[ Page 5771 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 1981 (Bill 13). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Curtis)

On section 33 –– 5771

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Davis

Mr. Skelly

Hon. Mr. McGeer

Mr. Cocke

Mr. Brummet

Mr. Nicolson

Mr. Kempf

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1981

The House met at 10 a.m.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 13, Mr. Speaker.

FINANCE STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1981
(continued)

The House in committee on Bill 13; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

On section 33 — continued.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of quick words on this Hydro borrowing bill. There's not much left to say after the last go-round on it. I'm sure the whole House, the committee and just about all the people in this province are aware of the debt Hydro is plunging this province and its people into. It is a debt amounting to multi-billions of dollars; probably 54 percent of the total debt of this province is now carried by Hydro. What really alarms me about this type of debt is that often Hydro is delving into projects without any real justification studies, and when these studies are done they're not even made public. You will recall the months of painful torture we went through in this Legislature last year attempting to get the government to release the justification studies for the Cheekye-Dunsmuir transmission line, commonly called the Shaffer report.

What I'm saying in these few brief seconds under this section is that to authorize Hydro to borrow another $800 million on foreign markets at horrendous interest rates while people can't afford housing in this province.... That's where they should be concentrating their reference.

For instance, there were no public hearings on a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. It was just an arbitrary decision made in cabinet. These people over here on the Socred side sit on the back bench quietly and don't speak up in caucus. If they did, there would be public hearings on that proposed natural gas line to Vancouver Island. That's all we're asking. Why don't you take the public into your confidence? What's wrong with that? What's wrong with having public hearings, Mr. Chairman? I don't see anything wrong with that. If we're building bridges across islands and rivers and things, I think there should be public hearings as well. But this is the Hydro borrowing bill, and I really firmly and honestly believe that there should be public hearings into that proposed natural gas line to Vancouver Island. Let the environmentalists, the companies and industry lay their cards on the table. Let's see what B.C. Hydro has got to offer. How much is this project going to cost us in the final analysis? Hydro now says $301 million. I'm willing to bet you quite a bit of money –– 25 cents perhaps — that that project is going to end up costing the people of this province a minimum of $500 million.

With that, I notice our House Leader giving me a long look here, so I'll confine my remarks to those few statements. We've covered this topic on a number of occasions in this House, and I'm sure that we'll be going through it again before the end of the session, Mr. Chairman.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman. I want to say a few words about B.C. Hydro's request for a government guarantee to borrow another $800 million. The people's massive energy authority — more correctly known as B.C. Hydro — reminds me of the British male's description of the American G.I. during World War II: "He's one of our allies, all right, but he's overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here." B.C. Hydro is certainly here. It's the largest corporation by far, not only in British Columbia but in all of western Canada. It's big by any standards and it's getting bigger faster — roughly twice as fast as the rest of our provincial economy. It's expanding by leaps and bounds. So it's here, all right, and unlike the American G.I. of World War II, it's here to stay. It's here to stay because, as the latest energy committee in the Ottawa House of Commons tells us, electricity and hydrogen derived from electricity is the wave of the future; oil, natural gas and even coal will be swept out of its path.

B.C. Hydro is overpaid. Anyone who gets everything he asks in financial terms has to be overpaid. Hon. members know that we go through this legislative routine every year, and every year we see a bill placed before this House which gives B.C. Hydro authority to borrow another half a billion dollars or three-quarters of a billion dollars or, shortly, $1 billion.

We talk a good deal; we argue backward and forward. The socialists condemn this socialistic enterprise and the free enterprisers praise it — at least when they're in power. But not a word is changed in the application for more funds, not a comma, certainly not a decimal point. B.C. Hydro gets its way financially. It's off to borrow another great chunk of money from people across the continent and in western Europe, who know that the credit of all the citizens of this province — British Columbia as a whole — stands behind B.C. Hydro and its financial comings and goings from now until the end of time.

Let's be brutally frank about it. This debate, and others like it down the years, don't really mean a thing. Hydro comes to the Minister of Finance and asks, in effect, for a lot of money. Some haggling may occur between the minister and his officials on the one hand and B.C. Hydro's top personnel on the other. but usually Hydro gets its way. Its cost estimates are prepared in great detail. Who, other than those schooled in public utility engineering and finance, can argue otherwise? So the Minister of Finance comes here with another set of numbers. This year we're asked to approve an increase in Hydro's borrowing from $6.4 billion to $7.2 billion — up another $800 million from last year; up more than it will cost to put an entire light rapid transit system in greater Vancouver; up more than it will cost in current dollars to get northeast coal going in the whole of the 1980s. This much we know for certain: B.C. Hydro will be back again for another $800 million or perhaps $1 billion 12 months from now. For us, as practical legislators, on the face of it it's black or white; it's all or nothing. We may have our reservations, but we're ill-informed. We don't know much about Hydro. We don't know enough to recommend specific cutbacks. If we ask for a cutback at this stage, then the government would have to marshal its forces for a vote of confidence. Then

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we're not voting on Hydro; we're voting on whether or not the government falls. The government inevitably survives. Hydro goes sailing on with its new-found funds and very little to worry about insofar as ordinary MLAs are concerned this year, next year or, for that matter, any year in the future.

What, then, are the real checks and balances? B.C. Hydro itself has a tiny board of directors; they're mostly in-house. Either they're paid by B.C. Hydro itself or they're busy ministers of the Crown. They don't have much time to dig into B.C. Hydro's costs, its selection of new projects, its administrative competence, or its relationship with the rest of the B.C. economy. We, as ordinary British Columbians, cannot find much solace there. The government, as I have said, really gives B.C. Hydro the money it asks for. It does this by approving its borrowing authority, approving its rate increases, or both. Our B.C. Utilities Commission can't do much about rates, because Hydro has already spent the money. Its accounting is first-class. Bills have to be paid. So it has to authorize rate increases sufficient to cover all of B.C. Hydro's expenses.

The mountain moves slowly but inevitably onward. It overcomes everything in its path, by expertise, by sheer weight of numbers, by massive legal obligations, or simply by waiting the rest of us out. When it comes to borrowing it doesn't really have to prove that it is a viable commercial enterprise. The B.C. government guarantee gives it all the financial credentials it needs. We don't really have any of the normal checks and balances which apply to an investor or privately owned utility.

For example, we don't have: (1) a broadly based and business-oriented board of directors; (2) a management which has to produce a profit for the corporation shareholders; (3) annual meetings where the shareholders and the corporation can express their concerns; (4) a public utility hearing process which clears major projects in advance of major expenditures and, after the projects are built, limits the rate of return which the corporation can earn on these projects; and, finally, (5) a critical securities market which judges the financial performance of the corporation solely on its own activities.

The last of those checks, that of the investment fraternity analyzing the utility's management competence, is perhaps the most important insofar as privately owned or investor-owned utilities are concerned. B.C. Electric, which was investor-owned in the old days, always had a tough time proving that it could make a profit in the future. It had to prove to the satisfaction of the financial houses in this country, in the United States and in western Europe that it was indeed well managed, and could get its projects approved by the Public Utilities Commission of those days, could keep its rates down and could make a reasonable profit on its investment in new plant and equipment. These lending institutions were competent then; they're even more competent now. They know their business, because they are forever analyzing utilities submissions from companies around the world. They know the right questions to ask. In former days B.C. Electric had to give the right answers, because it would have to come back again and again to borrow more money for expansion. With the aid of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the publication of prospectuses, facts were available. Of course, performance was all-important. An excess of income over outgo had to be proven as likely. That's the kind of scrutiny which Alberta's investor-owned power and gas utilities have to endure today, because they're essentially investor-owned — privately owned. It's the kind of scrutiny which most utilities in the United States face. This is not currently the case with B.C. Hydro. It's not the case to the same extent with either Ontario Hydro or Quebec Hydro, because, being government-owned, their losses — if they're serious — will be made up by government. They are effectively underwritten by government and, financially speaking, can go their own way unless government intervenes.

One might well ask: what about the new B.C. Utilities Commission? Doesn't it look at financing? Doesn't it look at the so-called profitability of B.C. Hydro when the latter comes in for a prospective rate increase? The answer, for some time at least, is no. This won't happen until 1990 at the earliest. You see, B.C. Hydro has recently been directed by the government to build up an operating surplus. It's been told to match Ontario Hydro and Quebec Hydro, when it comes to its excess of income over interest payments. Their current ratio — that is, income over interest payments — is about 1.3. B.C. Hydro's is still currently around 1.1. So two things follow: one is that B.C. Hydro has to raise its income faster than its interest payments, and the other is that until it reaches a 1.3 ratio there is very little that the B.C. Utilities Commission can do about it. It can't turn down rate-increase applications. Perhaps it can tinker with them, but it can't deny the generality of B.C. Hydro's request for a general rate increase.

This may sound like Greek to many of you, so perhaps I can put it another way. Working with the government, B.C. Hydro has had the latter issue an edict to the Utilities Commission which says "hands off" until the margin between B.C. Hydro's income and its mortgage obligations reaches a certain level. This will take years. In the meantime, B.C. Hydro will be the principal, if not the sole, judge of how fast it moves to this new and higher financial plateau. The fact that it already has an AAA rating because of the government guarantee doesn't matter. It's going to be safe, safe, safe from the financial point of view, and until it's ultra-safe it's really going to set its own rates with little or no effective input from the provincial regulatory body which effectively governs the private utilities in this province.

B.C. Hydro is unlike other government-owned energy utilities in Canada. It's unlike its eastern counterparts because it's also in the natural gas transmission and distribution business. Unlike Ontario Hydro, it distributes nearly all the power it produces. In most cases Ontario Hydro sells to municipalities, and they do the distribution. It's also in the terminal railway business. With Hat Creek, it's already into coal in a big way. As the government's chosen instrument for energy development, it not only has all future water power sites covered, but it will probably be producing synthetic gas and synthetic liquid fuels from coal as well. Industries which have surplus energy can only sell to B.C. Hydro at B.C. Hydro's rates. If we ever go nuclear, it's Hydro, of course. If we eventually make hydrogen, we will use Hydro's electricity to make it. lt's Hydro this and Hydro that. It's Hydro if we want to do battle with the federal government and keep our hard-won B.C. cash at home. I can't see any end to its authority, and I can't really see how we as citizens, or even as MLAs, can do much about its momentum in the 1980s.

Personally, I'd like to see the natural gas function taken away from B.C. Hydro. I'd like to see it administered by a separate government-owned or, better still, investor-owned public utility. I'd like to see its terminal railway side merged with B.C. Rail. Then B.C. Rail could develop more effectively

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as a tool of industrial development, not only in promising areas around Prince George but in the lower mainland as well.

In other words, I would limit B.C. Hydro to the electric power business. I would also urge it to cooperate with the private sector in certain energy-related developments such as the burning of waste or refuse coal in the Kootenays, first to produce power for export, and later, when the need arises, to supply our own internal B.C. needs.

I'd like to see B.C. Hydro required to buy surplus energy from private industry. It should have to buy this energy, whether it was made from the burning of wood waste or garbage or whatever, at rates at least equal to B.C. Hydro's average cost of generation. This would make for more cogeneration for projects such as waste-wood utilization at our pulp mills. It would also give us a better idea of Hydro's costs. Finally I would allow private developers — municipalities and certain large resource-processing industries — to develop their own local sources of electricity if they could beat Hydro's high average costs by doing so. Not only would this be sound from a financial point of view, but it would also encourage the development of local industries that are processing local resources in the B.C. Interior and the far north.

I've said all these things, Mr. Chairman, hoping that they'll not fall entirely on deaf ears; I hope that they're not mere words. I'm going to vote for this clause in the bill not because I have great faith in B.C. Hydro, not because I believe the dollar figures are right, but because I don't want this free enterprise government to fall. That's the way things work in this political system of ours, but I do hope that at some future date the government will at least look seriously at two things: firstly, trimming B.C. Hydro down to size: and secondly, providing some real checks and balances on its expenditures and the way in which its high-level decision-making process impacts on the credit of the province as a whole.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, I believe we are in committee, and I would like to ask the minister just a short question before I go on with the major part of what I have to say. Did the minister table the notes in the House — as has been the practice for the last few years — on what the money we're empowering Hydro to borrow will be spent on over the next year? When the former Minister of Finance would shepherd this bill through the House, he tabled second reading notes. Here are the ones for 1979 and also for 1978. Has the minister outlined to us exactly what these funds are to be spent on?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, on Friday last, when we were debating section 33 of Bill 13, I indicated the divisions or breakdown of responsibilities of Hydro and the dollars in round figures which would be allocated to those divisions or those activities. My second-reading notes obviously stand in Hansard.

MR. SKELLY: But in any case, they weren't distributed so we would have them in our possession, except through Hansard.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Well, that's unfortunately the problem with putting together a bill like this. Section 33 has to do with raising Hydro's borrowing authority to the tune of something like like $800 million — a tremendous amount of money — and we're given only the skimpiest breakdown and information as to what the money is going to be spent on. This is almost equivalent to the largest budget areas in the main provincial budget, and yet we get very little in the way of a breakdown of how this money is to be spent. So it seems to me that it would be irresponsible of members in this House to vote in favour of this section, at least until they have a detailed breakdown of how this money is going to be spent on hydroelectric projects. Is it going to be spent on atomic power, as the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) indicated? It could be. We don't know whether the money is for a time in the future when Hydro might go into atomic power. Just what is it going to be spent on? How much is going to be spent on the Liard project? How much is going to be spent on the Hat Creek project") How much is going to be spent on Revelstoke? How much on Site C? Does the minister have the figures to present to the House as to how much of this $800 million is to be spent on which projects throughout the province? Does the minister have a breakdown of those figures?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, no, I don't have such figures readily available.

The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) is quite correct in pointing out that I incorrectly alluded to second reading. I apologize to the committee for that. The record will indeed show that at second reading I indicated we could have good debate in committee stage. I think what I should have said is that on Friday morning — as Hansard would show, and I could run through the general figures again — in response to a question by another member of the official opposition, I indicated the general allocation of the total which is proposed in this section with respect to electric generation facilities, electric transmission, and soon. That is the more correct answer to the member's first question.

MR. SKELLY: This is one of the problems we have in debating a section like this of a miscellaneous financial statutes bill. We're allocating here more money than we allocate to most of the ministries in the government, except for two or three of them. We get very little detail in the way of votes and breakdown as to what this money is going to be spent on. I think it's irresponsible of legislators not to have a detailed breakdown of these figures.

Every single year we come to this House and we vote Hydro an increase in borrowing authority ranging from half a billion dollars to almost a billion dollars. It almost amounts to an approval by this Legislature of Hydro's activities. I resent that, and I think that a bill like this should be referred to a select standing committee. Members should be able to analyze during that select standing committee procedure just what Hydro's objectives are for the coming year, what Hydro's objectives are for that borrowing authority, and the amount that they borrow under that authority. Then and only then, after the legislators have been made aware of exactly what Hydro plans to do with the money, should we vote for the increase.

Over the years it's been traditional in this Legislature that members have simply taken a look at the figure — they didn't question it very much until 1976 — voted for the figure, and then Hydro proceeded to do what it wanted with the rubber stamp it received from the Legislature. But those days are

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gone, and they're gone for this reason: our constituents are demanding from us some accountability for B.C. Hydro. They can't get it from the corporation itself. They don't really expect to get it through the B.C. Utilities Commission. So they're demanding some accountability for B.C. Hydro from the Legislature.

The member who previously spoke said he's not happy with the way Hydro is set up, and I agree with him. Although at one time he was responsible to this Legislature for B.C. Hydro, he didn't break off the transit facilities and the railway system; he didn't set up a separate gas operation. He suddenly developed this interest in Hydro after he was no longer the minister. But somebody has to be accountable for B.C. Hydro to this Legislature, and this is the only bill that's presented to us on which we have an opportunity to call Hydro to account. What do they give us? Absolutely minimal information as to what this money is going to be expended upon.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Each expenditure in each year leads to greater expenditures in following years. Hydro produced their blueprint for the 1980s. The blueprint says that in order to realize some of the projects that they have on this blueprint they're going to have to borrow an additional $16.4 billion through the 1980s. This province is going to have to incur $16.4 billion in debt in order to achieve Hydro's objectives through the 1980s — all for increased generation: generation, $9.006 billion; transmission, $3.278 billion; substations, $1.288 billion; distribution, $1.442 billion; and other, $764 million. Today we're supposed to be voting almost enough to pay for the "other." When does the rest of the money come down? This province is going to be substantially in debt as a result of the realization of this program for B.C. Hydro. As the member for North Vancouver–Seymour said, Hydro doesn't seem to be accountable to anybody. Nobody seems to be able to control the direction of that corporation. There must be some accountability in this Legislature for the direction in which Hydro is taking us, because it's going to mean for us, our children and our grandchildren a huge burden of debt that we may not be able to repay.

Everybody throughout the province is questioning the direction that Hydro is going. Increased generating facilities of increased size imply more expensive transmission and distribution of electricity. Yet Hydro is not the major producer of energy in the province; in fact they're way down on the list. Gas and oil produce more energy than B.C. Hydro, but Hydro consumes most of the money and incurs most of the debt.

I feel it's irresponsible to vote this increased borrowing authority to B.C. Hydro without any detailed statement as to what the money is to be used for, and without the Legislature having the right to approve what that money is being used for or to analyze in detail in standing committees and to question B.C. Hydro as to what that money is going to be used for. I also think it's totally irresponsible that Hydro is taking us in the direction of increased, huge, expensive generating facilities that have a tremendous impact on the economy of the province and the availability of capital in this province. It's a tremendous enlargement of the industrial strategy — if there is any in this province. It's going to have a tremendous effect on the environment of this province, because every one of these transmission and generating facilities has a huge impact on the environment. We were recently visited by the Association of Professional B.C. Foresters, who were complaining to us and to the government MLAs about the serious alienations of forest land for single uses. Most of that land is going under Hydro reservoirs and Hydro transmission rights-of-way. It amounts to a tremendous loss of production in the forest industry. This increase in the borrowing authority of Hydro is going to make our forest industry in this province more vulnerable, because of the loss of the forest-land base. There are serious implications of increasing Hydro's borrowing authority and of going to the extent of realizing what Hydro calls their blueprint for the 1980s, which involves $16.4 billion more in debt, transmission lines and generating facilities.

Other provinces in Canada, other states in the United States and national governments throughout the world have started taking another path — the path of making their energy consumption system a lot more efficient. As we said before in this House, Canada is the worst energy pig in the world. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development we waste more energy than any other nation on earth. We have to start talking more about efficiency and the way we handle energy, and save more energy, before we start talking about increasing the borrowing authority of Hydro and giving them a virtual rubber stamp to run this province into debt to the tune of $16.4 billion through the 1980s.

I challenge you, Mr. Speaker, to look at what some of the other provinces are doing. Quebec has just announced a new energy conservation program. Let me give you some of the statistics for that program, and maybe I'll send a copy of this article from Canadian Renewable Energy News, April 1981, over to the minister. They don't get it in the library, but they should. "Premier Lévesque has announced a new energy conservation insulation program expected to conserve $6 billion in residential electricity, oil and gas by 1990. It's going to cost Hydro-Québec $624 million to save $6 billion worth of energy. The program, to begin this fall, is expected to save 6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, 256 million gallons of oil and 8.4 million cubic feet of natural gas. The cost of producing the same energy at the Grande-Baleine hydroelectric complex would reach $2.1 billion, in 1980 dollars — a little over 2.25 times the total cost to Hydro-Québec of the energy efficiency program. To produce the same energy, Mr. Chairman, at the new hydroelectric facility that Hydro-Québec has on the drawing board will cost 2.25 times as much as producing the same energy through more efficient use. Each kilowatt hour saved will cost 1.5 cents, compared to 3.25 cents at Grande-Baleine.

We can produce the same amount of energy at about one-third of the cost, if we embark on an energy efficiency program. In this bottom-line government, isn't their objective to get the best possible return on investment of public money? If we can get the same amount of energy by investing this money in energy efficiency rather than in new projects — new generation, transmission, substation and distribution facilities — that Hydro has on its drawing-boards for the 1980s, which would cost us three times as much, then aren't we silly and irresponsible to vote money for those kinds of projects? I simply can't agree with increasing the borrowing authority of Hydro as long as they continue in the same direction of building monolithic generating facilities and huge transmission projects that destroy a tremendous amount of the forestry resource in the province of B.C. I simply cannot support that.

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Look at the anticipated economic spinoffs from the Hydro-Québec program. There will be $445 million in new purchasing, 20,000 worker years of employment and a total payroll of $735 million. Simply by liberating six billion kilowatt hours they are now wasting, that energy can be put into new industry and new residential development at one-third the cost of producing the same amount of energy from transmission and generation projects that cost a tremendous amount of money.

I know that the Minister of Finance is not responsible for B.C. Hydro, but if he's in the House and is responsible for presenting this borrowing-authority bill, certainly he must have sat down with B.C. Hydro directors and asked them whether this is the best expenditure of the money. "Do you really need this money to go in this direction? Wouldn't it be wiser to go in the other direction, where the energy costs only one-third as much, and we become more efficient?" Didn't the minister even ask those questions? I thought the minister represented those of us who wanted to save money, invest wisely, become more efficient in the use of our energy resources, and also create more jobs because of the spinoff effects that result. It's now known around the world. Washington, Oregon, California, Saskatchewan and Quebec have embarked on programs to use energy more efficiently. rather than become involved in these huge generation projects.

Hydro now has the Site C dam on its drawing-board, and they're going to need it. They don't serve electrical energy needs; they serve demand. Hydro is now embarked on the Hat Creek project; they say it is almost totally non-polluting. I'm surprised they didn't locate it in downtown Vancouver, if it's that non-polluting. They say they're going to need the $5 billion Hat Creek project, not to satisfy electrical need in the province, but to satisfy electrical demand. Hydro says that its mandate is not to change the practices and lifestyles of its customers by asking them to be more efficient; its mandate is to serve demand, no matter how irrational or inefficient that demand is. Hydro feels its mandate is to serve that irrational demand. An order must come down from the government to B.C. Hydro which says: "We want this province and its electrical utilities to be run far more efficiently." We want the people in this province to use electrical energy far more efficiently, because we simply cannot afford to drive our people living now and our children and grandchildren who inherit this province from us in the future into a debt from which they'll never be able to recover. Ultimately, increased debt is going to result in an increased unit cost of electrical energy. We know that it's that increased cost that's going to drive people to become more efficient, because it's the cost of energy — one of the basic elements that even Social Credit understands, because they talk about increasing the cost of oil — and electricity that drives people to conserve, especially in industrial and commercial sectors of use.

So as we go deeper and deeper into debt and the cost of servicing that debt increases, the price of energy is going to have to increase accordingly, and people are going to stop using it. As a result we're going to have an over-built situation with our dams and our generation and transmission projects. A study was done on that at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories that possibly the minister should take a look at. As that price goes up, people are going to be forced to conserve, and they're going to shut down power and become more efficient. As a result some of these dams will end up not producing electricity. They'll be wasted. Hydro will be over-built, and yet we'll still have to pay the costs of servicing that debt, even though it's not producing electrical energy that we require.

There's a serious danger involved in the program that the government is getting us involved in now if Hydro says that it's not their mandate to change the lifestyles of the citizens of B.C. or to impose conditions on their demand for electrical energy. When we end up a few years down the line with overbuilt electrical-generation facilities, after destroying the environment, diverting rivers and polluting the atmosphere, and we find that these generation facilities are now useless or producing at below capacity, the money to service that debt is going to have to come directly from the consumers. Their price of electricity is going to go up, and they're not going to be able to pay it. We have to start looking at the conservation and energy-efficiency end of the spectrum. This government has simply refused to do that.

I occasionally get these inter-office memos from B.C. Hydro. They mention that the amount of money that Hydro — and we all know what the size of the Hydro corporation is — spent between April 1, 1979, and March 31, 1980, for their energy conservation office was $2.128 million out of the total budget of B.C. Hydro. They spend $23 million a year on community relations, sending advertising and PR people around the province to persuade people that Hydro is doing a good job on energy conservation. Where they could do a good job, because we waste so much, they spent $2.128 million. That was their allocated budget. Actually they only spent $1.9 million. They underspent their budget on energy conservation, which gives you an idea of the emphasis that Hydro places on using energy more efficiently.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot vote for this section of the bill for two reasons: (1) It gives a rubber stamp to B.C. Hydro; and (2) the minister hasn't given us an adequate, detailed breakdown as to where the money is going to be spent and what it's going to be spent for. I cannot believe that any responsible legislator in this House would vote an increase of $800 million to any corporation without receiving an adequate and detailed breakdown of where that money is going to be spent, including the member who spoke before me who objected to a number of the practices of B.C. Hydro and then said he was going to vote for the increase in borrowing authority — not on a matter of principle but because he didn't want the government to fall. He's willing to spend this money whether it's wasted or not. He didn't care as long as the government didn't fall. As far as I'm concerned, if the government presents us with this kind of slipshod legislation, with this kind of inadequate detail as to how the money is going to be spent, and if the government refuses to allow committees of this Legislature to examine the accounts of B.C. Hydro, then the government deserves to fall and that member deserves to go with it. For those reasons, Mr. Chairman, you can expect that I'm going to be voting against this section of the bill.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, as a director of B.C. Hydro, I'd like to speak briefly on this particular section of Bill 13. I do so because nothing could more clearly contrast for the public of British Columbia the consequences of having a socialist government versus a free enterprise government than this particular section of the bill. I believe that the socialist press of British Columbia should print, word for word, the speech that has just been concluded by the member for Alberni. I say so because printing speeches like that, declaring the philosophy and policies, will make it clear to the public of British Columbia how false is the propaganda that has been appearing in our press for some years about how the NDP are really middle-of-the-road and there is little

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difference between the NDP and Social Credit, implying that there are not two widely separate ideologies in British Columbia today — one of which is disastrous for the future of this province and one of which consistently brings prosperity — but that it's really all the same. That is the greatest misconception that has ever been put before British Columbia. It's continually advanced by our media, in the absence of any evidence — indeed, with very clear evidence to the contrary.

We had three years of experience with that ideology. We saw the disastrous results it was having on the economy and future opportunity in British Columbia. Despite that experience and despite the kind of speech just made by the member for Alberni, clearly setting forth the policy and ideology of the NDP, we only see put forward by the media the philosophy that, somehow, there is no difference. I saw it just this morning in a newspaper editorial — that everybody was moving towards the middle and that there was no difference. They knew better in Kamloops. They know how important it is for us to continue to have power in this province.

If we were to have the NDP putting forward the policies that they espouse in opposition, we'd be lighting candles in British Columbia. We wouldn't have industrial development. We wouldn't have job opportunities in Revelstoke, Nelson, Comox and Burnaby — I suppose I should say Point Grey; I was just looking at that member, but she doesn't live in her riding. All these areas of British Columbia are sending these socialist representatives to this Legislature. There wouldn't be jobs and opportunities for them — no, sir, Mr. Chairman — if the representatives they send to this Legislature were to put into effect their policies.

That member has just said that he's voting against progress in British Columbia. He doesn't want us to have electricity in our outlets. He wants us to light candles. That's what happens when you fail to build the necessary power requirements for this province.

MS. BROWN: And you call yourself a scientist!

HON. MR. McGEER: You call yourselves people fit to govern British Columbia, but listen to what you say in the Legislature, and look at how you vote in this chamber!

MR. SEGARTY: Negative.

HON. MR. McGEER: Negative. Against progress. If you believe in progress, stand up and vote for this bill. Make it possible for British Columbia to have the very basis of industrial development. How do they think the machines are going to be run? By union members pushing treadles? Power is what runs the machinery and harnesses the industrial engine of British Columbia. And here the member has been saying, Mr. Chairman — I heard him just a few minutes ago — that if we went and built the power projects which are necessary to the future of British Columbia by implementing the borrowing authority in this bill, we would have surplus power; we wouldn't be able to use it all. What that member fails to recognize is that today, and for as far into the future as we can see, the most reliable export we have in this province is power. Like a number of provinces in Canada, we sell power on a spot basis to the United States, sometimes, Mr. Minister of Energy, for as high as 47 mills, and averaging over 30 mills. The cost of production of new power in British Columbia is perhaps 14 or 16 mills. Some comes from power dams built many years ago by debt that has now been retired; it comes virtually free and brings to British Columbia millions and millions of dollars per year, limited at the present time only by our ability to generate that power.

We sell less across the border than Hydro-Québec, Ontario Hydro and Manitoba Hydro; they do very well with power as an export commodity in Canada. Why? Because those provinces have planned well for the future and therefore are able to take advantage of what is an important commodity in the world today. People here talk about conservation — the soft-energy paths that will lead to disaster — failing to remember, Mr. Chairman, that the greatest waste we have in British Columbia today is two-thirds of our hydroelectric power, which wanders out annually into the ocean untapped and unutilized. All of that power is renewable every single year. That's waste on a gigantic scale, and when we begin to harness that free power, two-thirds of which goes out to the ocean today unutilized, we'll have the ability in British Columbia to make far greater opportunity than we have today for our young people and for coming generations by providing a sound, clean, perpetual and virtually free energy resource for our own consumption and for export.

Yet because we have a socialist group in this House wedded to a philosophy proven impractical when they were in office, we have a potential millstone around the neck of British Columbia. That potential millstone is the possibility — however remote it may seem after Kamloops — that one day there might be a government in this province that would begin to implement the kind of policies that that member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) has just enunciated on the floor of the House.

So I say, Mr. Chairman, in supporting this particular section, read carefully what that member said. Listen carefully to what those socialists on the opposite side of the House say. Reflect on the consequences of those policies and remember that prosperity can only come to British Columbia if we develop with common sense and care, but above all with forward planning, the wasted power and wasted opportunity which is in British Columbia today and therefore make certain that we do not step backwards in B.C. so that these young people who are with us in the galleries today, when they graduate from their educational system, will have had the kind of wise policies implemented by government that will give them careers and happiness in this province, and not leave them, as young people in many parts of the world are left today, without opportunity in their home country and with the need to emigrate somewhere where there are governments providing policies that will give them opportunity. We've been doing that in British Columbia. That's why people are coming here today from all over Canada and from many parts of the world. This is creating a temporary housing crisis — which we'll solve. But that's happening because bills like this particular one we're debating today are put before the Legislature. That's why sections like the one we're debating right now are put before the Legislature. Our very future depends upon this kind of legislation, and upon the kinds of policies laid down by a government that believes in the free enterprise ideology, taking advantage of the natural heritage of this province, marrying it with the industry of our citizens and producing wealth and opportunity. If you want to see all of that eliminated and you want to see us marching backward until we're lighting candles again, believe the member for Alberni, the socialists, and make the same mistake the public of British Columbia made in 1972.

[ Page 5777 ]

I hope the NDP all vote against this section of the bill. I hope all of them stand up and argue against providing power in British Columbia. I hope every one of those speeches is recorded verbatim in our media, and that every citizen of British Columbia has an opportunity to study them, because that's the only way that people will begin to understand the difference between free enterprise and socialist ideology. That's the only way they can be certain of the choice to make in the next provincial election. Mind you, I don't want to fight by-elections, but I have a hunch that the people in Kamloops knew something about this legislation. I think they had that in mind when they went to the polls just a few days ago. I think they're going to keep it in mind when the next election comes around.

MR. CHAIRMAN: All members are reminded that we are canvassing section 33 and not another vote.

MR. COCKE: Early in the 1960s the people in Point Grey mistakenly sent a young, white knight to Victoria. That marvelous fighter for the people came from Point Grey and consistently as a Liberal in this House voted against this borrowing year after year. He reminds me of a fellow by the name of Saul. Do you remember Saul of Tarsus? He was walking along and all of a sudden he saw a burning bush, was immediately converted to a new philosophy and became Paul. That's where the similarity ends, however. The fact is, when he became a Socred he became a firm believer in giving B.C. Hydro a blank cheque. That's what we're arguing here. We're arguing here, as the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) argued — unfortunately he indicated that his vote isn't all that firm....

AN HON. MEMBER: It never is.

MR. COCKE: That second member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) asked us to vote a blank cheque for hundreds of millions of dollars for B.C. Hydro. We asked where it's going and how it's going to be spent. We got some vague answers. Read Hansard from the opening day. That member was totally irresponsible in his remarks in this House. Having said that, I don't think his inconsistency was any great surprise to anyone who's been here for any length of time. His inconsistency has formed a consistency — if that's mixing things up to the extent that one should under these circumstances. His thoughts are that we on this side of the House, who he describes as the great unwashed socialists, should just bend over, bow and say: "Yes, this government obviously has the information required to give Hydro this blank cheque." No, sir. We have a responsibility. That's something that member doesn't understand. We were elected to come here and ask questions, and to get the information back to the public so that they know what they're doing. Don't forget, Mr. Chairman, this money is being borrowed with public endorsement and public backing. Therefore the public are 100 percent responsible for it.

Just to give you an idea, that government, wanting to look good in their first term of office, set up a Crown corporations reporting committee. They blasted it all over the headlines. Even my friend the Whip, the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem), who's been on that committee right from the outset, as I was.... I've since decided not to bother: what's the point? What has that committee done about looking into Hydro? Nothing. It hasn't looked into any Crown corporation for month after month. The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) sits on his duff, draws $4,000 a year and calls no meetings of the Crown corporations committee. That committee could have been looking at Hydro and giving us some idea whether or not Hydro is on the track. It's a runaway monster. The member for North Vancouver describes it as a Crown corporation with a very small, close-knit board of directors.

We would be totally and absolutely irresponsible if we voted for this piece of legislation which, incidentally, occurs as three lines in a massive omnibus bill: section 33 — appropriately numbered when we think back on the number of Bill 33s over the years. The member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer), minister of science and technology or whatever has absolutely no right to stand up in this House and suggest anybody is being irresponsible other than those members on his side who have not been given any more information than we have. I suspect that applies to the back bench.

MR. KEMPF: Sit down, Dennis.

MR. COCKE: The member for Omineca is going to get on his feet, and I hope when he gets on his feet he's going to tell us why he's been one of the most irresponsible people that we've ever seen in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. please. I ask all members of the committee....

AN HON. MEMBER: And getting well paid for it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: He is getting well paid for convening meetings of the Crown corporations reporting committee that could have come to all the elected members in this House with a report on B.C. Hydro, that told us something about the inner workings, the financing and whether or not B.C. Hydro is on the right track at the present time.

One of the things I note about that side of the House is its high regard for right-wing philosophy. The right-wing philosophy right now is one that suggests to us.... I'm talking about the words of such great economists as some of the advisers to the Bank of Canada who are suggesting that the way to dampen inflation is to raise interest rates to discourage borrowing,

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The first member for Surrey, the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm), says: "Bad." However, your government is endorsing the borrowing of $800 million in this climate.

AN HON. MEMBER: It will be much more.

MR. COCKE: A great deal more. You can't have it both ways. If you really want to have the opposition vote for a bill, then tell us what we're voting for; tell us what it's all about.

MR. BRUMMET: Progress, industry and jobs.

[ Page 5778 ]

MR. COCKE: That is about as vague as you can possibly get. Who wouldn't be for motherhood? But progress, industry and jobs is not something that this government is famous for. This government has fame in other quarters, but not in that particular area.

I suggest that what we have before us is a section of a bill that I watched every Liberal member in this House vote against year after year. That includes the now Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams), and that includes the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer). They've lost the faith. All they asked in those days was: "Tell us why." The government of the day suggested that jobs and progress was all they needed to know. They didn't buy it then, Mr. Chairman, and we don't buy it now.

(Mr. Davidson in the chair.)

Let me contrast this just a little bit. It wasn't until recent years that we in the NDP voted against this particular borrowing. Then in 1975 we elected a government that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're incompetent and can't be trusted. We asked that they give us the reasons for supporting this particular kind of legislation. What did we get? Nothing. It satisfied the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet), who put out a brochure saying that he didn't want to do anything to upset or in any way inconvenience or embarrass a cabinet member. That's giving a good account of himself up north. I'm sure they're proud of you up there, you mighty fighter. You and the marshmallow in front of you make a good team.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I am becoming just a bit off-track. I don't think I'm on this section at the moment. I really want to apologize to you, Mr. Chairman.

We asked for an answer, and all we got for an answer was appendix D of the current budget. All that appendix tells me is the massive increases in debt in this province. Interestingly enough, earlier in this budget we see that the minister doesn't want to run a deficit. But I'll tell you, Mr. Chairman, when you get by the rhetoric of the budget and you get into the real hard parts of the budget, you will see where we're in debt right up to our ears. Now it's being proved again to the tune of almost a billion dollars. We throw these figures around as if they're nothing.

I'm sure that the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) wouldn't have been so critical this morning had he had explained to him just why it is that Hydro get everything they want and everything they ask for. He should be an expert on that, having once sat on that board of directors.

Let's have a few answers. If nothing else, haven't we by now learned the lesson that the Crown corporations reporting committee should be meeting continually and assessing these Crown corporations that this government and this Legislature are responsible for? We've been terribly embarrassed by that other sexy thing this government did not long ago. That was to establish an ombudsman. Now that's coming home to haunt them. Why don't we have the Crown corporations committee dedicate itself to the responsibility that they should be dedicated to? We're not going to accept anything short of that. There's no possible way that a colleague of mine on this side of the House could vote for this monstrous section of a bill euphemistically entitled Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 1981.

The rhetoric of the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) didn't impress me a bit. The only thing he has said recently that has impressed me is the fact that he's not going to run again — a blessing for those folks in Point Grey.

MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to use the opportunity of this debate on section 33 to make a request of the minister and his cabinet colleagues. But I can't help but respond a bit to some of the comments that were made earlier this morning. The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) uses the opportunity for his forte: personal attack on other members. The first year I was here I put out a brochure to my constituents saying that I did not jump up and down and yell and stomp, but that I preferred to work quietly and try to accomplish what I could. Now they have used that to ridicule me — twisting and turning it time and again in this House. I'm quite willing to be accountable for an honest expression to my constituents, and they accept it as such. I don't care what the members of this House do with it.

The other thing that is rather interesting is the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) giving us some selective information this morning, even though I know that he knows better. He was quick to point out that the province of Quebec has embarked on a great conservation program for electricity. Every other province, including British Columbia, has embarked on a conservation program, because it can be shown that conservation is cheaper than building new facilities. However, what he neglected to point out to this House is that the province of Quebec is also on the largest hydroelectric building program in history, in this country and in North America, because they have the potential to develop hydro power. They are building massive programs to double and triple their output in hydroelectricity, because they say it's clean, a renewable resource, and they feel that it will bring industry to the province. Even at that, they are offering incentives for heavy electricity users to come into the province to establish industries there, because it creates jobs and revenue for the province so that the social services can be maintained.

I don't know why that member neglected to mention that particular point. He also neglected to mention that Hydro-Québec provides almost one-third of the electrical power for New York City. They export their power because it brings in revenue and cuts the costs of building those facilities. In British Columbia we have the opposition, who are very strongly against any export of electricity. Obviously they are also against any development of electricity for industry and jobs. They project themselves as the great saviours of the people, the great representatives of the working man. Garbage! The working man wouldn't have jobs, no matter what conditions were negotiated, if they did not have the industry.

When you read the news, you find out through whatever documents have been released that Ontario, in nuclear; the province of Quebec, in hydro; and Manitoba are all building electrical generation in order to attract industries. They too want in on the prosperity which British Columbia enjoys. However, they mention the one aspect of conservation, which is happening all over.

The point that I originally wanted to make is that those members on the other side, if they are interested beyond the point of partisan politics, know that I have taken a position on Site C. I feel that we do need Site C if we're going to keep progress and development going in this province. We do need

[ Page 5779 ]

the 900 megawatts that that plant will generate. It's a matter of trade-offs, in my mind, which I have said before; we lose something every time we build a dam, every time we flood some land. Yes, we lose something, but we also gain jobs, prosperity and services in the province. So I've taken that position, and I'll have to live with that — and I'm quite willing to live with that.

It should also be pointed out that three members of the opposition came to a meeting in my riding recently and took a very strong position against Site C. Mind you, that is in keeping with their philosophy. I believe that during the last election campaign they said that if they ever got elected there would never be another hydro dam built in British Columbia. They were in favour of coal — hydroelectric generation by coal — but now that the acid rain problem has become a major problem, I wonder what happens there, whether they're going to change their position again, as the member for New Westminster said they changed their position since they were in office. Speaking of the Site C issue and those members that came up, the member for Alberni said: "Yes, Site C — for or against — is a political question, a political problem." Now the people in Fort St. John were recently surveyed and came up with 64 percent in favour of Site C. If it's strictly a political issue rather than one of objective terms, would that group, then, if they were running a candidate up there, come out in favour of Site C? I took my position during the last election and since, knowing full well that there were people for it and people against it. I wonder what they'll do as the surveys change.

However, having taken the position that the trade-offs for Site C are well worth it, I have also very strongly taken the position that the trade-offs for Site E are not worth it. Site E would be a dam at the British Columbia-Alberta border — about 35 miles below Site C on the Peace River — and would flood a great deal of land for a low return in electrical generation capacity. Right now there is a reserve on that land. I'm asking the Minister of Finance to exert what influence he can on his cabinet colleagues to lift that reserve. I believe Hydro has abandoned the idea — certainly it does not show up in any of their projections, because it is not an economically viable project. Secondly, it would flood a great deal more farmland and river flats than the Site C project. So I would like to urge that the cabinet, which I believe has the power to lift that reserve on Site E, do so as soon as possible. I think it is difficult for anyone to really want to look into the future and burn bridges behind them, but I think this is one bridge that must be burned. So I would like to see a decision made very soon that that land be released. That would be a commitment that Site E, which is not viable, will never be built. It will also bring in some revenue to the province; it would allow people to develop that land as farmland, homesteads and so on. So I would like to urge very strongly that the Site E reserve be lifted immediately.

MR. NICOLSON: Well, we can see that the member for North Peace River is obviously against progress.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that while I think everyone in the House recognizes that these bills are almost after the fact — that most of the wheels are in progress, the bills certainly have to be paid and the dams are in various stages of completion — rather than just being limited to the very narrow confines of whether B.C. Hydro should be allowed to extend its guaranteed borrowings by $800 million, this is a time to express a vote of confidence or non-confidence in the board of directors of B.C. Hydro, which, we see, is dominated by cabinet ministers and by an ex-cabinet minister. There are three cabinet ministers on that board in spite of all the protestations of the government. There is really only one civilian on the board of directors of B.C. Hydro. He is Mr. Brazier. I certainly don't call Mr. Bonner a civilian. He certainly has more of an identifiable political stripe, with all his years of experience in provincial politics. We hear that there are some intentions to change appointments to the board and that there are some rumblings about what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. McClelland) might or might not have done, but we don't know what they are. What we know right now is that the board has been operating with three cabinet ministers, one civilian named Mr. Brazier and one semiretired general, Mr. Bonner, of the Social Credit hordes and army.

With this we see an absolute lack of anyone on that board of directors really bringing to that board the type of skills needed to interpret decisions and recommendations that are brought up from the regular professional staff. I would like to know if the Minister of Finance has questioned the fact that.... When we look at the past performance of B.C. Hydro and its rate of growth, how can we accept the rate of growth they are projecting over the next five years? For instance, in the years '66-71 the energy consumed was 6.5 billion kilowatt hours; in '71-76 it was about 7 billion kilowatt hours; and in '76-81, the pentad just completed, 8 billion kilowatt hours: in other words, very marginal increases. Yet in the next five years the expected consumption of energy for electricity through B.C. Hydro is almost doubled, to 15 billion kilowatt hours. One certainly does question that. That is claimed without planning for export of power. One would expect that if we were to plan with a pretty good outside margin of safety the plan should be, at the very outside, 10 billion kilowatt hours. Instead it's 15 billion kilowatt-hours.

This creates huge capital borrowings, and in terms of whether this province is prepared to go to markets and increase borrowings and capital investment one has to question where it would be better to do such a thing. I would submit that it would be better to do it to bring about an increase in pulpmilling capacity in the southeastern part of the province rather than to flood more acres in the southeast and actually diminish the number of jobs rather than increase them. That is what Hydro has done. Hydro has cut out jobs. It has reduced annual allowable cut by millions of acres. It has also taken out the most productive bottom lands. So we are making huge capital investment in this province in order to destroy jobs.

That is something that 1, as a person who believes in sensible growth and the dignity of work, cannot accept. I cannot accept it either when I am sure that in spite of the protestations of the government the only growth we need beyond our normal growth for the next five years is going to be to export power south of the line in order that they can create power-intensive industries which will be creating jobs down in the state of Washington.

My riding adjoins the states of Washington and Idaho. It is not too darned far from the riding of my colleague the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), which adjoins the state of Montana. When I travel down there and look at the opportunities, potentials, security, interconnections, the grid and many other things which have been created with British

[ Page 5780 ]

Columbia power and the Columbia River Treaty, and then I go to our part of the province and look at the valleys that have been flooded, the very productive timber lands which were not even properly harvested and the shrinking job base in the forest industry, I find it very hard to accept this.

I believe in the growth of British Columbia, and I believe that this province should go forward. I think that we have much too myopic a policy for this province. This is the economic policy of the province of British Columbia. There's more going on in this particular area than there is in northeast coal or any other type of thing that this government is embarking upon. Year after year we have a Crown corporation that is not uncontrolled — it is under the control of a professional staff. The board of directors of B.C. Hydro is simply the tool of that corporation. It's a darned poor policy, Mr. Minister. If you had any kind of overview of what this province is all about and where the economic opportunities are, you would have been questioning this and we would see B.C. Hydro reined in at least a little bit. Its projections and the type of investment which is going on in this province.... You are projecting just about doubling the rate of growth in the next five years when, in fact, the rate of growth has only been increasing at less than 20 percent. So we see that the rate of growth is almost a straight line up to this point in time. In B.C. Hydro's own projections we see an anomaly, a sudden upward thrust in the rate of power demand, which cannot be justified when one looks at past experience in this province. It has been very predictable, and all kinds of fine-tuning has been done to try to project the rate of growth, to try to do a little bit of crystal-ball gazing. What one should do is look back in order to see what actually does happen and try to project growth in gross provincial product, growth in jobs and many other things, and from that try to extrapolate the future energy needs of the province. That has been the exercise by which both B.C. Hydro and the former B.C. Energy Commission arrived at different types of data. While I think that is a necessary exercise, it is probably not nearly as good a predictor as simply looking at what has been the case.

The case since British Columbia Hydro was taken over has been very steady, constant and predictable growth, and very much less than that which would predict a growth of 15 billion kilowatt hours in energy demand over the next five years. I say that it will probably be 9.5 billion kilowatt hours; it might be 10 billion; it will not be 15 billion. So here we are once again writing a blank cheque for B.C. Hydro.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, I've listened with interest this morning to the argument on Bill 13 from both sides of the House. I would agree with a lot that all members have said regarding that huge octopus, B.C. Hydro. As some members have said in this Legislature, no matter who is in government — whether it be Social Credit, the NDP or whoever else — this Legislature is merely a rubber stamp for that which Hydro is doing and borrowing. It is merely a rubber stamp, regardless of what B.C. Hydro intends to do with that money. In fact, Mr. Chairman, in most cases, B.C. Hydro has committed that money even before this Legislature is able to debate the issue and even before a bill such as Bill 13 is before this chamber.

In this province we are unique when it comes to the means by which to look into that which a Crown corporation such as B.C. Hydro is doing. This province is unique in that we, as elected members, have the tool to delve into the expenditures...,

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, use it.

MR. KEMPF: I'll get to that, Madam Member.

...the plans and even the day-to-day operations of the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. We have that means; it's unique in the Commonwealth that we have a committee such as the Committee on Crown Corporations. The members opposite have made many remarks of late in regard to that committee sitting and holding meetings. Even though they play their little political games, they know very well why that committee is not sitting. They're the ones that can change that and really get into a debate on B.C. Hydro and the expenditures of that Crown corporation.

Members opposite, when we prorogue this Legislature is when we're going to sit. They know perfectly well that due to the shortage of time and the fact that this Legislature sits three mornings a week....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Before recognizing the member for Nelson-Creston, the Chair must point out at this time that while some slight latitude has been allowed under section 33 for a passing reference to the Committee on Crown Corporations, it would indeed be most inappropriate if at this time the committee were to discuss the Committee on Crown Corporations in any detail. As such, hon. members, debate must be strictly relevant to section 33. A detailed examination of the Crown corporations committee would therefore be very much out of order.

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, the member appeared to be imputing an improper motive to the official opposition. I find it offensive, because the time between prorogation and commencement of the next session is usually less than 24 hours, and we would be left with nothing to do but have our Crown corporations committee in a period of less than 24 hours. He knows when we prorogued: we prorogued the day before we came back to the House.

MR. KEMPF: On section 33 of Bill 13, in discussing the expenditures of the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority and the means by which this Legislature has the power to really delve into how B.C. Hydro spends its money and why it needs the additional borrowing power that Bill 13 would give it, this Legislature has that power in the Committee on Crown Corporations. It has to be discussed in the context of Hydro's borrowing. We are unique in the Commonwealth, in having a committee that is able, on a non-partisan basis, to delve into the very inner workings of the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. Those members opposite had the latitude to speak in regard to meetings held or not held by the Committee on Crown Corporations. They know very well that there has not been the time to hold those kinds of meaningful meetings which would give them the opportunity to delve into the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) asked why the committee is not sitting. I would like to ask that member why he wanted off the committee and said he wanted off because it wasn't doing any good.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Again, hon. member, we are straying very much from the strictly relevant section under discussion, section 33. As I stated previously, while some small latitude had been allowed, we are now clearly into a full-fledged debate on the Crown corporations committee.

[ Page 5781 ]

Unfortunately that cannot be permitted. The functions of the Crown corporations committee, its terms of reference, meetings or powers, are not to be debated here. Hon. members, I so rule.

MR. KEMPF: In my debate I'm just pointing out that rather than debating Bill 13 in this Legislature, rather than listening hour after hour to really worthless debate because of the fact that this Legislature is only a rubber stamp for the spending of the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority, there is another means by which to delve into the expenditures of B.C. Hydro, which is through the Crown corporations reporting committee. You can't separate the two. It's the only committee of this Legislature which would give the answers to those members opposite. I ask them to adjourn this Legislature and give us the chance, through that committee, to have those kinds of meaningful meetings. I would hope that if those meetings were held there would be a better attendance by those members opposite. I have the attendance figures here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. For the final time, I must instruct the member to return to section 33 of Bill 13 and to cease reference to the Crown corporations committee. Unfortunately, hon. member, the Chair has no alternative but to maintain the standing orders that are before this House. I would ask the member to either conclude his remarks or to continue debate on section 33 without reference to Crown corporations.

MR. KEMPF: Well. Mr. Chairman, for the life of me I can't see how you can divorce a committee of this Legislature, which has the responsibility and power to delve into the real expenditures of B.C. Hydro and the real reason for that Crown corporation to have the kind of borrowing power that Bill 13 asks of this Legislature. There is no way you can divorce that committee from this Legislature. All I'm saying to the members opposite is to stop trying to ruin the non-partisan nature of that committee and the good work that committee can do.

In summing up I will just say that I will be speaking at length on this subject in a later debate.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:54 a.m.