those detailed subjects in the budget, I'm going to ask for adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of this House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Wolfe tabled the annual report of the B.C. lotteries branch, April 1, 1979, to March 31, 1980; the report of the B.C. Labour Relations Board for 1980 under the Public Service Labour Relations Act; the twenty-fifth annual report of the business done pursuant to the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act, part 2, formerly the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Superannuation Act, for the year ended March 31, 1980; the forty-fifth annual report done in pursuance of the Pension (Public Service) Act for the year ended March 31, 1980; the forty-first annual report of business done in pursuance of the Pension (Municipal) Act for the year ended December 31, 1979; the twelfth annual report of business done in pursuance of the Pension (College) Act for the year ended August 31, 1980; the thirty-ninth annual report of business done in pursuance of the Pension (Teachers) Act for the year ended December 31, 1979; and the fourth annual report of business done in pursuance of the Public Service Benefit Plan Act for the year ended March 31, 1980.

Hon. Mr. McClelland moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:44 p.m.

ERRATUM

December 11, 1980, Hansard, page 4374, col. 2 at line 5 reads:

The level of the commitment of the people....

This line should read:

The level of their commitment to the people....