[ Page 7369 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Rentalsman funding. Mr. Barnes –– 7369

Carolin Mines proposal. Mr. Skelly –– 7370

Compensation to flood victims. Mr. Howard –– 7370

Suspension of Crown counsel. Mr. Macdonald –– 7371

Compensation Stabilization Act (Bill 28). Second reading.

Mr. Gabelmann –– 7371

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 7373

Mr. Stupich –– 7375

Mr. Strachan –– 7380

Mr. Hall –– 7382

Mr. Howard –– 7384

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 7387

Ms. Brown –– 7390

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. KEMPF: In your gallery this afternoon, Mr. Speaker — and it gives me great pleasure to say so — is Mayor Adrian Meeuwissen of the district of Houston. I ask the House to make him very welcome.

HON. MR. McGEER: We're very honoured today to have in the gallery the president of Simon Fraser University, Dr. George Pedersen. I say that in case there are any SFU alumni among us today, because they will certainly want to be on their best behaviour.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm pleased to have with us today a couple of constituents and neighbours from the great metropolis of Cobble Hill, Ena Reeve and Diana Knowles. Also visiting is a friend from Nanaimo, Bill Hawkins. I would like the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today we have 11 grade 11 students from the David Thompson Secondary School in Invermere, that banner constituency in British Columbia, along with their teacher Mr. Chris Elford and Mrs. Elford. I'd like the House to welcome them.

MR. RICHMOND: In the gallery today are two fine gentlemen from the city of Kelowna, who are well known to many members in this House, Mr. Walter Gray, past president of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. Don McIntosh. I would like the House to make them welcome.

MR. LEVI: I have a non-political announcement to make.

MR. SPEAKER: I trust it's an introduction.

MR. LEVI: No, it concerns one of my colleagues. I'd like the House to join in congratulating my colleague Bill King on becoming a grandfather yesterday. And he's only 33 years old!

Oral Questions

RENTALSMAN FUNDING

MR. BARNES: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. There's a serious backlog of cases at the rentalsman's office. While the caseload has increased 20 percent over the past year, your budget cuts will force a reduction in service. Can the minister confirm that the cuts resulting from this year's budget are another step in the elimination of rent controls by your government?

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: This year the budget provides for a decrease of 7.5 percent in the funding allocated to the office of the rentalsman, which means the allocation is approximately $4.2 million. In perspective, that's an approximate doubling from about $2.25 million two years ago. During that time, the number of staff in the rentalsman's office has risen from about 111 to about 166.

In answer to the member, our citizens and taxpayers are asking departments of government like this one, in the wake of a year or two of very large increases in budget — as I say, this year's budget is about double that of two years ago — to look at options for providing equivalent levels of service at the same approximate budget level. We do have a rising vacancy rate. We are now looking at policy options, which we hope will mean that service levels can be provided within this year's budget figure.

MR. LEVI: Figure that one out, Emery.

MR. BARNES: I did have a written statement with respect to a supplementary question, but the minister's explanation has confused me. Nonetheless, I'd like to ask him an ad-lib question. As he knows, the rentalsman has indicated he will have to reduce his operation by some 40 percent. The backlog of cases has been compounded by some 20 percent on sort of an accumulative basis for the past two years, indicating that notwithstanding the suggestion that the funds available to the rentalsman's office are considerably more than they were a year ago, they are nonetheless less than what was anticipated as a minimum amount to carry on the existing program, let alone the backlog.

I would like to ask the minister what he has in the way of a program to deal with the backlog. As you know, the budget cuts mean a 40 percent reduction today. What about the backlog of several hundred cases that exists?

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: First of all, the member suggests that the budget reduction of 7.5 percent means, in effect, a 40 percent reduction in service, and that is not going to be the case. One of the jobs of the rentalsman's office is to took at the kind of policy options that will allow the same level of service to be continued at this healthy funding level of $4.2 million and with a staff of 166. We are looking at options, and I want to tell the member that we expect to present some of those for consideration in the fairly near future.

MR. BARNES: There is one important question I would like to ask the minister. Is he suggesting that the rentalsman has at no time made any representations advising him of the detrimental effect the budget cuts will have on the rent control program specifically? In other words, has the rentalsman suggested to you that he has no other option but to eliminate rent controls under your program? What was your response?

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: There are several questions contained in the member's question. May I simply answer by saying that the rentalsman has submitted to me a series of alternative policy options for my consideration. In the opinion of the rentalsman, those policy options will permit levels of service to be maintained within these budget figures.

MR. BARNES: I would just like to ask the minister what his program of assistance will be for those thousands of tenants who will find themselves unable to afford their suites once rent controls are removed and the price goes up, which obviously is going to have to happen under your program?

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: As I think the member knows, the policy of this government has been to gradually phase out

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rent controls. Any suite not in rent control nonetheless has the continuing protection of rent review. But apart from that, Mr. Speaker, under the policies of this government there is a far better discipline in the marketplace to keep rents competitive, and that is a vacancy rate which is growing and which will continue to grow. For the benefit of the member, I think if he checks last weekend's Vancouver newspapers he'll find many columns of apartments for rent and a wide range of rents.

MR. BARNES: Would the minister be so good as to advise us what category of rental space is available? Are you talking about luxury or about those between $250 to $300 per month? In what category are those vacancies available that you are talking about?

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: Mr. Speaker, I thought I'd made it clear. If the member might go back and check, there is a very wide cross-section of rents to be found in those advertisements.

CAROLIN MINES PROPOSAL

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Subsequent to a meeting of the Metal Mines Guidelines Steering Committee on November 28, 1979, to discuss the Carolin Mines stage 1 submission, the company prepared an addendum which reveals that Ministry of Environment officials found Carolin's hydrology data to be seriously deficient and considered that a tailings dam failure was a likely possibility. In view of the several serious environmental concerns raised by government officials, can the minister advise why the government decided to waive the normal requirement for a stage 2 detailed assessment of this mine development?

MR. SPEAKER: That's a good question.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware that what the member is saying are the facts. I'd like to make sure he gets a full and complete answer, so I'll take that question as notice and bring back an answer as quickly as I possibly can.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary question?

MR. SKELLY: No, I have a new question, Mr. Speaker. A supplementary would not be a good question in this case.

This one is also to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Did the metal-mines steering committee recommend waiver of the stage 2 study process to the government, or was that decision made by cabinet ministers in the Environment and Land Use Committee?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge there was no such recommendation ever made. I'd like to check, though, on exactly the procedures that were followed and bring that answer back with the other as quickly as I can.

MR. SKELLY: Another question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources: prior to the government's decision to waive the stage 2 review process for Carolin Mines, were any representations made to the minister by the member for Delta (Mr. Davidson), who holds 10,000 shares in Carolin Mines, according to his latest disclosure form?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I don't accept, as I said earlier, that the message that that member is bringing forward does, in fact, contain the correct information. I want to check that out — and I will check it out — but I can tell you categorically, Mr. Speaker, that I have never, ever had any representation from the member for Delta or from any other elected member of this House regarding Carolin Mines.

COMPENSATION TO FLOOD VICTIMS

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Environment. Inasmuch as the province of British Columbia now faces the greatest danger of serious flooding since 1948, and given that last October the deputy minister of the ministry revealed that the government was looking for a way out of its traditional responsibilities for flood relief, can the minister confirm that it is now his ministry's policy not to provide compensation to flood victims?

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, Mr. Speaker. I could perhaps, just for the benefit of the member, elaborate that this year we do face a possibility of a very severe flood because of the snowpack, but it's not a for-sure kind of thing. We're going to keep the people advised on a day-to-day basis, and there has been no change in the government's policy in terms of compensating people who are victims of flooding.

MR. HOWARD: Am I correct, then — Mr. Speaker, through you — in assuming that the removal of over $5 million in the budget this year for emergency assistance grants is simply an oversight?

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, Mr. Speaker, the member is not correct in assuming that. In the last calendar year, between the time the budget was drawn up and the time it was — tabled in the House, there had been a disaster and we knew what the amount was. In instances where that occurs, that amount is included in the ministerial estimates. If you check back for various previous years, the only time that there is a specific amount of money included in the estimates of the Ministry of Environment under that vote is when a specific disaster occurs between the time that Treasury Board is drawing up its estimates and the tabling in the House.

MR. HOWARD: I'm pleased to see that the minister is so definite about what he plans to do in terms of compensation to victims, but given that dyking and other preventive measures not only are more cost-effective than compensation but make more sense in protecting the property and the lives of residents in this province, can the minister tell us why his proposed five-year dyking project was rejected by Treasury Board?

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, I can't, Mr. Speaker, but I can tell you that the member's preamble is incorrect as well.

MR. HOWARD: If there is no money available for a dyking program for flood prevention this year, can the minis-

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ter tell us what his response is, apart from verbalizing it, to the most serious flood danger in 34 years? What can he tell the people of this province other than just keeping them informed about the danger?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, once again the member is making an incorrect assessment. But there is an understanding between the government of Canada and the government of British Columbia which funds disaster assistance. That disaster does not always have to strike in the form of a flood; it can strike in the form of many natural disasters. If the member knows something about the nature of the flooding that takes place in this province, he will know very well that it is unpredictable. In the past we have spent considerable amounts of money in constructing dykes in order to avoid the kind of tragedy that's happened in the past, and we have done a substantial job of improving the dykes. There aren't funds this year for dyke improvement.

SUSPENSION OF CROWN COUNSEL

MR. MACDONALD: To the Attorney-General. I'll have to race in view of the clock. Following the dismissal of charges in the South Fraser region against former Mayor Bob Duckworth and city administrator Christensen, the Attorney-General suspended Crown counsel Al Hoem without pay and launched an investigation. I'll wrap up my questions in one. What are the guidelines for suspending Crown counsel after charges rejected by a preliminary inquiry; who is conducting his investigation; and doesn't the Attorney-General appreciate that suspending a Crown counsel before investigation may have an intimidating effect on Crown counsel in carrying out their duties without fear or favour?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to answer all the questions in one. The criteria with respect to suspensions of this kind are set out in the Public Service Act. I thought he would have taken the time to examine that. Secondly, the examination is being conducted by me, the Deputy Attorney-General and the Assistant Deputy Attorney-General responsible for the criminal justice division.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 28.

COMPENSATION STABILIZATION ACT

(continued)

MR. GABELMANN: This morning I made a number of points with respect to this bill. My primary point was that it is not in fact a restraint bill but rather a wage control bill. In making that point I was trying to establish that restraints by governments are not by themselves a bad thing in difficult times. I was making the point that there are a variety of areas of public spending that require restraint. I listed some of those, and some of those areas of restraint obviously had to do with the lavish way in which cabinet ministers spend taxpayers' money. I'm not going to go through and repeat those items.

The other point I was making is that those areas in which the public money is being spent by the government with respect to restraint programs are determined elsewhere — other than in this bill. They are determined by the amount of money made available to the schools, hospitals and municipalities of this province by the respective ministers through Treasury Board. This bill is not a restraint bill; this is a bill designed to limit the wages of one particular group of workers in our society. That's all this bill is designed to do.

Mr. Speaker, I was making the point that the bill originated as a result of polling that was taken by the government. It did not come about because the government had a grand economic scheme or a grand design for development of the economic policy and future of this province. It came as a result of polls that told him that public employees weren't popular and that restraint was. They devised a mechanism to put those two things together, when in fact there are other ways of exercising restraint if the government so wishes.

This bill is a direct response to a populace view, as the government perceived it. That same populace view was evident prior to the introduction of the mediation commission and the AIB. What happened to popular opinion as a result of the practice of those two wage-control programs, one in Canada and one in British Columbia, that were in place? Soon after those programs were in place and working — or not working, as the case may be — the public abandoned their support for those kinds of wage-control programs, as they will for this program should it ever get into place.

The bill does not come from some policy direction. The government has no clear-cut idea as to where it wants to go economically in this province. When you look at the various things they're doing and discover what their intellectual or philosophical derivation is, it is a mishmash. They adopt a little bit of Keynesian economics in one sense when they say: "This year we're going to spend more than we tax by taking money that was put aside in other years and spending it this year." There's a little bit of Keynes involved in their economic thinking in terms of deficit spending this year, which is in fact what it is.

There is a little bit of Galbraith in their thinking. What Galbraith calls for is controls. But they don't follow what Galbraith says all the way across the board. What Galbraith basically says is that you have controls on everything: prices, interest rates and wages across the board — the whole shebang. They don't do that. They pick the little bit out of Galbraith that they think might be popular. They picked a little bit out of Milton Friedman. They endorse, by every action of government, what Trudeau and MacEachen do in Ottawa: they endorse the high interest rate policies. There have been no delegations going to Ottawa, staying in $400 hotel rooms and trying to get MacEachen to back off his misguided Friedman approach to economics in this country.

Then they have a strategy for job creation that is based on megaprojects, not on putting money into the hands of those people in society who will spend it, thus creating a demand for goods and services. The right way to get yourself out of a depression is slowly, and with some benefit to people involved in the community; but no, they adopt the megaproject strategy.

In the face of all these conflicting and diverse kinds of economic strategies, where does this restraint bill come in? It is not part of any of those programs. It is not even completely part of Galbraith. It is simply a question of political expediency. Wage controls, in their initial introduction, always

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seem to be a good idea to the majority of people. They seem popular. The government is hoping that the full impact of this wage control program won't be felt before the election is called. They are hoping they will be able to fool the public about the impact of this program, and that its implications and effect won't be felt before we have the election. That is the entire strategy of this particular piece of legislation.

I am concerned as one who is a strong advocate of, and a firm believer in, free collective bargaining. I am probably like the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf); I don't believe in government interference in some things. I think the member for Omineca and I would agree that the government shouldn't interfere in the relations between an employer and an employee.

MR. KEMPF: There is quite a difference in our philosophies, though, my friend. I think you would find that out if we got into that kind of a debate.

MR. GABLEMANN: I find I do agree with the member for Omineca on something. In a system of free collective bargaining, management and labour have an opportunity to sit down and negotiate a variety of items without third-party intervention, except when those two parties agree there should be some third-party intervention to assist them in their bargaining. One of the impacts of this particular bill has been that negotiations that were virtually complete prior to February 18 — all but the signing of the final documents — have been completely pulled off the table. I cited the case of Zion Park Manor this morning. There are dozens of other cases in the health-care field particularly, where newly organized workers, about to be brought up to the rates that workers in that field had bargained for, now are being told they cannot enjoy the same rates and conditions as their fellow workers in other institutions. The government's agent, GERB, has said: "All those negotiations last year are for naught because of an announcement on February 18." A non-legal announcement, might I say. The thing isn't law yet and the employers are treating it as if it were. It's not the employers, who don't have any connection with the government; it's the Government Employee Relations Bureau itself that has been doing that. I find it really quite repugnant that they would take a situation like that and assume that this Legislature would make a law, when it has not yet made that law. There is a principle involved there that I think needs some further exploration.

In bargaining, there are trade-offs. You might demand more in wages; when you give that up, you might get better contract language. One of the important things the public doesn't understand about collective bargaining is that some of the heaviest, most important and longest discussions relate to contract language. They don't relate to the number of dollars that are going to end up in the final agreement. That is often a heavy issue and it's battled through, but everybody knows, when they go into the bargaining, approximately what the dollar figure is going to be. The heavy negotiations, the heavy slogging is over the contract language, the nonmonetary issues. Under this legislation, those people who are bargaining for, better or different contract language now find themselves in the position where they don't have the same ability to bargain because they don't have the ability to trade off monetary items for non-monetary items.

There are implications for collective bargaining contained in this bill which are not understood by the Minister of Finance. I suspect they are understood by the Minister of Labour and the former Minister of Labour. I am sure that what I am saying about the intricacies and the complications of collective bargaining are well understood by the Minister of Labour. On occasion I have heard him say that he believes in free collective bargaining. His behaviour as a minister has been to try to preserve a free collective bargaining system, to try to intervene in negotiations as infrequently as possible; yet here we have a Minister of Finance who is bringing in a bill that interferes in every government-related contract.

In that respect, I want to bring up the issue of the Workers Compensation Board. It is a non-government agency, entirely independent from government, with no cabinet or government interference in its day-to-day business, No taxpayer dollars are involved in its business; it is totally private sector. Its revenue was collected from those people who pay WCB premiums. Why are the employees of the WCB included in a bill like this? It's got nothing whatsoever to do with government spending. How can they possibly justify having what I thought was an independent agency — one not connected to the government and one not subject to interference from the government...? Why would this private, independent agency which collects its revenue from the private sector — in the sense that there are no taxpayer dollars involved — be involved as it is in this particular piece of legislation?

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I'm virtually out of time, because I wanted to go through a number of specific situations and details where this policy is already in place, in effect, before it has become law, and is having what can only be described as a disastrous impact on workers. I'm concerned about what's going to happen in the public service, whether it's in municipalities, hospitals, schools or in the government service itself, or in any of the other agencies that are affected by this piece of legislation. What happens to the morale of those workers? What happens to the recruitment for top and important positions when the wages are such that it is not attractive to be recruited in those jobs? What's going to happen when there is already a deep resentment and anger that exists in the public sector — particularly in the government employees — and they have to go through a fourth and fifth year of restraint?

I made that point this morning, and it's the point I want to end on this afternoon. Workers are the only people in our society who voluntarily agree to restrain themselves. Workers sign agreements for one, two or three years, in which they say: "We will take so many dollars of income and no more." Governments don't do that with taxes and fee increases. Banks don't do that with interest rates. Stores and businesses don't do it with prices. Nobody does it with profits. But workers agree to control their wages for a set period of time, and in that period of time there can be no increase beyond what they've agreed to. Yet all the prices, all the costs and all the taxes can go up during that period.

So what we're saying to government workers particularly, who are now engaged in a phony, sham kind of collective bargaining that began yesterday in terms of the BCGEU-GERB negotiations, is: "You had 8 percent three years ago, you had 8 percent two years ago, you had 8 percent this year, and you're going to be subject to two more years of restraint." There has been no restraint on their costs. There has been no restraint on their mortgage rates. There has been no restraint on any of the aspects of their lives, but they will have had five years of restraint. Why should that sector of our society be picked on? Why should we create two classes

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of citizens: public workers and private workers? Why should we try to divide and conquer the labour movement like that? The labour movement will not fall for that divide-and-conquer strategy of the government. You'll find that private sector workers will back up their public- sector brothers and sisters in this issue. You'll be surprised, because on election day this issue will defeat you.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I rise to support this bill. We have a lot of things going for us in British Columbia. We have tremendous natural wealth, tremendous resources, tremendous opportunity for the future. But despite all of that, we aren't isolated from high interest rates, from inflation and from the worldwide recession. We don't live in some kind of a cocoon which protects us from the vagaries from the world. We are part of an international community. We share in its prosperity, so we also share in the setbacks that come with recessionary times. We can't escape the repercussions of market weaknesses and inflationary pressure, so we suffer, to some degree, along with the rest of the world.

We are fortunate in British Columbia that we have a number of opportunities available to us which aren't available to other parts of Canada, North America or the world. We have some stability that has been built in over the years, particularly as a result of the fiscal policies which were put forward by this government and which allowed us to build a sounder economic base than others — by balancing budgets at a time when all other governments in Canada, with the exception of one, have been going deeper into debt, mortgaging the future of their children and their children's children, with very little hope of ever ending that debt.

When things are tough, a lot of people say: "Oh, well, why don't we go into a deficit for a year or two years or three years. Then we'll get out of it." History will record that that kind of mentality is disastrous and fatal to a free and sound economy. We know that the temptation of deficit financing is great; the temptation to just go in a little way is even greater.

I'd like to draw to the attention of all hon. members of this House a recent editorial of the Globe and Mail, I think from last Friday, in which the chronicles of the disastrous financial state of one of our sister provinces, Quebec, is outlined. Mr. Speaker, Quebec has got itself into some of the most serious financial difficulty of perhaps any jurisdiction in the world because of its deficit financing to meet the needs of the "more" generation, I suppose, to a large degree. I think that editorial pointed out that next to Denmark and one other country in the world — I have forgotten which....

HON. MR. CURTIS: The Netherlands and Norway.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:...the Netherlands and Norway — I've been corrected by the Minister of Finance — Quebec has the highest level of personal taxes in the world and, frankly, is in a dilemma from which there may be no easy out. Mr. Speaker, we rejected that course of action, and that's one of the reasons, among others, that this restraint legislation and program is before this Legislature: so we can find an orderly, manageable way to meet the needs of our community without facing financial ruin. as some other jurisdictions have done. Prime responsibility, I think it's fair to say, for interest rates and the management of the international economy — certainly the Canadian economy — rests to a large degree with the federal government. But, Mr. Speaker, leadership in this province can make a difference despite what some people say, and we are, through this program and through some budget practices, providing that leadership.

Mr. Speaker, the restraint program and other budgetary matters that this Legislature will be asked to deal with are part of a plan that will help us to provide that leadership. In that plan we have rejected heavy tax increases that would impose a burden on the private sector — those on fixed income, the poor and the unemployed. Instead, we've given as a number one priority the control of the growth of government, the improvement of the efficiency of government and the improvement of the productivity of government. The framework for that goal of this government is in a restraint program — larger than just the one contained in this legislation, but certainly it is part of this legislation. This legislation will help to get that program done.

As you know, having discussed the budget, overall spending by the government will be kept within the 12 percent limits. But. Mr. Speaker, don't forget that high priority social programs for the elderly, the sick, the poor, and the handicapped are allowed to go outside of those guidelines to meet the needs of our people. Growth in services to families and children and the elderly will be balanced by expenditures below the guidelines in other programs. You know, despite what some of the people on the other side of this House are saying, this program does not mean that public-sector employees are being singled out by being asked to bear the burden of balancing the provincial budget, because all British Columbians will need to accept their share of the load. In the private sector that load gets very heavy; in the private sector both employers and employees are subject to the kinds of restraint that we don't have to put on as legislators. Their restraint, their compensation guidelines, come through cruel measures such as bankruptcy and layoffs — measures which generally don't occur in the public sector.

To preserve the social programs that we're all so proud of, Mr. Speaker, we must make sure that the public sector does not lead private-sector wage settlements and ensure that public-sector expenditures and compensation don't, by themselves, fuel the inflationary cycle. As we recognized, it wouldn't be fair or equitable to ask those people in the public sector to bear any sacrifice that we as elected representatives aren't prepared to accept, and as you know, Mr. Speaker, there will be legislation dealt with asking that legislated increases for members of this assembly get rolled back — not only this year but next year as well. Contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition said in his remarks this morning, senior executives of Crown corporations, hospitals, municipal managers, school administrators and senior public servants are included in this program, and they will have, in fact, stricter guidelines applied.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't wish to rise on a point of order or in some other way this morning, because I knew I'd be speaking in this debate, but I would like to correct one impression that was left with the House by the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, in which he certainly intimated — if he didn't say it exactly — that the chairman of the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, Mr. Bob Bonner, has somehow been the recipient of grand and glorious wage increases. I'd like to tell this House that Mr. Bonner has had absolutely no wage increases in at least three years and perhaps longer.

I believe that those kinds of personal attacks, especially on people outside this Legislature who don't have the opportunity to defend themselves, demean this Legislature and are

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a bit cowardly as well. It behooves all of us not to enter into that kind of debate, particularly when we're talking about serious measures, as we are today.

The measures outlined in this legislation are probably ambitious. They will work for all British Columbians only if we're all prepared to work for them as well.

I think somebody on the other side of the House was bragging that the Leader of the Opposition spoke for two and a half hours in this debate. I notice that at least the major part of that two and a half hours was yesterday afternoon. I'd like to point out to the House that the news coverage generated by that two-and-a-half-hour speech was on the back page of the Province, next to the recreational classified — motorcycles, boats and marine supplies, and was two columns about three and a half inches long. I suggest that was about all it deserved.

We saw the Leader of the Opposition don his clown's hat again and come into this Legislature and attempt to put on one of his Oscar award winning performances, with no substance but with a lot of sham and showbiz. We're getting used to it here, and so are the news media, I guess, because it happens all the time. By now, I suppose, even the members of the Legislature are used to the Leader of the Opposition's showbiz performances. I hope, though, we all understand that one of the reasons the Leader of the Opposition chooses that path, rather than to offer solutions or alternatives to programs, is that he and his party don't have any options and they don't have any darned policies — NDP, no darned policies.

The Leader, of the Opposition, Mr. Barrett, went on at length to ridicule the opportunity for restraint in either the public sector or anywhere else. But the Leader of the Opposition believes in restraint. His philosophical policies, at least those outlined in various speeches in this Legislature and at their conventions and elsewhere, are in fact programs of restraint: restraint of opportunity, restraint of development, restraint of increased confidence in British Columbia as a place to live and invest in, restraint of job creation. They are negative, doubting people.

What does the restraint that that party advocates mean to British Columbia? It means that we would lose the opportunity for one of the most imaginative and adventurous industrial projects ever developed in this province, the northeast coal project. It would mean the loss of over 5,800 jobs this year and the loss of 10,000 jobs over a short-term period. That kind of restraint would mean the cancellation of a project, loss of the opportunity for further development for people to live in a huge area of British Columbia. That kind of restraint would mean that Expo 86 would not go ahead with its $970 million in activity and its 15,000 man-years of new employment. That kind of restraint would see the trade and convention centre and cruise-ship facilities cancelled, costing 1,000 jobs in construction alone, and 1,000 full-time jobs and 1,000 part-time jobs while the centre is operating. That kind of restraint would mean that the new rapid transit system for Vancouver would be lost, with its $700 million investment, 1,700 construction jobs, and 1,000 jobs in the manufacturing centre. That kind of restraint would mean that B.C. Place would be lost, with its $100 million-plus stadium; 450 people who are now working on that site would be out of work; and we would lose 12,000 new affordable housing sites and 2,000 or more construction jobs every year for the next 20 years, Mr. Speaker. That's the kind of restraint that that negative, doubting party believes in.

They believe in other kinds of restraint too. I was extremely interested to hear the member opposite who just finished his speech say that he's against controls. Well, his leader isn't against controls; his leader has imposed controls in this province in the past. And how did he do it? Did he come to the Legislature with some fancy legislative package? Did he come to the Legislature and announce his program in the throne speech, as he said that our Premier should have done? He said that the place to announce this was in the throne speech, not on television, and he said the place to debate it is in the Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, when Mr. Barrett was the Premier of this province and introduced his anti-inflation policy, which, incidentally, somebody in the Vancouver Sun called a policy that was much ado about nothing, did he announce it in the Legislature in the throne speech? No, he did it with a series of orders-in-council passed at a special 90-minute, behind closed-doors cabinet session — secret meetings, Mr. Speaker. Then the policy was announced to the public in a 5 o'clock news conference following the closed-door secret meeting.

The Leader of the Opposition talked a lot about profligate spending. When his own anti-inflation policy was announced when he was Premier, he was then in the middle of the third successive year of overruns in the Premier's office. Would you believe that after hearing his speech yesterday about overruns? For three years in a row his office experienced cost overruns, and during that time the expenditures of the Premier's office had grown to three times that of his predecessors in their last year of office.

Mr. Speaker, how did he announce his anti-inflation program? Did he come in here in his pin-striped suit and be honest with the people of British Columbia and tell them, "Here's what we're going to do for you, folks" and "This is the way we're going to it"? Did he come in with the throne speech and say: "Here, British Columbia, I want to level with you; I want to tell you what the problem is and how we're going to fix it"? No way. He had Dunsky Advertising set up a stick promotional campaign to announce his anti-inflation program to the people of British Columbia. The agency had its cameras ready at the beginning of his announcement to film the Premier in full color with the legislative press corps providing a busy backdrop for a commercial film.

I recall somebody providing me at that time with copies of the Victoria Colonist. The Dunsky cameramen left only after the press gallery officers complained about the agency being there. They didn't want to be party to a bunch of flacks.

Interjection;

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I hear a lot of people saying: "Who's Dunsky?" Dunsky was the fellow that wouldn't have had any business at all except that he came into Vancouver, set up an advertising office and got rich because he was the only game in town for the socialist government. They gave him all his business, and Mr. Dunsky did very well, thank you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where did he go?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: After the New Democratic Party was defeated in 1975, Mr. Dunsky didn't have the nerve to stick around and try to get business by competitive means,

[ Page 7375 ]

so he left. Dunsky ducked. He ducked for Saskatchewan no, Manitoba. He went to Manitoba — that's right — where there was another socialist government that didn't believe in competitive bidding and which gave him all their business and made him richer.

MR. SPEAKER: And now back to the bill.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Then, Mr. Speaker, while I'm talking about restraint and how restraint seems to change as time goes on and how restraint used to happen around here, Mr. Dunsky, following the defeat of the socialists in Manitoba, ducked again. Off he went to Saskatchewan. Well you know what happened in Saskatchewan just a few short days ago, Mr. Premier. Now nobody knows where Mr. Dunsky is. He's floating out there in that nether nether world.

AN HON. MEMBER: Back to Manitoba.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: He's gone back to Manitoba, Mr. Speaker, to get rich on the socialists again.

That's why it's very hard to take a lot of the things that the Leader of the Opposition says about restraint without a grain of salt. On that same matter, I listened to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday talk about cynicism in government and mistrust of government. He's done it before. Speaking of the Premier's earlier announcement in February about the restraint measures, Mr. Barrett said that they would only make people more cynical and more despairing. Coming from that member, it is really hard to put very much credence in.

I recall — I've mentioned this in this House before — the Leader of the Opposition in a speech to the Maritime School of Social Work in Halifax. He said a lot of things. I wouldn't want to repeat a lot of them, but he advised those people how to pack a meeting and how to subvert existing political processes. He said: The system is wide open, and you can do anything you want to it, manipulate it and fool around with it. He also said, speaking of the financial problems and difficult economic times we were having at that time: "The Social Credit government isn't spending any money to develop resources, and things are getting worse in the province." I suppose that is a fair comment, coming from him, but he then added: "I am loving every minute of it." If that doesn't lead to cynicism and distrust of politics and politicians, I don't know what would.

The restraint program practised by the previous government is not and would never be acceptable to this government. We do believe, though, that the way back to long-term financial and economic stability will be by taking bold and innovative measures. We've never said it would be easy, and anybody who thinks it would be easy sits on that side of the House. There aren't any easy answers, and often the answers are too challenging to be comprehended by negative thinkers.

The kinds of action that have been taken — this legislation, the budget and other measures which will be considered by the members of this Legislature — have helped and will continue to help to restore the confidence of the financial, mining, industrial and business communities not only in North America but internationally as well. Part proof of that is that in a time of falling credit ratings and falling economies all over North America, British Columbia retains a triple-A rating on the money markets of North America.

We have recently considered the budget. This restraint program and our job-creation initiatives are part of a fiscal package that will achieve our long-term goals to provide financial security for our citizens and a base on which to continue to build.

One of the most often-repeated messages, certainly that our Premier gave and that our Minister of Finance has been giving over the years, is that the way back to that financial and economic integrity and social stability would be long and difficult — years in which we knew we would have to implement financial and other measures which, in the short term at least, would be politically unpalatable to the fainthearted. We don't pretend that we've achieved all the goals that we've set out to achieve. for there have been a number of unforeseen and unpredictable events such as high interest rates, inflation and international currency fluctuations which seriously affect the attainment of some of our goals in the short term. But further advances will be made if we all — government and individual members of this House — think and act positively and not negatively.

Governments do make mistakes from time to time. But where would this province be if it didn't have the courage and foresight to embark on bold programs such as the program which is being embarked on here? Where would we be if we didn't have the courage to harness the Peace and the Columbia, to build the Massey Tunnel, to open up the interior and north of this province with our rail and road transportation systems? All these advances were opposed by the negative doubting people, as the political history of this province will record. Where would we have been, as well, without the courage to introduce new and effective social programs like long-term care and denticare and the massive hospital construction programs which are presently underway?

I don't want to dwell on the past, because it is in the future that we show such great promise. It is the future which will be so challenging, exciting and rewarding, not only for us but particularly for our children and our grandchildren. All the programs and plans for the future will be lost if we individually and collectively fall prey to three destructive factors: N — negativism; D — defeatism; P — procrastination — NDP. The history of the world over many centuries offers irrefutable proof that an active and dedicated handful of people can destroy the aspirations of the majority, not by force but by negativism and protest, while the majority remains mute and passive.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

All I say is: let's get behind the positive programs that will bring prosperity to this province. Don't allow us, Mr. Speaker, to fall prey to those three deadly sins — negativism, defeatism and procrastination — but give us, instead, encouragement and support to become active in moving us into a future which will be profitable not only for ourselves, but for all of those who follow us.

MR. STUPICH: May I say that I don't particularly enjoy following the minister who has just spoken. There is a terrible temptation to get down and wallow in the mud along with him. Mr. Speaker, you weren't here in those days, but those of us who were here when the NDP was the administration in this province will recall that he was the most irresponsible when it came to making attacks on people in the House. He was the most irresponsible of a very bad lot. He was the worst of the lot.

[ Page 7376 ]

He said that Dunsky got all the advertising when the NDP were government in the province of British Columbia. That's a lie. I'm not calling him a liar, Mr. Speaker. I know I can't call him a liar. I'm simply saying that particular statement is an untruth, and he knows it. He said many other things that were untrue. He knew them to be untrue, but that didn't stop him for one moment, any more than it did at the time he was in the opposition.

He talked about the Leader of the Opposition's own restraint program, as though the Leader of the Opposition adopted a restraint program in the province of British Columbia that was new and different from anything else done anywhere in Canada. Mr. Speaker, even though you weren't a member in the House at the time, you'll recall that that happened as a followup to a program announced by the Prime Minister of Canada as a national program.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oops, that's what he said we did.

MR. STUPICH: I'm coming to that remark.

The leader of the government of the province of British Columbia said at the time that it would not work: you can't embark upon a wage and price control program in peacetime because people just won't accept it. But if wages are going to be controlled in the province of British Columbia, then the government of the province of British Columbia is going to do something to control at least some prices. The government of British Columbia, with the present Leader of the Opposition as Premier, did announce an immediate freeze on price increases for food, energy and drugs.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Transportation is part of energy.

When I went back to Ottawa to discuss the federal program — to convey B.C.'s concerns about the way the program wasn't working — the people in charge of the program back there said that they wished the federal government had had the intestinal fortitude to impose the kind of controls on cost increases that the government of British Columbia had shown in its program. I won't deal with that particular member any more. Certainly what he said has had more of my attention than it deserves up to this point.

I heard the Premier announce this program on February 18. By coincidence, a political science class from Malaspina College had asked me to come and speak to the students that evening. It just happened that that was the evening chosen by the Premier for his announcement. The group was meeting at 7 o'clock, and that was the time the Premier was speaking. It gave us an excellent opportunity to discuss and diagnose exactly what the Premier had said.

I was particularly interested in the response from Mr. Hamilton, the head of the Employers Council. He had said previously and he said then that the Employers Council, under his leadership, would not support a wage-price control program, because the federal government had tried to do it and had shown that it couldn't work. It can't work in peacetime. You can't impose the kind of controls that people accept. He would not support a wage-price control program, but he welcomed the program to control wages for a small portion only of the total workforce. He thought that was just great. He knew that wage and price controls wouldn't work. He knew that wage controls alone wouldn't work, but as long as it wasn't affecting him and the people belonging to his organization and as long as it was only affecting one small portion of the community, he thought this was simply wonderful and he embraced the program.

The Premier said during the course of his remarks that the federal government had to share a lot of the blame for the problems we're facing in the province. He said that a lot of it's international and that B.C. can't really do anything about the international programs. That's true, but not on the short term. During the time that we were in office we did everything we could to try to get our products into more markets in the world. This government has done little in that area. We did everything we could within the country to try to get the country moving in the right direction, and we had programs going in the province of B.C. that this particular government scuttled very soon after coming into office.

There isn't much that can be done federally, but remember, Mr. Speaker, that as much as they criticize the high interest programs that are now in effect and the high-unemployment programs, this particular government has supported the Trudeau administration from the very beginning and still does. It supports its high-interest policies and is now a part of the federal government program, not simply to condone the high and ever-increasing unemployment but to create more unemployment with the program that is now being presented to us in this legislation. That is going to be one of the greatest effects of the legislation before us now — to create more unemployment in the province rather than less. So everything they're doing is exactly in line with what the Trudeau administration is doing, and yet they criticize Trudeau.

What have they done to get the economy of the province going? Nothing. They have closed down job-creating opportunities that we created. They closed down the Railwest car plant and six months later had to go looking for cars. They ran short of cars and had to lease them in the United States. They closed down other plants that were owned by the government. West Kootenay Forest Products was going to be closed. We bought it, they gave it to BCRIC, now BCRIC has sold it and now it's closed. One thing after another has been closed since this government took office, and they closed down other organizations directly under the control of the government. I will be getting into some more detail on that as well. They've done nothing positive to create employment in the province — nothing at all.

In the news report of the Premier's speech on television he said the program to be introduced in the next session of the Legislature puts a 12 percent limit on expenditures for 1982-83 and applies to all public bodies that spend your tax dollars. It goes on to say that it doesn't apply to Crown corporations except with respect to the amount of money spent on wages. There is no control of the spending of B.C. Hydro. If total government spending is the problem, why not slow down some of the projects of B.C. Hydro? There is no control of the spending of B.C. Rail. How much is going to be spent there? We're told the figure is in excess of $1 billion of taxpayers' money on the program to ship out northeast coal. A subsidy to ship our coal to Japan. Is that restraint? That's not the kind of restraint that's presented to us in this legislation.

As an example, Premier Bennett said that municipal and local governments would be hit. Legislation that we discussed recently — although I'm not going to comment on it at all — changes the revenue-sharing formula and puts more costs on the backs of the municipalities, yet the amount the

[ Page 7377 ]

municipalities may spend in total is limited to 12 percent. They're faced with cost increases of more than 12 percent on wages, supplies, energy, and everything they spend money on. They're faced with increasing costs levied on them by the provincial government and yet their total increase in the budget is limited to 12 percent. The only way they can stay within those limits is to cut programs, and to cut programs they have to create unemployment. More unemployment is created in every municipal and local government office in the province of British Columbia. That's what restraint means: more people unemployed. It means they are going to be paid by unemployment insurance, and that comes largely from Ottawa rather than from the provincial government. That's great business, great financing, but they eventually run out of unemployment insurance.

I remember the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) talking about the program. They expect the cost of human services, and the cost of social assistance, to increase much more rapidly than the cost of the constructive programs that were being put forward by the municipalities. So they know the cost of welfare is going to go up as a result of the programs they are introducing in the Legislature in this particular legislation.

Post-secondary educational institutions are going to be hurt. Mr. Speaker, if there was ever a time when we needed more in the way of post-secondary courses and the availability of these courses.... People who are unemployed and collecting unemployment insurance need something to do. They need an opportunity to upgrade themselves — to pursue their education, even if it's simply courses in the evening that make them feel better about the life they're living. It can be quite apart from job opportunities — even learning something about the humanities. Those opportunities should be made available to people, especially when they're unemployed. The colleges are being cut back. Their opportunities to present these kinds of programs to people are being reduced. That is what restraint means to post-secondary education.

We've all had correspondence from school boards or from schools, I'm sure. I had one from the principal of a school talking about a youngster with multiple handicaps. This child has been getting something from the special education courses that are available. In this particular instance — I don't want to identify the person in any way at all — because of the cutback in that particular school district, that child is no longer going to be able to take advantage of the special education courses that were available.

I have another from the principal of a school, writing on behalf of the parents' advisory group, opposing the cuts in our children's education. "We feel that our children are our most important resource for the future, as they will be the adult population in British Columbia in just a few years. If we cut back in their education now, how can we expect them to be well-rounded adults?" It is the wrong time to be cutting back on those kinds of programs.

Here is a letter from a constituent who wrote to the Premier. I haven't seen the response.

"Misgivings about the process are twofold: control of the public wage sector and the retroactive nature of your controls. My understanding is that you have restricted school budgets to a 12 percent lift over the previous year, a reasonable inflation factor. Also, you will not affect the teacher and support staff wage increases, which averaged around 17 percent — a gesture which appears noble on your part. The problem, sir, is that the school boards must pay that 17 percent to the teachers and support staff, and they will have to pay in the neighbourhood of 20 percent more for their energy and supplies. When the school boards agreed to the wage increase they had no knowledge of controls, no opportunity to plan."

This correspondent goes on to say that he voted against the school board incumbents because he was opposed to what they had done, but the voters as a whole supported them and he accepted that verdict. All he was urging on the Premier was that he should not impose these kinds of controls retroactively and not give the local representatives — elected in a democratic election — an opportunity to properly plan for the future.

The budget speech of 1980, talking about educational institutions, said: "These institutions are providing programs to meet the high public demand for vocational and career training. Such training is essential to ensure a proper match between the skills and career plans of individuals in the labour force and the needs of industries in the future." That was true when it was presented to the Legislature in the budget speech of 1980, two years ago. It is more true today. We still have the need for those kinds of people, but we're cutting back on the educational programs. It is false economy to cut back on those kinds of programs at this time.

The budget speech of 1981 said: "During last spring and summer the government learned that a particularly severe shortage of skilled labour was emerging in the northern regions of the province. In October the Cabinet Committee on Economic Development, led by my colleague, the hon. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, toured the north to identify more precisely the full scope of the situation." They found out, indeed, that there is a need for trained people in the northeastern area of the province. They have done nothing since then to train those people, and the program announced now says that there will be cutbacks in whatever training has been available to this point in time.

I continue with that same budget speech: "While greater emphasis must be given to on-the-job training, educational opportunities in our schools and post-secondary institutions should also reflect the demand for skilled workers. Enrolment in colleges and provincial institutes is growing very rapidly." That was a year ago. Since then the program has been cut back. There won't be the increases in enrolment this year.

Even the budget speech presented in this Legislature just a month ago says: "The Cabinet Committee on Employment Development will begin immediately to set priorities and expedite the necessary program initiatives. The new cabinet committee will give priority to training programs, the objective being to prepare people now for the employment opportunities that will emerge as the economy recovers and a series of major projects go forward." That is a great sentence. They are going to train more people so that they'll be ready when the opportunity presents itself. But the Premier's own statement on TV said that one of the areas going to be hit was post-secondary educational institutions. The very program that was announced in the budget has been sabotaged by the Premier himself in announcing this program.

A lot has been said about health. A lot more will be said about health and the effect of this restraint program on health care in the province of British Columbia. This letter from a constituent is dated six months ago: "Recently my husband

[ Page 7378 ]

required some surgery at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. I, fortunately, was able to spend much time with him there. I was also appalled at the lack of adequate care he and his fellow patients received due to insufficient staff, which is the direct result of insufficient government funding." This was four months before the Premier announced his restraint program. Now, the axe is being wielded in hospitals.

I have a letter from the chairman of the Central Vancouver Island Union Board of Health complaining about the cutbacks — and again, this was last fall, September 1981, before the present restraint was announced. This is how bad the situation was even before it was announced.

"Nursing positions in mental health, home care and public health nursing programs are all being affected." This was in September. "As a result of the frozen mental health nursing positions, patients are being referred to their own private physicians for their injections of medication. This results in a greater cost to the Medical Services Plan. The home-care nursing program offers an alternative and financially more acceptable form of health care to hospitalization. A freeze on these positions is resulting in false economy. Public health nursing is responsible for preventive programs in community health; and a freeze on these positions can only result in the use of more expensive treatment programs. My board would appreciate your cooperation in exempting all community health positions from your hiring freeze, particularly those in the Central Vancouver Island Health District."

Mr. Speaker, they haven't heard anything yet; wait until the program now being debated comes into effect.

Figures were given earlier today by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), but I think they bear repeating, The Nanaimo hospital, as was pointed out in the letter from a constituent that I read, has been running a very tight ship. Last Friday it was announced that 42 of its 368 acute beds and 25 of its rehab beds are going to be closed because of lack of staff. That's a total of 18 percent of the beds. Sixty-five of the staff were laid off last Friday. That's on top of 20 positions not been filled in the last few months because of the previous restraint program, so really it's a cutback of 85. All of this comes after a program that you may have seen Saturday evening on Channel 2 after the late news — "Provincial Affairs." It's not a very widely watched program, but I hope everybody in the province saw it; I'm afraid they didn't. The hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) saw it. It was an excellent program. The timing couldn't have been better. On the very day hospitals throughout the province announced that 1,000 staff members were being laid off, on the very day it was announced that something like 800 beds in total were going to be closed because of lack of staff, the Premier and the Minister of Health appeared on this "Provincial Affairs" broadcast and boasted to everyone in the province what they had accomplished with their tax dollars — the number of new hospitals under construction, the number of new hospital beds being provided, the excellent care being given to the patients in this hospitals — what a great system of health we have in this province. Had that program been aired the week before, it might have been listened to with interest; but coming the very day that all of these cutbacks were announced was nothing less than an insult to the people watching it — to boast about the level of health care in the province following what had happened that particular week with respect to announced cutbacks in health care service.

The program is a political one. That has been said, and it will be said over and over. Of that there can be little doubt. This from the Province of February 25, 1982: "Bennett restraint plan may be part of sneaky political scenario." In the Times-Colonist, Jack Clarke said: "The trouble with wage controls is that they're really a political idea, not an economic concept — at least not one a free enterprise economist paying homage to the Holy Grail would ever contemplate." That's the trouble with this bill before us now. It's not part of an economic concept; it's a politically inspired bill. As a political idea, Premier Bennett's plan is certainly clever because it, covers so many strategies at once. Obviously, his compensation stabilization program makes him look as if he, and only he, is trying to do something about the province's very difficult situation. It won't do much to keep down inflation. Few economists believe wages over the last two or three years have had much influence on inflation, and it won't get the provincial economy going again. With or without controls, there's little chance of significant recovery by the main revenue producer, the forest industry, until the U.S. market recovers.

More on politics. Again from the Province, February 21:

"Labour Expert Raps Bennett Program.

"One of B.C.'s most respected labour relations experts has slammed the province's new public-sector wage-control program as unfair and likely doomed to failure. Former B.C. Labour Relations Board chairman Paul Weiler says there is 'absolutely no justification for singling out one group of people and imposing controls on them alone.... '

"'If you're going to do it,'" — that is, controls "'then you have to do it seriously...with limits in the order of 5 and 6 percent. And if you do that, you have to do it for everybody, including price controls,' he said."

More on politics, Mr. Speaker: "Public Sector Restraint Program a Mistake" — a newspaper heading in the Vancouver Sun of March 8.

"B.C. Program Hit by Leading U.S. Economist.

"A leading U.S. economist dumped criticism on the provincial government's restraint program, saying it is a mistake to single out public-sector workers for wage controls. 'These programs'" — not speaking just about the one announced, but any program such as this to control wages — "'depend on public support to be effective. If they are seen to be inequitable, they will self-destruct.'"

Surely, Mr. Speaker, nothing can seem to be more inequitable than to pick out any one group in the community and try to control wages for that group alone.

Mr. Speaker, I've tried to show what it's going to do to education; the effects will linger for years. I've tried to show what it's going to do to health care; the effect of that may not last so long.

I talked to a friend of mine whose 82-year-old mother's cataracts were becoming quite serious in June of last year. She had never had an operation of any kind and was simply afraid to go under the knife. Her hobbies were crochet work and T.V. By October the eyes were so bad that she just couldn't put up with it any longer and finally agreed to face the fear of the knife and have her eyes operated upon. The doctor then told her that he could do the operation in March

[ Page 7379 ]

six months later. The day she was scheduled to go into the hospital — she was getting dressed to go to the hospital — she received a phone call to say that the appointment was cancelled because there wasn't a bed available. It was in March of this year. Later the doctor phoned again and said that the operation would be done in August; it was before this restraint program was announced.

That lady has been living in fear of an operation, an experience she had never had in her 82 years, since June 1981. She is now hoping that she's going to have the operation — she's quite blind and can't see to do anything she used to do before — within 14 months from the day that she was told she had to have an operation. She's hoping that she will have that operation and get it behind her. But, Mr. Speaker, we have a new restraint program. Restraint means to that person that she may have to live longer with that fear and not have the opportunity to see again.

Restraint for public servants. Well, the public servants settled on a wage agreement some three years ago. They gave them wage increases much below the cost of inflation, and they're now told that they're not going to have an increase in line with the cost of inflation; they're not going to have the increases that others are getting. They're going to be kept within prescribed limits. The Premier, in his announcement on February 18, said what the limits would be. The legislation before us now has no such limits in it. We don't know whether we're going to have the 10, 12, 14, 8, whatever the figure the Premier announced was; he kept changing it. We don't know whether it's going to be in the neighbourhood of 8 percent to 14 percent that the public servants will be allowed to have; that is, if they voluntarily negotiate an agreement within the limits that the person with the authority to deal with it sets. They don't know if they're going to have 8 percent to 14 percent or whether it will be 2 percent to 6 percent or whether it will be 16 percent to 20 percent. We've no idea, in voting for the legislation before us now, exactly what these figures are going to be.

Yet we're being asked to support legislation, and the members opposite are going to vote for legislation, giving the cabinet the authority to set those limits in the cabinet room without any idea at all what the limits are going to be at any one point in time, whether they'll be different for different groups, different from month to month or what the situation will be. And blindly, like sheep, they'll vote for it; we know that. But we're not going to support that kind of legislation. It's patently unfair. As one of the people I quoted from pointed out, legislation that is obviously unfair will not be accepted by the community as a whole and hence is bound to fail. That's what it means to them.

There is no attempt by this government to control the cost of living for public servants any differently from the cost of living for others. There is nothing in this government program to control the cost of mortgages. If a public servant is going to have to renegotiate a mortgage that perhaps was at 11 percent and is going up to 18 percent, 19 percent, whatever, there is nothing in here to help that public servant meet the increase in the cost of the mortgage. There is nothing in here to meet the increase in the cost of hydro at 20 percent or how much more; nothing in here to meet the increase in the cost of telephone; nothing in here to help the public servant alone meet increases in the cost of food, in the cost of transportation. All of these costs are going up just as much for the public servant as they are for anyone else in the community. Yet the public servant is being treated as some second; third-or fourth-class citizen. It's obviously a very unfair program. What about government itself? What about the future of the province?

I have another article I'm going to refer to. The heading is: "Reforestation Falling Behind Government Industry Targets." Mr. Speaker, this surely is planning and working for the future, but reforestation is falling behind what was planned. What was planned wasn't nearly enough. This is not yesterday's news story; this is a news story which is almost one year old. On June 5, 1981, the story was that reforestation was falling behind government and industry targets. Since then, the new restraint program was announced. After this, the freeze is on hiring. The budget that came out this year shows that the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) will have less money in terms of real dollars. Even after wrapping all of the money that was left in that special forest and range improvement fund into the activities of the ministry this year, there'll be less money in terms of real dollars for treating our most valuable resource than there was a year ago. Even one year ago we were falling behind the very minimum targets set by the government and industry. That's what restraint means.

In education, restraint means cutbacks, especially for those who need special services. The bright students will be able to survive. They may be behind, but they'll survive, they'll come out all right. They can look after themselves. The children with special needs are the ones who are going to suffer.

For those who need health care, restraint means a deteriorating level of health care. It'll mean that elective surgery lists will grow longer and longer and that the lady I spoke about, who will have been waiting 14 months for a cataract operation, may have to wait another 14 months. Restraint, to that particular person, means human suffering. That is just one example of the kind of human suffering that will be increased as a result of the program announced, and the legislation that we're debating now is a part of that program. That's what restraint means to that person.

For government, restraint means many things. Most crucial of all, I think, it means that programs which look to the future, such as the care of our forests, our greatest natural resource, will fall badly behind the level set by the government at a time when even those levels were not high enough.

Restraint means nothing about economic concepts. It has nothing at all to do with the economy and nothing to do with economic concepts. As I pointed out by quoting other people and by quoting myself, it's straight — I think the word was used here — sneaky politics. That's what this particular program is.

In announcing the program, the Premier said that most of our problems are international in origin and we can do little about that. I agree that we can't in the short run. He said that a lot of our problems are due to the federal government, and this particular administration has supported everything that the federal government has announced by way of restraint. He said that nothing can be done much in the province of British Columbia, and then went on to announce a program that means a curtailment of every service that the government is offering to the people of the province, such as curtailment of ferry services,

I don't know, Mr. Speaker, whether you've had the opportunity to travel on the ferries lately, but certainly, on the ones between Nanaimo and Vancouver at least — I'm not sure about Route 1 between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen — the

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coffee bars have been closed and one side of the cafeteria has been closed, even though that run is longer in time than the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen run. The lineups on the ferries mean that the people towards the end of the lineup don't even get into the cafeteria before the ship reaches the other side. That's what restraint means to government programs such as that. Restraint means withdrawal of government service, but restraint also means charging much more for giving less.

Restraint means, to the people who are paying hydro bills, an increase of 25 percent; and to industry, in one instance, it means an increase of $9 million — and that industry has closed its plant for the first time ever because of economic conditions. That's what restraint means. Restraint means that the government, while cutting back on services and creating more unemployment, is taking out of the economy an extra $300 million to $500 million in increased levies of one kind or another — at the same time as it is denying the people of the province educational facilities and, because of a lack of staff, access to hospital beds that are built and ready to operate. It means, hopefully, in the eyes of the government, that this particular sneaky political program will result in their re-election. That's all this program means to the government. If there's anything at all they can do to help get themselves re-elected whenever the next election comes along, then the program — whatever the cost in terms of human suffering, misery, lack of opportunities for education and all of the other costs of this program to people in this province — if it's politically successful, was obviously the right one for this particular administration to promote at this time.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House can't possibly support that kind of program, and I suggest to you that the people of the province of British Columbia, when they have the opportunity, will show that they do not support this program or the administration that brought it in.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister of Tourism asks leave to make an introduction. Shall leave be given?

Leave granted.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: The House will recall that among the new thrusts of the Ministry of Tourism is a concentrated effort to see growth in our overseas markets, which are very lucrative to British Columbians and very compatible. This has been exemplified in many ways, including the special tourist-industry development trip, all in German, which we made to Germany last year. I am very pleased to advise the House that at this time, as a result of that trip, we have a group of 11 West German tour operators, travel agents and writers, including their two escorts, here in British Columbia at this time to make an onsite inspection of our province, including the lower mainland and the Okanagan Valley. Their objective is to ascertain what the future opportunities will be for special-interest and incentive-travel groups from Germany and other parts of Europe to British Columbia. With the group are Hildegard Bohl, Petra Langer, Helga Schilbch-Anschuetz and Horst Altmann, Bernd Aufleger, Ottmar Caro, Klaus Finkenzeller, Jan Guettes, Detlef Hinrichsen, Manfred Keilhofer and Peter Schwalbe. Along with their escorts is Mr. Dennis Holmes, the convention director from the Ministry of Tourism. I would ask the House to join with me in extending not only a very warm welcome to them but the hope they will, after their visit here, encourage their citizens to visit in British Columbia.

MR. STRACHAN: My best wishes too to the visitors today from West Germany.

I rise to support this bill that brings restraint and some orderliness back to our province. I guess one of the things that has intrigued me and, I am sure, all members of this side of the House is the continual rationale that the members opposite and other so-called wise men — people who feel they have some handle on the study of economics — have made when they equate this bill with the federal anti-inflation program of the mid-1970s. The wise men opposite quote Beryl Plumtre and other sources who state that, because the federal program didn't succeed, our program won't succeed. I would submit that there is a major difference between our program and the federal program. One, of course, is that we are simply holding the line on taxes and on our own government spending. We're not trying to get into the private sector or trying to tell other people what they must do. We are simply — as all good businessmen would do and as any government should do at a time of economic downturn — holding back on our own employees. I would submit that the hon. member for Nanaimo, who just took his place and who is professionally trained in the field of accounting, would give that type of counsel to any businessman he might be counselling in what to do when you have declining revenues. You cut back on your expenses. Mr. Member, I am sure you are aware of that, and I find it interesting that your professional training would fly in the face of your philosophical statements.

One of the problems during the federal Anti-Inflation Board program was that the federal government did not restrain their own spending. As a matter of fact, if you look at the record you will note that roughly during the AIB program the federal deficit tripled from $2 billion to $6 billion. The federal government restrained everyone except themselves. That was their folly. This bill simply says to the people of British Columbia that we as government, we as the tax collector, we the people who regulate the other taxing authorities such as school districts and municipal councils, simply want to take our hand out of your pocket. It is that simple. There is no magic to it. It is a simple statement to the people of British Columbia, and I am bemused as to why the members opposite would not endorse this principle during this time of economic restraint.

The NDP say: "No, we want to dump it out of the back of the truck. We want to just give it away and forget restraint, forget everything that the people who are unemployed have worked for." There is restraint in the private sector. It is entitled layoff. I am surprised that the members opposite aren't aware of the people who are going to have to dig into their pockets for tax dollars, in the case you would present, to support higher education, health, municipal government and provincial government spending. I think you do the people who elected you a great disservice.

One of the interesting things yesterday was the mini filibuster of the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. RITCHIE: Mini-leader!

MR. STRACHAN: He's not that small, hon. member. You can't say that.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke at great length about our party being in bed with the federal government. He drew some kind of kinky analogy to the fact that because the federal government had a restraint program in the mid-1970s

[ Page 7381 ]

and we have one now, we are in bed with the federal government. I think there is a lot of political tarbrushing going on there. The Leader of the Opposition presumes that because of the defeat of the NDP in Saskatchewan, if he paints us with the brush of being in bed with the federal government — in fact, maybe some of it will stick — the people of the province will consider that we're a party that supports the federal policy.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'd like to point out that we're not in bed with the federal government. We certainly never have been. I don't think the provincial NDP are in bed with the feds; I think the feds are in bed with the NDP. I'll give you a good example. I have with me this afternoon a copy of an April 9 and 10 address given to the federal-provincial conference of first ministers. This is the address that was given by the then Premier of the province, who is now the Leader of the Opposition and the first member for Vancouver East. In this statement the NDP indicate their enthusiasm for federal government policy. Let me quote the now Leader of the Opposition, who at this time was speaking as Premier: "In calling for public control over Canada's energy resources, I have said since November 1973" — in other words, he'd been saying it for 18 months — "that British Columbia is prepared to share all the oil and natural gas rights granted to it by the constitution if the government of Canada will put under public ownership all of the oil and gas in this country."

The Liberals are indeed in bed with the NDP. It's that policy espoused by the then Premier, the now Leader of the Opposition — by the provincial New Democratic Party — that in fact is the architect of PetroCan, and of the fact that we have to buy crummy Mexican crude that we can't refine, and, I suppose and submit, of the Alsands failure in the last week.

Interjection.

MR. STRACHAN: That policy articulated there — you can't deny it, hon. member for Shuswap-Revel stoke (Mr. King) — is Mr. Lalonde's policy. I would submit that the Leader of the Opposition, the representative of the provincial NDP, was the architect of the National Energy Program; he was Mr. Lalonde's policy adviser. That fact cannot be denied. I would take you to task if you think you can accuse us of being in bed with the federal government, Mr. Member. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I submit that it's pretty hard to say that about our party.

There is a great deal of talk in this debate about the principle of collective bargaining. In spite of what you members opposite have said, we do have collective bargaining in this province. It does exist. It exists even under this restraint bill, and I think if you have a good look at it you'll see that it does. The interesting thing about collective bargaining is that not one member on this side of the House has ever said anything about the collective bargaining process. There is one member in this House who has. I submit to the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) — he's not here right now, but he enjoys a position in his caucus similar to the one I enjoy in mine — that perhaps he should call an NDP caucus meeting, and maybe they could develop a policy on the principle of collective bargaining.

MR. RITCHIE: How about Gary Lauk?

MR. STRACHAN: That's exactly what I was going to refer to, because in spite of the great hue and cry we've heard about collective bargaining in the last couple of days, and despite the good words said by some of my friends whom I truly appreciate have been instrumental in the collective bargaining process and who have done good works on behalf of what they believe in — such as the second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall) and the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) ; and on our side of the House, the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet) and the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), who has been a long-standing member of the IWA — the only one in this House who has ever made any comment about the fact that we should not have collective bargaining is the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) a member who used to be in the NDP cabinet as their Minister of Economic Development.

Let me quote the first member for Vancouver Centre from the 1976 NDP convention, when he "warned party members to be careful in supporting the concept of free collective bargaining." He agreed that the NDP's long-term goal of a planned economy "would be inconsistent with collective bargaining." I think we can take the statements of the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), and many of the other fine people who believe in the union movement, and they totally fly in the face of the statements by the first member for Vancouver Centre. It would be nice if the NDP could finally come up with some sort of consistent statement on collective bargaining and the trade union process.

We definitely need a restraint program; I don't think there's any secret about it. It's also no secret that no one likes it, and I'll be the first to admit that. Sure, it would be nice to keep spending money on this and that and whatever you want. As many of you know, I had the good fortune during the first part of my political career to serve on a school board. In those days the provincial revenues were good and the school district where I had the pleasure to serve had a growing student population. During my time as a member of that board — and as chairman during the last couple of years — I had the good fortune to open five schools. Things were going very well there in School District 57. We had lots of employment. We had an increasing population. We had an increasing student population. It was a nice position to be in. We had the fat budgets, and we could mount the programs that we wanted. Life couldn't have been better for a school trustee there were no problems.

But things have changed since then. First, we have a declining school population in our district. In spite of the fact that our population as a whole is increasing, our school population has been declining in the last two years. You can't argue with those numbers. I spoke at some length during the budget speech about the big generation that waved — the children born from 1951 to 1966, the one-third of our population in Canada that have now moved through our school system. We just can't lose sight of that. As a provincial government and as administrators and trustees of the public purse, it would be folly of us to continue throwing money at empty classrooms, and I would submit that is the case. I don't think you can deny that. With the exception of a few growing communities in the northern part of our province, some of the growing resource communities. our school population is declining. There's no one who can argue against that; that's a fact of life. It's numbers, and it's folly for our government to continue to throw money at empty classrooms just to assist some policy of the BCFT.

[ Page 7382 ]

One of the reasons we have these problems — the high government spending nowadays — is largely because of the policy of the NDP. I would like to quote from the throne speech of January 26, 1973. The hon. member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), who of course had a concern about the civil service — he obviously didn't feel that it was big enough..... In his reply, he welcomes the comment in the throne speech that "there would be 10,000 new jobs provided in the Civil Service Commission of the province of British Columbia." That, Mr. Speaker, is when we started on the road to higher government spending and higher taxes, and it was NDP policy that introduced us to that sort of position. It has been an albatross around our necks since that party opposite was government. The civil service increased dramatically, and all citizens of the province had to support it. By the way, that's a very interesting reply to the throne speech; the member for Nelson-Creston endorsed nuclear power, in case you want to look it up — January 26, 1973. They wanted 10,000 new civil servants, 10,000 new expenses on the taxpayers of B.C.

Mr. Speaker, the NDP are clearly stating that their policy is: get everything you can out of the public trough. Let the teachers get 17 percent again. Let there be no restraint on the size or wages of the civil service. Get as many people as you can in the public trough, and let them get all they can.

Mr. Speaker, this bill takes the heavy hand of government out of the pockets of the people. We're the first government that's had the guts to do it, and you've got to admit it. I would submit — and I'll close now, so whoever the next speaker is, get ready — that everyone who votes against this bill has absolutely no concern for, no empathy for and is completely out of touch with the people of B.C. I support the bill.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. HALL: I listened to the previous speech with a great deal of interest and noted the vast amount of research that went into it. I want to deal with it at some length to justify the research that went into it — particularly that part of it that dealt with energy problems, because that really was the most interesting part of the speech. The rest really was an examination of Hansard by some assistant of the member for Prince George South (Mr. Strachan).

If I were the member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland), I would be very concerned about the member for Prince George. The member for Prince George knows a lot more about energy than the member for Langley does. I would be very concerned if I were the member for Langley. It is not saying anything, really, about anything, but I thought it would just put it into perspective. It would be a battle of Titans, in terms of energy and knowledge, to watch those two go at it. I really felt that we might hear something about the bill, but instead we heard about the energy policies of the federal government and about some speeches that my colleagues may or may not have made in past years.

If this bill had any merit, any worth or anything to commend itself to the people of British Columbia, it would have been built upon by the administration in Ottawa in 1976 right through 1978 as the base from which Canada could have launched its defence against inflation, against runaway prices, against criminally high interest rates and against every other public enemy that the other side has drawn bead upon. They tell us it's got merit. It's a carbon copy of that which was produced in 1976, and yet we know that the anti-inflation legislation was not a success. Why do I say that? The bill is exactly the same in genesis to those dark days of 1976 that saw the birth of the Anti-Inflation Board, the so-called wage and price controls. Shades of Mrs. Plumtre's original plaything, the price review board. Of course, we know it didn't control prices. It only controlled wages. That, more than any other reason, is why it wasn't a success. Nor does this bill seek to control prices. The member was quite straightforward about that. He told us exactly what it sought to do. It sought to bring our employees under control. At least he is being very simple and straightforward about it.

The Anti-Inflation Act, in the fullness of time, was declared a failure. Most of us know that. The Minister of Finance really knows that. Most of the members of the government in 1976-79 know that that particular federal program was a failure and didn't achieve its objectives. It only served to alienate and exacerbate the already difficult Canadian labour-management scene.

So why are we trying it all over again? We are trying it again because, firstly, it only seeks to impose a supposedly popular control on a pre-selected group of workers. That is a really brave thing to do. The second reason — this is what really makes my opposition to this bill complete and definite — is that if dislocation and disruption occur, the government can take cynical, political advantage of the confusion and call an election. That is exactly what the second reason is. Those are the thrusts of this bill: first of all scapegoats and secondly hope you can cause enough trouble to slip through in a labour bashing election campaign. That is what is behind Bill 28. That is the bogeyman you've been looking for ever since you collapsed in the polls. You will find that the public of British Columbia are a bit smarter than that.

Looking back to February 18, when we saw the advance notice of this bill — the unveiling or, as the Leader of the Opposition said, the "three-flag performance" by the Premier — we saw that the act contains all the public-sector employees, all the members of the various unions all lumped together in this so-called fight against inflation. We are all supposed to get behind the Premier and exercise restraint. The first unveiling of that legislation didn't contain any details. We had to wait until the bill was tabled properly in this House, and we restrained ourselves as much as we could from making any general comments until we could see what was proposed in the bill.

We see that this bill orders all public sector employers to register with Commissioner Peck, immediately giving details of current negotiations. Once negotiations are concluded the employer must again notify Commissioner Peck within 30 days. If the commissioner decides the agreement does not fall within the restraint guidelines, he's got wide-ranging powers: to impose a new settlement, to ask the parties to meet again to try to reach a new settlement, to prevent implementation of the settlement, to roll back wage increases, to force employees to pay back wage increases, and to withhold future wage compensation, etc. But the bill does not contain any specifics on wage increase limits detailed by the Premier in that three-flag performance, in his February 18 speech. These details will be announced and contained in regulations, in bulletins and in other material that we'll expect from time to time.

An order by the commissioner can be filed in the Supreme Court as if it were an order of the court. It can't be appealed. No action for damages can be taken against the commissioner. The act has provision for a conditional agree-

[ Page 7383 ]

ment which allows the commissioner to make a special arrangement if the compensation plan falls outside the guideline. That's sheer one-man rule, sheer dictatorship. That's a wage commissar we've got working here, Mr. Speaker, a wage czar. If that kind of legislation had been introduced during 1972 to 1975 we'd have every single Liberal member and every single Social Credit Party member talking about sweeping powers, dictatorial powers, jackboot legislation. We'd have every single country in the world vilified as being our ancestral home.

AN HON. MEMBER: Megapower.

MR. HALL: Exactly. We've heard of megaprojects; these are megapowers. We're supposed to trust them. They say: "We're not doing anything to collective bargaining; we're just giving you some guidelines — just a wink and a nudge." Yet I read out the basic powers that Commissioner Peck will have. He's got more powers than the junta in Argentina. This is all done in the name of restraint.

Other speakers have talked about the restraint habits of the treasury benches. I'm not going to go into those very much today. There'll be ample opportunity as we go through June, July, August and September, examining the menus and the itineraries of the treasury benches over the past 12 months or 24. I want to go back to last spring when we suggested some restraints ourselves. Last spring we suggested and systematically identified $82 million worth of frills tucked into the Social Credit budget for unnecessary, self-serving. ministerial spending: $82 million worth of new offices, new furniture, travel expenses, advertising and other peripheral government services, every one of which was voted for, and requests for cutbacks and restraints rejected, by the treasury benches.

While I'm talking about restraint and advertising, I see we have been rejoined by the member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland). The member for Langley has been spreading some incorrect facts. He's been spreading some untruths about advertising programs. I want to just put the record straight about a couple of things, Mr. Speaker. He talked about an advertising agency that I happened to have something to do with when I was a minister. He said among other things that Mr. Dunsky did all the advertising for the New Democratic Party administration. While he was speaking there were four or five ex-cabinet ministers seated around. The Minister of Health in those days, the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), never used Mr. Dunsky. The Minister of Municipal Affairs in those days was the member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Lorimer), and he never used Mr. Dunsky. As Provincial Secretary in those days, I never used Mr. Dunsky. The Attorney-General in those days was the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), and he never used Mr. Dunsky. The Minister of Labour in those days was the member for Revelstoke (Mr. King), and he never used Mr. Dunsky. He's been going around since 1976 telling untruths.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Barrett did.

MR. HALL: I'll tell you that I used Mr. Dunsky when I was Minister of Tourism. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) used Mr. Dunsky when he was Minister of Human Resources. All you've got to do is do some homework and get your facts straight and don't tell untruths.

Mr. Speaker, last spring the New Democratic Party proposed cutting those frills, none of which would have interrupted delivery of programs, all of which would have certainly been classed as restraint — a good popular buzz-word these days. We believe that that kind of restraint is needed to prevent unnecessary taxation. The member for Prince George said we've got to get the government's hand out of the people's pocket. I agree. So let's get both of this government's hands out of the pocket.

Mr. Speaker, all of our many motions on that $82 million.... You remember them, I'm sure. You observed the fussing scene in here. Most of them are made in committee, but most of them were reported to you at the end of each day's debate when permission to record those divisions was asked of you. You remember that each of those many motions to make specific cuts was voted down. That's what the government majority did in the Legislature, and yet they now talk about restraint.

After that spring session, which went on until around the end of June, there were only seven day of work after that in 1981. They talk about restraint! For seven days of work we brought everybody in, we stoked up the boiler, we turned on the heat, we turned on the taps, we turned on the lights and then we all went home. If there is any merit in this bill, why wasn't this bill put forward in December? If there is any merit in anything the government has as a kind of economic recovery or restraint program, why wasn't that program ready? That's the thing that bothers me, and I've said it before in speeches and I will continue to say it.

During the hiatus, between a long adjournment from early July to nearly Christmas, the cabinet, as we know, was busy travelling, going for a sail with the other Premiers aboard a ferry, adding to personal staffs, even to the extent of hiring political opportunists from Ontario and elsewhere. It was all in the name of restraint. Worse still — and this is the thing that bothers me — they seem to spend all the actual working time on debt-increasing proposals. It's no good having restraint in terms of spending money out of your cash flow while at the same time you're doing that you're incurring debt all the time. There has to be some restraint in all of those things. I see no restraint whatsoever in the government's increase in its debt load.

Mr. Speaker, if debt is bad — and I think debt is bad; the Minister of Finance thinks debt is bad — we'd better start to really underscore just how bad this debt is. It's spiralling, guaranteed shortfall; it's interest-ridden Socred megadebt; and it's high-cost, long-term liability. I can think of about 154 ways to describe that debt, and it's about time we started to get those words into the political currency of this province instead of that claptrap that the member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland) is trying to put forward in terms of our policies on our economic recovery program. Mr. Speaker, dead-weight debt, unfunded debt, high-cost debt, spiralling debt, crushing debt and interest-ridden debt is what we have in this province. On the one hand we've got restraint by this Minister of Finance who is talking about the cash going out, and yet we're going to have debt to the tune of billions of dollars, as the members already evidenced in the budget speech,

Mr. Speaker, what we saw on February 18, and now it's supported by the facts in this legislation, was a media event. The member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) was good enough to give me a copy of four very pertinent questions he asked the Premier. The first question was: when we proposed those

[ Page 7384 ]

reductions last spring in the government's expenditures for such things as furniture and so on, why did the Premier vote against them? They would have saved the taxpayers $82 million. The second question was: why was it that the budget for the Premier's own office increased by over 100 percent over the past two years? Then he had an overrun on top of that. The third question that my friend from Skeena asked the Premier was: why is it that the money allocated to his office in the current fiscal year was all used up in the first nine months? Out of control. The last question was: why is it that government expenditures over the past two years have increased by 40 percent? Do you know what some of them said during that contribution this morning? They said they've got things under control. I don't think that's control — 40 percent in two years. No, it is a bogus bill, a political bill, a scapegoating bill.

It is a bill that raises all the bad memories — I share those memories.... I've known the member for North Island (Mr. Gablemann) a long time. The member for North Island wasn't always in the chamber during some of the debates he mentioned, but I know he was a frequent visitor here.

Interjections.

MR. HALL: I am congratulating the member for North Island on the speech he made. He wasn't here on the floor when some of those debates went on, but we discussed the effect of those debates together many times as he cut his political teeth in this province. I remember the debates about the infamous Mediation Commission and the available Judge Parker.

The member for Point Grey is laughing. I remember when he was sitting over here. He didn't think it was so funny then. He enjoyed those debates. I'm not too sure which side he was on during those debates. He used to try to find out his own position in those days — firmly on the fence, as a rule, until he went out to the Union Club and someone, usually the member for Oak Bay, whipped him into line.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Which one?

MR. HALL: The one who has just been made an appeal court judge. We'll argue about that later.

This bill raises all those bad memories of those debates on labour — the Bill 42 debate, the Mediation Commission debate, the days before the public service, both provincial and municipal, had full bargaining rights. Each springtime used to come around, and it queued up for the allowed percentage from an all-wise, all-powerful Premier, from a government with a huge majority. That is what used to happen. That brings back memories and they are bad memories, in a sense, because I thought we'd all progressed past that. We all made an agreement. We passed legislation. We all supported the principles of most of that legislation. There were some who didn't.

This bill is a step backward to economic chaos, because even if we could ignore all that I've said up until now, we'd still be struck by the fact that the Premier's proposals, such as they are, simply won't work. If the Prime Minister of Canada's wage controls wouldn't reverse inflation with a program which sought to curb wage hikes in all sectors and roll back some prices, how does the Premier of this province hope to be successful by restricting only public-sector wages — which is only 17 percent of the provincial workforce — while paying no attention to prices and profits?

If the government union members, who compose just one-quarter of public-sector employees, have been held to only 8 percent increases during the previous three years and straddled by AIB previous to that, as the member for North Island pointed out — five years under restraint while inflation has run rampant — how are the Premier's proposals to hold them to 10 percent going to reverse inflation? How is that going to reverse anything at all? If the Social Credit government really wanted to deal with inflation, it would attack it at its real source. While I know that here in Victoria we can't do much about energy prices or the declining U.S. market for B.C. forest products — although I think we could certainly aggressively market in a little more organized fashion — it could act to reverse the highest housing costs in Canada, it could act to lower the interest rate for struggling businessmen, for farms, for home-buyers, and it could stimulate the economy and generate some government revenue in the process. The selected release of Crown land for housing could bring down the cost of housing and put our building trades and at least some of our forest workers back to work. There are a number of proposals that could be put into operation instead of simply going forward with a so-called popular program of restraint, which, in its real guise is, as I say, a labour-bashing policy, to slide in hopefully during an election campaign.

The fact is that the government is not devoted to reversing inflation, recession and unemployment, or high interest rates. Instead, you're providing us with bread-and-circus debates on television. You're polishing your own image. You're providing a confrontation with labour by stomping on the public sector, whose members are clearly falling further behind in the race with inflation by virtue of those facts which the GERB clearly have at their disposal now. You're scapegoating in the worst possible way: inviting people to point fingers at one another instead of getting on with seeking out the real causes of inflation.

Of course, the ex-Ontario pollsters that you've got working for you will no doubt tell you that when enough of us have been mesmerized by this display, when you've got enough confusion going, when you've heightened the chaos, when the disruption and dislocation occur, you can then — as I've said before — take cynical political advantage of the confusion and call an election.

Mr. Speaker, that's why I will not support this bill. It's clearly a bogus political bill, and for those reasons nobody should support it.

MR. HOWARD: In rising to examine the bill before us, one thing to do is to assess the need for it in an historical context. It is not simply a question of where we go from this point, but of the circumstances and actions of this government in the last couple of years that have necessitated their drafting of a bill of this nature. In looking at the historical aspect of it, I don't mean in the long range; I just mean over the last year or two. The promoter of the bill is the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis). He is the minister who is responsible for it, the person who has usurped the function of the minister of labour in this regard, and also the person directly responsible for fiscal matters in this province this year, last year and the year before. It's in that context that I want to look at this situation.

A few years ago, the Premier of this province attended a federal-provincial conference — one of many. At that conference he presented a brief or a submission to the govern-

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ment of Canada outlining both what the government of Canada should do in fiscal matters and what the province of British Columbia should do in fiscal matters, and then he completely reversed himself.

Let's examine and put on the record what the Premier of this province said to the government of Canada a couple of years ago with respect to government spending practices. That's the heading on page 10 of this document called "Towards an Economic Strategy for Canada." He said: "Growth of government has occurred too quickly and without adequate appreciation of its implications." This is our Premier talking to the prime minister of Canada. He makes a suggestion in that regard and picks a period of three years, without any rationale for that. It could just as easily have been two or four or some other number, but he used three. He said all governments should restrain spending growth to a rate at least one percentage point below the growth rate in the economy. By way of example, says our Premier, if provincial economic growth ran at 10 percent, unadjusted for inflation, then government spending would grow at not more than 9 percent, unadjusted for inflation. When it comes to identifying what should happen in the provincial sphere, by way of explanation of what he meant by the growth rate in the economy, he pointed out that it was the rate of growth of the gross provincial domestic product. Just a few years ago that was the formula advanced to the government of Canada and committed as policy for this government. Since this Minister of Finance became Minister of Finance — this person who is piloting this bill through the House and declaring government policy — we find that he has completely reversed the position put forward by the Premier as the fiscal policy to be followed by this government.

Let me give you some figures. In 1980 the gross domestic product in British Columbia — that's what the Premier was talking about when he made those proposals to the federal government — ran at 13.2 percent over the year before. Following the formula enunciated by the Premier of the province that the rate of growth of expenditure of a province should not be more than one percentage point less than the gross domestic product, he was talking about a growth rate of 12 percent in government expenditures for this province. Instead, this Minister of Finance, so in love with his own importance in being Minister of Finance, so overjoyed at the prospect of getting his hands on so much public money to spend, in his first year as Minister of Finance brought into this Legislature an estimate of expenditure that was 20 percent over the year before, while his own Premier was giving advice to the government of Canada and declaring that that advice would be followed in this province. The Premier said: "It should only be 12 percent. If we spend more than 12 percent one year over the next, we will be in economic difficulty." This Minister of Finance, acting like an alcoholic with a free bottle of booze, has got his hands on those hundreds of millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money; he just couldn't restrain himself from wanting to squander it. He boosted the estimates of expenditure in the budget for that year by 20 percent over the year before; the Premier said that anything over 12 percent would get us into trouble.

That was the first year. In the second year, 1981, again the gross domestic product had a percentage increase of 13 percent over the year before. Knock that back by one percentage point for restraint purposes, as enunciated by the Premier, and we have another year when the increase in expenditure on the part of this government should only have been 12 percent; that's if there is any validity whatever to the theory and the proposition advanced by the Premier. Once again last year we saw an increase of 20 percent over the year before. Put the two years together and we find a 40 percent increase in government spending of taxpayers' money. Over the two year period. that is an additional 16 percentage point contribution to inflation. It's an additional 16 percentage points of squandering hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money — all done unashamedly, all done with glee. We all remember the smile on the face of the Minister of Finance when he was presenting those first two budgets, and how he gloated and proclaimed what a beautiful thing it was to be able to spend all that money. He enjoyed it then. The only people who didn't enjoy it were the people who had to fork out the money, the taxpayers of this province.

Let's see another thing the Premier said, in talking with Ottawa and giving advice to those easterners and to himself — although he never took his own advice; it was just for somebody else. On page 11 of that famous document the Premier of our province says: "Governments frequently employ methods of taxation which generate revenue growth faster than the rate of growth in the economy. This hidden form of tax increase allows public-sector spending to increase more rapidly than the rate of growth in the economy." That is precisely and exactly the policy that this government has been following in the past two or three years: namely, employing methods of taxation which will generate revenue for the province faster than the rate of growth in the economy. That is inflationary, destructive, injurious and promotes the idea that it is possible to spend as much as you like and you're not going to injure anybody. I think the Premier went to too many federal-provincial conferences. He became so unduly influenced by Prime Minister Trudeau and Finance Minister MacEachen at the federal level that he came back home, reversed himself and said: "Let's have Liberal policies here in the province as well. That seems to be the way to go." Now we have a bill before us called a restraint bill. Restraint is a dirty word when it is applied to what this government has done in the last couple of years.

Look here. Let the Minister of Finance look at this barometer staring him in the face. This is what was used last year to show that we in the New Democratic Party — the minister would like to look at it — sought to reduce.... There he is looking at it. Remember what you did last year.

A year ago we in the New Democratic Party, analyzing the government excesses and expenditures of last year, sought to save the taxpayers of this province something in the neighbourhood of $82 million. We sought to reduce the squandering by that amount of money — not in the area of programs or matters of delivery of service to people, but in the areas of travelling expenses, office furnishings, advertising and propagandizing. In that attempt of ours, a year ago, to bring this government to its senses, to try to reduce the excessive expenditures of the government last year, we totalled up a tab of $82 million that we could have saved the taxpayers of this province. Every single vote that was held in this House — there were dozens of them — to cut back and tighten the belt.... Every single one of those motions we put forward to reduce government expenditures was defeated by the solid government majority. Every single Social Credit member in this House with one exception, Your Honour.... I assume you are still a member of that illustrious party.

AN HON. MEMBER: Illustrious?

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MR. HOWARD: Illustrious only because Mr. Speaker may be a member of it — otherwise not. Every member of the Social Credit Party in this House voted last year against curtailing its own excesses. They just enjoy tremendously the prospect of flitting around the country first-class in airplanes, the possibility of flying to far-off lands — Europe, New York, the Philippines, Tokyo, wherever their fancy took them, wherever they wanted to go — because, after all, the taxpayers were footing the bill, and what did that group opposite care about that? Last year we had an example of an attempt in this House to put restraints on government excesses, and they wanted nothing to do with it. That is why this bill is deceitful and hypocritical.

The bill itself is a designed and calculated piece of deception. I am sure the minister didn't know it was going to turn out that way when he started to write it, but that is the effect of it. When we balance this bill against the squandering that took place last year, against the refusal on the part of that government to even cut their expenditures by one single red cent, it's hypocritical.

What about this year's budget, in examining the question of restraint and whether this bill should be supported? This government spends money on things identified in the budget as "professional and special services" — abroad and encompassing, general description. That's the item under which contracts are let out to friends of the government to do work for them, to prepare analyses for them, to do studies for them, or whatever it is they decide to do by contracting outside of the government service. Professional and special services — this year's budget over last year's budget — shows an increase of 24 percent. That's 24 percent for their friends they may employ on a contractual basis and 7.6 percent or 7.9 percent for hospitals. So that all their friends can wallow in the public trough under a contractual relationship, hospitals have got to close their doors and close the beds to keep sick people from getting into them. Where is this government's set of priorities, Mr. Speaker, when they can do that sort of heinous thing — increasing the amount of money that they're going to pay out to their friends by 24 percent and curtailing it everywhere else? If there's some doubt in people's minds as to what a 24 percent increase means in dollars and cents, let me tell you that in this fiscal year it means an allocation of $300 million for professional and special services: contracts for friends — $300 million; payments to schools — confined and restricted; payments to municipalities-restricted and imposed upon; funds for hospitals cut back. That's their set of priorities.

Then we've got a thing called travel expenses. Now we've heard something about travel expenses, Mr. Speaker. We know, for instance, that the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) spent more on his own personal travel than was allocated to his whole office; we know that he had an overrun. We know that the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) did the same thing. We know that other ministers have done the same thing. They just can't restrain themselves from flying all over the world first class at public expense. But what should they care, Mr. Speaker? They enjoy spending other people's money. While everybody else is being asked to tighten their belts, travel expenses are increased by 22 percent over last year's budget. The only other discussion in percentage terms is a 10 percent or 12 percent limitation on salaries. There's no such limitation for travelling on the part of the cabinet or other people in government — 22 percent for them.

So it goes, Mr. Speaker. It's just a succession of demands that everybody else control themselves so that the government doesn't have to. It's the only government in existence that can tighten its belt by letting it out a notch or two. The purpose of the bill and the intent of the bill, given government excesses and overruns in the past couple of years, is to further victimize those who have already been, victimized by this government. It's to make the victims responsible for the guilt of the people opposite, to make the victims pay for the taxes that have been squandered.

There is another reason for not supporting this bill, Mr. Speaker, and that relates to the dictatorial aspect of it. The worst dictators are those who are superficially benign and gentle; the worst dictators are those who are telling us they are doing it for our own good. In the bill which seeks to set up a dictatorship.... Without referring to the specific section, because I know that can't be done, but I need to refer to the words because they are a principal part of it, there is a section in the bill that says that the executive council can do certain things. Now normally and usually, when a government comes to a legislature and wants authority for the cabinet to do something, they do it by asking and seeking to have established in the law the statement that the "Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may" do something. In this case, it's the executive council. While the difference between the force of those two phrases may not be readily apparent, it is significant and important.

When the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council is authorized to do something, and when, in fact, that something is done, it is done by way of order-in-council; it done by way of a regulation, has the force of law, and becomes public. Whenever cabinet meets and passes orders-in-council, those are decisions of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council following upon a statement in the bill authorizing the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to do whatever it is he's authorized to do. They're placed upon a table somewhere in this building — in the Provincial Secretary's (Hon. Mr. Wolfe's) office, I believe — so that the general public, MLAs and the press gallery can go and look at them and see what it is that the cabinet did. I'm inclined to think there has been far too much authority given to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to do things by order-in-council, but that's another argument. In this particular bill the reference to the executive council as a distinctly separate phrase means fascism, Mr. Speaker.

That's what it means. It means absolute dictatorship, absolute authority — not even the necessity of putting it down in writing and putting it out in the Provincial Secretary's office so the general public can see it. It means a decision of cabinet made in secret, if they so desire; that's what it means. That's what the reference to the executive council is in this bill. And I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that was not an oversight on the part of the minister or the Premier. That was not sloppy draftsmanship to be passed off as the responsibility of someone in the public service who drafts bills; that was a direct, deliberate, conscious decision of a group of people who are fascistically oriented in their manner of dealing with government.

It will be used to issue directives, orders and instructions and to impose its will upon the people of this province without right of appeal, without them even having the right to know what it is that cabinet has decided to do. That's an offensive and disgusting request for an otherwise responsible minister representing an otherwise responsible government to come to this House and make.

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We had an example, Mr. Speaker, of what this "executive council" thing means when Your Honour tabled a special report from the Ombudsman pointing out how the Ombudsman, in the pursuit of his duties under the act, had been stymied by the government because the government, through the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams), fell back on the thought that something was being considered by the executive council and, therefore, was not available to anyone else. That's exactly what executive council means: decisions in secret within the confines of a room, no obligation to draw the general public into even knowing what it is they're doing, no requirement to publicize their decisions, and no requirement to do anything else but order people to do what it is the executive council thinks those people should do.

Mr. Speaker, I started off examining this bill from the point of view of the hypocrisy of it; namely, that it comes to the Legislature and says: "We'd like restraint for everybody but ourselves." It should not be supported because it singles out a group of people in this province and forces them to pay for the abuses of this government over the past few years. It makes the victims pay the price for the activities of the guilty. It's wrong in principle. It is authoritarian and dictatorial and seeks that this Legislature give the cabinet the right to make fascist-type decisions. That is again wrong in principle.

MR. BRUMMET: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, one generally considers the source, but I think it's asking a little more than normal tolerance to have that member over and over again refer to members on our side, in one way or another, as fascists. That should not be accepted in this House. That should not be permitted.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, if that characteristic was attributed to any individual member, of course, it would be out of order. I have been doing a little work while listening to the debate, and it appeared to me that the reference was made to a method rather than a person. I will ask the hon. member, if he was referring at any point in time to any individual member and characterizing him as a fascist, if perhaps he would withdraw.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, you should be commended for being so precise and accurate in your understanding of what took place here a moment ago. Your statement is correct and that of the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet) is once again wrong.

MR. BRUMMET: On a point of order, I recognize that the exact terminology may be what is allowable or not allowable in the House. I would think that if I am referred to as a person who is using a fascist tactic, that is in effect calling me a fascist. I object to that very strongly.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I would recommend the use of temperate language, which of course is most acceptable to the House. Please proceed.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: If the member for North Peace River desires to get up and lend his support to the bill verbally, we'll be pleased to listen to him.

The final reason for not supporting the bill is that it intrudes on the fundamental question of collective bargaining rights. We have four reasons, and I won't enumerate them again. I just set them out for you as reasons for opposing the bill, Mr. Speaker. I think when it comes to a vote I'll be able to exhibit that in the formal way of standing up and indicating my abhorrence for this type of legislation, which I had classified a moment ago in its proper sense. Somehow or other the member for North Peace River seemed to be upset about that because he thought I was referring to him. All I can say in that regard is that if he feels the hat fits, he should put it on.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I stand to support Bill 28, the Compensation Stabilization Act. One thing that the opposition haven't considered in debating this bill is the fact that we serve two publics. Regardless of party, government serves the public by providing services through Human Resources to those who are less fortunate, those who seek an education — our greatest asset, the children who will come after us — and those who are sick and require hospitalization services. That's one of the publics we serve, Mr. Speaker, and there's a cost to government to provide that service. The other public is the public that pays the bill. The opposition would lead you to believe that it is government that pays the bill, that we have this money in our pocket on this side of the House and that we have a sack full of gold that we are hoarding unto ourselves. It is the taxpayers of the province — whether it's a young person just out of school earning $4 an hour; whether it's a cabinet minister earning $70,000, or an MLA earning $39,000 or $44,000 or whatever the figure may be — who contribute to the general revenue of this province, and so does the economy.

If the economy is active, it generates revenues through corporate income tax, sales tax, etc., and through royalties. It generates the revenue and therefore relieves some of the burden from the individual taxpayer. But we are faced with a depressed economy that is basically outside the control of this government — not like it was between 1972 and 1975. If you look at the statistics at that time you would find: (a) there was a sizeable pot of gold when the NDP took office; and (b) the rest of the economy of the country was active and buoyant. But within three years they took that economy of British Columbia — that pot of gold — and lost it, and basically left us with a province near bankruptcy. From that point we had to come in and operate a province on a businesslike basis.

AN HON. MEMBER: You keep repeating that. Why don't you quote the figures?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I will gladly quote the figures. I think I've hit a soft spot in their armour.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The minister has the floor.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I don't want to dwell on 1972-75, but I can touch on the mining industry they drove from this province. That they cannot deny.

The government rationale in attempting to deal with the depressed economy and some of the impacts that are beyond our control brought forward the restraint program that the Premier announced in February and then the Compensation Stabilization Act and others which have come to this House

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for debate. We knew that the budget that was brought down in Ottawa was crippling to the economy, and it would impact on all provinces. I guess to a certain extent you've got to admire Mr. MacEachen in that he attempted to address the question of how to control federal government spending. I don't entirely agree with the way he did it, but in his own mind he attempted to address the question.

With the high interest rates being a federal responsibility, he has impacted on all sectors of our economy. At the same time, in the fall of 1981, he brought out a Canada savings bond issue which offered the public a 19.5 percent return only a few weeks before the prime rate dropped. The cost of that Canada savings bond issue in 1982 will be substantial. We are still faced with the expectations of the savers to maintain a high interest rate, while at the same time a lot of our producing sector cannot expand because the cost of servicing debt, should they borrow, would be substantial on their operations. Of course, some who are in operation are faced with an escalating interest rate and have been forced out of business. That impact is all throughout our economy, and I don't have to make members of this House aware that it has impacted on the industry that I deal with, which is the industry of agriculture and food production. We are seeing some of the serious ramifications of that in that industry because of the high interest-rate policy in this country.

One thing that the taxpayer can rest assured of is the policy or philosophy, if you will, that we brought to office in 1975. That was one of a balanced budget. We said that we would not mortgage our children's future, that we would pay as we go and we would operate our budgets and our activities in a balanced fashion. That is exactly what we have done. I would ask the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber)....I smile at this man because I think he is fairly intelligent. When he buys a car or a home or a bicycle.... He can afford a bicycle on the paycheque he gets. I don't think he's ever had a paycheque from outside of this House. I just say to him, or to the other member over there who might finance a home in Point Grey, that if she paid cash for it or she financed it and paid monthly or annual payments on it....There is a difference in borrowing to service operations as opposed to borrowing to serve a capital expenditure because you can amortize those payments. English teachers from Nelson wouldn't understand that. People who operate Cool Aid programs wouldn't understand that. You very seldom see the former Minister of Finance, the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich), comment on that. He sort of skirts that issue, because he knows exactly where it's at.

I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, that the restraint program and the concept of a balanced budget will keep the economy of this province on course and will give us the opportunity to develop the strategy which is being developed at this time. In the long term, we will recover much more rapidly than other provinces which have determined that the best way to go is to deficit-finance operations of government. I think they'll be sorry in the end.

The member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), who so righteously says we've attacked the working man.... I think the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) said the same thing. Because of their union orientation they can't see — he doesn't recognize, or doesn't want to admit — that the first part of the restraint program was to tell the public sector — school boards, municipalities, hospitals, provincial government ministries — not to exceed the 12 percent limitations. What's so harsh about that? Twelve percent — someone could correct me if I'm wrong — is approximately what the inflation rate was in 1981. I think it was 11 point something in 1981. We basically said: "We'll allow you to expand equal to inflation, but don't add to inflation by going up 15, 20, 25 or 30 percent because you figure that the economy will pick up the tab."

We said to the public sector: "Control your spending. Be responsible."

MR. COCKE: Where is it in the bill?

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member for New Westminster has many comments because he doesn't recognize that there is a restraint program that applies to all sectors — and I'll touch on that.

MR. HOWARD: Except the high-livers in the cabinet.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member for Skeena has a one-track mind, and it's usually in the gutter, Mr. Speaker. I wish he'd get it out of there once in a while.

We said to all public bodies, including our ministries, that 12 percent is the guideline. We set the guidelines and set up the commissioner to assist public bodies — both the employee and management — to arrive at a decision within the collective bargaining system. The negotiations can go between that 8 and 12 percent up to 14 percent. There are no cuts, no massive layoffs, no closures of departments, but a guide to allow for reasonable growth in public bodies, whether ministries or cities or hospitals. The private sector has a much easier method of dealing with restraint, because the marketplace dictates what the people can afford. If they can't afford your product or build the house or buy the car, it's layoff, it's short work week, it's bankruptcy, Mr. Speaker. Those are the cold, hard facts outside of the public sector in which we work.

. What we're asking for with this bill is responsible bargaining by the public-sector management and by the public sector employee. That's what this bill asks. It says: "Ladies and gentlemen, when you go to the bargaining table, be responsible, because the person who pays the bill is the taxpayer, and the taxpayer is getting burdened down with the cost of government and the cost of public service."

What we're saying is: be responsible. Carry on with the process of collective bargaining, but do it in the spirit of restraint and keep within the guidelines that have been set, because we all have a stake in this. If we allow the public sector employee to get a 20 percent increase, or we allow the school board to increase its budget by 30 percent, all that we're doing is placing a greater burden on the men and women who work out in the private sector that have to pick up the cost of government.

The member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) never addresses the question that the management of the public sector have had their salaries frozen until a set of guidelines have been determined for them. So, Mr. Speaker, it's not just the public sector union member that's being attacked — and he isn't being attacked, because we've given him a guideline up to 12 percent in which he can negotiate — we're all part of it. The MLAs have got a bill before the House which sets our increase at 8 percent. Now it may be argued that we make more than the guy in the public sector, but I've got to tell you that when you look at the public accounts there are a lot of guys there who get a pretty good wage — some of them get

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far more than our MLAs. So we're saying to them that we're prepared to take 8 percent: the least they can get is 8 percent. That's pretty fair. The public-sector management, as I said, have their wages frozen until guidelines can be determined.

The third part of the public-sector employee group, of course, is the union member, and I'm hopeful that every union member who works for the BCGEU, the HSA and the ETU goes to his bargaining committee, to the president of his union, to the Kinnairds, to the Kellys, and says to them: "Hey, fellows, we're part of the team. We've all got a stake in this. We're part of British Columbia. If we get together and if we deal with this issue, our recovery will be faster and we'll all benefit."

Now that's the key, Mr. Speaker. But the opposition over there....

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has difficulty with my argument because he can't argue against it. You see, they want to attack this bill and the restraint program, and they'll do it by attacking a member of cabinet. They won't do it on the basis of the stabilization bill. They say it's discriminatory. But they don't do it on that basis; they do it by personal attack.

The bargaining will continue as it has in the past, but within guidelines, and Mr. Peck, the commissioner, is there to resolve the issues that are contentious within those guidelines — and that's fair, It's not big government coming down and saying: "No, you'll only get 8 percent. You'll only get 10 percent. You'll only get 12 percent." There is flexibility, and I compliment the Minister of Finance for developing such an approach.

Mr. Speaker, if we all played our part, the restraint program would be a success, the burden would be less on the taxpayer, and we would all benefit in the end. As I said before, there are two publics: those who are paid from the public purse — and that includes us — and those who pay into that public purse to provide us with our income. If we cannot resolve the issue between those two — if, for example, the public servant, which includes us, demands too much and forces the taxpayer, the businessman, the economy that's suffering — and we lose the industry and the commerce, and we lose the ability to raise revenue, who hurts in the end? It's the children who need an education. It's the people who look for hospitalization and doctor's services — they lose in the end. It's the senior citizens — they lose in the end. Is that what we're here for? Is that why we're here debating?

You say this program is not good, it's discriminatory and it's against the working man. You want to let the thing go and just fly, and let's get all we can from the pot. That's like the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber): get it all; get it now; never worry about the future, but let's all get our hands in the pot. That's the way it is: let's all get our hands in the pot; let's not worry about anything that happens outside. But what they don't realize is that it is the taxpayers who pick up the tab in the end.

Interjections.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I've been attempting to debate a bill. The only comment across the floor of this House by any member from that other side deals with wine.

It's hard to believe that in a House where we debate major issues the debate falls to that level.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to get a little off the subject — and you can rule me out of order — but I have to tell you that what we say in this House, often in anger, probably in the heat of the debate.... We forget that today there is one individual who stands totally.... I am trying to think of the proper word. The member for Vancouver South is suffering a lot of agony at the present time. I think we all should realize that that could happen to any one of us. When I say any one of us, I am talking of both sides of the House. We find that debate seems to revolve around that particular issue. Never mind what the defence is or what the arguments are except what somebody in the man's ministry did — acquire documents, photocopy them, leak them to the member for Esquimal–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell). The NDP grabs onto them and sifts them out to a newspaper reporter.

I'll get off that subject, because that's not what I'm debating, but I hope all of us in this House recognize....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

HON. MR. HEWITT: I hope that we all recognize that we're talking about human beings in this House. If we're going to debate issues and policies and programs, we've raised ourselves in the eyes of the public of this province. If you want personal attacks, fine. I just say we should all pause for a moment, and, as somebody once said....

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. All members are quite aware of our standing orders. They do not provide for interruption when a member has the floor. I think you've heard the Chair say very frequently that perhaps an odd interjection can be tolerated, but interruptions cannot. We will proceed with orderly debate.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, I would ask that the member who is speaking address the Chair, which greatly assists the Chair in maintaining order, rather than bait the poor defenceless members of the opposition.

MR. SPEAKER: The minister will address the Chair.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I apologize to the poor defenceless members of the opposition. I didn't mean to attack them so harshly.

Just in closing, I think it is worth repeating that we all have a stake in this. Those people who acquire their livelihood from the public purse — those who are elected to office in municipalities, school boards, hospital boards and provincial governments — have a responsibility. Those whom we serve. I believe, feel that we should be addressing the question that faces us all in this province, country and world: inflation. If they see us addressing that question and addressing it responsibly, they will recognize that we are attempting

[ Page 7390 ]

to deal with it and that we aren't just governments and government officials and government employees living from the public purse.

I think it's time for a team effort. It's time for public sector management, elected officials, the public-sector employees' unions and employees to work together and to put aside the political bias that we bring into this House. It's time to address the question that the Minister of Finance and the Premier of the province put to us: let's be realistic in our spending; let's control our spending; let's be realistic in our demands from the public purse so we can provide services to those in need. If we do that, we will all benefit in the end.

So I just say it's time for us to work together towards recovery in this province, and I think this bill and the restraint program that's been outlined to date will go a long way toward doing that. I'm very pleased to support Bill 28.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, the minister who just took his seat kept referring to the public-sector members as "he," and I think maybe I should start out by pointing out to him that most of the public-sector members are "she."

AN HON. MEMBER: Look at the Interpretation Act.

MS. BROWN: Well, Interpretation Act or not. In fact, what this bill does when we talk about wage controls and wage restraint is zero in specifically on the income and the wages of women, and that is a position on which I'm going to focus in terms of speaking as strongly as I possibly can against this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, some of the groups involved.... For example, the Registered Nurses Association of B.C. has a membership that's 95.5 percent female, the Health Sciences Association has a membership that's 84.7 percent female, the Hospital Employees Union has a membership that's 80 percent female, and the B.C. Government Employees Union has a membership that's 51.1 percent female. So when we look at the restraints and the guidelines set down by this particular piece of legislation, what we're looking at is wage controls directed against the most vulnerable and, in many instances, the poorest-paid workers in our society.

Mr. Speaker, the BCGEU, for example, has something in the neighbourhood of 45,000 members, and you can calculate what 51.1 percent of that is. But what we find out when we look at the wage statistics is that 70 percent of these women make less than $1,500 a month. I'm really disappointed that no member on the government side seems to have been aware of that fact when they were speaking out in support of this piece of legislation. Of the 45,000 members of the B.C. Government Employees Union, 51.1 percent are women; of that number, 70 percent make less than $1,500 a month. On average the women in the B.C. Government Employees Union, the people who work for the provincial government — which, I may remind you, is the largest employer of women in this province — earned somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,000 to $3,000 a year less than the men who work for the government.

Roughly 5,000 women are employed at the office assistant 1 or 2 level. An office assistant 1 makes $1,099 per month; an office assistant 2 makes $1,197 per month. When we compare those figures with the research done by the social planning and research directorate of the United Way, we find there are actually women in this province working for the government who made less than they would earn on income assistance. I think that is an absolute disgrace. The United Way study tells us that a single female parent with two children needs at least $1,100.25 to meet the basic minimum, which means that person has even less money to spend on food than the Ministry of Health recommendation for the basic nutritional food diet of a family. That person needs $1,100. If that person happens to work for the provincial government as an office assistant 1, that person will make $1,099 a month; less than the United Way's absolute minimum income. As I said before, that minimum income does not include enough in it to cover the cost of meeting a basic nutritional diet as recommended by the Ministry of Health. The United Way report pointed out that a single parent with three children needs an income of $1,151.34 to meet the absolute minimum requirements. Again, that minimum does not include sufficient money to cover the cost of food as recommended by the Ministry of Health's nutritional diet; nor, in fact, does it cover the average rent for accommodation for three or four people in any of the urban areas. However, if that person happened to be an office assistant 2 working for the provincial government, that person would be earning only $1,197. These are the people who are going to have their wages restrained. These are the people who are going to have their wages controlled by this piece of legislation.

We have heard so many speeches from the government side. We heard the plea of the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) that we vote in support of restraint because the taxpayer is so overburdened that we must support restraint. This is the minister who last year had an opportunity to practise restraint in his own ministry to the tune of $1,760,565, and he voted against that. When he was given an opportunity to vote in support of restraint in his own ministry, where there is profligate spending, he voted against that. Yet he had the nerve to stand on the floor of this House and tell us that we have to support this piece of legislation which is going to ensure that 70 percent of the women working for the provincial government will continue to make wages which will see that they exist below the poverty line. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about people who are earning wages which keep them below the poverty line. We are talking, in many instances, about people who would be better off if they were on income assistance, who would be better off if they were on welfare. The nerve of any government member to stand in his or her place and preach restraint to this particular group of people is absolutely amazing, Mr. Speaker.

This particular piece of legislation also covers workers who work in non-profit organizations which get their funding from the government. And what are some of the kinds of incomes paid to those people? I'm talking here about daycare workers and women who work in transition houses. Again we are talking about people who are making $1,300 a month and $1,400 a month, Mr. Speaker, and in many instances we are speaking about women who are the heads of their families and their sole means of support. These are the women, these are the workers, against whom this bill is directed.

I cannot believe for one instant that the members on the government benches realized when they were endorsing this piece of legislation that it was in fact directed at some of the most poorly paid workers in this province. I do not believe for one minute that the Minister of Finance explained to the members of his cabinet or even to his back bench that this piece of legislation was going to have the greatest impact on the people in this province who make the worst wages.

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The tragedy of the situation is that one of the worst employers in this province is the provincial government. The one employer which pays the lousiest wages in this province is the provincial government.

Mr. Speaker, I can't believe that any member on that side of the House would start talking about burdens on the taxpayer after the profligacy that we know goes on over there: no concern whatever for the taxpayer. Imagine: a single mother with one child, living in a one-bedroom apartment, has to pay less in rent than one minister paid for one hotel room for one night, at the taxpayers' expense. That's right. You remember that $400 figure, because a one-bedroom apartment in this province that rents for $400 is not even covered by rent control. Yet that is the amount of money that was spent by one minister in one night.

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, there are a large number of non-profit organizations and societies who get their funding from the provincial government. As a result of restraint, those non-profit organizations are, in the first place, going to have their budgets cut. So we're going to find that those workers who still have a job are going to be doing more work. At the same time, their wages, which are already the lowest in the province — many of them are already below the poverty line — are going to be restrained even further.

I cannot believe for one minute that the government would really anticipate that the opposition would support this kind of exploitation of women workers in this province. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, without hesitating for one minute, that the members on this side of the benches are not going to be supporting this legislation.

The Health Sciences Association employees. A health unit aide earns $1,216 a month. It seems to me that if you're going to start talking about restraint, you start at the top. When this government speaks about restraint, it starts at the bottom. The top is allowed to float free and do whatever it wants. It's people at the lowest end of the wage scale who get restrained by this piece of legislation. What does a 10 percent increase do to a person who is making $1,099 a month, who is the sole support of a family? What benefit is that at a time when that person's transportation costs are going up, hydro costs are going up, medicare costs are going up, taxes are going up? What benefit does a 10 percent increase do in that case? What benefit does a 10 percent increase do to a clerical worker who is making $1,197 a month and who is the sole support of a family?

The ministers who keep on speaking about "he" whenever they talk about public-sector workers need to get that one fact through their heads if they get absolutely nothing else through their heads. Most public-sector workers in this province are women and most public-sector workers in this province are at the very bottom of the wage scale. Most women who do so for exactly the same reason that men work; that is, they have to support themselves and their families. That is the reality of the situation. As a result of some of the economic policies of this government, even in those instances where there are two people, it is necessary that both spouses work in order to meet the basic expenses.

An article in the January issue of Chatelaine says that women's wages are a national disgrace. I wish the Minister of Finance would read that article. As a matter of fact, I'm going to Xerox my copy of it and send it over to him; before this piece of legislation goes any further, before we go to the committee stage, the minister has to have some kind of understanding of the impact of this legislation on women's wages. As I pointed out to him earlier, 70 percent of the women who work for the public service, who work for the government, make less than $1,500 per month, and all of the statistics show us that that percentage is increasing. Despite the equal opportunity programs and all the other things that the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) keeps bragging about, women are still concentrated in the clerical ghettos in the public service.

Maybe the Minister of Labour can give us some information about this beautiful booklet of his: "Advancement Opportunities in the British Columbia Public Service." What it tells us is that most of the women are clerks. Even within the clerical ghetto we find some interesting things. At the very bottom of the clerk 1, 2, 3, 4 levels, we find concentrations of women and very few men. At the very top, clerk 6, we find the women disappearing — down to 106 — and suddenly the men are on the increase. The minister's own ministry did this research. The other thing that the research pointed out was something called "dead-ending." In other words, most of the women in these clerical jobs were in dead-end jobs. They could move from clerk 1 to clerk 4 and that was it. They weren't going to go any further than that because once you get into the administrative levels the kind of additional training needed was not open to them. These are the findings of the economic analysis and research bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Small Business, but it is the equal employment opportunities committee of the Public Service Commission that did this. What it says is that there are an increasing number of women who are finding themselves in these dead-ending jobs. These women, in other words, who now find themselves making less than $15,000 a year are not on their way to the top. They're not sailing into the deputy-minister, assistant-deputy-minister and associate-deputy-minister jobs. They are dead-ended. They are going to start as clerks and end as clerks. That is what this report has pointed out to us. These are the women whose jobs are going to be curtailed by this restraint legislation. These are the people who are being told: 10 percent increase. Ten percent of $1,000 is quite different from 10 percent of $40,000 or 10 percent of even $30,000.

The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) was here a minute ago but has now disappeared. Oh, there he is, but not in his seat.

Some recommendations came out of that report, and the recommendations talked about things like breaking down the sex stereotyping of occupations, making upward mobility of women in the public sector more possible. How is that going to be possible after this restraint bill is put into place? I hope the Minister of Finance is listening, because I think the tragedy of the situation is that the Minister of Finance did not get any input from the people who know and understand what the impact of this bill is going to be on the women in the public sector when he introduced this piece of legislation. I want him to tell me how this bill is going to adjust itself and accommodate the implementation of the recommendations in this report. That's what I want to know.

We were told that the Minister of Labour is going off to a high-powered conference in Ottawa with Judy Erola and all the other ministers to discuss women's issues. We're told that the Minister of Labour, Jack Heinrich, handles women's issues. I want to tell you, the word "handles" is the correct description for what Jack Heinrich does with women's issues. I'm not really calling him Jack Heinrich; I'm just quoting from this. However, we're told that somewhere between May

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10 and May 11 the Minister of Labour is going to be going back to Ottawa to meet with other ministers responsible for women's issues and Judy Erola to discuss things like affirmative action. This is May 10 and 11, 1982 — still to come. How are we going to have affirmative action when we have a restraint bill that says "thou shalt not"? Affirmative action is a very long and complicated issue. I want to deal with it very slowly and carefully, because I think the Minister of Finance needs to understand it before he amends this bill. However, I have been told that this is a very important night in the lives of many British Columbians, and therefore there is a possibility that one would like to adjourn at 5:45. Is that correct?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: If the member would make the motion, I would be happy to put the motion to the House.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House, and I hope the Canucks win.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Standing orders provide that during the putting of a question members remain silent.

Motion approved.

MR. LAUK: I ask leave to make an introduction, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

MR. LAUK: There is a distinguished visitor in the gallery: the honourable Madam Justice Proudfoot visits us today. I ask the House to make her welcome.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:47 p.m.