[ Page 5429 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Report on severely handicapped. Mr. Cocke –– 5429

Market survey on Energy film. Mrs. Dailly –– 5429

Mr. Lauk –– 5429

Mr. Lea –– 5429

McAlpine report on Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Barnes –– 5430

Mr. Lauk — 5430

Expenses of Ian Jessiman. Mr. Macdonald –– 5430

Voters' list for Kamloops by-election. Mrs. Dailly –– 5431

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

Hyndman)

On vote 47: corporate affairs –– 5431

Mr. Howard

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. King

Mr. Levi

On vote 48: rentalsman –– 5434

Mr. Levi

Mr. Barnes

Mr. Mussallem

Mr. Gabelmann

Ms. Brown

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Leggatt

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'd like to introduce to the House and ask the House to welcome Mr. Gordon Harris and Mr. Rob Hill from the Downtown Business Association of the city of Penticton.

MRS. DAILLY: In the gallery today we have a delegation from the British Columbia Association for the Mentally Retarded, with their president, Miss Elise Clark; Miss Wendy Baker, vice-president; Mr. Al Etmanski, executive director; Mr. Miles Ramsay; Mr. Lyman Butterfield from Victoria; and Mildred De Haan. I ask the House to welcome this very dedicated association.

HON. MR. CHABOT: We have in the House today Mr. and Mrs. Mike Machuk of Radium Hot Springs. I'd like the House to join me in welcoming them.

MS. BROWN: Tom Lalonde and Fraser Hall of the greater Vancouver renters' association and Jim Levatts from the Surrey Tenants Association are visiting us today. I wonder if the House would join me in bidding them welcome.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I also extend a welcome to the members from the Surrey Tenants Association, and Jim Levatts in particular, with whom I met this morning.

We have visiting with us today a delegation with whom I met this morning as well. They are here promoting the expansion of a fantastic facility, the Surrey Rehabilitation Workshop. We have with us Mr. David Penn, a director, Dr. Al Sully, the treasurer, and the very able executive director, Mrs. Eileen Stevens.

MR. MUSSALLEM: I ask the House to welcome 75 students — and their mothers — from the Windebank elementary school, under the leadership of their teachers Mrs. L. Anderson and Miss M. Royal. It's interesting to note that this school is the site of the Stave Lake dam, which was a major power source of the B.C. Electric Co., and is now of B.C. Hydro. Many of the workers on the dam, as well as the original settlers, resided on this site. This excellent area in the municipality of Mission is very deeply steeped in the history of British Columbia.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, may I make a suggestion to the House Leader that we waive question period until maybe 3 o'clock, when at least most of the cabinet ministers can be present in the House? I ask leave that question period be postponed today until 3:15 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. We're in the middle of introductions.

Oral Questions

REPORT ON SEVERELY HANDICAPPED

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Health in this International Year of the Disabled. A report on the needs of severely handicapped children and adolescents was prepared during 1980 by an interministerial team for the ministries of Health, Human Resources and Education. Has the minister decided to release the report on behalf of his colleagues?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the report will be released.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker –– I wonder if the minister could be a little more definitive as to when the report might be released.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I haven't a precise date. A review of the report was undertaken approximately a week ago in a briefing, but it should be released within a very reasonable period of time.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, you can quite understand my concern. Will that report be released before the estimates of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith)? Has the minister decided to release that report?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I said yes, we intend to release that report, but it hasn't been brought to my attention as to when the estimates of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Human Resources are going to be before the House.

MARKET SURVEY ON ENERGY FILM

MRS. DAILLY: I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. Can the minister confirm that Goldfarb Consultants, which operates out of Vancouver as the Canadian Polling Institute, was employed by the government to do a market survey subsequent to theSunday night broadcast of the film "Energy — a Strategy for the Future"?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, no, I cannot confirm that.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, could the Provincial Secretary confirm that a Crown corporation or the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources commissioned and employed this survey?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, no.

MR. LAUK: On a supplementary, can the Provincial Secretary assure the House that no member of the cabinet or agency of the cabinet contracted with Goldfarb Consultants to do such a survey after this program?

HON. MR. WOLFE: No, I can't.

MR. LAUK: We were reliably informed that such a survey was performed at government expense. Can the minister undertake to determine this and bring it back to the House, instead of playing cute?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, I'm endeavouring to answer the member's questions. I think that it's quite inappropriate for him to suggest that I'm trying to play cute. I've answered directly to his specific questions. I do not have the information he requests. He asked me what other ministers have undertaken to do, and I think that is entirely out of order.

MR. LEA: I have a supplementary on the same topic for the Premier. As it's obviously going to be time-consuming

[ Page 5430 ]

and probably difficult for us to go through each minister to try to find out which ministry or which agency of government has hired Goldfarb to survey the audience reaction to last Sunday's program sponsored by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, would the Premier give the House his undertaking that he will check with his ministers and bring back to the House a definitive answer as to which agency of government, under what minister, is responsible for hiring Goldfarb to do the audience survey?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I don't want to deny the opportunity for ministers to respond to questions applicable to their ministries. Obviously it would be useful for the opposition to have a question in hand to supplement those days in which their questions barely resemble urgent business in this province.

MR. LEA: I think we're asking a perfectly legitimate question. We're asking the first minister to check with his ministers to see whether or not taxpayers' money is being used to do a survey of audience reaction to the program that was put on last Sunday.

Would the Premier check with his ministers and come back to the House and let us know? I don't think it calls for a smart speech.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, but question period could use a smart question.

The question was posed to the Provincial Secretary, who would be responsible for information services, and I understand that he is already.... If asked that question, he would have brought the information to the House. Because the member did not ask him to do so, I will certainly deal with the Provincial Secretary on acquiring such information. Perhaps we could have saved a lot of time if the first question to the Provincial Secretary had been so worded.

McALPINE REPORT ON KU KLUX KLAN

MR. BARNES: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. In answer to my question last week the minister described the McAlpine report on the Ku Klux Klan as a first draft only. Can the minister confirm that a final draft is presently being prepared?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I can confirm that not only was it prepared but it was delivered to me last Friday at about 1 o'clock.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Minister, I appreciate the fact that you now have the final draft. Is it reasonable to request that we now have an opportunity to view the contents of that report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I advised the member when the question was asked last week that this particular report is to be reviewed by me, my officials and my colleagues. I think that it will be released to the House in due course. I have no intention at all of releasing it the day after it arrives.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Minister, could you indicate to the House who completed the final report submitted to you by Mr. McAlpine, and whether Mr. McAlpine submitted it as a final report or as an interim report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: To the best of my knowledge the report answers the questions which I had asked Mr. McAlpine to inquire into. In fairness I think I can say that it's a final report.

MR. BARNES: I don't believe that that is a satisfactory answer in light of the fact that reports have it that Mr. McAlpine stated that when he submitted his final report to you, he was relieved of his responsibility. Therefore if you have a draft or a redraft or another report, it was done by someone else other than Mr. McAlpine. Who was that person?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The author of the report is the counsel from Vancouver who I asked to do the research and to prepare it. To the best of my knowledge he is the author. He is the gentleman who had the report delivered on Friday of last week. I don't understand the nature of the question.

MR. LAUK: When asked before, the Minister of Labour said it was a first draft of a report. Why the Minister of Labour seems puzzled at our questions I don't know. We have read the answers in Hansard. The minister said: "I have received a first draft from Mr. McAlpine." Mr. McAlpine said: "That's not a first draft; that's the final draft." Who's tampering with the McAlpine report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The report which was delivered to me the week before last didn't contain certain items — for example, an index; a major item. This was the subject of some discussion; it went back. I can assure you that he is the author and that no one else is.

MR. LAUK: It's like pulling teeth, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister of Labour: you asked Mr. McAlpine for an index. Is that what the minister is saying? What other changes to the report have you asked Mr. McAlpine to make?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, none.

MR. LAUK: So the report that was received from Mr. McAlpine to the minister was the final report, exclusive of an index. Is that what the minister is saying?

EXPENSES OF IAN JESSIMAN

MR. MACDONALD: The Attorney-General told us on May 4 that Mr. Jessiman, the head of the civil law section, in answer to a question as to whether he went back and forth to attend to his law practice in Winnipeg while carrying out his work for the government of British Columbia, replied: "Before entering upon his duties with the ministry, Mr. Jessiman transferred his practice to others." In the light of other information, will the Attorney-General be willing to amend his answer to the House?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. MACDONALD: Does the province of British Columbia pay for Mr. Jessiman's trips back and forth to the city of Winnipeg, which I understand are for the last week in every month, to attend to his law practice in Winnipeg? Does the Attorney-General pay for the trips?

[ Page 5431 ]

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: As I answered the other day, Mr. Jessiman transferred his law practice to a firm of lawyers in Winnipeg. He does not practise law.

MR. MACDONALD: Does the contract with Mr. Jessiman allow him some time to go back to Winnipeg to do work with reference to that law practice in Winnipeg?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. MACDONALD: Is the province of British Columbia paying for trips of Mr. Jessiman back and forth to the city of Winnipeg over the last four to six months?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I'll take that question as notice. I'm not aware of the details.

MR. MACDONALD: I don't like to take up too much time. Has the Attorney-General decided to file the contract with the House?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

VOTERS' LIST FOR KAMLOOPS BY-ELECTION

MRS. DAILLY: I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. On May 17, 1979, the then Provincial Secretary, the member for Saanich and the Islands (Hon. Mr. Curtis), stated: "The fact that the voters' list was not kept up to date led to a number of horror stories that I'm not prepared to tolerate any longer." I can't do it with that member's voice. The member for Saanich and the Islands was referring to the May 1979 general election. My question to the Provincial Secretary today is: what has the government done in the present by-election to prevent the horror stories the minister referred to?

HON. MR. WOLFE: There has been a considerable amount of activity generated to try to purify the list more in terms of the by-election. There was a public information program. First of all, Mr. Speaker, there is a new chief electoral officer in this province, and this gentleman has generated a special activity to do with the voters' list in Kamloops to purify the list and remove unnecessary names, duplications and people who have either died or left the area.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. WOLFE: One might anticipate that these questions are asked without expecting an answer. It's rather unusual. It's hard to know They don't want to listen to the answer, Mr. Speaker. You stand here and give answers, and they don't want to listen to them. So I guess we should just sit down and not respond. Is that what should happen?

I was only going to say that our new chief electoral officer has gone out of his way in this particular instance to try to remove names which are redundant to make the list purer than it has been so there are no duplicate names and names of people who no longer live in the riding. There has been considerable action to try to improve the situation in terms of the voters' list.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS

(continued)

On vote 47: corporate affairs, $5,865,797.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, because of the immediate exodus from the House of cabinet ministers obviously not interested in this vote, I move that the Chairman do now leave the chair.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 23

NAYS — 26

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

MRS. WALLACE: I want to raise a few points with the minister relative to the responsibility under this vote for the administration of the real estate industry, particularly in British Columbia.

I have had a rash of constituents in my office who have expressed a number and a variety of concerns about problems they have experienced, apparently as a result of practices in the real estate industry. One rather minor problem — really not so minor — is the provision of keys. There is a regulation, I assume. Certainly it is a standard practice that any realtor puts his own lock on a house and there are no extra keys made for the existing locks. When the purchaser takes possession of the house, all keys are supposedly put in that person's possession so there is no chance of a stray key hanging around so someone can come in when the owner is absent. In at least one instance that has come to my attention, a reputable real estate firm has simply said: "Well, I'm sorry, but I've just got one key. There are no more. You'll have to have some more made." In that particular instance there was no proper realtor lock on that house.

[ Page 5432 ]

I think the minister has a responsibility to ensure that that particular type of occurrence.... I know there are rules and regulations; at least I assume there are. I think it's only proper that the minister should be aware that they're not always being followed. It is quite a hazard when that sort of situation occurs. It means having the added expense of having to change the lock on that house. That expense has to be borne. In this instance it hasn't been changed and the constituent is very concerned about it and is hoping that they can at least get the expense of changing the lock from the realtor.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Far more critical is another problem that has come to my attention. A young couple from Calgary purchased a house. The house was listed with a firm in Duncan. It was a multiple listing and the agent who actually showed the house and completed the deal was from a firm in Victoria. They asked where the boundary lines were, and they were told that the one boundary where the house was fairly close to the line went in line with a certain tree. They checked and found a white survey stake in line with that tree. Sometime later, after they had taken possession and after they had put a patio at the side of the house, the neighbour complained that the patio was on the adjoining property. They checked, looking for the iron pin where the white survey stake was and didn't find it. They eventually found the iron pin where the neighbour said they would find it, which meant that the line actually cut through the very extremities of the house.

They have checked this with the real estate company which actually sold them the house. The salesman no longer works there. The firm in Duncan where the house was listed insisted that, in fact, they knew that the line was very close to the edge of the house. They said they had advised all sales people and all other listing firms of that. I know of at least one real estate agent who works for another company in Duncan who had that house listed and was not advised. This particular owner is a very tenacious person and is taking this right through. I think eventually she will win, even if she and her husband have to go to court on the thing. These are the kinds of things happening under the existing regulations, Mr. Chairman.

Before I left home this morning I had a call from a constituent who had just been up in the Okanagan — I think he said it was Kelowna he had been to — where they had been forced to take some action on behalf of an elderly aunt because her mind was not as keen as it had been. When they were making the necessary business arrangements, they found that she had been pressured by real estate salesmen into selling a portion of her property, right through the centre, which really detracts from the value of the property, and selling it for a very low figure. They have tried to have this sale cancelled, but are advised that because she has deposited the cheque, it cannot be cancelled and legally the sale is completed. I'm suggesting that as the minister responsible for real estate sales in this province this minister has some responsibility to ensure that these kinds of activities do not take place.

I have here a clipping from the Province which indicates that an elderly widow in Burnaby has been pressured by high taxes. Now there is not much you can do about that, but her land — it seems unreasonable — is assessed at $7,600 and her home at $500. She's happy to stay there. But there is real pressure on that particular individual from the real estate industry to get rid of her property because of such high taxes — pressure to move out of her home, get away from her garden and get into an apartment or something. That pressure is on. I'm sure it's been raised on the floor of the House before that a practice seems to occur of reading obituary notices and of calling upon bereaved widows — particularly those who are perhaps not used to the business world — and trying to force a quick sale of the homesite or property that that particular person may own.

These sorts of suggestions and happenings really concern me, Mr. Chairman. As the minister responsible not only for real estate sales in this province but also for consumer protection, in my opinion the minister has a joint responsibility.

It seems that there is some laxness in what's happening in the real estate industry. We all know that it has become a very profitable industry. I know there are a lot of very responsible people engaged in it, but it's very unfortunate that a few opportunists may spoil the name of the whole industry. It seems that a few people have recognized that "there's gold in them thar hills" and are out to mine the gold; they're out to make a fast return for themselves without any consideration of what it's doing to the homeowners. I'm speaking particularly of homesite properties. Perhaps changes in licensing procedures — and I know I can't talk about legislation — as well as in the legislation that controls the industry are long overdue.

On the CBC news back in January a news item was carried that over 100 people stood all night in Vancouver waiting to apply for admission to a real estate course. I think that indicates the kind of opportunistic approach that people are taking toward what is becoming a very lucrative industry — a very fast return for very little money. Of course the ILS no-commission system of marketing real estate is another one where.... I know that we certainly can't prohibit options. A legitimate option is quite an acceptable thing. But an individual in the business of buying and selling real estate can place maybe a $100 option for 30 days on a piece of property that may be worth a thousand times that, and at the rate that the price of real estate is increasing he can then exercise that option and resell the property without even having to be registered or licensed at all.

The minister nods his head. I'm sure he's aware of this, and is concerned that this sort of thing is happening. There are just too many loopholes available to people dealing in homes and homesites, at a time of very escalated costs, and making exorbitant profits and returns for themselves with very limited investment. I don't want to give the impression that I'm tarring all people in real estate with the same brush — I'm not; but I think the onus is on the minister to take some action to ensure that the legitimate, qualified people prepared to abide by regulation are protected from the bad name the real estate industry is fast developing in this province. I get it on all sides in my constituency and I'm sure that minister, as the minister responsible, has had a great many letters and protests about the kind of thing that is going on in the real estate industry.

I've raised the problems that occur in the multiple listing system with other ministers. There's a real competition as to which company will get the basic listing, because they get a higher percent return. They'll list it at any kind of a price and sell it at much less; I've quoted in this house the actual list prices and actual selling prices of a series of houses in my constitutuency, which indicate to me without question of a doubt that this is happening. The problem is that John Q.

[ Page 5433 ]

Citizen, seeing those list prices, naturally assumes that's the going price for homes, and this has a tendency to drive up the cost of housing even more.

Those are some of my concerns — some of the problems I have had brought to me by constituents in my constituency office and which I felt duty-bound to raise once more in the Legislature, now that we have a different minister. Perhaps that minister will put some priority on that particular point in question, because I think it is one that is very vital, not just to his particular concern and interest, but to those other ministers who are responsible for the problem of housing. Certainly it's of grave interest to those many people who are finding it so difficult to buy a home today.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: May I thank the member for Cowichan-Malahat for her comments. She and I agree that we're again at one of those cyclical stages in B.C.'s history where the activity in the real estate market and housing prices raise a host of fresh concerns and problems. Let me try to comment on a number of the points that have been raised, in the hope that that may be of some assistance to the member.

First dealing with the question of keys, I think it's important to realize that when people list their homes for sale there is no obligation or rule that requires them to give up their keys. That becomes a matter of personal choice and planning. For example, if a party wants to list a home but retain control of possession and the keys, he or she is perfectly at liberty to say to the realtor, as a condition of the listing, that there'll be no inspection and appointments without prior clearance. "I will control the key and let you in and out." It's usually through the multiple listing process that the so-called "lockbox" system evolves. If realtor X from one company wants to show the property, and realtor Y has the listing — particularly, perhaps, in a far-flung area like yours — there's a common meeting place or finding place where the key can be obtained. There's a bit of a trade-off there, because to the degree that kind of system permits the property to be more broadly shown and exposed to a greater cross-section of realtors and purchasers, it raises the very important question about security to the purchaser.

In my days in conveyancing one of the suggestions I would make to purchasers would be — given the size of the transaction and the value of home — that it was probably a very modest investment in terms of future insurance to have the locks changed when you moved in. So I think it's a question of individual choice, and there's no question that to the degree the vendor chooses to allow some access to keys by realtors there is a security risk posed, and in that situation the only guarantee of safety for the purchaser can be changing the locks.

The member raised a very important question concerning surveys, and in the kind of situation she discussed.... I'm assuming the matter has not yet been commenced in the courts; if it has and is sub judice, I don't want to comment. But I'd like to outline very clearly what the situation is with respect to surveys. If a purchaser finds that the survey dimensions of a property are not as represented in the course of the sale, there normally is a very clear remedy in law by way of suit in negligence against either the realtor or the conveyancing solicitor or both. I think the conveyancer, be that person a solicitor or a notary, if he is doing his job, should include a copy of the conveyancer's survey report as filed with the land titles office. That should be compared with whatever survey information the realtor has provided. Putting it differently, about the only case in which the purchaser is stuck with the results of a wrong survey is a case in which the purchaser has been prepared to acknowledge that the matter is uncertain and to buy the property on that basis. In a case like this, I would suggest that doubtless the purchaser is doing the right thing to check back to see which people made the representations as to the survey dimensions. In our common law in this province the leading case is actually one heard in Nanaimo about five years ago. The law is absolutely clear that if it is the error of the realtor or the conveyancer that leads to the result that the purchaser find different dimensions and is innocently victim of that, there is a very clear remedy in damages through negligence. I think in that case the purchaser is doing the right thing.

From the other side of the desk, the Real Estate Council is certainly striving to stress to realtors the need for greater care and the dangers of a negligent attitude in presenting properties for sale. Certainly, I know the Law Society regularly draws to the attention of conveyancers the increasing degree of risk which conveyancers face if they fail to check, as part of the conveyance, items like the survey.

On the question of people being forced into listings and sales of properties, I want to stress as I did yesterday, for members who have constituents concerned that their long-time residence in a family home is threatened because of the buildup of property tax rates, that the government does offer a program for qualifying seniors, whereby property taxes can be deferred as against the title by way of a charge at a very reasonable rate of interest. If any members are dealing with this problem as it may affect seniors who want to stay in the family home but are concerned about the cash-flow burden of property taxes, the Ministry of Finance administers the program. It's available there. It's a very sensible program. It lets the senior defer the taxes as a charge against the title, and not pay them. The interest rate is very modest. I believe that when the property is ultimately sold or passes to an estate, the taxes must then be paid.

In terms of the practices of checking through obituary notices or otherwise pressuring elderly people in particular to sell, there is, of course, if people go too far in that field, the law of undue influence as a protection and a remedy. Short of that, though, particularly in the case of a widow or widower, I think one of the soundest pieces of advice, if they are suddenly alone and in a difficult state of emotional transition, is that the family banker, a reliable family friend, a family lawyer, or an estate lawyer — if there has been one — should always be consulted before that dotted line of a listing agreement is signed.

Certainly it has been a more lucrative marketplace for realtors. The facts, nonetheless, don't seem to change. On analysis, whenever the market heats up it seems that there is a renewed interest in real estate licensing and a larger number of licensees. The data seem to suggest that year after year the market ebbs and flows, but a relatively small number of realtors make the high incomes and there are a surprising percentage who, in spite of the market, make a very modest income and then hang up the licence or don't pursue it. In this current market there has been, as the member noted, a rush to get into the licensing course in the last year. There was the article in the paper about the lineups on the street. Just a year earlier the council was having difficulty finding enough people to take the course, even though the market then was reasonably buoyant and strong.

[ Page 5434 ]

I agree with the member that the question of licensing practices and procedures should be a question of ongoing review and concern. I want to assure her that we are looking at some changes in that area. I can tell her that one of my concerns is the current status under which realtors must or must not disclose to vendors that an offer is coming in from a person who is licensed. We're looking at a number of those areas that deal with the question of how you get licensed and how you conduct yourself once you are licensed.

On the question of option dealers, I share the concern of the member. She is probably aware that the ministry has in fact launched a prosecution against one firm which the ministry alleges is following a pattern of conduct which really amounts to, in our view, a conspiracy to breach the provisions of the Real Estate Act. That case is scheduled to be heard late this summer. We're giving the question of dealer options ongoing consideration. The member is absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. On the one hand, there is a proper place for the use of the real estate option in business. On the other hand, there is great potential scope for abuse if the option is in the hands of unscrupulous or unfair people. We're trying to find some remedies that would, on the one hand, leave the option as a legitimate commercial tool to be used for legitimate purposes by people who fully understand what's happening, yet we're going to find ways to protect the innocent public, particularly home vendors, who don't often get into the real estate field from being put upon as a consequence of the misuse of the so-called dealer option. I think that covers the points the member raised, and I thank her for her concerns.

MR. KING: I'm going to be very brief. I just have one question for the minister. First of all, perhaps I should make sure that I'm in the proper area. It's my understanding that the ministry does administer the trade licences, or the Business Licence Act, now.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: I believe it is still with Finance. It may be in the process of being rolled over, but I'll just double-check.

MR. KING: I'll explain briefly what the problem is. I'm unclear as to whether it resides under this ministry or under Finance. But in any event, assuming that the ministers talk to each other, I think the point would perhaps be well raised with both. For the minister's attention, I refer to a letter I received outlining the dilemma. It's from a constituent in Enderby, and it's addressed to me.

"As a hobbyist I would like to protest very strongly the new Business Licence Act which replaced the Trade Licence Act as of January 1, 1981. I have a very small greenhouse, 12 by 20, and from it I usually sell a few vegetable plants in the spring. Sometimes I've sold a few craft items throughout the year. Because I like to be honest, I've been getting a trade licence for $10 per year as I'm in what is called an unorganized territory, now part of a regional district, actually on the Mabel Lake Road out of Enderby.

"When I went to purchase my 1981 licence I was told I would have to pay $60, which is even more than the general store at Ashton Creek would have to pay. That is listed at $37.50. Furthermore, if I wanted to make and sell a few crafts, I would have to pay $112.50. For goodness' sake, I don't sell that many crafts in a year. I don't gross that much, never mind net. Surely there could be a category for hobbyists that could have an amount less than any listed."

As things are set out now, in my opinion, there will be a lot more dishonest people who don't want to be dishonest. Even the $37.50 is far too high for the kind of business which the lady operates. It seems to me that this is a valid concern in a rather isolated area, where perhaps partly for convenience and partly more as a hobby than any great revenue producer people enter these small part-time enterprises. A category might be made available to them reflecting the fact that it's a very low-volume kind of operation. I would appreciate the minister responding. If it is his jurisdiction, I would appreciate him reviewing it very carefully. If it is not, perhaps he would approach his colleague, the appropriate minister, and discuss it with him. I will raise it again at the appropriate time.

MRS. WALLACE: I wonder if the minister could tell us whether he's the man responsible for that act or whether it's the Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: It is in fact the Minister of Finance. I'll be happy to convey those comments to him. We do some other forms of licensing. I think the member's point is well taken: as we review the licensing we do, I think you are asking us to bear in mind that there are some unusual and casual cases out there and not to club them to death with licence fees.

MRS. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I had assumed it was Finance and had my remarks filed under that portfolio, but I didn't want to miss my chance to deal with the vegetable growers who now have to pay a licence to sell product off their own farm.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the committee has established at this point the licensing and what is available to us under this vote.

MR. LEVI: I'd live to give the minister an opportunity to get on the record about the scanners and the co-ops, because co-ops are under this vote. I did speak to him before. One very large co-op has purchased scanners and paid for them. There's a letter on the way to him. Perhaps you could tell us the status and exemption in this particular category.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: May I thank the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam for his courtesy in drawing this concern of his to my prior attention. The moratorium in respect to scanners applies only to the supermarket grocery stores. I'm happy to confirm that the co-ops and co-op food stores are excluded from the moratorium. The policy ground for that is very simple, co-ops being the voluntary getting together and conduct of business by members of the co-op along lines they choose. Therefore, if a co-op, through its normal democratic procedures, wishes and prefers to utilize this kind of technology, that's their free choice and they are free to pursue it.

Vote 47 approved.

On vote 48: rentalsman, $3,685,441.

[ Page 5435 ]

MR. LEVI: I won't be very long on this. I have a number of colleagues who want to speak on it. But I do want to have an opportunity to answer the minister's observations, particularly about my views on rent control versus his views on rent control.

First of all, I'll put to him the realistic situation that he enunciated yesterday. He said that by the end of this calendar year, some 45,000 new homes will be built. That's very good. Mr. Minister, I wonder how that's possible when you've got rent controls. We have rent controls. One of the first arguments that somehow we've got to demolish rent controls, which the Fraser Institute or any of its confreres have ever been able to produce, is that the facts demonstrate that rent controls inhibit the production of housing. Certainly the minister defeated his own argument somewhat yesterday. He's said it before. If we're going to have a record housing year in the midst of the rent controls, how does he explain that?

Yesterday he outlined a number of measures which the government is utilizing in respect to assisting people who are under pressure because of increased rents. One of them was the question of review. The minister may recall that yesterday I mentioned the case of an apartment block in Vancouver East where the rent went from some $325 to over $600. That group of people did, in fact, apply for rent review and it was granted. The landlord was ordered to impose only a 15 percent increase as opposed to something that was pretty close to 100 percent. However, the landlord decided to go to court. He challenged it, and that was set aside. The upshot is that those people there owed some $200 in back rent. Seventy-five percent of them had to leave, because they couldn't possibly cope with the almost 100 percent increase.

It's all very well for you to talk about rent review. Yesterday I said to the minister that if he was prepared to consider putting a rent control level on the non-controlled areas — at a level of $450 to $500, as we suggested last year — the rentalsman has in his office a computer which contains all the relevant data on nearly all the living accommodation in this province. He can tell us almost at the push of a button exactly what the situation is. He said last year — I discussed it with him — that they found that, apart from some anomalies, the average rent in the non-controlled area — those units built after January 1, 1974 — was about $450. The renters were already in serious trouble last year; they're in twice as much trouble today.

Had the government brought in some kind of control at that time, that would have saved an enormous amount of pressure on the rentalsman's office. At the same time as the announcement of the policy on rent review, we did not have the increase in staff. I would say to the minister: right now with the problem you have, you should give serious consideration to funding the existing storefront operations — there are some others to set up — so that they can take some of the pressure off the rentalsman's office. It's an enormous pressure. We know that you know the facts. There are some 35,000 telephone calls a month. The survey also showed that 10,000 calls weren't even getting through to the switchboard. You should start looking at how you can give some relief to the rentalsman, not just by adding staff or by making use of the very valuable service that was available in 1975. We had storefront operations to take up some of the incredible pressure, and they are under a lot of pressure right now at the rentalsman's office.

Regarding the on-again, off-again policy on rent control, which the hon. minister ascribed to myself, we brought in rent control at a time when we felt we needed it. We made moves with regard to rent control up to 1975. You people have been in government six years. We'll talk about on-again, off-again policy. You started out in the campaign in 1975 by saying you would never take rent controls off. Then in 1978 you took them off without supplying any information on the situation to do with the vacancy rate. By 1980 you amended the Residential Tenancy Act, which created enormous pressures for people and also for the rentalsman.

A couple of months ago the minister was talking to the realtors in Victoria, and I think he was quoted as saying: "Rent controls are gone, gone, gone, like the dinosaur." At that stage of the game, we were under the impression that the government was going to continue with a policy that the previous minister had said, and the one previous to that. They said we were going to get out of rent controls. That started in 1978. Up to two months ago, that was the impression of the public. Now the minister stated yesterday that we're not going to get out of rent controls. That's an on-again, off-again policy. I ask very specifically what we can expect up to last night at 6 o'clock, and what we might expect today?

Don't try to find holes in the policy that we've talked about. I've said that you've got to bring back some form of rent control at some levels to stop the problem which exists today. I can't emphasize that too much. You've done it with the scanners. If you've done it with the scanners, then you'd better take a look at the problems people have with rents. What of the people who just had to get out of the apartment block because there was an increase of over a hundred percent? What are they going to do? Not only that, but they've got to come up with the extra money they owe on the allowed rent by the courts.

Yes, the landlord has the right to go to the courts after he got the rentalsman's decision, and the courts ruled against the rentalsman, and those people are out on their ear. You spoke yesterday about what is available. SAFER is available to a certain category of people. The SAFER budget and the SAFER involvement is not all that impressive. It's never reached 20,000. GAIN? What are we talking about now? We're talking about people who have a restricted income. Then you talked about the tax query. Those aren't the kind of things which apply to the problems which exist for a large cross-section of our population. As I said yesterday, it's no longer low-income people who are suffering under this problem. There are working people who are suffering, and who can't find the wherewithal to meet these large increases. That's a now problem.

Certainly to put the lie to the argument that the rental controls somehow inhibit the construction of housing accommodation, as I said in the beginning, just look at the minister's proud boast that there are going to be 40,000 units. I asked yesterday who was going to live in the 45,000 units. Nothing that you said yesterday indicated that there were any programs available to make it possible for anybody in this province, whose income was less than $45,000 per year, to live in one of those houses you talk about.

Yes, I agree with you that we've got to have housing stock, but that's down the road. The problems of mortgage rates.... Ad hockery in terms of rent controls is exactly the same kind of ad hockery that exists in the investment and banking area. One month we're up to 18.4 percent; three months later we're down to 14 percent. Don't tell me that rent

[ Page 5436 ]

controls are such an inhibiting factor, or even more so than the cost of money. My gosh, that's an ad hockery — up and down. That's not in the minister's bailiwick, although the government should be using some pressure to talk to the bank and to the Minister of Finance and to that Wizard of Oz down there who keeps changing the bank rate.

But I keep making my point to the minister, Mr. Chairman. None of those people who argue that rent controls inhibit construction have produced one fact to show it, regardless of Dr. Block's pictures of Hiroshima and New York and the empty buildings. I've been on two forays with Dr. Block — once on television and once on a radio program. We get into the same argument, but there are no facts. His great solution to removing rent controls is pile in and pour in a bucketful of public money to subsidize the rents for the people who can't afford to pay them. And who would we be subsidizing then? The landlord.

So having answered the minister's question as he requested I do, we're looking at a now situation. You tell us how all these people are going to deal with the crisis now, and think about what you've been saying over the past three months. You inherited a policy from a predecessor who was adamant that we were going to get out of rent controls, and you exercise pretty well the same opinion. "Gone, gone, gone," you said, "like the dinosaur," and yesterday you told us that they're not gone; they're staying on. Your solution to all the problems that people have with rents — and there are thousands of them — is: "Look at SAFER and GAIN." It's as though everybody who's got a rental problem is over the age of 65. You say they'll get a tax credit, and you say they can defer the payment of their taxes. We know that; that was a program the previous government brought in. That doesn't help people who work and young people who are trying to get going; that doesn't offer any solution to those people.

The only solution, and it's tough for you to accept it, because you will never have the staff to deal with all the complaints that are coming down the pipe, where it takes anywhere from three weeks to a month to get a situation.... If they start going to the courts we're going to have courts making judgments about the housing crisis. I haven't actually seen the judgment the judge made on it, but it's too bad when you have a rentalsman — who has a function in terms of his job — making a decision that the rent on a place in Vancouver East is too high by far and reducing it by 15 percent, and then the landlord goes to court and gets it allowed. That may be more the rule than the exception, if that's what's going to go on. That's dangerous to people who are trying to remain in the accommodation they have.

I must repeat that nothing the minister has said in his interpretation of what I've said.... We're not embarrassed about the fact that we brought in rent control, or the fact that at the end of 1975 there were some 3,500 condominiums in the greater Vancouver area that were unsold. You constantly tell us that this is what dries up and inhibits the construction market, but you used the best argument yesterday. This year, 45,000 houses are going to be built in the midst of what appears to be such a terrible thing — rent control. Don't tell us about New York. I don't want to know about Hiroshima; I want to know about Vancouver and all the areas where people are suffering because of rents. It's on your head. Don't start using the Fraser Institute airy-fairy policies. They haven't come up with a thing.

I don't know whether the minister asked all the financial people, en passant at the meeting he had with them three or four weeks ago: "How is it we're building so many houses this year? Is it because we've got a Socred government?" We were told a couple of days ago that all the investors are scared to death the NDP is going to come back.

You have not made the argument. You have failed in making the argument about inhibiting construction so you now have to go to the solution; and the solution now is for these people who live in accommodation where they're literally being taxed out of existence and where they have no controls over their rents....

I'd be interested in the minister reacting. He asked for these comments, and I'm giving them to him.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: I'm just delighted to have the chance to comment on a couple of the points raised by my good friend from Maillardville-Coquitlam.

First I want him to appreciate, as I know he will, that through the course of these debates I have not — nor do I propose to — referred to any of the material of the Fraser Institute, New York, Hiroshima or Dr. Block. I give him that pledge. I propose to talk about this very difficult problem on the basis of my own material and philosophy. I can assure you that I shall not be otherwise upsetting the afternoon of the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam by referring to Dr. Block, the Fraser Institute, or tales of Hiroshima or New York City.

I'm awfully glad that my good friend raised the question of the recent conference we sponsored on new techniques in home financing, out of which a quotation was attributed to me about rent controls "going the way of the dinosaur" and being "gone, gone, gone." I'm delighted to have this chance to say that I took the precaution of having all those proceedings transcribed. I'd be very happy to ship a copy to my friend. For the record, at no time have I stated that rent controls were going the way of the dinosaur, or would be gone, gone, gone. I'll happily furnish you with a copy of that. In politics we often wonder where quotations come from, and I think we accept the fact that they may be erroneously quoted or fictionally invented. Normally that doesn't bother me too much; it seems to go with the territory. But in an area like rent controls where people have very severe emotional worries and apprehensions, I do take exception to that kind of fictional creation. I don't suggest that the member is responsible, but I'm awfully glad I have a transcript of those proceedings.

But more importantly, may I say that in the course of that day, when we wound up we had an open plenary session, and the builders, developers and lenders there had some things to say about rent controls and rental construction and so forth — there again on record in that transcript, Mr. Chairman — first pointing to rent controls and the worry about expanded or extended rent controls as one of the chief holdbacks and drawbacks to their not being involved in a bigger way in the production of rental accommodation. They also spoke at length about the thing we discussed yesterday, the on-again, off-again nature of government policies, preferring and stressing the need for clear, permanent, simple policies and investment guidelines.

Now, Mr. Chairman, my friend raises an interesting point. He says: "Look, you've got all these wonderful housing starts; they're surely the very defeat of your argument, because how can all this be happening if rent controls are so bad?" But with the greatest of respect I'd suggest that the reverse is the case, that those figures indeed support my point

[ Page 5437 ]

of view and should cause the member to re-examine his. First of all, to the degree there are record levels of housing starts, and some rental accommodation starts, I think they are because of the clear, simple, direct and non-expansionary attitude that this government is taking toward rent control — its emphasis on the supply side. But, you know, Mr. Chairman, within those figures there is not enough housing production being devoted to rental accommodation, in my view, as opposed to non-rental housing stock, and we have to get, within those production figures, more and more construction going on the rental accommodation side.

You come back to those who normally build, develop and invest in those and you say: "What will it take to get more of you building more rental stock?" I'm sure my friend knows the answers: a non-expansion of rent controls, a permanent return to capital cost allowance and some relief from high mortgage interest rates. I was just reading the Kamloops paper from Saturday; a local builder-developer is quoted in the Kamloops Daily, page 6, as saying: "Developers aren't quick to build rental units, because of rent controls." I'd suggest that is one very substantial difference in the climate — and the member is right; he spoke at length yesterday; it's a very sensitive and sophisticated investment climate out there these days. To the degree potential builders of rental accommodation feel or are worried that the trend is going to be toward expansions of rent controls, rental accommodation and construction is less likely to happen, and to the degree they can be sure the government is going to attempt to maintain a supply philosophy, we'll more likely encourage builders to come into the market.

In 1973, the last calendar year before the previous NDP government brought in what was then a fairly heavy-handed rent-control system, the number of apartment units under construction, according to CMHC, was 11,567. A year later, following the introduction of what was then, relatively speaking, a fairly severe rent-control system, those construction figures fell by a third, to 8,676. With respect, Mr. Chairman, those kinds of tangible figures in the recent history of British Columbia would tend to support the argument of the government on this point. It seems to me that that evidence suggests that if we expand the rent-control system, we're going to see that kind of fall in construction, which was historically the case here.

So we disagree, and we lay emphasis on the supply side. There is no question, Mr. Chairman, my friend is right that in the very short term it would be very sexy politically, very attractive, to go ahead and expand controls. Regardless of what the member opposite might think of the amount or absence of political wisdom on this side, it would be a very easy and attractive thing to do to say: "Sure, we're going to expand controls full-bore." We happen to very strongly believe that that is the wrong way to go, if we want to see an increased — and permanently increased — production supply, supply and supply. So I think we do differ on that one, but we lay great stress on the supply side.

I appreciate the member responding to a number of the questions that I raised yesterday. I think one which I raised was the question — from his side of the aisle — to the potential builders and suppliers of rental accommodation: "What incentives do you offer under your policies and programs? What position are you prepared to take on capital cost allowance?" You've outlined your position on controls, on efforts to alleviate the impact of high mortgage interest rates to the prospective builder of apartments. So that's basically, I think, where we're at in the debate.

I would like just perhaps to close with a couple of quotations from two UBC professors who, I think, enjoy a very independent and well-regarded reputation in the field of urban housing and real estate analysis, professors Stanley Hamilton and David Baxter, who reasonably recently looked at the question of rent controls and their expansion. In a publication of the Appraisal Institute of Canada called "Landlords and Tenants in Danger: Rent Control in Canada" they had this to say: "Although rent control is intended to alleviate a housing problem, in the long run it makes it much more acute by increasing the shortage of rental housing and distorting the supply of new houses. Rent control seriously damages confidence in rental housing as a private investment, and if it continues for long enough it may destroy it entirely."

We're proud of the fact that housing in British Columbia is being constructed at record levels. As that housing is moved into and those homes are purchased, there will be tenants leaving rental premises and some easing of pressure on the vacancy rate. But I think within those figures we have to ask what we all can do to increase the production of rental housing. That's perhaps where my friend and I are differing today, as yesterday.

MR. LEVI: I'll just make a short response so that my colleagues can get in. Certainly we differ greatly. There is very much a philosophical difference. We said yesterday and have said before that the government's first tentative step into the housing market in January 1980, in which you took some $9 million to $10 million and levered it into $200 million of mortgage investment, was a way to go. But nothing that you've said this afternoon gives me any impression, having built all these houses, of just where we're going to go in terms of putting people in them. That's a very serious problem. There's the whole question of mortgage rates and the inflation factor. Those have been the serious inhibiting factors in this whole game.

In my opinion, one cannot make the argument at all. You have not made the rent control argument. However, that's where we are at at the moment. Unfortunately, I can't get it today, but I will share with the minister some other analysis of housing starts during the time of rent controls and in the period that followed.

The minister has not answered the problems of people who are renting today. That's a question. We've gone through the business of what's available to older people specifically. Really, it's a restatement, although you didn't say it, of: "Well, those people are just going to have to tough it out. We don't have any answers to that problem." All he relies on, as he says, is the production of housing and people moving from rental premises into the ownership of homes. There is no government program that would make that possible. There is no government program at the moment that deals with the crisis that people are in.

It's got nothing to do with it being a sexy proposal. Let's leave that aside: we haven't got an election right now. We've got a by-election up in Kamloops, but you guys aren't planning to call an election for a couple of years. Let's deal with the very real problem: what are tenants going to do? You haven't answered that. I'm not talking about people over the age of 65 but about young people and couples earning $1,500 to $2,000 a month, some of whom are now in the most horrible situation of paying up to $1,000 for rent because they live in apartment blocks where the landlord has decided:

[ Page 5438 ]

"The sky's the limit; we're going to get away with what we can." It's happening in a lot of places. The minister has not addressed it. You might want to address it after one of my other colleagues speaks on it.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, yesterday I tried to give the minister a picture of what was happening to the community of the West End as a microcosmic view considerably close to what's happening provincially. That is, politicians seem to have abandoned the tenant in the traditional sense of having a right to exist with dignity, respect and a fair amount of stability based on reasonable government guidelines and regulations that would assist them. I won't review all of those matters, but I will just say that I was inspired to try to give the minister a picture of the matter from a humanistic standpoint as well as to give him some respect for the problem he has, being a new minister in the portfolio and having inherited a matter that was well established before he took the job as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The opposition is having difficulty penetrating the minds of the public on this issue, and certainly the minds and the intelligence of the government with respect to this question of the dilemma that renters find themselves in in the province today. Although we're very concerned, it's difficult to know how to begin. Most of us are quite experienced rhetorically and are quite able to use up a lot of time talking about matters. The problem is: can we penetrate the powers that be — the authorities — who, in fact, can deliver some solutions to the very serious, critical problems that tenants are facing?

I recall the Hotel Stratford situation — it was just a few months ago, when this minister was appointed to the cabinet. That's the Hotel Stratford in Chinatown in the downtown Vancouver area, a 151-unit facility which housed permanent tenants. Strangely enough, although many of these tenants had resided in that facility for some 20 years, or an average of eight to ten years, they were not protected under the Residential Tenancy Act of British Columbia by virtue of the fact that they were residing in a hotel — a facility regarded as transitory and not licensed for rental accommodation as such. Representations were made to the minister to proclaim the appropriate section under the Residential Tenancy Act, which had been recommended for amendment by the rentalsman's office. To my knowledge, that is one of the few sections that is yet to be proclaimed. I believe it's section 44(b), but maybe it's another section. In any event, had it been proclaimed, it would only have been a partial step in the right direction; but it would have provided some protection in the meantime, until proper facilities could be obtained for these residents to ensure that they received the same protection as persons living in other rental accommodation.

The story of those people living in the Hotel Stratford is, unfortunately, not a very glamorous or successful one. In fact it was a very tragic story. I have received a letter. There are just two cases that I would mention. The story has been before the public for quite some time now. This is one of perhaps hundreds of such facilities that are being demolished by legal means through receiving permits for demolition from the city of Vancouver. Although it was not demolished, the Hotel Stratford did receive a permit for renovations. In light of the fact that none of those tenants were protected under the Residential Tenancy Act and had no guarantee of tenure, they were given immediate notice. In other words, it was a sudden death situation. I understand that that particular landlord by his own graciousness — if you could call it that — gave them 30 days, which he was not required to do by law.

I've had some report on how two people have done. Mr. Lucy Schmeaduch, a very confused and disabled elderly person, has only been able to find a room at the Hotel Europe, which has become a flophouse featuring lots of drugs and violence. Another one of those old gentlemen, Alf Knudson, a retired workingman who lived at the Stratford for 20 years, is at the West Hotel, where bathrooms are not accessible to wheelchairs. Until local workers find him a portable toilet, each call of nature requires a three-block trip by wheelchair to The 44, which is a club for — you might call them — displaced persons and refugees within their own community who are suffering the punitive measures of governments with very little social conscience and who find themselves sort of down and out or more or less at the bottom of the ladder in the area adjacent to Gastown and other parts of the lower downtown Vancouver area.

There are many stories about individuals who are suffering from the effects of a wanton disregard for the disturbing of fairly stable communities and living situations, by the lack of regulations that are humane and recognize the need for planning and consultation with local social planners and other authorities who have the responsibility for maintaining some kind of cohesion and community identification throughout the province.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

My colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam has been attempting to rebut some of the remarks made by the minister with respect to the value of rent controls as a device that would protect affordable housing in light of the fact that there are not sufficient vacancies available in that category to accommodate most of the people in need of housing who are not only on fixed incomes.... Quite frankly, just about everyone is on a fixed income, including most of us in here who have no outside entrepreneurial activities and have to rely on incomes that we can anticipate being pretty consistent throughout the year. We too are dependent on economic curves and are not in a very good position to adjust, should things get too far out of kilter.

The rent controls, as I attempted to say yesterday, were brought in by the administration between 1972 and 1975 as a temporary device, recognizing that there had to be a rational approach to managing the housing situation as a social resource. In other words, we disagree somewhat, philosophically, on the value of housing as a necessity in life. We think that there are contrasts to be made between housing and other values that we enjoy in this society such as automobiles, extra cottages in some nice resort community, being able to have two or three television sets in your home and so forth. Generally housing has to first be seen as a necessary and vital part of everyone's lives — certainly in our society. Therefore we treat it the same as we would treat our natural resources in the ground, forests, coal, water resources, animal life, etc. We treat it as having to require serious management planning in order to ensure that it accommodates the people.

That's all we're asking the government, recognizing that philosophically we're somewhat diametrically opposed in terms of how to solve the problem. Nonetheless, we're intelligent enough to realize that problems can be solved in a multitude of ways. What we're asking is: how does the government intend to deal with the crisis that presently exists? Not in the long term alone; certainly in the long term, paralleling something that is happening to deal with the

[ Page 5439 ]

emergency situation today.... Because I don't think that you can sell people who are suffering the idea that one day you'll be able to help them. They have a right to seek solutions and satisfaction immediately, to relieve the pain and discomfort that they may be experiencing.

Rent controls unto themselves are not a solution. They are only a means to an end. I suggest to the minister that the government does not appear to be absolutely honest in what it is suggesting about leaving rent controls in place. I would like the minister to set the record straight. He stood up yesterday and said that there is no plan, on behalf of his government, to change the status quo, that they are going to more or less leave things as they are with respect to the rent control situation. He said that they were concerned about supply of housing. He reiterated: "Supply, supply, supply is the basic policy and way in which this government intends to resolve the housing situation."

But as I said months ago, rent controls are in fact being and are virtually removed today. I'm going to ask the minister for statistics — if he has them available, and if he hasn't got them I'll ask if he will indicate to the House when he will have them available — to show for the House's edification how many units existed, let's say, a year ago. One year ago, how many units were under rent controls? How many units were protected under that ceiling? Is it $300? It doesn't matter, because you have an automatic inflation factor of 10 percent every year, and it doesn't take very long before it's out of whatever category you established. How many of those homes protected under rent controls at $300 have ascended as a result of the 10 percent allowable annual increase? How many exist today still under controls, and how many will be out of controls immediately, next month, or the next month, or the next month, because of the 10 percent?

What I'm suggesting is that you can leave the status quo because one of the former ministers of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Rafe Mair, made quite sure that there would be an escape hatch over a period of time, and all the government has to do is sit pat and there will be no control whatsoever; not one single unit will be under control. Because only the units built before 1974 were ever under controls in the first place. Any units constructed now are not under controls, I believe, until about five years or so. So in effect, there are no controls in place that are of any value to anyone, and that's the whole point. The controls are a device that can be used. The minister is concerned about stimulating the economy, or giving some incentives to those developers who indicate they cannot manage without some kind of government assistance. We never know about those, because they never show us any books; we do not require that they show us their cost projections in terms of construction, or the margin they require, in terms of occupancy percentages, in order to see what they can and can't live with. I would say that there are very few investors in rental accommodation, who would invest hard-earned capital, probably borrowed, on speculation that they would be able to jack up the prices in a short space of time and recover their investment overnight, who would invest capital on the basis that they had to have 100 percent occupancy. In fact, I doubt if any would invest capital on the basis that those units — of whatever size, whether a 10-unit, a 100-unit, or a 200-unit apartment block — had to have 100 percent occupancy at all times in order to realize a proper return on their capital investment. I doubt very seriously if that exists.

Now, Mr. Chairman, you and I know that in Vancouver the vacancy rate is zero. In fact, it's less than zero; there are people standing in line for places to stay in the affordable category. So how is it that even under rent controls it is justified for these landlords annually to charge 10 percent, which is legally allowable? I don't believe that they need the 10 percent in the first place. I never did believe that they needed it, and I have always suggested that we should have some kind of rent review commission which would require them to bring all of the information and put it on the table under some kind of tripartite system where you have somebody representing the tenant, the landlord, and the government, or whatever combination of a committee you would suggest, that would find out the true costs.

It's about time we fought inflation by taking some responsibility, rather than catch-all 10 percent that permits inflation to run rampant. I'm not talking about that kind of rent controls. You see, in some cases, you may need 15, or 20 percent; in some cases you may need 1 or 2 percent and in some cases you may need none. But I would suggest that most people who invest their capital are trying to get as good a deal as they can, and if possible they would like to break even at 40 or 50 percent occupancy. They don't need 100 percent. When you get 100 percent you're making nothing but money — windfall profits. The situation that we have in Vancouver and throughout this province right now is just that. The situation is crushing, and the governments do nothing. They are indifferent because of dogmatic, doctrinary attitudes about what services the public should have. They're always prepared to intervene and to show their muscle when it comes to helping out people who convince them that the free enterprise concept, the laissez-faire approach to economic activity, is beyond reproach and deserves some status that is etched in stone and cannot be tampered with. We all know that that is incorrect. Nonetheless, most people are led to believe that that's the way it has to be and that's the way it is. It's tragic.

Fm going to read a letter from a person who I certainly wouldn't have considered a year ago to be on the poverty line. I wouldn't think that someone paying $701 a month on July 1, 1981, was on the poverty line — in terms of the kinds of people we're concerned about. If they were paying what we considered to be a normal rent factor — 25 percent of their income for rent — that person would be making close to $3,000 a month. Nonetheless, this person writes: "I wish to make you aware of a case of gouging the public. I have an apartment — one bedroom, one den — on Beach Avenue in Vancouver. My rent was increased on March 30, 1981, effective July 1, 1981, from $701 to $1,250. That's a 78 percent increase. The owner is Hollyburn Properties in North Vancouver."

This particular complainant says: "My husband is severely handicapped after a stroke and is in a special home for the handicapped." She states that they are on fixed pensions; they have an old-age pension and the Canada Pension Plan with which to meet these obligations. Obviously they are paying some money out of their savings as well. She goes on to state that this increase represents an extraordinary hardship and that she herself is severely arthritic. She is asking us to please help.

I'm sure that this is someone who at one point in time considered herself beyond the need for intervention by government, her MLA or any advocate in the community. Anyone who was paying $700, $800 or $1,000 a month a year ago

[ Page 5440 ]

probably felt that they were free-enterprisers and had no problem — that it was a good philosophy that those poor bums who can't pay should move out. Now we're finding that 80 percent of the people are in that category. It's a very serious situation. We're not talking about people on social assistance and welfare. We're talking about people who have worked professionally, retired and have the right to live with dignity and respect. They should not be subjected to invasion with impunity by profiteering speculators with government sanction — and that's exactly what they're doing.

I'm having difficulty trying to penetrate the government's intelligence — I'm sure they have some of that someplace — but the matter is serious beyond imagination. As one member of this Legislature who, fortunately, is still able to live relatively secure in my home that I've been paying for for some 30 years, I'm very lucky. As one of my colleagues expressed yesterday — I believe it was the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) — even the members of this Legislature, who with their indemnities and expenses are earning something like $35,000 a year, would be unable.... That's provided we get the increment of 4 or 5 percent. Mind you, that's 6 or 7 percent below the national inflation average, but we have to demonstrate that we're prepared to suffer to make our point. Nonetheless, I would suggest that very few of us would qualify for a loan today at the interest rates that are being asked. Very few of us would be able to buy a home costing much more than $80,000 on the salary that we have, unless we owned a home already and had a pretty big down payment of, say, $40,000 or $50,000. If you're buying a home for the first time, you're in serious trouble. That includes all of us in here. If we're not on the poverty line, then I'd like to know what the score is.

A lot of people out there making $20,000 or $30,000 a year ago thought they were doing okay. I know quite a few professional people who are starting out, working for the Ministry of Human Resources and other places, who were quite proud to receive their degrees a year ago and got their jobs. Now they're making $18,000 or $20,000, some $22,000. They'll never see the light of day. They'll never be able to realize what the Premier promised in 1975.

Talking about the Social Credit Party, Mr. Bennett is quoted as saying: "We will make a commitment that every British Columbian will have a home within the near future. Social Credit believes that every family in British Columbia has the right to own a home and the land under it." I don't know if there's much point in elaborating on that, because I think that has about as much validity as the Premier's promise in the same year when he said they wouldn't remove rent controls. I've already told you that rent controls don't have to be removed. When you've got an escape hatch, it'll remove itself in time. That's exactly what is happening. I would like the minister to bring those statistics to the House, tell us how many rental units remain under rent controls and project one, two, three, four or five years down the road and tell us how many units will still be under rent controls in that time. I suggest there will be none.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I suggest that those people in my constituency, for instance, who are paying right now $300, $400 or $500 a month, barely being able to make it on fixed incomes and who are being held under siege by economic conditions with which they have absolutely no control — all they're getting is indifference from the government — will be unable to find accommodation anywhere in the lower mainland in five years. I predict that in three years nobody in the West End will be paying less than $1,200 to $1,500 a month. Even the hovels and sleeping under the bridge will cost you.

That place is being taken over by a conspiracy of former NPA aldermen in the city of Vancouver with Social Credit philosophy and Social Credit indifference, arrogance, greed and lack of compassion and concern for people. I know those are strong words, but I think the evidence is there to verify the charges that I'm making. I don't make them frivolously, Mr. Chairman, on a matter such as this. I believe that when I take my seat or walk out of these chambers, I'll still have to write these people and tell them I've made a speech. I've talked to the minister and to the public. I don't even know if the media will cover this, because I don't think they even see this as the big issue that it should be. I don't think they're even concerned. I'm talking about real people and the things that a real government would care about. But we can't get anywhere on it.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: He's quite correct, Mr. Chairman. I will go so far as to say that I don't deal in personalities. You'll notice that I am a very reasonable person who is totally objective and who looks at things on the basis of the material and information before me. I try to leave individual personalities out of it. I can say that I am not attacking that hon. minister over there, whom I respect and consider to be a decent person. I've seen him on the site quite a few times. In fact, I thought he was going to move from Vancouver South to Vancouver Centre because he was in my riding so much. One of the things that disturbs me is that he is an experienced and articulate man, and there are very few people who are going to win debates when he stands up, believe me. The man is knowledgeable in his field. I'm asking him to put that all aside — learned though he may be — and take a look at the problem that is facing us and maybe give the kind of leadership that that Social Credit government has been lacking for so long. Certainly he does not have to become a victim of the BCRIC syndrome, the same as the rest of those people over there. Surely he can divest himself of the Bennett touch and do something constructive and responsible and with a sense of decency for a change. We don't have to have everybody who joins that cabinet getting locked up into the death-wish that that Premier seems to display at all times.

I think it's time that somebody over there listened. This is what I'm appealing to the minister to do. Pay attention and throw caution to the wind. I'm taking a risk myself, because if he takes my advice, you know he's going to do very well. He may not be in the cabinet long, but he'll do very well. We've listened to those people trying to justify all kinds of things. You tell me, Mr. Chairman, what the most important thing to do is. Should we establish housing for the people of British Columbia — senior citizens, handicapped persons, families that have been displaced from the West End? You don't even see children anymore. They've closed down all the elementary schools. Most of the people that come in there are imported from outside of the riding, because they're not known to live in that area. They're destroying the constituency of Vancouver Centre as far as the ordinary demographic mix that we've know for so long. I'm saying to that minister: come out front and do something on behalf of the people. We

[ Page 5441 ]

don't need a $10,000 production by Mr. Achilles de Heal to give the government a polished image through some kind of canned formula they got from Hollywood. We don't need that at $10,000 a production plus the cost of making the production — buying TV time and competing against national activities like hockey. They're trying to tell the public that they're something they're not. Spend the money on the people; that's the best way to do your image. We don't need over $20 million for publicity and promotion of political biases on behalf of the government anymore. We don't need to be insulted with respect to human dignity and decency in this province by having the government allocate $73,000 for the dissemination of information with respect to human rights in this province either. That's a bit of an insult in light of what they're spending millions on.

I'm saying that the rentalsman's office is a sham. What can he do? He isn't getting any money or support to do anything. I'll tell you one thing: he'll be out of work if he's going to be concerned about controlled units, because there won't be any in a couple of years. What's he working on? Is he keeping statistics? For what purpose? The game is over as far as tenants are concerned. I honestly do not know what tenants will do in this province. What senior citizen tenant can afford to pay $1,250 a month? That's ridiculous, and it's not going to stop there. It'll just keep on going because there are no controls on these units. Maybe it will be $2,000 or $3,000. Believe me, both you and I know there are people who can pay $3,000 a month. I'm sure there are many of you over there who can do it, and at $4,000 or $5,000 it wouldn't make any difference. I'm sure several of you are driving gold Cadillacs. I bet you there are quite a few over there driving very expensive cars, and it's no problem. You probably trade it in every year, and maybe you're getting it on some kind of an expense account in the first place. But we're talking about the ordinary people out there, not those of you who have learned how to exploit the political system and take advantage of it to your own ends. We're talking about the ordinary guy on the streets. Eighty percent of the people have become ordinary. Last year it was only about 30 or 40 percent. It'll be 100 percent pretty soon. Everybody is going to become ordinary, and nobody will have any place to stay. Everything will be luxury, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time under standing orders has elapsed, hon. member.

MR. BARNES: That's a shame, Mr. Chairman. I think I could get leave of the House to continue forever on this. I don't think there's a person in the place who would deny me the right to continue making my remarks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that would take a substantive motion. You have every opportunity to continue on the debate under vote 47.

MR. BARNES: Do I hear any noes?

AN HON. MEMBER: No!

MR. BARNES: That must have been the man from Omineca (Mr. Kempf), the only person who is totally indifferent and insensitive to anything.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, under standing orders another member must be recognized. The hon. member for Dewdney.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Mr. Chairman....

MR. BARNES: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. In light of the urgency and seriousness of this matter, I wonder if the member for Dewdney would be kind enough to yield to the second member for Vancouver Centre in order that he might complete his remarks,

MR. CHAIRMAN: That would be entirely up to the hon. member for Dewdney who the Chair has recognized.

MR. MUSSALLEM: If it had been a pressing matter when the member could not speak again, I would have considered it, but the member can get up and speak at any time during this debate. There is no limitation to the number of times he can get up, but the rules call for.... A man of football hero stature like him knows that he should play by the rules, and I'm sure he wouldn't want to do otherwise.

It was a very impassioned speech, but it's marvellous to get into passion totally blinded to the facts that exist. Rent controls are the culprit in the matter of the charge of housing. Let me refer this House to the situation in 1972 when the previous government was in office. We're dealing mostly with Vancouver and the heavily populated centres of British Columbia. In 1972, before the days of rent control, there was a vacancy rate in Vancouver of 3 percent to 4 percent. In the apartment districts of Vancouver South and the West End, many signs of "Apartment for Rent" were out on the lawn, but suddenly the situation changed. The NDP came into power, and the first thing with the socialist theory is to control everything. One of the issues that came down was rent control, and rent control is one of the culprits in this entire issue.

Our government has a history of building facilities and homes for people — rental accommodation. I again have the privilege....

Mr. Chairman, I do not know why I spark the hon. member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King), but whenever I get up to speak.... This is the second time he's brought me a note. If you'll permit me, I'll read this to see what he has to say. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, rent controls are the culprits. I can refer you to a time before 1972, when we built many facilities for senior citizens. The rents there are still at the rate of $75 to $150 per month. This is the system without controls. But we developed a system of building homes and building houses for people. The minister himself stated that there are 45,000 units under construction. and the only answer to this problem is the building of rental accommodation. Under our system, this is being done, but rent control is a negative system. It just stops the builders from developing, and I believe that we must develop and encourage the builders of rental suites in this province. That is being done by that minister, and there is no point in us considering going back to the old system of rent control.

I remember very well, when the NDP was in office, bumper stickers which said: "Will the last person to leave British Columbia turnout the lights." There would have been plenty of places to rent if that party had been in power for another year. There would have been places to rent every-

[ Page 5442 ]

where, because that's the ghost-town syndrome. With our expanding economy today, it is difficult to keep up the housing; but it will come with the principles we are developing at the present time. I believe that the theory of rent controls is wrong, is disastrous, and will lead to nothing but the closing up of construction being done at this time.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, I think that I can conclude my remarks very quickly now. However, further to what I was saying, I just wanted to say that in addition to that one example of a senior citizen living at 2061 Beach Avenue — the property owned by Hollyburn Properties Ltd. of North Vancouver — another person wrote to me, and after her greeting she says: "Please help. My rent for July, 1980, was $358 for the first month I was there. As of February, 1981, just a few months ago, it was $422." That's 18 percent from the time she moved in, and she says she has received another notice a year in advance — which is very generous of them — that she'll be paying $650, nearly a 100 percent increase from the time she moved in.

Mr. Chairman, when does it stop? What about stability? Must everyone be in fear of being removed? We have opened the floodgates on the tenants. This is a pure and simple war against the tenants. It is a deliberate attempt to destroy these people. I said that it was a conspiracy; there are those among you who may think that's a little strong. But when you take a look at how it was just ten years ago in the downtown area, where you once had a network of community amenities, where the demography reflected a true Canadian atmosphere of mixtures of cultures, races, classes, of institutions, churches and schools.... The noise factor was down. It was a community adjacent to Stanley Park — something that we're benefiting from today because of the foresight of those legislators in those days who saved that park. You can believe there would be highrises higher than those Douglas firs if it were left up to people such as those who had the NPA for many years — that's the Non-Partisan Association.

The committee is addressing a matter that I'm afraid has been shunted aside too long. I'm asking this one neophyte minister — although in the world of debate and the world of affairs he is certainly no neophyte; he is new, and he has jumped into something that he did not create — to have the integrity and strength to resist the limited, myopic vision of his colleagues in cabinet. I hope he will fight this matter to the very end to try and do something for the people, because this is a matter that I feel should be on a non-partisan basis. We have fellow Canadians and British Columbians, and we have people who fought as frontier people. Many of those senior citizens who can no longer afford to live there were the ones who developed and created that community. I think that out of common decency and interest in the rights of these people...to be able to stay in that place should be guaranteed and ensured.

So when the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) suggests that rent controls are incorrect and that you have to give incentives to developers, and many of these devices that have been used by the Liberal government and many other parties who see capital as our god, he must understand that it is not good enough to just rely on the principle of supply and demand to take care of public, social requirements. We know full well that there are many people who can never compete successfully in a capitalist system. We know for a fact that with the invention of the chip and all the other electronic devices that are coming into place we will be finding more and more people displaced by automation and other devices and techniques that are happening as a result of our progress without reference to the people. We are allowed to proceed without reference to anybody. We can invent and create all kinds of schemes that will screw up this society, this culture — the techniques and methods of industry and everything else that we use. All I'm saying is that when someone comes and tells me that these principles are greater than the individual they are supposedly serving, I say balderdash. It's not true and it should never be true. We are here to ensure that whatever happens in this society, we look after the people themselves. They are the number one resource. This is not what is happening.

So I can't stand for any academic explanations of why the people don't have homes. I want them to have some place to stay, and at a rate that they can afford. Does the minister not realize that these people have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary? Anyone that's being trampled over has a right to defend themselves. They have a right to stand up and say: "No. No more. I'm not going to take it anymore." I think that's what you're provoking them into doing. Most of them are law-abiding citizens and probably have never even heard of the expression "civil disobedience" before. They probably wouldn't even want to entertain it, but I can tell you that more and more people are going to have to. It's not a case of wanting to. They're going to be pushed over the edge and they will have to. They're going to have to do something. You won't do anything but tell them: "Don't worry. You can always find someplace else to stay. The West End and the downtown core is going to become a playland for me and my friends."

That's exactly what you have in mind with your Transpo '86, B.C. Place stadium, convention centre proposal and all other kinds of schemes which are going to destroy the core of that community. It should never have been hit so hard or bombarded by intruders without reference to their needs and without planning and consideration. If anything is worth anything, it's worth patience, time, consultation and planning. You don't just go in there as though you're an expert in carnal knowledge, which is exactly what you're doing in this case, by moving in on these people brutally. It's a form of rape. That's all it is. You're moving in on these people, taking away their homes, displacing them and making them refugees within their own community. You have the gall to say: "There's nothing we can do." I think that they have the right to stay right where they are, and you're going to forcibly remove them from their homes. You're going to sit back and say that there's nothing you can do and that that property is owned by that company or this company, and they can do what they want to with their property. I say that's hogwash, and you know it.

Those people should be indignant and angry. They should fight. Unless you do something, I'm going to be one person who is going to recommend that they use every device that they have at their disposal to fight back — every legal means, and pressure on the rentalsman. If they don't get their homes looked after the way they should and if repairs are not done the way they should be, I'm going to recommend that they don't pay. They'll challenge the landlord by saying: "Take me to court. I'll pay the rentalsman. Let the rentalsman fight." We're going to have to start fighting back if you don't look after the people. I think that it's gone far enough.

You show me where there is a capitalist who would invest his money in anything in which he doesn't get some kind of a

[ Page 5443 ]

guaranteed margin of safety. He's not going to invest in an apartment block that he has to have 100 percent occupancy for. No way. That would be stupid. Even as a former social worker, I know that. I'd want at least 5 percent running room, and I can guarantee that most of them are making their money back at 40 or 50 percent occupancy. It's not the situation that is being painted. This is why I say that it's a disaster. It's a crime.

This is a big field. I haven't addressed all of those questions with respect to the rentalsman's office, because I figure that they're secondary to the real problem. We aren't here really, in my view, to entertain each other with long speeches of no purpose and concern. I'm saying that I'm here on behalf of those people who are suffering. That's my main concern. I'm not saying the Social Credit government is incapable of solving the problem; I say they do not have the will or desire and are basically against the people. I'm not saying the socialists or anyone else are the only ones who can solve the housing problem. I'm saying you're not committed to it. When you're committed and you care, you'll bloody well solve the problem.

You're sure going all the way to try and save your image, but you won't do the things you could do where you wouldn't have to spend that money. You wouldn't have to spend the money if you did your job. That $20-odd million you're spending, at $10,000 an hour to get BCTV time to promote yourselves and to propagandize so that you can stay in office, you could be spending on constructing housing, except that you are against it. You are doctrinaire and dogmatic about it.

And this philosophical thing. You're not doing it because you say: "We can't do it because we don't stand for those principles." I say that these are people. What about their principles? What about their right to exist? You say: "That's too bad. They'll have to find some place." Well, I can tell you they won't be staying in the high-rent areas of downtown Vancouver or even in the surrounding areas. They may even have to move out of the Fraser Valley within five years. That's what's going to happen. We're going to have a new class, a new breed and a whole new game.

It's a sellout by that government, the same as they're selling out our natural resources under the ground and in every other respect. Now you're selling out the people, the last resource you have. You don't have sense enough to realize that you need their belief in your willingness to be just and fair. You're not being that, and there's nothing that minister's going to say that is going to satisfy the members on this side of the House, other than some kind of action that will get some changes and relief for those people today.

With respect to that member, as I said earlier, you just got here, but you're here and your eyes were wide open when you took the oath of office and said you would do your best on behalf of the people of British Columbia. I hope you will give us some answers and not speeches.

MR. GABELMANN: The last time I was in this position and you were in that position some things happened that won't happen again, Mr. Chairman.

It's with a very real sense of absolute futility that I take my place in this debate. I think what would be more useful would be to spend our time out there trying to persuade people in the community that there are two philosophical approaches to the rental accommodation crisis and the crisis in housing in general, that this is our position, the government has put their position, and you should choose. For us to try here in this Legislature to persuade the minister or his colleagues to reverse their dogmatic, ideological, philosophical, right-wing, old-fashioned, capitalist view of housing is absolutely futile in my judgment.

Each of us on this side of the House — and if there were a will, every member of this Legislature — could stand up and repeat horror stories ad nauseam. I don't intend to do that at length today, nor do I intend to make all the philosophical arguments. That debate will take place in the election campaign — the sooner the better.

Before I make some other comments, I want the minister to answer one question for me. I'm going to describe something which happens frequently. This last incident happened this week in terms of my awareness of it. It's a true story and it's accurate. I won't name names, but I will, privately, with the minister if he wishes. I want to ask him what he would do for these people. Two months and a week ago a woman and her son, both of whom are moderately handicapped — not handicapped enough for HPIA, but moderately so — were living in a rented house in Campbell River. She, on welfare and earning the allowable extra money per month, received an eviction notice, a legal, properly served — in fact it was two months — eviction notice effective April 30 — last week. She and her son spent most of the last two months doing two things: packing and looking for new accommodation. She talked to her social worker, and the social worker said: "Under MHR policy I can pay out money, but I can't help you find accommodation. That's not in the mandate. You should continue to look on your own." The two of them looked — walking, I might say, because neither of them are able to drive, if they could afford it. They looked for accommodation, and I can tell the House, and I could have told the people in question, that that was pretty futile in Campbell River these days; the vacancy rate is zero. As the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) was saying, it's less than zero, because there are people waiting who are doubled up in other accommodations. It's really in effect less than zero.

April 30 came and went and she's still in the house. The boxes are packed and there is no place to live. Today is May 6 and she is still in the house. Yesterday, May 5, she got a call first of all from the landlord, who's been kind enough to leave them five days more although he wants the place. He said: "The sheriff will be in; take your stuff and store it." Of course the woman on welfare would have to pay for the transportation of the material and the storage. Presumably she'd submit a bill to the government through MHR, so the taxpayers would pay for that, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is what she is going to do. Where is she going to live? There is no place whatsoever to live. She phoned me and asked what I could do. I said: "I don't know what I can do, but I'll make some calls." So I made some calls, including one to her social worker. And her social worker, quite properly, within her mandate expressed by the government, said: "I can't do anything about it. If she comes to me with some bills for accommodation that exceed the limits, then I'll recommend to my supervisor or talk to my supervisor about finding a way to pay for them." What I want to suggest to her when I leave the chamber later this afternoon and call this lady back is that she and her son move into a hotel in Campbell River and send the bill to MHR. Knowing what the situation is in Campbell River and knowing what the room costs are to start with, if she can get a room for under $35 a night — for the two of them probably in the $40 range — she'll be lucky. Knowing the accommodation situation,

[ Page 5444 ]

how it's progressing and how much worse it's beginning to get, she may be in that hotel for a long, long time to come at $30 a night, if she can get it — $1,000 a month.

Why would the government — as they are doing in many other cases, particularly in the lower mainland at the present time — want to pay $1,000 a month for the accommodation of this woman and her son? By all of its policies it has said: "We would prefer to pay that $1,000 a month." I don't understand that; it doesn't make sense to me; it doesn't seem to me to be good stewardship of the taxpayers' dollars. The number of people in this province who are in that situation is large; I don't have a figure; I don't know if anybody has a figure. MHR should have the number and they probably do if they search through their records. It's not only large, it's increasing. And as this summer and this fall approach, it will get nothing but worse. At least in the summer people can make do one way or another, but in the winter they can't.

When I call this woman back, Mr. Chairman, I don't know what I'm going to say to her. I can't say to her that she should go to Human Resources and ask her worker to help find accommodation, because the worker isn't allowed to do that under policy. I can't say to her that she should go to the rentalsman's office in the Consumer ministry, because it's not the function of the rentalsman's office to find accommodation for this woman. What do I say to her? And what do the rest of us say who face these kinds of situations? This isn't the first one I've faced. I've had — not a lot in the scheme of things — I would say six or seven in the last six months, which is a lot. It's an immense amount to those six or seven families. What do you do? And that's the very real problem that we face in this province. What do we get? It makes me angry — not angry enough to shout, just angry enough to cry. What do we get in the face of these kinds of personal tragedies? We get philosophical debates based on Fraser Institute reports on the merits or demerits of rent control. We don't get action from the government in assisting cooperatives or construction of public housing, in the assistance for developing programs that will allow affordable rental accommodation for low income people. We don't get programs for that. We get nothing.

I said as I opened my comments that for me it's beyond the point of standing up in this Legislature and having great philosophical debates between the two theories, because as the member for Vancouver Centre so eloquently put it, we are beyond the time for these people when theories, philosophies or politics that go on in this Legislature matter a damn. They don't. What matters now is that there be some housing for these people. What matters now is that there be some control over the rents for these people so that they are not forced to leave when their rents are suddenly out of rent controls.

Most of us have picked up this ad from the 1975 election campaign, signed by the now Premier of the Province, over the logo of the B.C. Social Credit Party: "Social Credit Will Not Abolish Rent Controls."

Rent controls are being abolished systematically and deliberately. What is the effect of the abolition of rent controls? It drives people out of their existing homes and neighbourhoods; it destroys a pluralistic society — as the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) put it so well, it creates ghettos of various kinds: ghettos of the rich, ghettos of families, ghettos of well-off singles, and it creates this new ghetto of people without homes of any kind. People are camping in friend's garages or spending months on end with friends in cramped apartments. It's an absolute disgrace. It's the greatest social policy failure on the part of Social Credit; it's more than a policy failure. I wish laws were written into the Criminal Code under which we could lay charges for that kind of behaviour, that kind of government inaction. People's lives are more affected by that kind of criminal action than by many others.

Let's put an end to the philosophical debate. Let's not argue about whether X number more apartments will be built if there are rent controls or if there are not rent controls. The fact is — and the numbers are available — that more housing was built in Victoria and Vancouver in 1976 than in 1980 when rents were being decontrolled. To be precise, these are the exact figures: in Victoria in 1976, the year after we were defeated, three years after rent controls were implemented, starts on rental accommodation were 3,100 and a bit; last year, according to Lands, Parks and Housing, there were only 1,160. Not much more than one-third as much rental accommodation was built in 1980 in the city of Victoria as was built in 1976. The government, in its ideological uptightness, argues that it's because of rent controls, and that if we didn't have rent controls we'd have more rental construction. It's absurd, because since 1974 rent controls have never applied to new construction.

If the minister wants to get into a cute argument with me about the mood and the feeling of investors about, well, there might be rent controls in this province.... The record of both parties is that new construction isn't under rent control. It probably should be, but the record is that it wouldn't be — it isn't; it wasn't with us. It should be in some areas, and one area is affordable housing. There should be government money and public money involved. If we need to use various ruses to get public money channelled into affordable housing, then let's work that out. But let's not do it so that it's just a pure tax break, as proposed by the minister. If we're going to go back to the old MURB program, all we'll really be doing is establishing a tax haven for people who don't have to spend all their money on accommodation and food.

I quoted some figures for the city of Victoria: there was roughly one-third as much rental accommodation constructed in 1980 as in 1976. In Vancouver the figures aren't as bad: in 1976 there were 8,360 new rental units constructed; in 1980 there were only 6,450 — a drop of about 2,000. Is it because of rent controls? Between 1976 and 1980 — Social Credit years — did developers and investors suddenly become afraid of rent controls? It doesn't make sense.

Why is it that when you look at the figures of housing starts, they were better in 1974, 1975 and 1976, as a result of the policies of the B.C. Housing Corporation, but then they tailed off? The reason — and this is not much of an exaggeration — we've had a housing and rental crisis in British Columbia, which has increased since 1976, is that by and large landlords and investors vote Social Credit, and tenants vote NDP. In the space of one year in the city of Kamloops, between October 1979 and October 1980, the vacancy rate went from 3.8 percent down to 0.5 percent. How many housing starts or rental accommodation starts did the government assist in developing in the city of Kamloops to avoid that crisis? When you have a vacancy rate like that, and when you have the fact that most suites are now out of rent controls, what do you think is going to happen to the cost of that accommodation? Where do you think those people are going to live — people on social assistance, the working poor, people in low-paying jobs, students? Why does this province have to wait for an election and the return of the NDP to have any solutions? Why do we have to wait that long?

[ Page 5445 ]

To move on, in the city of Victoria, average rental accommodation costs $525. Those are advertised, available rental accommodations, totalled and averaged. Taking the traditional 25 percent of your income for housing — that's probably much out-dated now; we're probably talking now about having to pay 35 and 40 percent — you're talking about having an income of over $2,000 a month. The average wage is $1,600 in this city. So how many people in this city are able and eligible, under the 25 percent formula, to pick up these suites that might be available?

MR. LEA: The free market will look after it.

MR. GABELMANN: Yes, Adam Smith is in his heaven and all is well with the world.

We on this side of the House could go on if we thought it was worthwhile, and spend any number of days — probably any number of weeks — debating this most critical problem. As I've said several times now, I don't think we will do that. I don't think we have any ability on this side of the House to persuade that side of the House that the people who finance their campaigns should be deserted. I expect fully that the government will persist in its decision to ally itself with those people in our society who exploit the poor, the working poor, and who now in this crazy, mixed-up economy of ours are beginning to exploit average and ordinary working-class families.

We haven't talked at all yet in this debate about the impact on students returning to universities and colleges in the fall. Where will they live in the city of Vancouver, the district of Burnaby and other parts of the lower mainland? If they do find a place, how will they pay for it? The YWCA in Vancouver operates a housing registry which deals with rental accommodations. In March 1978, there were about 200 inquiries about rental accommodations. This March, two years later, inquiries are over 1,200 — a sixfold increase. The Red Door Rental Aid statistics, while computed somewhat differently, lead to the same kinds of conclusions. All the evidence is in, whether we talk about the YW housing registry or what experiences the Red Door has every day. All the evidence is in to indicate that there are hundreds and thousands of people out there who have no affordable place to live. And the government says: "Okay, let's bring back MURBS. Let's bring back capital cost allowance." If you do that, without any reference to the kind of accommodation you have constructed, what you will have is a lot of vacancies in the $1,000-a-suite range. So I suggest you be very careful about any programs of capital cost allowances.

What are we going to do, Mr. Chairman? What are we going to do about this crisis? I suspect nothing much will happen. I've talked to many friends in the community, who ask why the NDP is not hammering on the government more about this. Why aren't we forcing them to have emergency debates? Why aren't we doing this, that and the other? My answer to them is very clear. What would be the point? There are two distinct philosophical attitudes in this province, one represented on this side, the other represented on the other side of the House. The public can choose which of those two philosophies is best suited to their needs, and they will have that opportunity soon, I hope. We will then get an opportunity to solve this terrible rental crisis in British Columbia.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, Alberta has no rent control but experiences the same problems with zero vacancy rates, lack of accommodation, and too many people for too few units. This is clear evidence to everyone that rent control is not the reason why we have zero vacancy rates. Yet people who are opposed to rent control keep using that same tired old argument: the reason there is a crunch in housing in British Columbia is that we have rent control. The evidence is there: in another province which has no rent control, they are experiencing exactly the same phenomenon we are. I don't know what you have to do to finally get it across to these people who keep blaming rent control for the vacancy rate dilemma that there is no correlation between the two.

I'm working on the assumption that the minister did not know that fact, and so I am bringing it to his attention now. Alberta, a province which has no rent control whatsoever, is also experiencing a shortage of housing. They too are going through the housing crunch. So I'm hoping that when the minister stands up to deal with this, he will not trot out the same old tired arguments that there is a zero vacancy rate in Vancouver, in Burnaby, in the lower mainland, and in British Columbia, because of rent controls. The evidence is there. If his brother didn't tell him before, I am certainly telling him now, and he can check that out for himself.

Specifically, I would like to talk about the situation in Burnaby, Mr. Chairman. In case you're wondering if there are a number of people in Burnaby who live in rented accommodation, I'll just give you a couple of statistics. Some 50 to 60 percent of the housing in the Stride Avenue area, which is within the constituency of Burnaby-Edmonds, is rental accommodation, and 40 to 50 percent of the housing units in east Burnaby, in the northeast Burnaby end of the riding, as well as in other parts such as Lyndhurst and Cameron, are also rental units. What we are experiencing on the increase in east Burnaby and in some parts of south Burnaby is the demolition of older homes and the assembling of land for the development of rental accommodation. Some of it is going into the development of condominiums, but most of it is going into rental accommodation. So it's becoming a major problem.

The other thing that we have in Burnaby is a large number of people on fixed income. There is a large number of senior citizens living in that particular part of the community. There is also a large number of people who are on handicapped pension, and people in receipt of income assistance through the Ministry of Human Resources. Both of these are on the increase: the development of rental accommodation, as well as the influx of people on fixed income. There's a real crunch and a real necessity to ensure that rental accommodation is affordable. What we are finding — here I'm using the figures from the minister's own department that come, in fact, from the rentalsman's report — is that between 1978 and 1980 the kinds of increases that we've been experiencing in the Burnaby area have been between 30 percent and 50 percent. Nobody on a fixed income — no senior citizen, nobody on the handicapped pension and nobody in receipt of income assistance through Human Resource — gets a 50 percent increase. Not even the SAFER benefits increase that rapidly. It is very clear that people on fixed incomes are really feeling the pinch as a result of these kinds of increases in the rental situation.

If I can name one place in particular, Humphries Court, at the corner of Kingsway and 16th in Burnaby, has notified its tenants that their rents are going up 25 percent to 30 percent this year. One-bedroom suites, for example, are going up from $360 to $450 a month, plus utilities. Of course, no one

[ Page 5446 ]

has any control over utilities. All of us have to pay the Hydro, regardless of what it is. There is no public hearing for us to decide whether it's fair or unfair. It's a cost that we have no control over. Here again I'm saying specifically to the minister, not just on behalf of people who work — I think that certainly the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) spoke very eloquently on behalf of working people — but specifically on behalf of people on fixed incomes, like senior citizens, people on handicapped pension and people in receipt of income assistance through Human Resources: it is not going to be possible for them to keep up with these kinds of increases. It is really a matter of grave concern to these people, and to me as their representative, that rent control is eventually going to disappear, and that they're going to be left at the mercy of people who are willing — for one reason or another — to increase their rents by 25 percent to 30 percent. That's my first plea.

The second thing I'd like to bring to the ministers attention is the dilemma of disabled people and people on handicapped pension in finding rental accommodation. One of the things that disabled people have asked for — this year in particular — is to be covered by the Human Rights Code. This request has not been granted to them. So what they're finding is — in the past as now — that people are refusing to rent them accommodation, for one reason or another. Landlords and landladies will say, "We'd rather not rent to somebody who appears to be physically or mentally handicapped," as the case may be.

I have one example of a letter which was sent out by the Red Door Rental Aid Society to one landlord saying that they were not going to list his unit with their society, because he was refusing to accept or even consider people who had a physical or mental disability, in terms of wanting to be accommodated in his unit. One society can do that, but what happens to the other disabled people who are not protected by Red Door? Since the Human Rights Code will not protect these people, I'm going to raise it when the minister's estimates are up for discussion. But in the meantime there are a number of disabled people who can live on their own, who are trying to live on their own and who will find accommodation in a building which is accessible. There will be a suite on the ground floor, for example, and they can get in and out the widths of the doors with the wheelchair. But the landlord or the landlady will just say: "No, I'm sorry. I'd just as soon not rent to you. I don't like having a disabled person around. I'm not sure that you can manage on your own," and this kind of thing.

I would like to know what the minister is going to do about that. I would be very interested in finding out whether in this Year of the Disabled, for example, we're going to see some radical and innovative steps taken by the minister and his ministry on behalf of the disabled people of the province.

The other group that I want to specifically talk about, who are also the recipients of discrimination in housing, is single-parent mothers. I raised this issue with the minister last year. I don't think this minister was the minister last year. For that reason, I'd like to raise it again. There is no law in our society that protects people from being discriminated against in housing because they are parents. There is no legislation. The Human Rights Code does not prevent a person discriminating against another person because that person has children. A restaurant can refuse to serve a family with children. A landlord or landlady can refuse to rent accommodation to a family with children. There are all kinds of areas in which a family with children can be discriminated against. I recognize that, as the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the minister probably knows some other areas where this occurs.

It's a very major concern to single parents and their children. They have a number of handicaps. They are usually on a small income, so that cuts down on their choices in terms of accommodation. When they do find accommodation that they can afford, to then be told, "We're sorry, but children are not allowed in this building; this is an adult-oriented building," or something to that effect, is a real hardship on this particular group in our society.

There are a number of newspaper clippings. I'm not going to take the time to read these. I certainly have letters that I would be very happy to share with the minister. The single-parent or double-parent family, where you still have units that are discriminating against people because they have children, is another issue that I would like the minister to look at.

Finally, the whole problem of discrimination against welfare recipients still exists. It is still very much in evidence in some of the rental units in Burnaby. Sometimes you will run into one person who is discriminated against on all three counts — as a welfare recipient who happens to be a single parent mother or father with children. All three strikes are against that particular person. Discrimination against people because they're on welfare, because they're single parents, because they're parents with children or because they're handicapped is not covered by the Human Rights Code. The religious and racial ones are covered by the Human Rights Code. These are not covered by the Human Rights Code. I think it's an important issue and a serious enough situation that the minister should be aware of it and maybe begin to take some steps to have that form of discrimination removed.

MR. LAUK: I'm holding in my hand another example of the crisis situation in Vancouver's rental accommodation market. An ailing senior citizen with no income other than old age pension and Canada Pension faces an increase of 80 percent in her rent, effective July 1, 1981. I sent a copy of the letter to the minister whose estimates we are canvassing today. This involves an increase in real terms of about $550 a month.

Here's another letter that I'd like to read to the Chairman. "As a senior citizen living in the West End, I am keenly interested in the Rent-control Act." This came in April 25, Mr. Chairman. Most of the correspondence that I'm going to use in the next couple of days will be dated recently.

It's difficult to read the writing. It's obviously a person with arthritis. It continues to say:

"There will be a change to raise the level of $300 per month for a one-bedroom apartment. The rent control should be raised to a higher level, say $500 per month. So many of us find our rents going over the $300 level and are worried, not knowing if we will be able to afford whatever the landlord will raise our rent to. It does need serious consideration by our provincial government because thousands of senior citizens are affected and cannot pay rents over $300 per month and more. So what will they do?

"I think if the Rent-control Act were raised to $500 per month it would help us, even at the present 10 percent level of raise. Our rents will eventually reach $500 a month. Many of us will have to move.

[ Page 5447 ]

Many of us will have to leave the city. Please do what you can to help us continue to live in this beautiful area of the city."

Mr. Chairman, although this does not directly concern the minister, it gives you an example of the kind of nonsense the government is coming out with. There is no solution to the dozens of letters, some of which we've brought to the minister's attention. We know for a fact that many more citizens, at our request, have been writing the minister describing their own positions with respect to rents. These are not phony cases. The minister can come with me any day of the week and visit these people and see who they are, if they're still living there. They're real cases involving real people, as my colleague from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) has already indicated.

The glib, slick statements by the minister are not a solution to the problems that these people are facing. I suspect that the minister — as I've always thought of the minister as being a person who does not want to hurt people — just does not understand people who don't have as high an income as he does. He doesn't understand that people go without, that people are suffering. He, like some of the others on that side of the House, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It's hard to reach people like that who are in sensitive ministerial positions, conducting the affairs of the province in a way that we would hope would serve the poor as well as the rich — even the not-so-rich middle class, lower class and working poor.

There are constant letters flowing to the minister. The only response is that the problem is with rent controls and if we eliminated rent controls there would be no problem. My friend from North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) has, I think, very eloquently dealt with that argument. It's a sham.

And this hack that the Fraser Institute has got bounding around the countryside, this lackey, keeps on expressing the interests of his economic masters, that rent control is the cause of the shortage of housing, when we all know it's a lie, we all know it's nonsense. He continues to say that kind of thing, and he holds up pictures of Hiroshima after the bombing and says: "This is what's going to happen to your city if you have rent controls." He calls himself a professional economist. Dr. Brock — is that what his name is?

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Oh, Block. I had visions of the War of 1812. But it's Dr. Block. I think it's more of a descriptive term than a name. Dr. Block has been giving that argument about rent controls across the province for some months now. It fits in perfectly with this government's program. I suspect that there may have been a little bit of a discussion about the enthusiasm Dr. Block has been displaying over the past two or three months between him and the government, between Block and Block Bros. and the other developers and owners of huge tracts of urban land in and around Vancouver and elsewhere in this province.

Much more intelligent, knowledgeable and reputable economists, in this country as well as others, would say that Dr. Block is full of nonsense and that Dr. Block is a blockhead, because he doesn't listen to reason, he doesn't listen to the facts and he doesn't examine in a scholarly way the various factors that contribute to housing shortages and high rents, as, I might say, the C.D. Howe Institute does in one of their most recent publications on rents, in this case for the elderly. The factors entering into an increase of rents and a cause of the housing shortage, they say, do not anywhere in Canada include the problem of rent controls, because in the areas where rent controls have been instituted other programs have been complementary with them, and therefore in a complementary way avoid the disadvantages that rent controls could bring if rent controls alone were imposed on the housing market. That has been obvious; it's been clear; it was understood perfectly before Dr. Block came along and began disseminating the propaganda of his economic masters.

I would not call Dr. Block a scholar or a professional economist; I would call him a lackey or a propagandist. I'm reminded that three years ago — still during the term of office of this government — conservative economists, including the Fraser Institute, from whose loins springs Dr. Block, said: "We're blaming government housing incentive programs for glutting the market. The programs are creating an oversupply of housing." This was a Canadian reference, but it included a study of the major urban centres of the country. These same conservative economists were saying that three years ago. I didn't see Dr. Block's name attached to those quotations, but Dr. Block is associated with the same progressive-thinking Fraser Institute that made those comments three years ago.

Now the programs have expired, prices have doubled and rents in unprotected areas are bounding up 50 to 75 percent a time, I'm reading from the Globe and Mail on that report. The same economists are now suggesting that rent controls — which in any event affect only older buildings — are the cause of the housing shortage. Why the minister will rush into the arms of the Fraser Institute and Dr. Block so enthusiastically for comfort and sanctuary I don't know.

The minister keeps on saying that he hears the voice of the investor, and he's very sensitive about whether or not the investor is going to build housing in the province of British Columbia. We must not do anything that might cause a bit of a fright with these investors. After all, they're very sensitive people says the minister, and we can’t really complain about the person that has a $550 rent increase. We can't bring to the attention of the investor that this person receives only an old age pension and a small Canada pension, and has to pay an increase of $550 per month for her place starting July 1, or that she has osteo-arthritis. We can't explain that to an investor, because he might be sensitive enough to go and invest elsewhere, like in Tongatonga or something. He might be skittish when he hears about such distasteful things involving ordinary people. Oh, says the minister, he feels very comfortable with the facts and figures, the profit-and-loss statements he deals with, the black and white of the boardroom, but he doesn't want to hear about the woman with osteo-arthritis who has a $550 rent increase. We're going to have to send this woman's letter to the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) and have her purified. We're going to have to purify the letter; we can't have it reach the eyes and ears of this government or these very sensitive investors that the minister occasionally seems to refer to in his speech. We can't tell the investor about how people are calling for an increase in the level of rent controls; it's going to destroy the investor's confidence in the province of British Columbia.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

There are several things wrong with that, but the basic thing wrong with it is that there is no historical evidence whatsoever to support the minister's statement — none,

[ Page 5448 ]

anywhere at any time. In other words, the minister is like so many old Tories. They stand in chambers across the country and say: "Well, it's never worked before, so let's try it again." That's the philosophy of these old Tories. "It's never worked before; let's try it again." And that's what they're trying now. It only works in fooling people, but it doesn't work in practice. You don't encourage investment in housing by giving away everything including the kitchen sink. You don't give so many incentives that you bleed the public treasury dry to get a few units of housing on stream. That's nonsense. That's just shovelling money out of the back of a truck, and it's not sensible. The NDP said: "Be sensible. Use all the tools available to the government: reasonable rent controls — raise the level because landlords are pushing that level too high. Tax the profits away from the builders of condominiums and luxury housing in this province who are bleeding the economy dry. Take that money and build social housing and rental units throughout the urban areas. Have the B.C. Housing Corporation re-established to landbank and build housing. Provide not farmland to one's friends to build luxury condominiums, but provide slope-land, like in Burke Mountain, not used for forests or farmland, for housing. Use all of the Crown land and land available in the city areas which could be landbanked and purchased by the Housing Corporation. In cooperation and joint venture with municipalities and private corporations, build rental units."

If you want to have tax incentives, Mr. Chairman, create tax incentives for people to build rental units, not to take the tremendous profits for condominiums and luxury housing people have taken. On the CBS program "60 Minutes," it showed where you could buy a rental apartment for $10 million and convert it within a year or so to condominiums, and you'd end up making $20 million profit. The situation in Vancouver is not very much different from that, which puts greed on a pedestal, which this government likes to do. It's putting greed on a pedestal to say: "Don't attack these sensitive little investors, because they'll rush away and build someplace else." A responsible government will take action, not throw up their hands and say: "My goodness, the sensitive little investors are going to run away. We can't do anything."

This minister has arrived in the nick of time. This minister, who has held so much promise, is now sitting in the chair of that ministry to preside over the worst housing crisis in the history of the province. He has the opportunity to do one of two things, and one of two things only: he can become an activist minister to provide solutions to these problems, or he can become a minister of excuses and throw up his hands and become, like Dr. Block, a paid lackey of his economic masters. He could just stand there and say that he can't do anything; it's the free market system. You know the free market system, Mr. Chairman. You've heard of that, haven't you — the free market system? When there's a shortage of housing the rents go up, and when there's lots of housing the rents go up. [Laughter]. That's the free market system in this province.

We're all very familiar with the law of supply and demand. It works for people on wages, but not for people in the boardroom. I think this minister is dangerously close — I'll give him a little bit of leeway; he's only been a minister for a few weeks — to representing the worst of feudal Toryism in this country. I'll leave it to someone else to describe what the best of feudal Toryism is in this country. The very worst of that philosophy is a do-nothing, Adam Smith philosophy which has never worked. One of the problems with Adam Smith and the law of supply and demand and all of that is that in economy there is no such thing as loss. I remember my friend from Nanaimo said one year that if we took every economist in the world and laid them end to end, it would be a good thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was Dorothy Parker.

MR. LAUK: Was it Dorothy Parker, or Dorothy MacDonald?

Maybe that would be a good thing. Economists promise much more than they can deliver. They promise that they have answers that they never do have. They think that the study of economy is the study of some sort of science, when actually the study of economy is the study of human psychology and politics. The study of economy is who's got the advantages and who doesn't. Who's got control over the political power in a community and who doesn't? Who's got the money? Who inherits the department stores and who doesn't? That's the study of the economy of Canada. This jiggery-pokery of the law of supply and demand, the propensity to save, it's unfortunate that the extraneous factors of the interest rate hikes are related to the price of silver, and all the rest of this gobbledegook. Actually you and I both know that people are in the boardrooms pulling the strings and making it happen. There is no law or science involved in economy. It's very simple. The factors, say the C. D. Howe Institute.... And these are economists; they will be the first to tell you that they're not scientists. They're professional advisers of a system that they'd like to see major structural changes in. C. D. Howe Institute isn't a communist front. It has a reputation across the country.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: I'm sorry. Did someone say it was? The minister said it was.

The C.D. Howe Institute is an internationally known institute, unlike the Fraser Institute, whose suggestions have been broadly accepted as being reputable and based on the widest possible sources of information.

What has this minister done to alleviate the problems? Absolutely nothing. He said to leave it to the free market system.

Here's another letter from the West End:

"I understand that the Social Credit government plan to remove rent controls. As you know, the housing crisis is reaching critical proportions in the lower mainland. The vacancy rate is very low. This really affects the poor, the handicapped, the people on fixed incomes, the minimum-wage earners. Now somebody should represent these individuals.

"I am a 68-year-old lady" — and she gives her name — "living in the West End" — and she gives her address — "and I just had my rent raised from $701 per month to $1,280 per month." This is an increase of 80 percent. "I think I speak for all the renters of Vancouver who ask you to fight on our behalf to maintain rent controls. The alternative would be disastrous, and we will appreciate your effort in this matter.

"Cordially...."

And then there's the signature.

[ Page 5449 ]

Another letter — and this is not in the West End, it's on West 2nd; it might be in the west Point Grey riding:

"As a constituent in your riding I wish to voice my opposition to the lifting of rent controls. Already one third of my net income is being paid for rent. I can hardly save any money. I cannot afford to buy a house. I cannot afford to move 30 miles outside of the city where rents might be cheaper. I disagree with the government's rationalization that lifting controls will encourage competition and inspire builders to construct new apartment buildings. The high prime lending rate discourages such building. I begin to feel that the government in Victoria is just plain insensitive to the common person's needs."

Amen to that. And this gentleman signs off by saying to the NDP: "Please plead the cause of the average renter."

You know, Mr. Chairman, there are all kinds of letters here. Here is a very lengthy one that was sent to both my colleague for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) and I about a certain block on Jervis Street. This information, I believe, went to the minister's predecessor, although this letter is dated March of this year.

Here is another letter from West 2nd Avenue. I just give you briefly the kind of problem: close to a $100 rent increase for this person, on a bachelor apartment. The point I'm trying to make is that the problem affects people. It's not a question of sitting down at the Union Club in a stuffed leather chair and arguing economics and political philosophy. People are being moved out of places they've lived in for many years. People are suffering. People have to pay these rents. I would like very much for Dr. Block to live on a simple Canada Pension in the West End of my riding. I would like for the minister to do that too.

I suppose the typical response from this minister will be like the one I got from the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot). He was sent a letter from the executive of the Young Women's Christian Association. The letter said, among other things: "Please make available money for low-income housing to meet the needs of people most affected by the housing shortage, to prohibit discrimination against children in housing, and to encourage anti-demolition bylaws...." The reply of the hon. Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing was four paragraphs on the housing initiative program announced in January 1980. There was no answer to any of the questions. The letter ended by saying: "I must commend the YWCA for the very valuable service it provides to those seeking living accommodation." That's your colleague. That's the kind of minister we're dealing with in housing and, I'm afraid, the kind of minister we're dealing with here as far as rent controls and rental accommodation is concerned.

Mr. Chairman, I will close my remarks by calling upon the minister to act and act now. My colleague and I from Vancouver Centre do not raise these issues to gain political points. We're a long way from a general election in this province. We're raising these issues because vast numbers of people are suffering in our constituency, and it must come to an end. We recommend the four-point program that I outlined, which would be supported by the New Democratic Party. We recommend it to the minister. We ask him to forget the ancient masks and costumes of the feudal Tory past that still plague him and accept a new, progressive idea that will allow for a new approach to government involvement in providing rental units and protecting renters, particularly in urban areas.

MR. MITCHELL: I hesitated a minute there. I thought maybe the minister wanted to rise to answer something. If he did, I would yield my position.

I'd like to cover two particular issues with the minister. I feel that both come under his ministry. Number one is a problem that was raised by my colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi). That's the problem affecting those people living in housing or rental accommodation built since 1974. Last year, in our wisdom, we passed an amendment to the legislation which allowed a review process to be set up under the rentalsman that would bring in a policy of reviewing the rents that were proposed by a landlord. This Legislature and the government have passed this legislation, which in effect gave the two offers: the offer that the landlord proposed, and if the tenant felt it was excessive, he had an opportunity to submit what he considered a reasonable rent. This is new legislation: it only came into effect this year.

What is developing — it started in Vancouver, and today it is in effect in Victoria — is that the landlord submits his rent, the tenant submits what he considers a fair rent, then the rentalsman must choose one of the two proposals.

Where the rentalsman has accepted the tenant's rate the rent has been set at that, but what is happening is that the landlord, with his legal advisers, is now challenging this legislation in the court. He is now taking into the courts the jurisdiction the Legislature and government have given the rentalsman. I would not deny a landlord or anyone else their rights to the court, but I feel that if the rentalsman has made a decision then the cost of appealing and contesting the day in court should be shared, dealt with or handled by the rentalsman's department.

What is actually happening is that when the tenants, after going through all the rules and regulations and submitting to the rentalsman what they consider from study to be a fair rent, receive a decision to roll back some of the excessive rates, it is now taken completely out of the hands of the rentalsman and becomes an issue in court. Many tenants who are not used to the day-to-day battles of court, hiring lawyers and being served orders of the court, and who cannot afford to take days off to attend interviews with their lawyer and then attend court, are backing off and are again at the mercy of the landlord.

I feel that if this ministry has brought in legislation, recommendations and policies.... As my good friend the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) says, there are certain laws and we should play by those laws. I feel that if there are going to be laws and we are expected to play by these laws, then there should be some assistance from the ministry. I ask the minister to give serious consideration, where there is a review or where there is a challenge of the rentalsman, to that cost being borne by the ministry and not falling to the individual tenants as is presently happening. I know this is new legislation. I fully realize that it is a new procedure. It wasn't considered by the House when it was passed. Maybe in the wisdom of the government they felt that this would be a fair method, the two-offer system. Until such time as it is replaced by an amendment of some type, by a better way of establishing a cost analysis of an apartment, we are stuck with that ruling. I feel that that legislation should be supported by the ministry and not left on the shoulders of the tenants.

There is a second issue that I would like to bring to the minister's attention. I spoke on it in the House last year. I intend to continue speaking on it and fighting for it. If we

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don't get it through from this government, I hope that after the next election we'll have a better chance. It is the problem of mobile-home owners. Every one of us knows that under the legislation a mobile-home owner who is renting a pad in a mobile-home park is in the same position as any other renter living in an apartment or house. Because of rezoning or demolition of the park, the tenant receives a notice to vacate of 119 days. Even in this tight rental market, if all you have to move is your furniture, chattels, car and children's school, that is possible. But I put to you, Mr. Chairman, in all sincerity as an individual, that when you are living in a mobile home established in a park and you are considered in the same light as someone who has only to move furniture, I feel it is ridiculous. Maybe when the legislation first came in trailers were lumped into the same category as an ordinary renter. Maybe in those days a trailer could be hooked up and towed away, but today trailers are processed as mobile homes and modular homes; they are manufactured as a home. There is no way on God's earth that you can consider the manufactured home of today which is established on a trailer park in the same manner as the trailer homes of ten years ago.

I ask the minister for the protection of people who have invested $30,000 to $50,000. At the last trailer show in Vancouver there were manufactured homes for $60,000 to $70,000. A person erects a home of that price in a park, builds his sun-deck and tool-shed, plants his shrubs and lawns, and then the government in its wisdom considers that it takes him no more effort to move than it does a person living in an apartment. In the legislation last year they dropped it from 120 days to 119 days. I plead with the minister to reconsider the legislation that lumps the mobilehome owners into the same category as straight trailers, and to study the legislation in other parts of North America.

As I said, I don't want to go back over past legislation, but last year I brought in an amendment that was defeated. It asked for the limit to be increased from 119 days to one year. Over the last year I have talked to the owners of many mobile-home parks. A majority of the responsible owners of these parks said that I was very conservative: that one year is the very minimum time that must be given. Down in the States, in many states where mobile homes are a way of life, it's three to five years. When a park is zoned as a mobile-home park, there must be a minimum time limit of three to five years before it can be closed down.

I ask this government to consider bringing in an amendment to give some protection. What is happening is that there are a lot of people today, because of the shortage of rental accommodation and the high cost of buying or building a new home, who are going to the manufactured home. What is actually happening is that they are going down there, and they have no more protection. Year by year their investment will be solvent. A mobile home sitting on a pad, with its sundecks and shrubs and with some security, may be worth $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000; once they drag it out onto the highway, it depreciates in value to 10 percent.

Trailer parks that were closed down in my riding — every year I have another one close down and every year there seems to be another piece of mobile-home property — become more valuable for building townhouses, for commercial use, for strata-titling or selling as a seaside resort. In the majority of cases it's the people on low incomes or the pensioners who cannot afford to relocate. They pay $20,000, $30,000 — up to $70,000 — for a pad under a strata title act and cannot afford to stay there and must relocate. There just aren't any available rental pads in the greater Victoria area for that type of accommodation.

I'm not going to stray into the jurisdiction of the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot), but there must be some protection so that people have an opportunity to get relocated and not be pushed out on the street in 119 days. I seriously request that the minister look at these problems from the point of view of people who have, in many cases, bought a trailer and retired, feeling that this is their last home, that they will be there with their fixed pension and with all their treasures that they have moved from their other homes or apartments. They've moved out into the rural area, hoping to be there for the rest of their retirement, for the rest of their life together; and then to be disrupted and sent out onto the street.... I feel it's completely unjust; it's unfair; there is just nothing to give any logic to it.

It's not that anyone is expecting any new legislation that is not in effect in North America. The manufactured home is here to stay. The manufactured home is a step for those who are beginning to buy — for the newer homeowner — and it's also a step for those who are leaving their large home and are moving into retirement. I feel that if we are going to have that home on the market, if that is going to be a product that we are encouraging people to move into, and if we haven't an answer for low-cost housing.... We must recognize that there is an answer, but that answer must be protected with proper legislation, and that legislation can come from this ministry, and it should come in this session.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Members of the committee are, of course, reminded that the necessity for legislation cannot be debated in Committee of Supply.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, this has been a long debate, but it's been one that I, who sometimes resent long debates, don't resent one little bit. It's been about a very important philosophical divide between our side and your side; it's been about people who are being very badly hurt, which should be of concern to all sides — and I'm sure it is. It's been a debate — and I give the greatest credit of all to the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes), who made an eloquent speech and plea — about family breakup, which, with the eviction notices or the forcing of people out with excessive rents, is part of the thing. The atomization of our society and the breakdown of family bonds is part of it.

I get lots of cases in Vancouver East that come to my attention — not as many as Centre, because we have more home-ownership. But one man, who has a good job with a union wage, lives in the northeast section of Vancouver in an uncontrolled unit, and his rent increase is 100 percent. Something like $400 to $800. His family come from Creston, B.C., and he is seriously thinking that he will give up his union security in the grain elevators and go back to try and find a job in Creston.

There's another apartment building in the 2000 block of Triumph Street in Vancouver where the rent increases are fairly moderate compared to what I've been listening to at this time. One young single woman is a little luckier than some of the others. Her rent is up from $300 to $365; others are $300 to $395, and it's post-1974 ramshackle construction. There's a management ownership syndicate in the background and they have given this young woman — who works for a living and got a rent increase up to $365 — a notice of eviction because she has two cats in her apartment.

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She's had them for a long while. She keeps them in the apartment. She lives alone, but she gets the eviction notice because of two cats, even though the caretaker down below has a dog. What is really happening? Is the concern of the syndicate that owns the building about the cats or is it to force this young woman out, because everybody who knows the laws of these rental things knows that there's no review whatsoever if there's a change of tenancy. There's a bit of a chance to review the rent if you don't change the tenancy.

When the minister responds I'd like him to act.... Do I have to go over that again for the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing? I think he knows....

HON. MR. CHABOT: Throw the cats out.

MR. MACDONALD: I want that on the record. "Throw the cats out," says the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing. Throw the cats out and let the young woman remain.

AN HON. MEMBER: Would you rather have cats?

MR. MACDONALD: Well, let that be on the record. I don't think it's all that funny.

What they're doing is trying to force her out by picking on these cats who have been there for a long period of time. Then when there's a change of tenancy in that apartment, it won't be $365. It'll be $565 or something else. It's totally excessive, exorbitant profits that are being made by the syndicate that owns that ramshackle building. It's absolutely unconscionable. You don't get after the minister who is a new boy because he's just embarking on his responsibilities; he is part of a government and has to bring his colleagues along. He's asked us, on this side of the House, what we would do about these things. What is our solution? He says that his solution is more and more building. I haven't heard all of the debate, but I've listened to it either here or in my office.

Mr. Minister, one of the real tragedies of this government has been the destruction of the Housing Corporation of British Columbia, which occurred in 1977. I went back today and I looked at the last annual report of that Housing Corporation, which was originally panned very loudly by the opposition, under the name of Dunhill. It had a very competent management at the time of its death. In the last year it had brought in revenues of $19 million. It had expenses of $16 million. That's an operating profit of $3 million. Its retained earnings were about $6 million. It had about $30 million worth of work-in-progress. Some of that was land acquisition, which they were servicing. Some of it was rental accommodation being constructed. Some of it was rental accommodation ready to be occupied.

What a tragedy that that particular corporation was killed, because on the kind of rising market in both land and rents, and incredible housing prices that we've had in the last few years, had the Housing Corporation.... It can't do the whole job of the construction of new rental units. Nobody on this side of the House ever pretended it should be the whole thing, but it's a useful adjunct. I think, Mr. Minister, that even in the province of Alberta they would probably have a public housing corporation, and in every province in Canada. But this government, for doctrinaire reasons, killed the Housing Corporation of British Columbia. It would have done much, had it been allowed to expand and grow.

It was killed in its infancy, as a baby — infanticide by this government under the minister who is now the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis). It was killed — and I say this as a reasonable guess — at the behest of people like Jack Poole of Daon Corporation, whose profits have gone out of sight. No competition would they tolerate from the public sector. Jack Poole, a heavy contributor to the Socred campaign funds, said, "Kill it," and you killed it. Not only that, but you maligned it. The worst offender is now the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, He is responsible for housing and not only has he never said a good word about that little housing corporation, but he has maligned it, misrepresented it and talked about it as if it was a socialist boondoggle.

You killed it because it was one of the good things that the NDP had done. You couldn't in your heart of hearts stomach to allow any of those things to live. The housing prices, the cost of land and these unconscionable rent increases that my colleagues have described are the result, in part, of killing off the only public housing endeavour of the province of British Columbia. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. That Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing has been misrepresenting the past while the landlords grow rich beyond the dreams of avarice and the prices soar right out of sight of ordinary people. The big smirk appears on his face and he tells this young woman with the two cats to kick the cats out. That was a tragedy that I described: I'm not going to say anything more about it.

All I'm asking, along with my colleagues, is forget the doctrinaire thing. Because the NDP had a public housing corporation, you can't have it? I appeal to a new minister to begin to break some of these price increases by doing something in a responsible public way, which has been long accepted in all the civilized western world, everywhere but in the province of British Columbia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Although the Chair recognizes the concern of all members of the committee, it has come to the attention of the Chair that we are beginning to discuss votes that are not yet before us.

MR. LEGGATT: I see the minister wants to delay his response, and so I just want to make one very short proposal to the minister, and then I'd like to continue in debate on this. I presume it will be called tomorrow. I just want to follow up briefly with some of the things that my colleague from Esquimalt discussed on the mobile-home question. We have an emergency situation in my constituency of Coquitlam-Moody, where we have two mobile-home parks situated next to the Coquitlam town centre. Values in that have gone literally from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars overnight, or in a very short period of time. The result is that while everyone else in the lower mainland who owns housing has been seeing 100 percent increases, or increases in that vicinity, these mobile-home owners are seeing their whole life's savings going down the drain because they have nowhere to put those mobile homes in the lower mainland. There are no mobile-home pads west of Hope at the present time. I want to get the minister's attention, because I have a specific proposal I'd like him to think about dealing with the mobile-home situation, which is a crisis, emergency situation, particularly in the lower mainland, particularly on Vancouver Island. The minister saw fit, when he saw the problem of scanners, to issue a moratorium around the installation of scanners until he had a look at the situation. The problem in mobile-home pads is that the private sector and government are both to blame.

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There are now people on Kingsway selling more and more mobile homes every day with nowhere for them to go. Now government has a heavy responsibility, and so does industry. One of the ways that this emergency, where the victims of the emergency are average- and low-income people whose only chance to buy anything is a manufactured home now since the price of housing is completely out of reach.... The only way we're going to bring this emergency to the attention of government and industry is to say to industry: "A moratorium on mobile-home sales in British Columbia until you get your act together and provide pads for those people who can't find a place to put their homes."

I congratulate the minister on the move he's made on scanners. I think it was a wise and courageous move. What I ask the minister to do now is to seriously consider telling this industry that at some specific future date — give them a little bit of lead time — we are going to put a moratorium on the sale of all manufactured homes in British Columbia until the consumer stops being ripped off and we've got enough mobile-home sites so these people don't have their life's savings go down the drain. Right now they have to move somewhere up to Hope. If they're working in Vancouver, there is no way that they can commute. As a direct result of government policy, high interest rates and the housing shortage, manufactured homes are now the only form of average priced housing available to British Columbians.

Mr. Minister, I make that proposal. I hope to continue this debate on the subject of mobile homes. I make it seriously, and I hope to give the minister more arguments on the proposition that there be some point in time where the industry is warned that we're going to stop the sale of mobile homes until there are pads for people to put them on.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported a resolution, 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 6 p.m.