[ Page 5261 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. Mr. Barrett –– 5261

Mr. Lockstead –– 5262

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

On vote 164: minister's office –– 5263

Mrs. Dailly

On the amendment to vote 164 –– 5263

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Howard

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Hall

Mr. Barrett

Hon. Mr. McGeer

Mr. Lea

Mr. Barber

Mr. Cocke

Ms. Brown

Mr. Ritchie

    TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. BARRETT: I ask the House to welcome Mr. John Bannon, who is in the precincts and on his way here. Mr. Bannon is the leader of the official opposition in South Australia, and he leads the Labour Party there. They are only two seats behind the government. They anticipate an election shortly in South Australia, with a return of the Labour Party to government, and we anticipate the same in British Columbia.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I'd like to reciprocate with our good wishes, but perhaps not to quite the same extent. I just had a very pleasant luncheon with the Hon. John Bannon and his aide Mr. Geoff Anderson. They are on a tour of the western provinces of Canada. They will be leaving British Columbia this afternoon. On behalf of the government, I also wish them a good time in our province and in the other provinces of our country.

MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today we have some outstanding ladies of British Columbia. They are members of the British Columbia Social Credit Party Women's Auxiliary. Would the House please welcome these ladies from all over our province.

MR. HALL: I'd like to introduce to the House a large group of students from Earl Marriott Junior Secondary School in Surrey, accompanied by a group of exchange students from the province of Quebec. They are accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Juliusson of Surrey, and by M. Gagnon from Quebec. I hope the members will join with me and the first member for Surrey, the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm), in welcoming this party of students to the buildings.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House today at the far end is the director of the International Year of the Disabled program, Mr. Doug Mowat, who is well known to this House, I think. Doug is heading up a very broadly based committee which will administer the program for the International Year of the Disabled: it has more money available for this purpose than all of the other provinces of Canada together. I would ask the House to make Mr. Mowat welcome.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I would like the House to recognize grade 11 and 12 students from Richmond Senior Secondary School, who are attending the House today accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Henderson.

MR. STRACHAN: It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the assembly today some students from Prince George who are in the precincts. Would the House please welcome students from Lakewood Secondary School and their teacher, Miss Klomp.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: In the precincts today is a group of elementary students from Bench Elementary School in Merritt. I would ask the House to please welcome them.

MR. LEVI: I would ask the House to welcome the member for Okanagan North (Hon. Mrs. Jordan). The Minister of Tourism, I understand, is going to be in the House this afternoon.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure today to introduce to the House the members of the ladies auxiliary from the great riding of Cariboo. I would particularly like the opposition to realize that that's why I'm here and will continue to be here for a long time. Their names are Doreen Bourque. Audrey King, Jean Klossen, Genevieve Gook, and my wife Gertrude.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order. please. The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) is unusually noisy today.

Seated in the gallery today is a special guest. He is the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Fiji, the Hon. M. Qionibaravi. I'd like the House to make him welcome.

MR. LAUK: The House Leader (Hon. Mr. Gardom) indicated in cross comment that the Minister of Tourism is ill. Perhaps the Speaker could convey our best wishes to her, and wish her a speedy recovery and return to the service of the House.

Oral Questions

NATURAL GAS PIPELINE
TO VANCOUVER ISLAND

MR. BARRETT: Has the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources decided to reverse his decision against the public hearing on the location of a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island and allow a public hearing to determine the location — whether it is to be a southern route or a northern route?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No.

MR. BARRETT: Can the minister inform the House how many requests he's had from citizens' groups to have a public hearing, to reconsider his decision on the location of that pipeline?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No, I couldn't give that off the top of my head. I'd have to research that and look through my correspondence. At the same time, I'd have to bring the answer about the people who have supported the decision. I haven't that answer with me, I'm sorry.

MR. BARRETT: Am I to understand then that the government's decision is absolute and that regardless of the Energy Commission's role there will be no public hearing as to the location of that pipeline?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: The Energy Commission is no longer part of this province. There is a B.C. Utilities Commission now, which the member voted on last year in the Legislature.

[ Page 5262 ]

The government has made the decision that there will be a public hearing into many aspects of costing and environmental concerns, but there will not be one into the location of the pipeline.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, in the formula for making the decision for the location of the pipeline, was the estimated price differential for the delivery of natural gas by way of the northern pipeline compared with the southern pipeline a factor? Was that price differential taken into consideration?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition knows, this matter has been under consideration by various governments for a long time. A lot of information has been considered, including submissions to public hearings held, I believe, in 1972. At that time the people of Vancouver Island were hoping to have natural gas, but the previous government — the NDP — reversed a decision to deliver natural gas to the island by means of a pipeline and stopped those hearings. All of those things were taken into consideration: the price of the gas, the capital cost of the pipeline....

I'd like to bring a couple of those figures to the floor of the Legislature. There were basically two routes considered for the natural gas pipeline. For ease of consideration we can call them the southern and northern routes: one coining down from Williams Lake through Powell River to Vancouver Island the other going across the Strait of Georgia from the municipality of Delta, taking gas from Huntington. The capital cost on the southern route — these are 1980 dollars — would be $125 million. On the northern route it would be about $248 million.

It's very difficult to come up with a cost-of-service figure because it depends on how much gas is delivered, who uses the gas and where it's delivered. Take a 20-year pay-back period on interest and service charges, with gas volumes estimated by B.C. Hydro to be increasing from 16.8 billion cubic feet in the first year of the pipeline, which would probably be 1984, to something like 38.7 billion cubic feet in the twentieth year of the delivery of gas to Vancouver Island. Assume a discount rate of approximately 3 percent in real terms. The levellized cost of delivering natural gas to Vancouver Island, taking into account all of those considerations of service for that natural gas — I'm talking only of delivering natural gas to Vancouver Island; I don't think the distribution on Vancouver Island should be a consideration here because it doesn't matter who does the job or what the route is; there will be distribution costs — the southern route would be $1.30 per thousand cubic feet, the northern route would be $2 per thousand cubic feet. Given those capital costs, and the environmental conditions that would be encountered coming down through the northern route and all of the other factors, it was decided that the southern route was cheaper, less environmentally sensitive, and more secure in delivering gas to Vancouver Island at the earliest opportunity.

MR. BARRETT: I welcome the information from the minister. I'd ask if the minister would be prepared to table the formulas he outlined on the baseline of the volumes predicted by B.C. Hydro. Somewhere a baseline has to be initiated, and I would appreciate the minister announcing today that the baseline was B.C. Hydro's, or whatever — the formula.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: We've only chosen one.

MR. BARRETT: Okay, you have to pick one.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It could be any number.

MR. BARRETT: I appreciate the minister saying that the chosen formulas applied to both projects in terms of capital costs. As I understand it, the minister has announced today that the capital cost would increase the price of natural gas — whatever it is at the time it's delivered — by $1.30 per thousand cubic feet on the southern route and $2 per thousand cubic feet on the northern route, a 70 cent differential.

Mr. Speaker, does the 70 cent differential announced by the minister today limit the distribution of gas exclusively to domestic users, or does it include industrial users as well?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Well, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't make any difference. You can choose any number you want — 30 billion cubic feet or 50 billion cubic feet. Somewhere you have to.... But I'm telling you on the basis of the figures that I've given you that those are what the costs of service would be. It's a purely mathematical formula. Now it doesn't matter whether or not it's industrial, commercial or domestic use on those volumes, because as that member should know — and he might ask the member sitting next to him, who some time ago had some expertise, he claims, in the business of natural gas in this province — we don't charge any rate differential for domestic, industrial and commercial use. The rate is the same. It is one rate across the province of British Columbia, so it doesn't make any difference.

If the member is asking whether or not we're considering using natural gas for industrial purposes — which is a different kind of question; I don't want to answer a question he hasn't asked — it has always been the policy of this government to make natural gas available to as wide a consumer audience as possible, whether or not it is commercial, industrial or residential. But for one industrial part of our activity in this province — and I'm talking mainly about the large forest industry–related companies — it will be a requirement of this government that those companies make full use of wood waste and the products which those industries develop themselves, before they will have the opportunity for cheap, subsidized natural gas.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the minister if he disagrees with Hydro's own figure. He quoted that the Hydro project on the southern route would cost $125 million. Hydro tells us the cost on their proposal will be $301 million, and the fact is that the cost of the Hydro proposal will be much higher than that.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I wish I had that member's crystal ball. I'd perhaps ask one question for the House to consider: whether or not the cost overruns might be more probable in a line of new pipeline construction, which is approximately 79 kilometres through very easy construction country, or one which is something like 360 kilometres through some of the most rugged, avalanche-prone country in British Columbia, having to cross 30 streams with the disruption that might do to the fish stocks.

Mr. Speaker, the figures quoted by the member for Mackenzie are wrong in terms of delivering natural gas to Vancouver Island. The capital cost of new pipeline construction for the southern route in 1980 dollars is estimated at $125 million; the capital cost of new pipeline construction for the northern route is $248 million.

[ Page 5263 ]

There will be a number of other charges and costs encountered on Vancouver Island to distribute the natural gas once it gets to Vancouver Island. That cost will be common to whoever should build the line. It won't matter whether it is Westcoast Transmission, Centennial Transmission or British Columbia Hydro; the lines will have to be upgraded in Victoria and Nanaimo, those two areas where some gas services are already available, and in distribution lines to Port Alberni and Campbell River. Those charges will be constant, Mr. Speaker, and they'll be borne by everyone. But the capital costs, which the people will be asked to bear through cost of service one way or another, will be double and then some for the northern line as compared to the southern line, Mr. Speaker.

MR. BARRETT: If the minister is so sure of his figures, why is he frightened to hold a public hearing on all of these matters so they can be heard publicly? What are you afraid of?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'm not frightened of anything, particularly that little member for Vancouver East across there.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I suppose there comes a time when governments are elected to govern, and we have been elected to govern. We're not afraid to make decisions. I'd like a commitment from that member over there that if he, in some kind of accident of fate, ever had the chance to be government again, he would put this whole matter on the shelf again and deny the people of Vancouver Island gas for another five years.

MR. BARRETT: I ask the government of the day why, if it is so sure of its figures, it is frightened to hold a public hearing on this important issue to let the figures stand to public scrutiny. What are you frightened of?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: As I indicated earlier perhaps I didn't indicate it strongly enough; this is a matter which has been before government for many years. There was a decision required to be taken if we were to fulfill the mandate, which is that we must end our dependence on imported, expensive oil as quickly as possible. One of the best ways we can do that is to make available, as quickly as possible and to as many people as possible in this province, the natural gas which we have in abundance and which I feel confident will be the fuel of the future for this province.

Having all that information at public hearings in the past rejected as an energy goal by the previous government, we felt it was time we fulfilled the mandate to deliver natural gas to Vancouver Island as quickly as possible. We want that gas flowing on this island by 1983 or early 1984. I don't apologize for the decision which was made, but I do say this in further expansion. There will be public hearings, and there are a lot of important decisions yet to be made in terms of whether or not the gas is rolled in as a kind of postage-stamp rate across the province. Those figures will have to stand up to public scrutiny at that time. At that time, all those figures will be advanced. They will have to stand up to public scrutiny, and there will be a full public hearing as soon as B.C. Hydro is able to make application.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF THE
PROVINCIAL SECRETARY AND
GOVERNMENT SERVICES

(continued)

On vote 164: minister's office. $195,103.

MRS. DAILLY: I would like to move that vote 164 be reduced to the amount of $4.50, which is, as most of us are aware, the average price of a theatre ticket today. Then I would like to speak on it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment appears to be in order, hon. member. Proceed.

On the amendment.

MRS. DAILLY: I ant to assure the House that this is not a frivolous motion. The reason I have moved it and related it to the price of a movie theatre ticket is because this government can't differentiate between using tax money to produce Hollywood-style productions to keep up their image and true information. It is a very serious issue.

All of this morning we tried to point out to this minister that what he is doing with the taxpayers' money in British Columbia through information services under his jurisdiction is politically immoral. The difficulty we have with that minister and with this government is that they cannot seem to differentiate between using the hard-earned tax dollars of the public to boost up their own images, and giving sheer, straight facts and information to the public. That is the issue. It is how you use your advertising assistance. It is how you use the media that you have set up for yourselves. It is how you use them. We have moved this motion of non-confidence and related it to a theatre ticket to point this out hopefully to that minister and to some members on the back bench perhaps who surely have some sense of political morality. We're hoping they will stand up and approve our motion, which expresses non-confidence in that minister.

Interjections.

MRS. DAILLY: The Socred backbenchers are saying across the floor: "You must be kidding." You know, Mr. Chairman, we are not kidding. The public of B.C. Is not kidding when they say to us: "We resent our money being used to build up the Socred image on a partisan basis."

I would like to ask that minister, who is busy talking to some of his aides, how he can justify using the taxpayers' money to create new hairdos for some of his minister and giving acting lessons to some others. I want to ask the minister how he can justify using the taxpayers' money for that purpose. The issue here today is that they cannot differentiate between the misuse of taxpayers' money and using it in what we hoped would be a factual way.

I recall that there were a lot of jokes about Joe Clark having to have a special hairdresser prior to the convention. May I say, from everything I've been able to check on, at least that was paid for by the Conservative Party. That is the

[ Page 5264 ]

difference. What right has any minister to stand in this House and ask us to approve a vote using tax money to change hairdos in the cabinet and to give them acting lessons? I'm asking the minister how he could possibly expect us to support that. I don't know, Mr. Chairman.

But perhaps he can answer this. I would like to know if Mr. and Mrs. Sedawie — this is nothing personal about them; they're probably very talented people — are sitting in the gallery. Somebody said to me that they were. Is that correct? Mr. Minister, did you nod your head? They were not introduced to the House. If they're sitting in the gallery — we hope we will hear a reply from the minister — I would like to know the purpose of a group of people being paid under that minister's vote to sit in this gallery when they're supposed to be technicians producing and assisting in producing videotapes. Have you hired them as politicians, strictly on a partisan basis? What is the purpose of their sitting in the gallery? I guess this very moment they're checking on the behaviour of the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips). The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) is not here to have her hairdo checked. This is becoming a travesty, Mr. Chairman.

MR. MACDONALD: I'm the one who needs help.

MRS. DAILLY: We kept telling the former Attorney-General that he needed help. But at no time did we take tax money to try to fix him up — unfortunately.

We dealt with this this morning. We intend to continue, on other votes, in this whole area of information services. At this time I just wanted to say that this is not a facetious motion. We do not think the taxpayers should have to pay for this nonsense on a partisan basis to boost up the Social Credit Party image.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, when my colleague from Burnaby moved the amendment to reduce the money in this vote to $4.50, there were immediate cries across the floor classifying it as frivolous. The immediate response of Social Credit was one of frivolity and accusation. It's not frivolous. It's a very serious condemnation of the minister and the politics inherent in the minister's activities. It's a vote of confidence not only in the minister but in his activities in the area of propagandizing. It's a motion relating to confidence with respect to the attempt of the ministry to misuse public funds for partisan purposes. It's a condemnation of the activity of the ministry to draw the integrity of public servants into question and to use public servants employed in the audio-visual centre for partisan purposes under the direction of a politically appointed deputy minister.

That's the essence of this motion. We selected $4.50 because I understand that's a reasonable price one expects to pay to go to a movie these days. It was used to draw attention particularly to the fact that the minister has authorized the expenditure of $14,000 of taxpayers' money to employ the services of a couple of filmmakers to polish up the image of government. That's the essence of this motion. There's nothing frivolous about it at all. A very serious question of confidence is expressed in the amendment.

The minister said earlier that no change is to take place in this audio-visual centre. It's going to be doing the same things it did before. I want to submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that that is arrant nonsense and inaccurate. Of course, if the minister wants to challenge the statements attributed to the film department production manager, Mr. Maurice Chazottes, who said that the emphasis of the audio-visual centre is no longer on staff training.... That's an alteration, isn't it? It used to be for staff training, and now it's gone; it's not going to be used for that purpose. Isn't that a change, Mr. Minister? How could you stand in your place earlier today and say there's no change taking place when the production manager of the centre says a change has taken place? They're going to dispense with using that centre for staff training films.

If the fact is accurate — it was referred to earlier by my colleague from the riding of Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) and the minister took no occasion to correct what my colleague had said at that time, so I assume it is correct — that the B.C. government has just signed a contract with ACTRA, the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, for the purpose of using professional actors in government films, is that not a change in the operation, function, direction and orientation of the audio-visual centre? Of course it's a change.

MR. BARBER: What did Wolfe say this morning?

MR. HOWARD: The minister said this morning that there was no change and that it was the same plan and program. His production manager of the department said: "Yes, there is a change." The government appears to have signed a contract with ACTRA. That's a change. We just can't believe the minister. We can neither believe what he says about there being no change nor believe that he really appreciates what is the fundamental question here. The fundamental question which we're attacking and looking at, which the minister has to answer for, is partisan politics being used — the employment of taxpayers' money for partisan politics, the use of taxpayers' money to advance the cause of Social Credit, the disgusting misuse of public funds and the public trust placed in that minister by the general public. That's what this amendment is all about. It's about the condemnation of that sort of disgraceful activity.

There is an increase in the allotment of money for advertising that will be under the control of Mr. Heal and the minister. They're companions on this. Mr. Heal is a politically appointed deputy minister. He is not going to budge unless the minister approves it because politics is involved. There is an increase in the funds available for advertising to the audio-visual centre. The increase is 4,937 percent, which Mr. Heal, the slick filmmakers and the image polishers will have access to. It's an unbelievable increase. That's only in one vote in this minister's department. In one vote alone, there's an increase of 4,937 percent.

AN HON. MEMBER: How about the dollars?

MR. HOWARD: My friend wants to know dollars. I'll give you the dollars scattered throughout the whole range of government departments. I'll give you the dollars in one vote alone in here of that 4,937 percent increase. The increase is from $8,000 to over $400,000 in one vote alone.

In addition to that, scattered all throughout every government department there is an additional $20.5 million available to Mr. Heal. It's available to the Provincial Secretary for partisan, rotten, corruptible political purposes on behalf of Social Credit. Not that the minister falls in that category, but the use of the funds is for that purpose. It's a misuse. It's a

[ Page 5265 ]

blatant and arrogant thumbing of the nose to the general taxpayers of this province to ask them to fork over, through tax increases, $20.5 million and put it in the hands and under the control of the Provincial Secretary so that he and his agency — the audio-visual agency....

HON. MR. WOLFE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, we would seek your advice on one point here. The member is addressing himself to the overall expenditures of all ministries of the government. The Ministry of the Provincial Secretary and Government Services has responsibility for the government information deputy minister, who coordinates the expenditures for publications and other information of all ministries.

I would ask you whether it's appropriate and in order to discuss under this heading the advertising expenditures of all ministries. If so, we can enter into debate on that question. This particular ministry has a vote for public information — vote 180 — which, incidentally, shows an increase of only 13 percent. I don't wish to debate that question here, but just to ask your advice on whether we're going to inject a debate on the total advertising of all government ministries, which might more properly fall under the first minister's vote or some other. It is not this minister's responsibility to decide how much money is spent by each ministry for advertising and publications.

MR. HOWARD: On the same point of order, I seek to point out, as we did earlier, that the description relating to the funds available in the ministry which we're examining at the moment says that there is an audio-visual production centre for use by all ministries. That is point number one. In adding up the total amounts in allocation of funds for this audiovisual centre, there is an item called "Recoveries from other ministries: credit, $50,000," and I submit that provides the relationship. This vote — the description of it, the fact that they're going to recover some money from other ministries, charges for using it and so on — provides all ministries with access to this audio-visual centre, and puts all ministries, operating to the extent that they want to operate, through the propaganda machine being set up by the minister.

Point number two. Before the lunch break, Mr. Chairman, the minister himself engaged in a debate in this chamber, covering such subject matters as the unemployment rate in the province, B.C. Place, northeast coal and a variety of other subjects having nothing whatever to do with this ministry, and nobody questioned it. The Chairman sat in the chair, listened and was silent in permitting the minister to go in that direction. I submit to you that not because that happened, but because the vote here provides us with this opportunity, we are entitled to point out the fact that the minister and his propaganda deputy minister have got their fingers and their hands on a potential $20 million scattered throughout all the ministries for propaganda purposes to advance the cause of Social Credit.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, the points made by both the member for Skeena and the minister are well taken. However, again I would point out, as I pointed out earlier this morning, that each and every member must use some form of discretion. It would be most inappropriate to relate each and every ministerial activity of each and every ministry under one vote, or we would do away with the effectiveness of this committee in going through the votes as we should in Committee of Supply. It's a very fine line; I hope hon. members appreciate that. The Chair appreciates it, but I would ask that each member exercise the appropriate judgment, so that debate in Committee of Supply may continue for the purpose for which it is determined. I will undertake on behalf of the committee to further review this subject as we proceed, but in the meantime I would ask all members to use that discretion.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, your very wise words are taken and appreciated, I'm sure, by everybody in the committee. I think I should also mention, apropos of that, that I was not seeking to discuss every ministry's activity; I was only seeking to discuss the propaganda aspect of this ministry and the minister's access to the $20.5 million out there in all of the other ministries for advertising purposes only.

The minister said earlier there will be no change; everything is going to be the same. Well, we show him that in two instances he was inaccurate or wrong or gave information to the House which didn't fit on all fours with the facts of the situation, by pointing out that they've signed a contract with ACTRA and that they're going to dispense with the staff training films for public servants. Those are changes.

Another significant and important change took place on this subject matter. That was a political decision made by the government to appoint a deputy minister to be in charge of this whole operation. Prior to the appointment of Mr. Heal, the audio-visual centre operating within the Ministry of Health was run by public servants who were committed and dedicated to the cause of in-staff training and providing information to the general public about government programs. These were dedicated public servants with the integrity that all public servants have, who are doing a job on behalf of the general public. The change that has now taken place puts them under the authority and control of a political appointment. The minister and his deputy, one an elected political figure and the other an appointed political figure, are going to interfere with the integrity of public servants. That's a change.

One could accept the idea that the appointment of Mr. Heal as a deputy minister, as a communications planning adviser, was okay; one could buy the statement that, "Yes, we want someone to coordinate all of this — it hasn't been running the way it should have been running in terms of public programs." On the surface, one could say, "Yes, that's a fine move," if it weren't for one significant thing that Mr. Heal did right from the start. The ink wasn't dry on his contract when he was rushing off to a secret closed meeting of the Social Credit Party. Why did he go there? Politics, partisan politics, that's why he went there. That made the whole government statement about the purpose of this audio-visual centre suspect. As soon as Mr. Heal found that it was necessary to go to a secret closed meeting of Social Crediters to talk with those Social Crediters at that meeting in Harrison Hot Springs about who knows what.... The minute he did that he and the minister placed themselves in a different category. They besmirched the whole structure and concept of the audio-visual centre. That's a change that took place.

The second thing that occurred is that this same minister, the Provincial Secretary, and his buddy, the deputy minister of propaganda, picked up the phone to telephone — I imagine they did it by phone — a couple of people in Hollywood and said: "Please come up. Please look at what our ministers have been doing and how they have been getting the message

[ Page 5266 ]

across." That's partisan politics on behalf of Social Credit. That was another wrong move, showing that we simply cannot believe the Provincial Secretary when he says there is to be no change in the function and the operation of the audiovisual centre. Of course there's to be a change. The minister is wrong in saying otherwise. He either said there was to be no change fully believing there was to be no change, in which case I believe he's been made a dupe of, or he said there was to be no change knowing full well that he was not stating the facts of the situation. I submit to you that he knew the facts of the situation.

He was the guy — this minister, this Provincial Secretary who reached out and drew Mr. Heal into orbit. He said: "I want to make you the deputy minister in charge of the politics of government. I want to make you the deputy minister to propagandize the general public on behalf of Social Credit, and use the taxpayers' money to do it." The minister knew full well what he was doing. The minister doesn't seem — and perhaps that's why he's in Social Credit; perhaps that's why his seatmate from Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) is so involved in these matters as well.... I submit he minister does know the difference between having a deputy minister in charge of administering the functions of a department, providing services to the general public, and having a deputy minister like this guy, Doug Heal, appointed purely and simply to propagandize.

We have some government backbenchers who are very nervous about this matter. I know the former Minister of Transport and Communications, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), certainly doesn't approve of his sort of chicanery. He certainly would never have approved it if he was still in the ministry, but he's not. He certainly wouldn't have endorsed it if he was still sitting on he treasury benches. He certainly wouldn't have approved it n the closed, secret meetings of cabinet. He would have been your strongest critic then, and he is now, because he has a decent streak about him.

MR. LAUK: Common decency.

MR. HOWARD: Common decency is inherent in the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, a person who has been speared by the Premier. He has taken that and said: "Okay, it doesn't matter what you do to me. I'm going to be loyal." But common decency tells the member for North Vancouver–Seymour that he simply cannot accept this sort of manipulation and misuse of taxpayers' money.

The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman), if only he was still sitting on this side of the House as a government backbencher, would be up complaining about this.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. HOWARD: He would indeed. I have faith that he would do the honourable thing. But now that he's in the cabinet, he won't. He'll have to stand up and vote for propagandizing and for misusing and misappropriating the taxpayers' money.

AN HON. MEMBER: It doesn't bother him.

MR. HOWARD: It may not bother him, but he'll have to do it.

Peter, the Premier isn't here today to keep you in line. He could vote against it, but I don't think he will.

The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) has very seriously questioned the integrity of the government on a couple of issues fundamental to him. That indicates a streak of concern about the propriety of the way government runs things. I would expect the member for Omineca, seeing that his tax dollars and tax dollars of the people of Omineca are going to be forcibly extracted and used for Social Credit propaganda machinery.... The member for Omineca, competent and able in his own right, doesn't need that kind of help in Omineca. I can see him full well expressing his disagreement with this sort of misuse.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) on more than one occasion has criticized the Premier for things that the Premier has attempted to do or not attempted to do, or for the way in which he has done them. He's publicly expressed that criticism on two or three occasions, as I recall — carefully worded but nonetheless critical. Here's another opportunity for the Minister of Municipal Affairs to stand up and say: "I don't like this idea of taking the taxpayers' money from them and using it for partisan purposes on behalf of Social Credit through a ministry dedicated to nothing but propaganda." Here's an opportunity for the Minister of Municipal Affairs to exhibit that quality of decency that he has about him and show to the general public.... If he wants to do it — he's smiling at me now — we'll gladly give him the opportunity.

Perhaps apropos of that, to give members on the other side an opportunity to reflect upon the suggestion that they stand up as men and women and be counted, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 23

NAYS — 27

Mr. Howard requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

MR. HOWARD: I wonder if I could direct a question through you, sir — to the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan), inasmuch as she.... It's the only opportunity we have. No?

[ Page 5267 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, we are on an amendment presently before us on vote 164.

MR. HOWARD: Well, inasmuch as I can't ask the Minister of Tourism a question here, and I can't ask it during question period because she's deliberately absent during question period, perhaps I should take my seat.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, I've been made privy to a secret report from Doug Heal that I want to read to the committee. It is of such grave importance that I think it commands the attention of each and every hon. member. I don't want the press to get hold of this at all, so I suggest that, on our honour, such as that is, we all keep it to ourselves.

The memorandum has indicated that, in view of the fact that the names, Christian or otherwise, chosen for cabinet members are not in keeping with the kind of name that would attract public attention in a positive way, the assistant associate deputy hoohaw, Mr. Heal, has suggested that the following names be substituted for the various members of cabinet. For the Premier and president of the council he suggests Leo Gorcey. The reason for that is that Leo Gorcey was short, he had a temper and he loved to fight at the Bowery, in the streets and so on, and it was felt he was also a leader of sorts. This is the image Mr. Heal wants to get across to the public.

Now the Deputy Premier and Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs McCarthy). In his report Mr. Heal says this was tough. A committee had to travel throughout the length and breadth of the province and take a trip on the Royal Hudson down to Hollywood to obtain permission to use the only possible name, Zsa Zsa Gabor. We mean no disrespect, Mr. Chairman. We feel that Zsa Zsa Gabor best captures the image that Mr. Heal wants to get across to the public, and reflects adequately the seriousness with which that particular cabinet minister performs her duty.

The Provincial Secretary was, perhaps, a very difficult one, yet easy on the one hand. I want all members of the committee to realize that the minister has not seen this very secret and confidential report from Mr. Heal. Some very uncharitable people are suggesting that Mr. Heal hasn't seen this confidential report. However, we'll deal with that in a moment.

Mr. Heal suggests that for his boss, Evan Wolfe just doesn't sell. He suggests that we rename him Ed Wynn. The younger members in this chamber, like the members for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) and Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), wouldn't remember Ed Wynn. But Ed Wynn was the happy-go-lucky little fellow in the movies who was a little bit scatterbrained but a nice fellow. Do you remember that? He came across as a warm muffin. Doug Heal means no offence to the minister, but he feels that to capture the proper....

The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams). I don't know where he is, but he's the simplest one, and my friend from Prince Rupert knows it. Doug Heal was listening once when my friend from Prince Rupert shouted across the floor "the Man from Glad." I think that the Man from Glad — you know, that tall white-haired man, protecting us, administering the justice system in this province.... Mr. Heal felt that the Man from Glad image was probably the best for the Attorney-General.

The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) is a combination of appearance, personality and the budget speech. Doug Heal feels that although this may not be a positive thing for the government, it at least would reflect the real perceived image in the public, and they will name him Bela Lugosi.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) was very difficult indeed. Every time Mr. Heal tried to have a look at the Minister of Agriculture and Food he was standing underneath a light, and poor Mr. Heal was blinded. But he felt that because three or four crops of lettuce a year are grown every year under the minister's tutelage and because the member is relatively harmless.... Those are Mr. Heal's words. Other persons in the Provincial Secretary's office describe him as ineffectual. but I certainly would not want to side with that. The name chosen by Douglas Heal for the minister is rather revealing — Benjamin Bunny.

Now we'll skip a few, because we have to move along. I notice that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) is here. Sometimes there is no possible living actor to describe the personality and image of ministers in the cabinet, but Douglas Heal, after taking a poll among 427,000 civil servants — it's grown somewhat — thought perhaps Captain Hook from Peter Pan would be best suited. That smile of Captain Hook's just sears across the memories of all living British Columbians.

For the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) there was a lot of argument that he should be named after the alligator in "Peter Pan." but Douglas Heal being the professional that he is rejected that out of hand. He felt that one caricature representing that post is enough, and he would suggest that perhaps Sydney Greenstreet should be the name that would best represent him.

For the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen). the obvious thing is the Fonz.

For the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), that's not too difficult. "With all respect to W.C., we're naming him W.C. Fields," said Mr. Heal.

The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) is named after an obscure character, usually associated with Lon Chaney — Igor.

The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman).... I don't want to belabour this. The report will soon be published and made available to the public. For the new Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, it was felt that Vincent Price would be a more appropriate name.

You know, Mr. Chairman, we have had a lot of good fun with the Douglas Heal incident. I was not going to enter the debate. All kinds of capable debaters have entered into this debate, and we're now debating the amendment. The thing that occurred to me this morning was that the Provincial Secretary does not understand the issue. He got up and asked the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) if he had ever used the services of the make-up room at BCTV or something. He just doesn't understand the issue, that it's not the use of someone like Doug Heal or Norman and Gayle from Hollywood that offend us and the people of British Columbia. It is the use of taxpayers' money for that purpose that offends us. I wish the Provincial Secretary would understand that this is what the opposition is trying to get across. Taxpayers' money is being used in a crass political way. They're using money, hard-earned cash, raising taxes off the backs of ordinary people in this province to pay for their make-up, their movie and their glitter in trying to improve their impossible image in the province. That's the issue.

[ Page 5268 ]

It is an offensive thing to get up time and time again and defend the indefensible — the use of hard-earned tax dollars raised off the backs of ordinary people who have to pay increased sales tax, increased medicare payments, increased homeowner taxation, increased ICBC rates, transit levies on their Hydro bills, extra meter rate levies, and higher Hydro bills because of actions taken by this government directly and through income tax increases. Surpluses are building up, and the money is being spent not to improve our education, our hospitals and our highways or to give us good transit, but to improve the image of political personalities and a political party who just happen to occupy the seats of the cabinet. That is a disgraceful misuse of public funds. It is outrageous and one of the worst condemnations that can be made of this government. It was bad enough when we had the Eckardt report gerrymandering here and there all over the province. Using a political person like Eckardt in such an important royal commission was disgraceful. It was bad enough that we had the dirty tricks affair and that the Premier provided a lack of moral leadership that would lead to the kind of corruption that happened within the Social Credit Party.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that all of those were bad enough. But to use actual taxpayers' money — the public purse — to get out of the bad image that was created by those events is totally and completely unforgivable. Members of the Social Credit Party throughout the province are shaking their heads in disgust and regret. They are embarrassed and humiliated by the actions of this government. Don't just believe me; ask the members yourselves. It is a humiliation indeed for them to belong to a party and to have supported individuals who will take the lowest possible course of action.

It isn't the only aspect of this ministry that's being used in a crass, partisan, political way. It's an offence against the Financial Control Act and the Constitution Act. I suggest that the Attorney-General look at these aspects. This having been raised, I doubt very much whether the comptroller-general will approve funds for Douglas Heal for these projects. I demand to know from the Provincial Secretary whether approval of Heal's salary and approval of the contract for the Sedawies has been given by the comptroller-general. If that approval has been given, it should be tabled in this committee and in the House. We should know that before we get too far along in the Provincial Secretary's estimates. If he has approved moneys for the Sedawies to come up here on a contract that is undenied, then the comptroller-general should be brought before the bar of this House to be questioned by all hon. members about why, in the face of the law clearly set out in the Financial Control Act, he would approve it. It's not the first time this minister and this ministry have permitted crass, political activity and partisanship to take over the functions of the ministry and the public purse.

I want to talk about the lotteries branch and the ombudsman who submitted a report thoroughly condemning this minister and this ministry for political interference in the administration of lottery funds. It's a scandalous situation that this minister is allowing himself to be used in a political way by his party and for partisan interests. He has not answered the criticisms of the ombudsman about the disgraceful way that lottery funds are used in a pork-barrel fashion to bolster up Social Credit MLAs and ridings. This kind of political activity and partisanship will not be forgotten by the people of British Columbia and certainly will not be forgotten by the people in Kamloops and in the next general election in this province.

One of the biggest items we have to deal with as far as the government is concerned is why people are paying these outrageous taxes to support the partisan political activities of this administration. Transpo '86 is another question. Even at that, what are we going to expect out of Transpo '86 now that we have the example of Douglas Heal and the partisan way lottery funds are dispensed in this province? How are the contracts going to be let for Transpo'86? Are they going to be let to friends or to Social Credit card-carrying hacks? What's going to happen at Transpo '86? What's going to be displayed: huge monster-sized photographs of ministers, with their names underneath and lights shining all around them? What can we expect from Transpo'86? This government will stoop to anything and will misuse the taxpayers' funds using any program. It is indeed reprehensible that this ministry and this government will use taxpayers' funds in this fashion. We call upon the minister to show us proof that the expenditures were approved by the comptroller-general.

MR. HALL: There are a whole host of things which we can discuss under the minister's vote, but I want to join my colleagues and first of all deal with this particular event which is of such recent and current timing.

When I first heard of the establishment of this propaganda arm of the government, together with the huge expenditures of money, followed by the revelations of Hollywood North, I looked at the calendar to see if it indeed was 1981 and not 1984. Whole sections of that novel Nineteen Eighty-Four come to mind when one examines what this government is attempting to do, in buying its way out of trouble, in buying its way back into the public's favour and in buying its way back to some kind of electoral victory. We've seen its behaviour, as illustrated just recently in the last contribution made by the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), in terms of redistribution.

It's not good enough to simply think that because it's happening in British Columbia, because there are a couple of good old boys over there we really shouldn't worry about it. We've known some of them for a few years, we've broken bread with them on a few occasions, and they live at the end of our street, but that's no reason to abandon the principles that should operate in a democracy in terms of using taxpayers' money for political purposes. The fact that they're a bunch of good old boys shouldn't deflect this opposition from pointing out the principal shortcomings of this government when it takes upon itself this kind of activity.

Hypothetically, let's change the scenario. Let's forget that this is taking place in British Columbia. Let's use a couple of other names. Let's not use the words that the Provincial Secretary is using — this "coordinating function," this "group of people who are just going to talk about communications." Let's call it Tass news agency. All sorts of different connotations come to mind then. Not a bunch of good old boys then, you say; oh, no, that's political. There's no difference whatsoever.

The fact that I know most of these people personally doesn't make any difference to the principle. The fact that we're all British Columbians and Canadians doesn't make any difference to the principle.

Let's take another example. Suppose this wasn't taking place in British Columbia. Let's forget the fact that these two producers have come up the west coast from Hollywood and have settled in B.C. Let's suggest that all this was taking place in Iran. What would we be saying about it as we were

[ Page 5269 ]

sitting down over our poached eggs at breakfast time and reading about the government of Iran setting up this video machine, this agency, this group of people, to make the ayatollah look better?

Let's substitute the word Tass. Let's substitute the country Iran for British Columbia. Then what's going on starts to make some sense. Then it's not so darn funny. Whilst we've made a humorous point, to make the point, it's much more serious than that. When I see the kind of things in Nineteen Eighty-Four, in the Tass agency and in Iran, you tell me what scrap of darn difference there is between what's going on in those three instances and what's going on on the other side of the House. There's nothing different.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

It started off as a good joke in the days of W.A.C. Bennett: filming "The Good Life" on taxpayers' money. How we exposed that was part of the reason for that government's defeat. Make no mistake about it. That two-bit film has now turned into a million-dollar nightmare on the other side.

I must support any curtailment of the state's intrusion into bending people's minds and into altering, slanting and putting forward their views. As long as I'm in the opposition and this opposition is functioning, that's what we're going to be doing.

Now, you can say all you like about it being just to make a couple of training films or to make sure your story is understood a little bit better or that it's to make vaccination a bit more — if I can mix my metaphors — palatable. It's nothing of the sort. As I've said before, just get this thing into context. Forget it's happening in beautiful B.C. Forget they're just a bunch of good old boys over there, and just use some of these other illustrations I've made, and you'll see where the principle really comes home to roost. And that's why everybody in this House.... The government should withdraw and abandon the whole thing. It should 'fess up and say: "We made a mistake; we got carried away. We knew we were in trouble; we got carried away." Back off, because I'm telling you that you're just going to get further and further into trouble. I urge everybody to support, in effect, the singular and distinct criticism that should be heaped on this government for this kind of activity.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I heard it said repeatedly on the other side that when all the fun has been removed from this topic, the main concern is spending public funds for the purpose of trying to improve somebody's image or government communications, and so on. I'd just like to put two or three facts forward. I have difficulty fabricating to provide the sort of fiction, which later becomes fact; I just have to revert to what are the truest facts of the situation.

I'd like to deal with what we're spending in this ministry on public information, advertising and promotion. A member opposite — I believe the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) — said that there was an increase of 4,000 percent in this ministry on advertising for government information. I think the members should appreciate — and I presume it has not been clear to them before — that under this particular vote, funds which were previously in code 90 in this ministry have been consolidated to the extent of some $300,000. So the increase that you see, alleged to be 4,000 percent in vote 180, having to do with advertising and promotion, is really something like $100,000 instead — not $300,000. There were some funds for advertising in code 90 and code 40 in the previous year. I'm simply explaining that those funds were consolidated, so there's been a decrease in the code 90 expenditures from $304,000 in 1980-81 to $100,000 in item 90, commonly known as other expenditures. That represents a reduction of approximately $200,000. The actual increase of $191,000 allocated to advertising and publications represents an additional 47 percent over the amount actually spent on this activity in the previous year.

I'd like to explain why this is so. There is a terrific thrust due to inflation on the costs of printing and other materials associated with advertising and publications, more so perhaps in this case than in any other area in our economy today. There is an increase in the cost of printing ranging from about 15 percent for the most basic job in black and white to about 20 percent for the more sophisticated four-colour work. There are increases of about 15 percent in the cost of magazine and newspaper advertising, 14 percent in the cost of radio commercials and 18 percent in the cost of television commercials. So the increase which appears to show in that vote — which the member referred to earlier — is really not as indicative....

I think the member for Skeena also asked: "What was the actual increase in the audio-visual centre?" Well, that increase is only some 3.4 percent. The budget allocated to the cost of operating the audio-visual centre, which is now under the Provincial Secretary, has been increased from $627,000 to $648,000. That's a modest increase. When you relate it to the rest of this inflationary impact, that increase is only 3.4 percent.

Now there's been a lot of jargon from across the way. One comment I heard was that we're associating ourselves with ACTRA to hire actors associated with film productions. Well, Mr. Chairman, I can recall Bruno Gerussi — a professional actor, I believe — being used in ICBC ads back in 1974. I presume that met with the approval of the government of the day.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WOLFE: The member says: "I don't understand." I'm just saying that it's not a brand-new policy to be hiring an actor to be used in a film, whether it's for training purposes or otherwise.

The first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) talked about our authority to pay for the new deputy minister of information programs and the authority to pay for the contract associated with people he employs in this ministry. I say to him that the comptroller-general s authority for this is exercised through our interim supply bill. Of course, in the case of Mr. Heal, the authority is expressed through the order-in-council which was passed appointing him under that section of the Public Service Act. So any authority associated with the comptroller-general he seemed to allude to earlier is certainly there under the Supply Act. I can't understand his point; I don't think he really understands the nature and relationship between the Supply Act and the authority which any one of these ministries has to appoint people. So I think that he's on a sort of wild goose chase there and that he doesn't really quite understand.

In terms of government expenditure, the entire amount spent in this ministry on government information programs for the Provincial Secretary is an increase from last year of

[ Page 5270 ]

13.7 percent, which represents something less than the total increase in the budget expenditures of this province.

Mr. Chairman, a lot has been said once again about the audio-visual centre. I tried to explain earlier that in the past year it has been used to a great degree on training films. There is no intention to change the policy of that production centre. It entered full production in May 1980, and it has produced 23 major audio-visual programs. The most significant of these programs, I repeat, were 13 one-hour presentations for the Knowledge Network. I don't imagine members opposite would find fault with spending public funds on the development of programs for the Ministry of Education.

In addition, the unit has produced numerous 30-second and one-minute spots. Ministries all across the spectrum have used the service, and there is a charge-back facility. This audio-visual centre is no different, as far as this ministry is concerned — and I have responsibility for Government Services — than the Queen's Printer. The Queen's Printer provides services to all ministries and charges for those services. That's the object of this government: to provide accountability, to have it located and coordinated in one spot and to have the best expertise available to provide professional service.

Mr. Chairman, there is no change in the direction, the nature or purpose of that audio-visual centre. Taking a broad focus on this whole topic, I might say that we made a promise to the people of British Columbia to make information about government programs which affect and benefit them more widely available. In this ministry we're providing the funds and the staff needed to carry out that promise and responsibility by providing support services for the line ministries which deal with the public.

Mr. Chairman, the opposition would have you believe that information and the right to information is bad; I think this is really what's irking them. On the contrary, the people of this province have a right to obtain information about their government and its programs when they want it. Research has shown that the majority of people today get most of their information from television rather than from print sources, so that in the 1980s the government must recognize that it has to put emphasis on providing information in audio-visual form as well as in printed announcements and information folders.

MR. LAUK: The minister refuses to realize or understand in a wilfully unintelligent way — I know the minister is intelligent, but he's wilfully unintelligent by pretending he doesn't understand the issue. The issue is not whether Bruno Gerussi was hired by the Insurance Corporation to do an ad; the issue is whether the use of Heal's department and public funds to improve the image of politicians is the same as using Bruno Gerussi to advertise for the NDP at public expense. He doesn't realize that that's the issue in this case. He says Bruno Gerussi being hired by an insurance corporation to do their ads is the same thing. I've never heard such a confused minister in this chamber before.

He's had the same problem with the Minister of Finance. He got up and said: "My authority for spending these funny moneys is under the interim supply act." On several occasions last Thursday we referred to the section of the Financial Control Act under which we were asking the questions. He didn't listen to the questions. He was a Minister of Finance for I don't know how long, and he doesn't know what's required under the Financial Control Act. This is what it says under section 23: "The comptroller-general shall see that no cheque is issued for the payment of any public money for which there is no direct legislative authority. And pursuant to that" — the issuance of cheques in section 25 — "the comptroller-general must give his approval to certify that the moneys going out have had direct legislative authority." So whether or not the Provincial Secretary thinks he's got legislative authority or not, the comptroller-general has to approve the funds as being authorized under a legislative vote. I'd like to see any comptroller-general in this province say that the funds expended for this tinsel Hollywood show were directly authorized by the Legislature. It's contempt for this House for the minister to suggest otherwise.

MR. BARRETT: First of all, on this amendment I want to bring to the attention of the minister some more information that he's probably not aware of, because it seems that the minister is carrying the can for decisions which have been delegated without the sensitivity of politics being understood by the person who's making the decision. For instance, when Mr. Heal hired Gayle and Norm I don't think he understood the political sensitivity of the situation.

Would you like to call some of the government members back, Mr. Chairman?

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Are you listening over the speakers? Would you like to call tern back? Would you like some of them back? No, I know, but.... You've got me confused now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: The minister says he's listening, but he's telling me a Social Credit story. He's listening, but he's talking. He shouldn't say those kinds of things. Now he's listening. Thank you.

First of all I want to bring to the minister's attention the kind of thing that irritates. It borders on a question of privilege in this chamber. It's not important enough for me to bring a motion of privilege, but I'd like to bring your attention to the kind of thing that makes us suspicious of what's going on. I refer you to Government Reports, series V, volume 4, published by the Social Credit caucus. It refers to a statement I made in this House saying: "Mr. Chairman, if the minister was that concerned about where I was that particular evening he should have known that I spent the evening with the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Wolfe; he would have checked." I asked him to unequivocally withdraw this statement about my preamble. He was suggesting that I dodged out of the House and hid somewhere when the vote was going on, when as a matter of fact I was on my way to Vancouver to attend the same concert that the minister attended. The minister knows very well that not only did I attend the concert, but I was courteous enough to offer the minister a ride back to his car. I took him in my Volvo, which Don Docksteader sells, not a Chev. I gave the minister a ride, never thinking this would be a political issue, but I was attacked by a minister over there saying I'd made a false statement.

What happens? The Social Credit News publishes that, sends it all over this province, and it's an absolute lie. It violates my statement privileges, and Social Credit shoves lies all over this province on a petty little matter like that

[ Page 5271 ]

without going to the minister and saying: "Mr. Minister, is that true or false?" The minister didn't lie about this. The minister would have said: "Yes, the Leader of the Opposition and I were at the same concert." He would have prevented this from going out. I know the minister. He's an honorable man. But the minister is now caught in another embarrassing situation as the politician being responsible for this lie being fed out by Social Credit. I have to go around this province saying: "Don't believe in The Social Credit News because it's lying." Had they checked with the minister, they would have saved him the embarrassment of having to be caught with a lie.

Having said that, what are we dealing with? We're dealing with your hiring Mr. Heal who is not a politician, and he's made some bad political moves — dumb and stupid political moves. If you want to spend $62,000 on dumb politicians, they are abounding all over this province and all over in Social Credit. You don't have to go out and hire someone to make dumb political decisions. It's caused embarrassment to Social Credit, much to the glee of the opposition. To correct these dumb decisions, more dumb decisions are made to further embarrass the government, All it does is feed the opposition more points. The speech I'm making now should have been the speech made by Social Credit members to that minister in cabinet or in caucus. They could say: "We've got to get rid of Heal." He's the only PR man I know of in the world that we need to hire a PR man for. We need to hire a PR man for this PR man, because the dumbest decision he's made is to hire two people from Hollywood for $14,000 to spruce up the image. Look at the crazy statements that are made in the newspaper that all the logic and all the reason of good government intentions can't wash away. How in the world do you wash away this dumb statement?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Are you attacking the press again? Shame on you.

MR. BARRETT: No. I'm not attacking the press. I'm going to come to what your opinion of the press is later on. You think that Douglas Heal doesn't exist, that Norman and Gayle don't exist and that the press has made this all up as a figment of their imagination. You've got a way to deal with that, and I'll come to that. Mr. Heal explains how you're going to deal with that.

First of all it's the frizzy hair. One source says: "Their job is to make sure that Human Resources minister Grace McCarthy doesn't show up on camera with frizzy hair, that the Premier is well-shaved and that Industry minister Don Phillips doesn't go off the deep end and talk too much when he's answering questions." I ask you this: haven't we got a bad enough image as politicians without you going out and hiring a PR man who has someone publicly admit that his role is to make sure that a cabinet minister doesn't appear on television with frizzy hair, that Phillips doesn't go off the deep end and that Bennett gets a shave?

Don't get up here in the House and try to explain it away by saying it's this percentage added onto that percentage. The fact is that somebody you hired made a dumb political decision. What are you going to do about it? That's what the whole debate is about. It's not your fault that this dumb political decision was made in the first place, but it's your fault that no corrective action has been taken by the government about this dumb political decision. What you're saving to all the people of British Columbia is that it may be dumb. They may not have any sensitivity in politics, but they're going to improve our image in the long run. That's just like the northeast coal. It may be dumb. It's going to cost us a lot of money, but it may make us some money in the long run. Come on! You've made yourself look like the laughingstock of politics. Who has to carry the can? The Provincial Secretary has to carry the can again.

We've had a lot of fun over this. The people are amused out there and say: "Fourteen grand to get Bill a shave, to tell Gracie she's got frizzy hair and to tell Phillips not to go off the deep end." We could have told them that over a cup of coffee. You didn't have to bring anybody in from Hollywood to tell us the obvious. For $1,000 we get a report saying Gracie's got frizzy hair on television, Don goes off the deep end and Bill needs a shave. The guy who hires somebody to tell us those three self-evident facts gets $62,000 a year to pluck somebody up to tell us that. If that isn't dumb politics....

What kind of PR guys are you hiring ? Even if you sold soap, you're in a position to control the package, the colours, the print and the cost. But you can't control human beings. When you hire a PR person, you've got to understand that won't change people into soap. Frizzy hair is frizzy hair, blue beards are blue beards, and people who go off the deep end are crazy. You can't do much about it.

How do you deal with it? There is a therapy: hire a psychiatrist. No one in Hollywood can handle a deep-end diver. There are more screwballs per acre loose in Hollywood than in any other place, but they're not so nuts that if they can get 14 grand to come up and tell you that somebody's hair is frizzy, somebody needs a shave, and somebody else is going off the deep end.... And you think you are getting your money's worth? You think that 62 grand to hire a guy to hire someone else for 14 grand to tell you that three people are looking bad on television with frizzy hair, blue beard and off the deep end is good value for money?

Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go all over B.C., and I might have my tie askew and a PR man might get upset, or I might have my jacket open, but I will stand up in front of an audience and tell them: "Do you know what those screwballs are doing down in Victoria? They're spending 14 grand to tell you that somebody's got a blue beard, someone else is goinh off the deep end, and another one's got frizzy hair." They're not going to be looking at my tie askew; they're going to be making a political decision that comes to haunt Social Credit.

What is most revealing about the decision to hire Heal and keep him after this dumb decision to hire Norman and Gayle or whoever the hell it is — excuse me, whoever the heck it is.... Now we've got to clean that up. A PR man would keep you away from talking about Dante's home. A PR man would say: "Oh. that hot place down below." If you say it right and have the right impression on camera, people won't be frightened about their choice of hereafter. Hell is probably populated by more PR men per capita than by any other kind of people. Who is putting you to hell here on earth? The advice of these PR men. Why should you be in this seat taking this heat right now? The only reason you are taking the heat is the dumb decision of PR people who have been hired. Who told you to hire them? Look here, every newspaper in this province is going to carry the story today about the member telling you about Bela Lugosi. Ed Wynn, Dracula and everybody else over there. You leave them a natural opening to go in and hammer the slats out of you, and you still haven't fired Heal and Norm and Gayle.

[ Page 5272 ]

I want to tell you that the best thing you've ever done for the New Democratic Party was to hire Doug Heal. He is a secret agent for the New Democratic Party, who is being paid for by the taxpayers at $62,500. Don't think that won't show up at a Social Credit meeting as an explanation: "We didn't make the mistake in hiring a PR person; we made a mistake in hiring a secret NDP member, who is deliberately sabotaging the government by the kinds of decisions he's making." It's probably the explanation that is now being given to every Social Credit cell in the province. Every little teacup party and every little meeting of the women's auxiliary where they want to legalize prostitution can now have Heal draw up the television commercial on why we should accept legalized prostitution, played by not the real thing but hired actors in illicit sex scenes with the little black cat walking across.

I can't believe the stupidity of this government. It's unbelievable stupidity. They think that it's all right. Fourteen grand for Norm and Gayle to come up say that the Premier needs a shave, Gracie needs to comb her hair and Phillips should shut up before he goes off the deep end. What kind of utter nonsense are you trying to justify? What kind of irrational argument are you giving to justify that decision by saying, oh, it's under this vote or it's under that vote, and everything else. It's dumb. There are two million people out there who pay taxes. They never paid their taxes with the idea that when they buy bread, butter and milk and pay their rent they're paying 14 grand for Gayle and Norm to tell the Premier to take a shave, for Phillips not to go off the deep end, and for Gracie to clean up her frizzy hair.

Don't you think that people think out there, that they talk over kitchen tables about what's going on in government? Do you think they're stupid out there? Don't you think that in beer parlours and in hairdresser shops they're all laughing about Mr. Heal and Gayle and Norman and the next episode of "Soap" that the British Columbia government brings you? "Life in Victoria, " with Norm and Gayle, blue beard, deep end and frizzy hair as the main characters.

Now, come on, Mr. Minister, have enough sense to can these people, because they've already shown that they're inadequate. They've got you in a jam within 15 or 20 days of being hired. If you don't can them, then we will continue the secret operation we've got going of encouraging Mr. Heal to make the kinds of decisions he's made to this point. We encourage Mr. Heal to continue to show the wisdom and the political savvy of hiring Gayle and Norman, in the continuing saga of blue beard, frizzy hair and deep end, brought to you every night by Victoria Productions.

What is the most dangerous part of this, other than the fun and the ridicule that the government's going through? The minister actually believes one part of what he said. I quote back to him....

MR. LAUK: Here comes Mr. Science.

MR. BARRETT: Nothing can improve his image. I noticed that you hired Heal for $62,000 and Norm and what's her name for $14,000. Nothing could improve the image of a guy who punches a cameraman. What are you going to do about him? What are you going to do to improve his image of going out there and expressing violence by punching out cameramen and then coming into the House with boxing gloves on as if its a big joke?

MR. LAUK: Mr. Science turns Clown.

MR. BARRETT: Yeah, a clown. What are we going to get for our $62,000? Give him the impossible problem of dealing with that minister's image. Let's see what he comes up with. Maybe we'll get three cameramen. We'll make it three on one and we'll have a three-ring circus. He'll punch out three cameramen. The stupidity and the asinine behaviour of this government is what is at question.

I want to read back the words you just said as I took them down. I may be incorrect. About the media centre you said: "There's no intention to change its function." Do you believe that, Mr. Minister? Well, Mr. Minister, Mr. Heal's done it to you again. This is what Mr. Heal says about the media centre: "Heal does not reject the possibility that someone like Industry Minister Don Phillips may use the facilities to describe aspects of the northeast coal deal." Listen to this. This is what your political advice is — for $62,000 a year.

I have to chuckle about this. Would that thine enemies wrote a book; they couldn't do a better job than Heal is doing for me. You haven't even got the sensitivity to do anything about it. This is what he says. He may be a fine gentleman. He may even be here, for all I know, getting free advice that politics is not like selling soap. There are human beings around and they pay tax money. "When a ministry is presenting a new initiative, it will be able to have videotaped material to hand out to the media, just as it has printed material." On the surface that sounds logical to somebody who hasn't been involved in politics. Instead of interviewing the minister, you just hand out cassettes in the corridor. Do you know how stupid that is? What you will have is cameramen taking pictures of the cassettes being handed out and the person handing out the cassettes running away from reporters who want to ask questions. That will go on television at night, showing a bureaucrat handing out videotapes and the minister lurking around the comer, hiding and saying: "Don't ask me questions. It's already put on the videotape."

Doesn't anybody over there think of step two or step three about politics? Isn't there anybody with a political brain in his head over there to understand that the media asks questions about printed handouts? The media doesn't take a printed handout and say: "This is what I was handed by the minister today, and this is what he said. 'I am good and they are bad, and this will make us all happy.'"

The simplistic stupidity of an attitude that says that handing out video cassette tapes is the same as handing out a news release is a demonstration, Mr. Minister, that either you don't know what you're doing when you're hiring people, or you intend to manage the news. If you intend to manage the news, let's take a look at some of the reasons why. We come back to image. When the press asks the Premier questions, he is seen scuttling down the hallway, running away from cameras. That is not good for the Premier's image. Is that not right, class? Does everybody agree that when the camera's on the Premier and he's asked a question and he turns around and scuttles down the hallway with a kamikaze thing on his head, it's not good for his image?

Okay. So we agree that a Premier running away from cameras is a bad scene. What are we going to have instead? Can you not see it now? Around goes the revolving door. Out goes the Premier after having made a statement in the House, the reporters stand there with a camera on him and they say: "Mr. Premier, would you please give us an explanation about your important statement about building a bridge at Oshkosh?" He says, "Certainly," and hands out a pocketful of videotapes. They say: "We'd like to ask you a question on

[ Page 5273 ]

it." He says: "It's all on the tape, my friend. Just play the tape."

What kind of nonsense are we getting into? The minister says that there is no change in the media centre, and Heal says that they're going to hand out videotape clips on news items. There may be reporters out there who want to ask questions and who have their own cameras. Maybe they want to put the Premier on camera. But oh, no, the system is going to be that we're going to hand out pretaped interviews. We'll have edited interviews. Instead of the give and take of corridor press conferences, or the give and take of debate in this House, we're going to have: "Take one. Take two. Take three."

I can just see take one of the Premier's speech on, "We're going to build a bridge in Oshkosh." Take one is: "We're going to build a bridge in Oshkosh. Remember, smile!"

" Mmm!"

"No, we've got to take it again. All right. One, two, three let's start again. Smile!"

"Mmm! We're gonna build a bridge in Oshkosh."

"Don't smile. Three. Take a shave and try it again."

"We're — mmm! — gonna — mmm! — build a mmm! — bridge — mmm! — in Oshkosh."

You know, that kind of stupidity is what we're seeing now. Somebody is whispering over to the Premier when the camera's on — when they've finally got him in the corner — and they say, "Smile," and he remembers and the light goes on — ding! — and he goes "ching," and then he goes back to what he's saying. Now all of that spontaneity that makes us love the Premier is going to be edited out. We will never see again one of his spontaneous smiles. We will never again see him fleet-footing it down the hallway. We will never again get to see that lovable human being, who was known as the Premier, looking in the camera and saying: "Not now, my friend. Don't answer. You've heard this. Aargh, haarg." From now on, it's going to be, "I love you truly," brought to you by Douglas Heal, and we're going to pay for it! And they actually think it's going to sell. The poor minister thinks he's selling cars.

You know, you don't need this. There's an old expression, put in the vernacular: "You need this like a hole in the head." What are you doing with Heal and Norman and Gayle and this 14 grand running around after images? You're not bad, Mr. Minister. You're not a crook; you're a nice guy. Why are you impaling yourself on this kind of nonsense? Because there is a deep suspicion out there about Social Credit, Mr. Minister. I read in the paper where you say you worry about how you're doing in the polls. Why are you down? Why don't people love you? Why are you losing votes? Have you ever stopped to think that people don't believe you anymore? Have you stopped to understand that when you make a statement and it's false, and you play dirty tricks, the public gets an impression that you don't deserve their vote? After the public gets the impression that you don't deserve their vote, what do you do? You go out and hire a guy for 62 grand who hires two Hollywood image-makers to dust up Gracie's hair, to stop Phillips from going off the deep end and for Bill to have a shave.

That's not the problem, Mr. Minister. People want low-cost housing, they want low interest rates, they want someone to fight inflation, they want to be able to buy food for the table out there, Mr. Minister, and that's what they expect governments to do. They want someone in here with a voice, a will and a desire to see to it that if a young couple wants to go and buy a home, they can go and buy a home; someone to say that this is a good project backed up with facts; someone to come in here and say that if a young couple wants to borrow money to buy a car, they don't face 19 and 20 percent interest rates. What has Social Credit come to? What would Major Douglas do if he were alive today? I tell you what would happen to Major Douglas if he were alive today. Doug Heal would get him in the corner, tell him to change his uniform and brush his teeth and not to talk about funny money ever again.

You are the cause of this government's destruction, because you are now institutionalizing the stupidity of the lack of ethics and morality in dealing up front with people. You're not going to back off the Heal decision. You're not going to back off the "Norm and Gayle" decision. You've got a locked-in mentality that allows you to look only at problems on the surface — all superficial. And the whole idea is that somehow you're going to clean it all up by hiring a PR man and some image-builders. What is the truth of what we're talking about? Do you want to trade truths? It's your opinion that the comptroller-general will let you do this. What my colleague the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) was talking about is this simple truth: you're spending $14,000 of somebody's money — some old-age pensioner, somebody welfare, some small businessman, some retired millionaire — to hire Norm and Gayle to tell Grace not to have frizzy hair on television, to tell Don Phillips not to go off the deep end and to tell Bill to take a shave. Come on, Mr. Minister, who are you trying to kid? Deep down in your gut, you know better than this.

But the worst thing is not what Heal is advising; the worst thing is not who he is hiring. The worst thing is that you, Mr. Minister, can't pull yourself together and say: "Enough of this nonsense. Let's just tell the truth to the people in plain old simple English by ourselves without any actors, without any image and anything else." What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of facing the cameras and looking the people of British Columbia in the eye and saving: "Don't worry about me, I can't take a shave too well, ignore my frizzy hair, and ignore my friend who goes off the deep end — this is what we're doing for you"? That's all people want to hear. People are not stupid. People are not out there to be manipulated, managed, lied to or fooled around with on the basis of image; people are decent, sensible individuals who understand that government is complex and that it has to make difficult decisions. All they want is some basic honesty around those decisions and to know why those decisions are made. They don't need the Gayles, the Normans and the image-makers.

The worst sin that's been committed is not the sin of Mr. Heal's professionalism, not the sin of omission of his political sensitivity; the sin that's committed is that this government doesn't understand how stupid they've been. There are backbenchers who go down over coffee and grumble: "Why is the cabinet putting us in jeopardy of losing our seats?" As I understand it, there are cabinet ministers who haven't got quite up to the point of saying in cabinet: "Why is the government putting us through this meat grinder?" There are cabinet ministers who have more knowledge of PR in their elbow than all you can buy, because they've been through politics. But the government is locked in and rigid on this course of attempting to manipulate people. More than any thing else, Mr. Chairman, why I support this amendment is that I am opposed to any conscious, deliberate attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We're politicians — warts and all. When the day comes that the PR men and flacks

[ Page 5274 ]

and image-makers are the ones who are to tell the people what we're like, that's the day we begin to lose the essence of British parliamentary democracy.

I want to leave it with this, Mr. Chairman: the $62,000 would have been better spent by having television cameras in here recording me and my gesticulations and all the criticism that every Hollywood hack would have about the way I speak and everything else, and putting the camera on the Premier at the same time. I judge that the people of British Columbia have sense enough to make up their own minds about what's real and what's phony. They don't need to spend $62,000 of taxpayers' money and $14,000 worth of Hollywood make-up artists to tell us what's phony. Don't insult us. Can these people. Get back to the truth and trust people; they'll make their own decisions based on facts.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, yesterday I had occasion to direct some remarks at the opposition members, when they wished to reduce one of the important votes in this Legislature having to do with the flow of information. During the course of those remarks I drew attention to the fact that the New Democratic Party opposition, including the leader who now leaves this chamber as he always does, never listening to arguments in debate.... The point was made that if it did not come to paying off the special interest groups — be they union leaders, doctors, lawyers, teachers or public relations men.... There is no concept over there of responsibility in government of spending money to bring in capable people to provide the vital functions of government instead of spending millions on payoffs.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to describe to you what went on during the New Democratic Party years in office, when it came to wasting the public's money in this area of endeavour. I seem to remember a fantastic new business that was started in British Columbia at public expense, once the New Democratic Party took office. I refer, of course, to the man who performed the political chores for the government — the image-making for the Leader of the Opposition, difficult as that job was. It was not the kind of solid, dispassionate information services that come from proper government information service, but political advertising that was dispensed through the media of British Columbia, where the payoff was all under the table — Manny Dunsky.

MR. HOWARD: That's a bold-faced lie.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, did you ever hear of that advertising agency in British Columbia before the political payoff from the NDP came? No, sir, they weren't present in British Columbia. Go and look in the telephone books to see if there was any office here. But once the NDP came into office.... Listen to these figures. What was the government payout to the Manny Dunsky advertising agency in 1971-72? It was zero dollars. They didn't even exist in British Columbia. But shortly after the NDP came to office in 1972-73, $119,654 of public money went to the Manny Dunsky advertising agency. What for?

Interjection.

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, I suppose it is a good question with you over there. That's wasting public money. There were political payoffs to advertising agencies who came in. It was not visible, not stand up and not in Public Accounts: no, sir, that was under-the-table advertising money handed to their agency. What happened…?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. One moment please. There are quite a few interruptions going on, some of which the Chair is finding unparliamentary. I will ask all members to please not interrupt the member who is on his feet.

HON. MR. McGEER: I should hope not, Mr. Chairman. I should have thought they'd want to listen to this.

MR. CHAIRMAN: And, of course, any imputation of a false statement made by another member is unparliamentary and would have to be withdrawn.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm just taking my figures out of the sums of public money which appear in the line items at the back of Public Accounts.

MR. HALL: That's under the table, is it?

HON. MR. McGEER: Sure, what goes as profits to them is under the table.

The next year it was $738,477. That's approximately a four-fold increase in one year.

You haven't heard anything yet. What happened the next year? They paid $2,063,476 to the Manny Dunsky advertising agency. It's growing by leaps and bounds. Now it's nearly $200,000 a month. The next year was 1975-76. Fortunately this haemorrhage of public funds was arrested and that year Manny Dunsky only got $1,497,737 from the public treasury of British Columbia. The way I add it up, it cost the public of British Columbia $4,419,344 in public relations payoffs from the New Democratic Party. That's a pretty hefty sum.

What does the Leader of the Opposition have to say about that? How many of the contracts making up this $4,419,344 ever went to public tender? I can answer that question, because I was in the opposition then: zero.

That's what happens when you don't have adequate information officers in government. That's what happens when you go to your political friends. The Leader of the Opposition complains about $14,000 when his bill for public relations people when he was in office here was $4.4 million in three years. Think what it would have been if they'd been in for another term in office. What would it have been — $6 million, $8 million, $10 million? Where would you have stopped and said: "That's enough"?

Mr. Chairman, far better, with the information services in this province of British Columbia that you have civil servants under the discipline of government, where the information services and the tasks they undertake can be seen by the press and evaluated by the public. But let's not have the kind of disgraceful expenditure of public funds that took place for three years under the New Democratic Party — $4.4 million.

Never in the history of this province has there been such a disgraceful display of expenditure of public funds in advertising. I'm not going to suggest that Dunsky pocketed all $4.4 million, because some of that went for taking out advertising in the newspapers and on the radio. His profits probably

[ Page 5275 ]

weren't more than 20 percent of that. He probably didn't take more than $800,000 home during that period of time.

MR. LEA: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, it's not that I want to correct the speech of the member, but what the member is doing is libeling a firm that was in business in this province and is still in business in this country. He is libeling them. I challenge the minister to say the kind of things that he's said in here today out in the hall. He would be sued. Mr. Chairman, you cannot say in this House something that you're going to be sued for if you say it out there. That's what he's doing, He is using this House, where we cannot be sued, to smear and to libel. It's the act of a coward.

[Mr. Chairman rose.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Will all hon. members please take their seats. I'm sure all members realize that when they rise in committee to introduce a point of order, they should cite the point of order. I'm sure all members also realize that members are allowed to debate in committee and to enter the debate on a particular vote as many times as they wish. Every member has the opportunity to debate.

[Mr. Chairman resumed his seat.]

MR. LEA: I'd like to ask you, as Chairman, why you have not not brought this member to order and why you have let him suggest that when we were in government money was paid under the table to an advertising firm. You never brought him to order. Three times he said it and you never brought him to order. If anybody on this side of the House suggested anything like that, we'd be brought to order, and rather sharply.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, every member of this House is responsible for his own statements. The Chair is asked to intervene when a member is speaking in an unparliamentary fashion about another member of this assembly or is in any other way abusing the rules of the House. The member who was speaking in debate is clearly responsible for his own statements and the Chair cannot intervene.

MR. LEA: On the same point of order, the minister has accused the comptroller-general of this province of allowing money to be paid under the table under the guise of legitimate government spending. Who is going to call him to order? For all you know, Mr. Chairman, by the time he finishes his speech some member of the press gallery could go out and report that the comptroller-general of the government of those years actually allowed money to be paid under the table. That's what this member is saying.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, in a debate in Committee of Supply of this House many civil servants are criticized for their actions. Many people are mentioned in debate. The item which is particularly unparliamentary is imputing an improper motive to another hon. member of this House. The Chair did not hear the hon. minister impute.... Did the minister impute improper motive to another member of this House?

HON. MR. McGEER: Not to another member of this House, Mr. Chairman. I'm merely saying how it was done in those years. I would not impute anything to the NDP that probably isn't done by the NDP all over Canada. I'll tell you this, if I may: if what I said is wrong, let the member say that the amounts paid to Manny Dunsky that appeared in Public Accounts were incorrect.

MR. LEA: Nobody: said that.

HON. MR. McGEER: If all of this was as it should be, then let them tell of one contract that Manny Dunsky bid on. When did it ever go out to tender? It never went out to tender. All the NDP ever did was to say: "Here's a chance to shovel a little more to Manny Dunsky, and put it on the public bill." That's what happened.

Mr. Chairman. you have legitimate handling of advertising money when it goes to tender, just like a highway contract. Imagine the criticism that would come to government if we were to take every paving contract in British Columbia and give it to one firm. What would you have to say about that? That's what took place. It's exactly the same. For years in government every single job went to one advertising agency. Why? Why were there no tenders? Why did it always go to one? Let the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) answer that question if what I've said is wrong,

MR. COCKE: It is wrong!

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, how is it that suddenly a firm that wan't in existence in British Columbia in 1972 took $4.4 million from the public purse in three years? How do you account for that?

MR. KEMPF: Where did it go in 1976?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I'll tell you what it cost in 1976 — $6,486. All I'm trying to say is that if the New Democratic Party really wanted to save public funds, if they really wanted good information in Government, if they really wanted legitimate handling of information services, then what they should be doing in this House is repenting their days in office and supporting the kinds of measures the Provincial Secretary has taken. That would be the appropriate way to end in the future the sort of thing that characterized the past, when the NDP were in office.

Yes, I suppose you would go back to the old days — bring Manny Dunsky back here. Heaven knows what he'd act in the way of millions of dollars out of the public purse. If that were ever to happen. Because that's the policy of the Leader of the Opposition. Manny Dunsky was his pal: that's how it was done. Oh, those were beautiful ads, those great big ones that were taken on the insurance. Do you remember that? Big pictures of Mr. Barrett, then Premier of British Columbia, all done with the slick style that goes with those eastern advertising agencies. Yes, sir, that's what we had in the province of British Columbia, but you don't see it now. That's all gone. No more conning the public with advertising $25 insurance claims. That's what Manny Dunsky started off with. Do you call that legitimate advertising? That's what characterized the NDP in office. That's what you did.

I tell you. Mr. Chairman, the New Democratic Party should be withdrawing this amendment in embarrassment. They should be asking forgiveness for their time in office, because they seek power again.

[ Page 5276 ]

Interjection.

HON. MR. McGEER: That's my constituent over there — from Burnaby-Edmonds, is it? — the one who promised she was going to live in her constituency but continues to be a bad representative of mine. When you were sitting over on this side of the House, you may not have thought that those were improper actions, but I can tell you that we did, Madam Member, and so did the public of British Columbia. That's why they turned them out in '75 and kept them out in '79. That's why they knew what would happen in 1933 and in 1937…

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. McGEER: ...and in 1941 and in 1945 and in 1949 and in 1952. Shall I go on, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please don't, hon. member.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. I think it's about time we reviewed the fact that there is an amendment before us that vote 164 be reduced to the amount of $4.50. It would be refreshing to have debate return more specifically to the amendment presently before us.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, nothing could be more specific and to the point than the difference in style and policy of the New Democratic Party, whether in opposition or in government, and Social Credit. When they were in office they stood for a patronage system: bring in your advertising agency, shovel the public money at them and get back the payoff in free public relations. Except the real cost runs into millions. Why does it run into millions? Because none of the advertising contracts went out to tender. It's the same sort of thing as taking bridges, highways, schools or any public endeavour and passing it out to one person without it ever going to tender.

That's the NDP style. Yet they criticize moves to bring on proper government servants in the civil service, as they should be, to undertake the necessary information services of government without the kind of slick eastern handling that characterized those $25 insurance advertisements that were the hallmark of the NDP years in office.

This is an unworthy amendment and I, for one, reject it.

MR. HALL: Mr. Chairman, I always enjoy listening to the member for Vancouver–Point Grey, particularly now as we come down to the twilight of his political career. We should listen to these speeches with a great deal of interest, as they do contain among them parts and parcels of his past glories, his current troubles and his current imperfections. Some of his imperfections at the moment, of course, are to do with lapses of memory. In fact they would lead us, if we listened carefully to the last contribution, to believing that what he told us in some way matched with the facts. Such is not the case by any stretch of the imagination. I have heard little in the way of fiction in this House that would match it.

Let me start, Mr. Chairman, by telling you that for years upon years one advertising agency carried the business of the provincial government in British Columbia and carried the business solely. That was Lovick Agencies. We all know why Lovick Agencies carried the business for the party of W.A.C. Bennett, the party that the previous speaker clasped to his bosom in a fit of ambition one day when he crossed the floor from this side to the other.

Secondly, when we became the government we didn't have one advertising agency, we had several. Let me mention a number: Dunsky; Walker Riggs; Gordon Rowntree & Co.; Ross & Anthony.

MS. BROWN: You don't want to hear the truth.

MR. HALL: He doesn't want to listen to those names because, of course, he just likes to talk. That member was on the public accounts committee. Mr. Chairman, you'd be surprised, indeed horrified, to know that even though the member used the words "under the table" with all the connotations that has, he didn't ask one single question in Public Accounts. He didn't ask for one voucher in Public Accounts, during the time that he was on the public accounts committee when we were government, to look for those under-the-counter payments. He dared to stand up and say that.

Let me say parenthetically that when any member stands up and accuses a previous government of under-the-counter payments, the Chairman of the committee should do something about it right away and not wait for a member to stand up, asking for a member to withdraw. Otherwise debate will get untidy.

Next we deal with the amounts of money as put forward in Public Accounts, all certified by the comptroller- general, all certified correct by audit, every one passed by this House, every one voted on by this House. This member tries to suggest that they went to the advertising agencies themselves, when we all know in actual fact that all of those dollars, less the normal commercial percentage, went to such journals as the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, the dailies and weeklies of the province of British Columbia, plus the radio stations, as was the case with Lovick and as is the case with every advertising agency that is dealt with today. That member knows it, but he tries to make a political speech. He tries to restore the morale, the flagging spirits of the treasury benches, deserted though they are after suffering a bad day in the House.

As I say, we should listen to these final, dwindling, few speeches of the member for Vancouver–Point Grey as he reaches the end of his political career, because they will be remembered as poor imitations of a Liberal that stood on this side. When I say that let me tell you that it doesn't sit too well with me for a Liberal to give me a lesson in handling advertising agencies. No, sir, not a Liberal. I'll take it from some people, but not a Liberal.

The fact of the matter is that the moneys that went to an advertising agency, whether it was Ross and Anthony, who worked for my colleague the Minister of Health in his department; Walker Riggs, who worked for me when I was Provincial Secretary; Gordon Rowntree, who worked for me in my capacity looking after the Public Service Commission; or whether it was a whole host of advertising agencies that were used, went to pay bills that dealt with the purchase of space or time. For that member to suggest that money went — as he used those expressions — in the form of "public funds to that agency" and "payoffs" and so on is not only mischievous but misleading.

Let me deal with the question of bids. By his own statement one of the advertising agents used between 1972 and

[ Page 5277 ]

1975 only got $6,000 in 1975. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether he was asked to bid on government business in 1976. This minister tries to tell us that everything was open and that they asked all advertising agencies to bid on work for government communications in 1976. Could he tell me whether Dunsky Advertising was asked to bid on that work? I bet you he can't give me the answer.

All I'm saying is that we've just been treated to a speech that was inaccurate, inflammatory, mostly out of order and needed correcting. I trust that I've now done that.

HON. MR. McGEER: I wonder if the House would permit me to table a document.

MR. HALL: No. Afterwards.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I just thought the House and the public might be interested. Not everybody in British Columbia, and I must include myself in this, subscribes to the Democrat, but I've got an advertisement here from the Democrat of December 1974. It's a large advertisement as is not taken by Rowntree, Ross and Co. or Walker Riggs. No, no, it was not by any of these firms that competed so savagely for government business under the NDP. This was bought by Dunsky Advertising Ltd. Guess what it says.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nothing.

HON. MR. McGEER: No, it should have said nothing, but it says instead: "This brief pause in the advertising is brought to you with our compliments." Mr. Chairman, you know who wants to get back on the gravy train.

MS. BROWN: That was in 1974.

HON. MR. McGEER: Absolutely. This brief pause is bought by Dunsky Advertising. Yes, that's business for them.

With the permission of the House I'll just table this advertisement of Dunsky Advertising in the Democrat to give you some flavour of that special relationship which existed between this advertising company that got $4.4 million and the New Democratic Party in just over three years in office. It's an amazing, competitive record.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order. If the minister can't be honest he should keep his mouth shut.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Hon. member....

MR. COCKE: All right, Mr. Chairman, I withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. member.

MR. COCKE: The minister gets up and says that Dunsky got $4 million. That is an out-and-out untruth.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. Members in this House must take responsibility for what they say. It is impossible for a member to ask the Chair to bring another member to order on something he's said of which the Chair has no knowledge. While the Chair can appreciate the concern of members for what another member might say, it is beyond the competence of the Chair to rule on whether any member is being, factual or otherwise in the House.

MR. LEA: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're coming to you from the B.C. Legislature, if you've just tuned in. We're discussing in the House today, as I look down on the chamber, the estimates of the Provincial Secretary. The debate has been going on rather hot and furious here this afternoon. The opposition has been accusing the government of spending taxpayers' money for strictly partisan purposes, in hiring two people to come up from Hollywood to try to improve the government's image. The government, of course, is fighting back, They're not going to be caught napping on this. The Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) has just been passed a message, brought to him by the chairman of the Social Credit caucus. the member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie). The member for Central Fraser Valley is rather quick. He ran out of the House just a few moments ago and returned with a piece of damning evidence that the minister grasped and read into the record of the House. What that piece of evidence was, ladies and gentlemen, was an advertisement placed in the Democrat — that's one of the propaganda organs of the NDP — and that advertisement was placed there by Dunsky Advertising. The minister, of course, knows that this is going to be like a harpoon to the NDP as they stand there trying to make their point against this little minister over there.

We've gone to the ridiculous, Mr. Chairman.

MR. RITCHIE: That's for sure.

MR. LEA: That's for sure. You are a good sleuth but a lousy politician.

What we in the opposition are trying to do here in the House is point out that in our opinion — and we're hoping that the people of this province agree with us; sometimes they do, sometimes they don't — the government is spending taxpayers' money in a manner that's not acceptable, we suspect, to the people of this province — certainly not to us. We suspect it's not acceptable to the people, if they get the story. If the people learn the facts surrounding the subject we're talking about through the media, then we're hopeful that the objective media.... And in a democracy we have to hope that the media covering the affairs of state is an objective organ in our society. It's the only hope we have. The only hope of the people of this province or of any other democracy is that there is a free press; otherwise, what they receive has to be labelled propaganda. whether it's from this party or any other political party.

Let's just suppose that we all in our wisdom in this Legislature decided that the media was doing a lousy job, and saw it as our duty to do away with the media through legislation. Then the people would get the truth, wouldn't they? Then the people would know the real truth, the facts. What the government can’t seem to understand is that we live in a very frail system. Democracy isn't very old in world history. We're fledglings. We're sort of stumbling our way through on a theory which, in many respects, is yet to be proved — that democracy is the best way for us to go. I believe that everyone in this House believes that. The thought of living under any other system of government would, I think, be repugnant to us all. We have our job to do as legislators. Part of that job is to be partisan and to express our own point of view. But give any one of us the chance and the opportunity to

[ Page 5278 ]

only express our own opinions and to stop the opinions of others, then the danger is there. We are human and we are frail. We have to have a time-honoured structure that not only protects us from others but protects us from ourselves, because we can all fall into the trap cf thinking that we know better and that the truth that we tell is the only truth and the only information that should reach the ears of our constituencies.

I can see the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) shaking his head in wonderment at the words I speak. We have to remember that before he was in politics that very member wrote to all political parties except the New Democratic Party, as is his right and choice, suggesting that the province had to get rid of the socio-communists. An educated person would know that that statement is absolutely silly. Thank God for the free press.

What the government is saying.... I saw it the other night on television. When questioned about why the government is at 20 percent in the Gallup poll, the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) said: "It's the fault of the media. The media aren't telling the story of what we're all about. The media in some way are distorting the kind of things that we're doing and the reporting of those things so that the people have turned against us."

In some ways I suppose that's true. The people have turned against the government. I don't recall a government ever being so low on the polls. We have to ask ourselves why. Is it the media indeed? Are the media the culprits? Is it the media that have made the Social Credit Party, as government, unpopular, or is it the actions or the lack of action of the government in power? I served in the government preceding this. As much as we could meet each other in the corridors — my colleagues and I - and go into caucus, wail, gnash, bite our fingernails and talk about the dirty media doing us in.... All governments do it.

This is an important thing that we're talking about. We're talking about the freedom of the press. We're talking about an objective agency telling people what goes on in this House and in government, as opposed to government itself being the messenger and the message. An important, philosophical question is what we're talking about in this House now. There's fun because we've brought in the Hollywood people and we've given ministers names; all of these things have come into the discussion. Life would be pretty dry and drab if we couldn't have a bit of fun with even the most important of issues. But this is an important discussion. It's possibly one of the most important discussions that we're going to have in this Legislature in this session, or perhaps all of the sessions that I've witnessed in here, because we're talking about the system that makes us free. We're talking about the kind of life that we want to lead in this country and in this province.

We have government ministers saying that they're low on the polls through the media's fault. God knows, the Social Credit aren't the only people who've made that statement over the years. Every political party in disfavour at the moment uses the hackneyed old expression: "The media are doing us in." We used it. We were a new government. It was the first time our party had been in government. We did make some errors when we were in government. We made lots of them.

I suppose that the only thing any political party can honestly promise the public is that they'll make more errors. Let's just hope that they're honest errors and not the kind of errors that we've seen this government make in terms of the dirty tricks. I don't think we'll ever again see — I hope we don't — that kind of thing in this province. I suppose our history would show us that it's happened before. I just hope that history doesn't repeat itself again.

What sort of action can a government take when, as they put it, their image is down? They hire a public relations man. I think that first of all we have to ask ourselves whether the public relations people of our country are the proper people to be carrying the message of the democratic system. We're not selling soap. We're not selling a commodity. We're selling ideas. We're selling philosophy. We have to ask ourselves if there is room in our democratic process for all of the flash and razzle-dazzle of the public relations field.

I'm not saying that the public relations field isn't a necessary or desirable part of our society, in its place. What we do have to ask, though, is whether the public relations field as we know it has a proper place within the government and democratic structure. My feeling is no. There is not a place for the slick kind of PR that we know exists out there, as some people say, in the real world. This world is terribly real. There isn't one decision made here that doesn't affect somebody intimately and personally. There isn't anything that a person in this province can do that hasn't been affected in some way by a decision made by us and those who have preceded us here. To give it a slick public relations approach, I think, is an incorrect way to go. I think most people in this province would agree that it's not the way to go.

As other members have pointed out, the government is not in trouble because of its image; it has an image problem because of its behaviour and the policies it has enunciated and carried out. There is no doubt that the budget that was brought in not too long ago had some kind of effect on everyone in the province. I suppose there are some who thought it was a good budget; there are others who think it is a bad budget. But surely the information surrounding that budget should only go to the people in two ways: through the public media and the free press, and through us, the politicians, who should be the only carriers of the message. We do not need public relations men or women to carry our message. I believe it is a danger to the very fabric of the democracy we live under. It is going to undermine the faith that people have in their elected representatives — and God knows they don't have very much, and probably for a lot of good reasons.

Surely there is a time when all of us in this House, regardless of party, must band together for the common good and ask ourselves: "Is it in the common good of the citizens of this province to bring the public relations arm of private industry into the feeding of information to our citizens? Is it in the common good?" We in this party — and we suspect some, if not all, in the Social Credit Party, except possibly one or two at the top — feel that surely it is not in the best interests of the province and the people who live here to start packaging information about the affairs of state in a slick public relations manner. Surely we haven't come to that. Surely there is time to correct it. The question is: out of this mess, how can the government improve its image? Because if that government over there has a poor image, all of us in this chamber suffer and therefore the people suffer. So the question is: how, out of this tacky mess, can this government and therefore all of us — improve our image ?

I think the way to do it, Mr. Minister. through you, Mr. Chairman, is to make a new start. Get up and make a statement on behalf of your government, Say that we're not

[ Page 5279 ]

going to continue in the public relations thing, that we're not trying to improve the image of government and we're going to try and improve government. If government is improved, you won't need the public relations arm of private industry. People will truly respect the government of this province, and surely that's the aim. Surely it's the aim for governments to be respected, not absorbed like cornflakes ads or the way they sell movie stars or True Confession magazines. Surely we haven't fallen to that. Mark my words, Mr. Chairman, if that government starts it, a future government will carry it on, and that's the way it is. I'm sorry that that's the way it is, but that is the way it is, and this is the start. There is time to stop this. If this government would at this moment say, "We are going to dismantle this public relations arm of government," they would only raise their image. Isn't it strange that all they have to do is do the right thing and their image would improve? You can't do the wrong thing and hope that anybody can improve your image, because it doesn't work like that.

People have a sense of what's going on. I know that when an advertisement comes on television, my 9-year-old stepson comes in to tell me it's a lie. He's only 9, but he's figured out that most of the advertisements we see on television are lies — sometimes subtle, sometimes outright. I know that if my stepson sees the kind of slick public relations I'm sure Mr. Heal is capable of.... I don't mean that unkindly. I think he's a good professional, and I've heard he is; I just don't think we need his profession here. There's a place for it. It isn't here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair cannot help but observe that orderly debate always leads to an orderly House, as has just been exhibited by the previous member's speech.

MR. BARBER: I wonder if the Provincial Secretary could confirm that he instructed Douglas Heal approximately four and a half weeks ago to prepare and distribute a memo to cabinet authorizing the creation of a body of advisers — as it is evidently put in the memo, a core group of government media advisers — whose job it would be, among other things, to examine and improve the political image of the government. Could the minister advise the committee whether or not he instructed Mr. Heal to prepare and circulate such a memo?

What I'm asking the Provincial Secretary, whose salary we propose to reduce to $4.50 — symbolically the price of a movie ticket in British Columbia — is whether or not he instructed Mr. Heal to prepare and circulate a memo that would create a core group of government media advisers who would be charged with reviewing and improving the political image of the government of British Columbia.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I can answer that question only in part for the information of the member. I have given no instructions to issue any memo of that kind. I am given to understand that in his capacity as the person in charge of government information programs, his job is not to really improve the image of the government per se; he will be using some advisers in terms of how best to develop communications programs and so on. But I've given no instructions of the kind that he is referring to.

MR. BARBER: Could the minister advise whether or not it was simply at Mr. Heal's own initiative that he circulated the memo in question to members in cabinet proposing the creation of a council of government media advisers? I believe the phrase is "core group."

The minister says that lie did not instruct the writing of such a memo, but he appears to be aware of it, and so are we. What I'm asking is whether or not Mr. Heal did it at his own initiative. You say it didn't come from you. Of course I take you at your word. Did the initiative come from Mr. Heal?

HON. MR. WOLFE: I'm just going from recollection. The initiative probably came from Mr. Heal.

MR. BARBER: I wonder if the minister would be prepared to table the memo with the House after the committee has risen this afternoon.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I'll have to consider that, Mr. Member.

MR. BARBER: While you're considering it, I wonder if you might also tell us what your policy is. There's a bit of a contradiction. When he got into hot water about Mr. Heal's appearance at that Social Credit meeting, the minister said that Mr. Heal's services were available to everyone and we could invite him to a New Democrat meeting as well. That's nice. I'm not sure that we want to do that, but nonetheless, we appreciate the offer and understand the reasons why you made it.

Mr. Heal has evidently proposed by memo the creation of a core group of government media advisers. Well. If Mr. Heal's services were earlier available to the official opposition, we hope you will agree that his memo should be available to the official opposition also. It may prove to be in the interests of the official opposition to have that memo available to us in order that we can better understand what the government's policy is and how we and the people whom we represent — 46 percent in the last election — might be able to comprehend what the government's programs are and what access to them might be. If we are entitled to Mr. Heal's services, I hope the minister will also find we're entitled to his memos.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the amendment pass?

MR. BARBER: What I'm asking the Provincial Secretary to do is to tell us whether or not we are also entitled to Mr. Heal's memos. If we're entitled to his services — if you want us to buy your case that he's not a partisan appointee of Social Credit. but he serves all of the people including the official opposition — will you tell the committee now whether or not we are also entitled to his memos?

HON. MR. WOLFE: I think the member realizes that it would be improper. or not expected of the government, to table all documents passing between ministries which are confidential in nature. I'm not alluding to the fact that this is confidential in nature. but I reserve the right to examine the document he's referring to — I have just a vague recollection of it — to see whether it would be appropriate or not. Certainly we want to be up front with the information programs of the government; that's the whole intent of this appointment. I think he quite understands that a inemorandum from one ministry to another has to be examined before it's known whether it can be tabled or not.

[ Page 5280 ]

MR. BARBER: We agree that there is no reason to expect or request access to intergovernmental memos, or memos between cabinet ministers, that concern personnel matters, impending legislation or budget matters. That's fair enough. Those are matters for the private concern and judgment of the government itself. However, we do think that if — as the government tells us — Mr. Heal is to serve all of the people and the whole of government a special case can be made that the opposition deserves special access to his memos, proposals and files.

Why is this? Because, at least for the moment, we're taking you at your word. We believe you when you tell us that his job is not to enhance the fortunes of Social Credit, but rather to provide information about the government of British Columbia. There are no questions of personnel, budget or legislative changes. That's got nothing whatever to do with Mr. Heal's field, and therefore we do not disqualify ourselves by asking for something to which we're not entitled. We believe we are in fact qualified in every important way to have complete access to the files and documents of Mr. Heal. If he's doing what you say he's doing and nothing more, then the official opposition is as entitled as you are, sir, to complete access to his office, files, documents and every record of his business. We're entitled to it, because you've told us that he's not doing anything partisan. You've told us that all he's doing is providing information to the people about the government of the people. Now, if we're supposed to believe that, fair enough. We take you at your word and ask you to find and make it your policy that we are entitled to every memo, every document, every proposal and every file that Mr. Heal has at hand, and will cause to be produced by hand, in the conduct of his office.

Again, we're not asking for memos about personnel or about changes to the budget or legislative changes either. We specifically exclude those three things. But we believe we're entitled to access to all the rest. If we are disentitled, then I think we have some grounds — as do the people of British Columbia — to wonder whether or not there's something else going on in Mr. Heal's office that, more interestingly, might serve the purposes of Social Credit but, somewhat embarrassingly to the government, should not be released. I appreciate that in this specific instance the Provincial Secretary wants to look at the memo itself. That's fine; I don't begrudge him that. But if the memo does not in fact relate to legislative, budgetary or personnel matters, then I hope very much that the memo will be released in its entirety. As well, I call upon the minister to establish a policy — preferably here today and now — to guarantee the official opposition complete access to the office, the records, the files, the memoranda and the documents of Mr. Heal, who, we are told, is a neutral public servant with nothing to hide.

MR. COCKE: I listened with a good deal of interest to the comments made by the member for Vancouver–Point Grey. I rose at the time in some anger, precipitated by the remarks of the minister with respect to his feelings about the way the NDP conducted their advertising on behalf of the different departments when in government. As the member for Surrey said at the time, some departments did use the particular agency he talked about and some did not. It was a case of one using an advertising agency that one felt confident with. There was no particular reason why the NDP, as government, should have gone out and sought to use Social Credit advertising agencies. At the time there were those in our government that were quite happy there was an advertising agency led by a person with a different bias than what we had been used to in this province for, at that time, a period of almost 20 years.

Having said that, the minister then went on to talk about the volumes of money, as though that money were paid directly to the advertising agency for their use. As one knows, the advertising agency gets a commission for seeking out space and paying the bill to the newspaper, the electronic medium or whatever. What we're criticizing here has nothing to do with the present government's selection of advertising agencies. I'm sure we could raise phony arguments, as that minister did, about a number of the agencies now employed. However, what we're doing in this resolution is to reduce the minister's vote to provide that there would be enough money left to take him to a show — $4.50 — showing that we feel the minister has acted improperly in the use of the media at his disposal.

We suggested that the minister should not have called upon a former Lovick agency person to come back here to British Columbia for the sole purpose, it would appear — we've seen no evidence to the contrary — of improving the government's image. As much as that image needs improving, it should not be improved at taxpayers' expense. That's the only argument here. The argument is that they're using taxpayers' dollars to brush up the government's image. I don't need Doug Heal to tell me to get my hands out of my pockets. Under the circumstances I find I'm comfortable with them there, and when I feel that it's best to remove them, I will.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I believe that this time the backbenchers are going to have to vote with the opposition. There's no way I'm going to tell the member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie) to vote with us, because if he were to do that I would have to wonder about my position with respect to this resolution. But I'm sure there are a number of backbenchers who share the concerns I have about the misuse of taxpayers' dollars.

This side is not criticizing holus-bolus the advertising account of the government, although much of it is going to be directed by this new director of communications, which worries one. We're concerned about that aspect of the budget that is to be spent directly on improving the image of this government.

If there wasn't a sense of shame among those members when they attended a convention at Harrison and found, I'm sure to their dismay, a public servant paid out of public funds attending that conference and obviously advising the Social Credit Party as to how they should behave in order to improve their image.... That was just the beginning. It went on from there to the extent that we now see. Not only have we hired people from Hollywood, but I understand, if I read the press correctly, that others have been hired locally to do this job. Is there no end to the misuse of funds that this government is prepared to perpetrate? Surely now the minister must see that something improper has been done. Surely now the minister must realize that they can't very well go back to the people who elected them and say: "Look, this is how we spent some of your funds." If the minister can do it, then I would suggest that many of his colleagues must be feeling very embarrassed.

[ Page 5281 ]

They have two choices. They can either get up and do a trip, like the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) did, and argue in favour of defeating this motion, or they can get up and really put it on the line and tell us how they really feel. I'm surprised that there have been so few people on the government side defending these actions; defending this behaviour.

MR. BRUMMET: We never argue with idiots.

MR. COCKE: I won't ask the member to withdraw that objectionable term. I'll only suggest that where it comes from is to be expected. I think that that kind of remark from across the floor indicates just how embarrassed this member is — I'm talking now about the member for North Peace River — awaiting the moment when he's going to have to stand up and vote against the resolution that he knows deep in his heart is right. Surely when that member sought, first, the nomination.... He took it right out from under our poor old former Speaker's nose. Having sought the nomination, he sought to be elected, and I'm sure he assured the voters in North Peace River that he'd be down here seeing to it that their best interests would be served. How is he going to vote? How is he going to vote when he knows perfectly well that this resolution of confidence is one that should pass in this House? He knows that, and so do they all, and many of the ministers as well. I doubt very much if there was unanimity there.

What we'd really like to know is: where did the direction come from in the first place? Is it an idea born of this minister? I doubt it. Is this an idea born of the Provincial Secretary? Was it at the Provincial Secretary's suggestion that they moved the audio-visual centre from the Health ministry to his ministry, which has more scope? Or was it on the instruction of the Premier? We'd like to know that too, particularly by virtue of the fact that the Premier obviously sets the policy of that government.

If this is part of his policy, that government should resign today, this instant, and show for the first time in a long time some common sense. Either that, or that whole ministry should be reorganized and brought back so that it's directly serving the people of our province and not serving this government and its ministers in terms of their image. If that doesn't happen, I just wonder how those members are going to vote and how they're going to feel when they vote. How are they going to feel when they get up and support a minister in a matter of confidence where it's acknowledged that they're spending taxpayers' money to brighten up the image of a very severely tarnished government? That's all we can ask. We're asking them to think about it seriously. It's a very serious matter. They should act on it as well.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to speak in support of the amendment, because I can't believe some of the community groups for which this minister is responsible and was unable to find money to fund this year. Instead, he directed that money towards the salary for two Hollywood make-up artists and Mr. Heal to come and deal with the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), to keep him from going off the deep end, and to shave the Premier. The third one which I can't understand is doing something about the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) appearing on TV with the frizzies. I do it all the time and it doesn't seem to bother me. No one has offered to do anything about dealing with mine, so I'm a little bit puzzled about this other responsibility which these two Hollywood make-up artists have been hired for.

Quite frankly, when I look at some of the projects that have been turned down so that the minister can save that money in his budget to hire these three people for that very irresponsible task which he has assigned to them.... Do you realize, Mr. Chairman, that in the city of Victoria there is a group which is known as the Widow's Information Centre?What they do is counsel women who have recently lost their husbands. They try to help them over that difficult period of their lives. They have tried to get out of this government the sum of $4,500. For $4,500 we could have in the city of Victoria an information centre that many need. This is not a centre which is established by the government. This is a centre which people in the community perceived was necessary. They came together. put it into motion and applied for the measly sum of $4,500. They were turned down first by Human Resources and then by the Provincial Secretary.

Somehow the Provincial Secretary was able to find $14,000 to hire two people to come to this city with the sole responsibility of seeing that the Premier shaves, that the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development answers a question with yes or no and doesn't get carried away and say too much, and that the Minister of Human Resources does not appear on television unless her hair is smooth and sleek. I think there is something wrong with the priorities here. Given the option, Mr. Chairman, I know how you would vote on this. Of course, you were not given the option. The decision was made without any input from you, because you have no problems with your shaving or with your frizzy hair. It always looks smooth and sleek to me, on or off TV. The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) has no problems either. He certainly is sleek, smooth and very shiny on the top.

In all seriousness, one has to question the priorities of a government that would rather spend $14,000 on make-up artists than contribute $4,500 to a worthwhile organization like the Widow's Information Centre at 620 View Street, office number 421 — 1 notice that the ministries interested who are asking for the measly sum of $4,500. That's only to pay the rent, because the offices are run by volunteers. That might mean that Mr. Heal would have to cut back on the make-up budget or something, but I'm sure it would go further towards appreciating the government's position in the polls and improving their image than ensuring that the Minister of Human Resources has smooth, sleek hair on TV and that the Premier shaves. There's something wrong, I think, with a Premier who needs to be reminded to shave. I'm not going to go into that. That's a different issue altogether.

As a matter of fact, the Provincial Secretary told us in question period once that every member of the government shaves every day. I found that really interesting. That's probably why the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) has to rest all the time. It's these daily shaves that are getting to her.

Makara, a co-op publishing and design group, actually had to go out of business. They became financially insolvent, again because a decision was made that there weren't enough funds to assist them. There was no money for that. The money was diverted towards buying make-up and paying make-up artists.

I received a letter from the women's centre in Smithers. It says: "Due to the lack of funding there is no longer a women's centre in Smithers." You may not know this, Mr.

[ Page 5282 ]

Chairman, but part of the responsibility of the Provincial Secretary has been the funding of women's centres. You may not know this either, but usually the funding is minuscule. We are talking about requests in the order of $5,000, $6,000 or $7,000 a year. Not Mr. Heal, but the make-up artists' salaries alone could have funded two women's centres. I know that you know what women's centres do. They provide such services as assertiveness training for women. They help them in terms of re-establishing themselves in the workforce and give them counselling. In many instances, out of the women's centres grow the kind of extended services that develop into transition houses and extended day care. Those kinds of things usually start in women's centres. The whole business of relearning and coming to understand oneself and preparing, if necessary, to re-enter the workforce — the Provincial Secretary says that there's no money for that. Now Smithers is without a women's centre because there was no funding forthcoming from the Provincial Secretary.

The reason I'm raising these issues is because for some reason or another the Provincial Secretary is responsible for funding these groups. There's no money for the Women's Interact Society either. They are going to have to close their doors. They are in Squamish; I think that's the riding of the Attorney-General. It says that they are going to have to disband because there has been no funding forthcoming for them. This is a group of women, primarily women in the home, who used to come together and work in terms of their art. They established a cooperative art studio and would do their painting, weaving and these kinds of mutual interests, dealing in a way with the isolation which women in the home have — that kind of thing. Their funding is no longer possible because that money has been directed to paying the salary of two make-up artists from Hollywood and Mr. Doug Heal.

The South Surrey–White Rock Women's Place is going to go under. It says here that the main difficulty is with funding. It's not just the Provincial Secretary; they have applied to a number of places. They tried to get a summer worker out of the Ministry of Labour. That hasn't been forthcoming either. They tried to get a coordinator and staff person from the Provincial Secretary's ministry — no money for that. They have day care and nursery facilities at the centre. They deal with women's problems. As I said, they deal with women who are trying to reintegrate themselves into the workforce and prepare themselves to go back into the community through consciousness-raising and development of a sense of themselves, which happens in these centres. There's no money for that. There's no money for them to get together and get out of the home and deal with their isolation. All of that funding is redirected towards paying for two make-up artists from Hollywood and Mr. Heal.

As a matter of fact, the one I'm even more disturbed about is the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada, which requested some assistance from the ministry and was told to go to the Ministry of Health. There was no money to help the Muscular Dystrophy Association carry on the very worthwhile work that it does. That money was redirected to hire two make-up artists from Hollywood and Mr. Doug Heal to ensure that the Premier shaves every morning. A homemaker from the Ministry of Human Resources can do that. The lousy salaries that homemakers are being paid would have meant money left over to make a contribution to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I'm sure that there are hairdressers in Victoria who would have volunteered their services to take care of the frizzies of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) if they were told that that money would go to help the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada.

Nobody, but nobody, can keep the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) from going off the deep end, so that is certainly wasted money. But to think that the money has been redirected from these worthwhile projects to pay for these two make-up artists....

AN HON. MEMBER: Who does your hair?

MS. BROWN: Doug Heal doesn't do my hair. If he did, it wouldn't be frizzy, right? It's obvious that Doug Heal doesn't do my hair.

With bated breath I'm watching the TV the next time the minister is on to see how my money is being spent, because I too am a taxpayer and I want to see how my money is being spent. The hair had better be very sleek and smooth, or else.

MR. KEMPF: Taxes must be pretty high in Point Grey.

MS. BROWN: Yes, I pay very high taxes to ensure that the minister, who gave to the world Gracie's Finger, appears on TV without frizzy hair.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One moment, hon. member. There appear to be a few interruptions. Order, please.

MS. BROWN: Actually the interruptions from Omineca are of a very minor nature,

The one thing that the Provincial Secretary is putting his money in, and I congratulate him on this.... It says: "The word is out that Evan Wolfe, Provincial Secretary, is examining the idea of using lottery funds to match private donations to the Bastion Theatre." I think that's great. Obviously that's where the Heal extravaganzas are going to be put on. That's the reason why the Bastion Theatre is going to benefit from the Lottery Fund, but this resolution has to be supported. One has to challenge the priorities of this government. It doesn't make any sense that worthwhile projects like the one I've pointed out — the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Widow's Information Centre and all of those women's centres.... By the way, this is not under his ministry but I want to remind you that this is also the government that has a community college running a soup kitchen in order to raise funds so that it can stay alive. "Help save Capilano College." Imagine there is no money for educational institutions like Capilano College, for muscular dystrophy, for the Widow's Information Centre, for the Library Federation — of course, they needed the space in Kamloops for their campaign headquarters — no money for the women's centres in Smithers, Surrey and White Rock, no money for any of these projects. That money was diverted instead to pay for two make-up artists from Hollywood and Mr. Douglas Heal. I think that this resolution has to have the support of every member of this House.

MR. RITCHIE: I can be very brief. I thought I would like to respond particularly to the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), who seems to be so misguided in thinking that the backbench members here would vote in favour of this amendment. I have a surprise for that member, and that is that we will be voting against this amendment. The reason that we

[ Page 5283 ]

will be voting against it is that, first of all, we think it's a lot of nonsense. We have tried to do our best here to be attentive and listen to this debate, but it gets worse as it goes on.

I just want to very briefly say that we will be opposed to this amendment for the simple reason that we see it as very necessary that our government do everything possible to make sure that the proper message does get across to the people of this province. Our minister responsible is not concerned about frizzy hair or those who may require two shaves a day or anything else, but rather concerned about some of the misleading information that gets out into the field and to the people of our province.

Interjection.

MR. RITCHIE: That's what I'm concerned about, and I'm not about to attack the press at all. I'm about to attack the socialist party of British Columbia. Following in the footsteps of our Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer), who produced a document that I thought gave a good indication as to how the socialist party of British Columbia spent taxpayers money on advertising, I wanted to bring a document to the House. It is page 6 of the February 1981 issue of the Democrat. Listen very carefully to this. I'm sure it's for reasons such as this that our government finds it necessary to put some emphasis on getting the proper story out.

It reads as follows: "Last year the Socreds instituted a $2 million mortgage subsidy program through the credit unions." That, in my opinion, is misleading, and it's for reasons such as this that we find it necessary to come out with a program that is going to tell the truth. It's dishonest and misleading advertising. The amount put into this program by the Social Credit government was not $2 million but $200 million.

MR. LEA: Oh, what's a couple of zeros.

MR. RITCHIE: What's a couple of zeros, he says.

Interjections.

MR. RITCHIE: Please, Mr. Chairman, protect me from the opposition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. RITCHIE: I think it's only fair that it goes on record that this is the sort of message that we have to try to put straight for the benefit of the people of this province.

The House resumed Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:48 p.m.