[ Page 8271 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Wildlife Act (Bill 55). Hon. Mr. Rogers

Introduction and first reading –– 8271

Division

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1982 (Bill 53). Hon. Mr. Williams

Introduction and first reading –– 8271

Oral Questions

Revenue-sharing with municipalities. Mr. Nicolson –– 8271

Committee on Crown Corporations. Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 8272

Mr. Howard

Tax increases. Mr. Stupich –– 8272

Auctions of Crown land. Mr. Hanson –– 8272

Housing foreclosures. Hon. Mr. Chabot replies –– 8273

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Human Resources estimates. (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy)

On vote 49: minister's office (continued) –– 8274

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. King

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Mussallem

Ms. Sanford

Mr. Barber

Mrs. Wallace

Ms. Brown

On the amendment to vote 49 –– 8291

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy

Hon. Mrs. Jordan

Division

On vote 50: ministry programs –– 8294

Ms. Brown

THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, visiting in the gallery today is a special education class who have come all the way from Rimbey, Alberta. There are four senior high school students from the junior-senior high of Rimbey, and they are accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Dolly Martin.

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, In the precincts today we've had 33 grade 5 students from the great constituency of North Vancouver–Capilano. They're students of Capilano Elementary School and they're under the guidance of their teachers, Cam Shields, Phyllis Chen and John Lewis. Also accompanying them are two parents, Carol Zamis and Jim Walker. I'd ask the House to welcome them to Victoria.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, not yet in the gallery but in the precincts today are 57 students from Lord Selkirk School in Vancouver. They're under the leadership of Ms. Corrie Ridgewell. I'd ask the members to welcome them.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon, again, from that sleepy little community of Telkwa, we have Mayor Maxine Douglas and Alderman Paul Hamoline. As well, from that lovely little community in the northern part of our province, we have Mr. Lloyd Gething and Mr. Craig Miller with us this afternoon. I'd ask the House to make them all welcome.

Introduction of Bills

WILDLIFE ACT

Hon. Mr. Rogers presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Wildlife Act.

Bill 55 introduced and read a first time.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. NICOLSON: Division.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, this is a very unusual request. What we will do is call for the division, but without prejudice to the reserved decision which we will bring. We will have to do a little research on this one.

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

Hon. Mr. Williams presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1982.

Bill 53 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

REVENUE-SHARING WITH MUNICIPALITIES

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Municipal property taxes for all commercial and business taxpayers have skyrocketed because the minister has confiscated $63 million in revenue sharing grants from the municipalities. In view of the financial situation faced by the business community in British Columbia, has the minister decided on any form of emergency financial assistance to the municipalities in order to help them ease this provincially imposed burden of horrendous property tax increases?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, the amount of money that has been granted from the province to the municipalities through the revenue-sharing program has increased by 292 percent since this government took office. Last year alone the increase was approximately 23 percent; the preceding year it was about 21 percent. Now the change this year did affect the municipalities to some extent. For example, in the case of Vancouver, when they had already adopted a preliminary budget, they maintained that they had to find a further $7.5 million or increase their budget by that amount. They did not, however, mention the fact that they were relieved of approximately $6 million in welfare payments. What they did, in any case, was reduce their budget by $7.5 million — they found the money. And I think this can be and is being done by responsible municipal people throughout the province.

The revenue-sharing program, Mr. Speaker, is without a doubt the finest in the whole of North America, and it will remain so.

MR. NICOLSON: When the minister appealed his tax assessment, did he think of appealing the taxes of all small business?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, we fortunately live in a country where people are permitted to make decisions for themselves. I made my decision, and I clearly stated in my constituency that everyone who thought that their assessment was too high should likewise appeal, and many did. Some didn't, and I wish they had, and perhaps they wish they had. Certainly that opportunity is available to us as individuals. It's our right and we should take advantage of that right.

MR. NICOLSON: I'd like to ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs if he has taken any action to get the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith) and the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) off the backs of small business.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, in the case of the constituency represented by myself and the second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall), thanks to the Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance, the mill rate for educational purposes was reduced from 64 mills last year to 55 mills this year. I wish the member would do his homework.

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COMMITTEE ON CROWN CORPORATIONS

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd like to address a question to the chairman of the Committee on Crown Corporations. Was the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) ever in attendance at a meeting of the Committee on Crown Corporations at which wine was served?

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, to the minister, the answer is definitely yes.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I have a supplementary question to the chairman. To the best of the chairman's knowledge, did the member for Skeena consume any of that wine?

MR. KEMPF: Again to the minister, the answer is yes.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Would the chairman tell me if the member for Skeena ever contacted him, either personally or by mail, to inquire as to who paid for that wine, or did he give it any thought?

MR. KEMPF: I can't say whether the member for Skeena ever gave it any thought. He certainly did not contact me.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd like to know, on behalf of the members of the Legislature, on how many occasions and on what dates the member for Skeena wined and dined at the taxpayers' expense.

MR. KEMPF: In order that my answer be absolutely correct, I'll take that question as notice.

MR. HOWARD: I have a supplementary question for the chairman of the Crown Corporations Committee. On the last of those occasions, when we consumed British Columbia wine and not French Pouilly-Fuisse, is it not a fact that the Chairman said in secrecy: "Thank God the general public can't see what we're doing"?

MR. KEMPF: The answer to that question is absolutely not. I would remind that member a vote of the committee was taken as to whether we would consume wine or not.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: May we now proceed to question period.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

TAX ASSESSMENTS

MR. STUPICH: I have a question for the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Municipal Affairs said that the school mill rate dropped from 57 to 55. He didn't point out that the assessment rolls have doubled. My question to the Minister of Finance is: has the government embarked upon a deliberate plan to destroy small business in the province of British Columbia?

AUCTIONS OF CROWN LAND

MR. HANSON: I have a question for the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing. The second in a series of auctions of 65,000 hectares of Crown land designated for agricultural development was held yesterday in Prince George. The auction was picketed by farmers because the prices paid in the first auction were far in excess of agricultural land prices because of the timber on these lands. Can the minister explain why these auctions of Crown land for agricultural purposes have been set up in a way that denies the legitimate farmers in the Prince George area access to these lands?

HON. MR. CHABOT: These open auctions of agricultural land were made available for disposition to British Columbians, not to a select few. The disruptions that took place at that particular auction were caused by members of the Prince George cattlemen's association. The auction and availability of agricultural land, be it in Prince George or anywhere else in this province, is not restricted to a select few. It's made available to British Columbians who have been residents of this province for two years. That auction was our attempt to make agricultural land available in the Prince George area to as broad a section as possible of the people of this province.

MR. HANSON: I'd like to point out to the minister that the auction was established in a way that was entirely selective. At yesterday's' auction, ministry officials, at the last moment, changed the rules to demand a $1,000 deposit to bid. Can I ask the minister why people were obliged to put down $1,000 before they were entitled to bid?

HON. MR. CHABOT: It's quite obvious that.... We have regional offices here, and regional offices are given as much flexibility as possible. The regional office came to the conclusion that there were going to be some problems associated with the Prince George cattlemen's association. In order to overcome those problems, they used that flexibility and demanded a $1,000 deposit before bidding take place to ensure that bidding would be as straightforward as possible.

I want to remind the member about land availability. For approximately 10 years there was a moratorium in British Columbia on agricultural land. In many areas agricultural land was made available only to bona fide farmers. They've had an opportunity to establish an economic unit within those periods of time. I've told the B.C. Cattlemen's Association and the B.C. Federation of Agriculture that the time has come for all British Columbians to have an equal opportunity of acquiring agricultural land.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The scope of the question should not be exceeded by the answer.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the decision to demand a $1,000 deposit was made half an hour before the auction took place.

I have another question. In view of the total hostility of the agricultural community in Prince George towards his policies, has the minister decided that the timber on these lands should be auctioned separately and that the land itself should be disposed of for agricultural purposes to farmers after that?

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HON. MR. CHABOT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the minister will take actions to make sure that there are no further disruptions when we make agricultural land available in the Prince George area.

MR. HANSON: Is the action going to be to bar legitimate farmers from attending these auctions, and to hold these auctions in private?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Legitimate farmers have never been denied the opportunity of acquiring additional land. They've had that ten-year opportunity to acquire additional land, and they now have to compete equally with other British Columbians. They'll continue to have that right to compete equally with other British Columbians. No longer do they have special privileges.

Mr. Speaker, now I'd like to answer a question that I took as notice a little while ago.

MR. SPEAKER: Please proceed.

HOUSING FORECLOSURES

HON. MR. CHABOT: On May 25, 1982, the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) asked about foreclosure writs on housing in British Columbia. The statistics I'll give you are for 1982 as well.

Before a foreclosure writ is issued there must be serious default on loan payments. The latest statistics available by the Canadian Bankers Association, which includes seven chartered banks but not the Bank of Montreal or the Bank of British Columbia, indicate that arrears of three months or more on mortgage payments for the quarter ending March 31, 1982, are as follows: Atlantic provinces, 0.53 percent; Quebec, 0.83 percent; Ontario, 0.57 percent; Manitoba, 0.70 percent — the worst in the west, I might say; Saskatchewan, 0.69 percent; Alberta, 0.53 percent; British Columbia, 0.40 percent; Northwest Territories, 0.92 percent. British Columbia has the smallest number of mortgages in arrears in Canada.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Who's the highest in the west?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Manitoba is the highest in the west.

The ratio of accounts in arrears to the total accounts, at the end of April, 1982.... I gave you the statistics for March 31 before I'm giving you now the end of April 1982, which are the latest statistics I have. It was 0.41 percent — not much of an escalation — which is still the lowest number in Canada.

This information is based on a total of 119,814 mortgages, which is 25 percent of all the mortgages in British Columbia. I have also examined the British Columbia government's portfolio of second mortgages, and foreclosure action there is low. The number varies from 10 to 20 per month on a total of 38,000 second mortgages outstanding, and no particular trend is apparent.

The B.C. Central Credit Union has surveyed other credit unions and conducted a telephone survey of other major lenders, and advised that foreclosure actions have been initiated, which does not constitute actual foreclosure. The estimates provided are as follows: major credit unions have launched 200 foreclosure actions in 1982; major banks have launched 200 foreclosure actions in 1982; other credit unions and banks have initiated 200 foreclosure actions; trust companies have initiated 200 foreclosure actions this year, for a total of 800. The foreclosure actions are often initiated by referral to a lawyer for many of the mortgage accounts, but only a small proportion, generally between 10 percent and 20 percent, proceed to the point where a homeowner may be forced from his or her home. Most foreclosures are the result of economic conditions, loss of employment, or social factors such as marital breakdown, rather than higher interest rates at the time of mortgage renewal.

Lenders review cases on an individual basis and make every effort to reach a satisfactory agreement with the homeowner regarding a revised payment schedule or the sale of the home. Lending institutions, be they credit unions, banks or trust companies, attempt in every way possible to prevent foreclosure from taking place. I want to repeat that foreclosure actions do not constitute actual foreclosures, and that the number of foreclosures that actually takes place is a small percentage of the number of actions. The most accurate source of foreclosure statistics is the files of the supreme court. These files contain information on the number of foreclosure actions started and subsequent court orders to finalize foreclosure proceedings; that is, Supreme Court judgments for foreclosure and orders absolute for possession. I have requested this information, although it might not be available for three or four weeks due to the need to search individual files in court registry offices across the province. As soon as I have secured this information I will make it available to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the length of the answer to this question is perhaps a good indication that this kind of question maybe should be put on the order paper and replied to on the order paper. It's difficult for the Chair to anticipate on a general question of this nature just how long the answer might be, and I did allow this one because the time of question period had already expired.

On a point of order, the Minister of Energy.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, when you're considering that kind of thing, you might also consider that part of the reason that answers to questions need to be lengthy after having been taken as notice is that the House is now allowing supplementary questions at the time that a question is taken as notice. So we're required not only to answer one question but perhaps several questions. The answer is necessarily more lengthy, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The member for Skeena seeks the floor on a point of order.

MR. HOWARD: I have a point of order which relates to a bill which was introduced and given first reading earlier today, and which I think initially may require guidance by Your Honour as to proceedings in the future. I'm talking about the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1982, Bill 53.

I haven't counted the number of separate acts that are sought to be amended in this bill, but there are innumerable ones; there are quite a few — for instance, the Library Act, the School Act, the Health Act, the Gas Act, the Ministry of Labour Act and so on. A bill of this nature, Mr. Speaker, always — in the past, at any event — has placed the House in

[ Page 8274 ]

an awkward position as to being able to make a decision on second reading, because there may be provisions in the bill with which one agrees and provisions with which one does not agree. What does a person do in that instance?

There is a mechanism of some sort that allows for the division of a bill into component parts. The point of order that I want to raise and seek guidance from Your Honour on, perhaps on a later occasion, because this is set down for second reading sometime after today, is how we might be able to proceed to have the House make a determination or Your Honour make a determination to divide the bill into parts, so that the House can make the appropriate and correct decision about the various parts.

MR. SPEAKER: We will inspect the bill and see where there is any departure from what is the normal form, and perhaps even have some recommendations.

HON. MR. GARDOM: On the same subject, in the relatively limited time that I've been in this House since 1966, this has been the procedure that has been followed.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, the purpose in raising this point is not so much to challenge what the practice might have been, but to indicate that the practice is inappropriate, regardless of how long a time it has existed, and whether or not we can take some other course of action.

MR. SPEAKER: If there is to be a departure from the practice of the House, the Speaker's hands would be tied. In that instance, the House would need to express which way it wants to go in that regard.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES

(continued)

On vote 49: minister's office, $262,008.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: May I just refer to one of the questions that remained unanswered from this morning. I was hoping that the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) would be in the House, but let me just put it on the record; I'm sure he'll read it. He was concerned about Eagle Rock Ranch in his constituency, and there was a suggestion that we should do, within the ministry, an assessment of that ranch — which we have done. I asked that he give me some time to get the report on that, which I believe may have been sent to him already. At any rate, let me read it into the record:

"There were six children placed in this program by our ministry. They're all difficult-to-manage children who cannot yet adjust to regular community based resources. Our regional staff have investigated the incident of the use of physical punishment with an older child placed by the Ministry of Attorney-General in this resource. They are satisfied that it was an isolated incident. The region has established clear expectations with the resource operator and defined acceptable standards of care. Those standards reflect the recently adopted ministry discipline policy which states that the use of physical punishment is an unacceptable form of discipline."

I would like to reiterate that these types of wilderness resources are for extremely difficult young people. They do present a very difficult challenge for those who have them in their care.

The region has established a schedule of bi-weekly monitoring and review sessions with the resource to ensure adherence to the standards, contract and plans for the children. My ministry tells me that they're satisfied that these are being adhered to. Again, I will certainly commit to the member that we will monitor it very closely.

MR. GABELMANN: I have four brief points. The minister and I were involved in a relatively heated debate this morning. I find this always happens when I enter into the Human Resources estimates, and rarely in any other. I wonder why that might be.

The minister referred to an exchange of correspondence between the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) and her district supervisor in Port Hardy. Unfortunately, because the rules don't require that you tell the whole truth, you didn't. The Nanaimo Times carried the story which, probably because of editing and space problems, was incomplete. It led to a certain impression which the member for Burnaby-Edmonds clarified and cleared up in a letter to the district supervisor in Port Hardy. That was responded to in a letter from the district supervisor to the member for Burnaby Edmonds. He says, among other things: "Your interest in and concern for this district office is very welcome. The confusion created by the reporting of your comments in the Nanaimo Times is unfortunate. I received a clipping of the Times prior to receiving your November 10 letter, so I was relieved to learn from you that your impressions of this district office were not as reported in the Nanaimo newspaper." But you didn't read that part to the House.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Yes, I did.

MR. GABELMANN: My apologies, Mr. Chairman, I'm in error. She did read that part of the letter, but my point is that she didn't accept that the member for Burnaby-Edmonds had been totally misquoted in the Nanaimo Times, and she attempted to make a federal case out of it. That's my only point.

The fact is that very productive meetings were held. I might say just in passing that as a result of the stability that has been instilled in that office in the last little while, which came about as a result of numerous requests from me and others, we now have a very good functioning office up there. We have some stability and some good people. I want to say that I wish I hadn't had to say the things I had to say on the floor of this House in the last two sets of estimates before those kinds of changes were made. I just wanted to make it clear that the whole exchange relating to Port Hardy and the member for Burnaby-Edmonds, as raised by the minister, is simply a result of an incorrect newspaper story. To try to make a political issue out of that is really quite underhanded.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: On a point of order, I appreciate that people get heated in debate; I frankly don't think this is a debate that we need to get too heated about. But I resent the term "underhanded" and I ask the member to withdraw.

[ Page 8275 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the minister has taken offence at a word which is unparliamentary. I ask the member if he would be good enough at this time to withdraw the word that he used.

MR. GABELMANN: A lot of softball players would be amused by the term "underhanded" being unparliamentary. If "underhanded" is.... I'll say deceitful, if that will please the minister more, Mr. Chairman. I'll withdraw any words the minister doesn't like, if that will allow me to say anything.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It does allow us to continue in a parliamentary manner, hon. members, which is really why we are here.

MR. GABELMANN: The second thing I wanted to raise in response to the minister's reply was that I had made a point this morning saying that I didn't think that the proliferation of lawyers in child-apprehension cases was a good thing. I said that the model established by the labour movement under the Labour Code, where lawyers were phased out, would be a good model to look at for child- apprehension cases too. I cited the case of one child who had five lawyers fighting over him. The minister took those comments to say that I agreed with the Attorney-General's denial of legal services to children when other people in the case have lawyers.

Mr. Speaker, we're not allowed to say in this House what we can say outside. If I were outside I would use a word starting with the letter "I" to describe those comments, but I can't do that in here. I'm really offended by the kind of response that that minister makes to comments that we make in good faith. The whole question of whether there should be a proliferation of lawyers in child apprehension is an important issue. It's a good point, but what does the minister do with it? She distorts it and makes it into a totally different issue and then says I'm on the side of a terrible policy that the Attorney-General has introduced.

MS. BROWN: It's deliberate distortion.

MR. GABELMANN: It's nonsense. It's what makes this particular estimate debate so very distasteful every year, because we can't have an honest exchange of legitimate viewpoints. They might be at variance — fair enough — but we seem to be able to have them with a whole variety of other ministers. I had them with the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) the other day, the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith) and with others. But never ever are we able to do so with this minister in these debates, and I wonder what the cause is of that. I wonder if it isn't because the minister wants to make everything she touches a political issue rather than a public issue. These questions are public issues that the public cares about, and we do not want the minister's political intervention in the way that she does it. Mr. Chairman, I get pretty angry about that, I might say.

There are two final things I want to say before I sit down. I wonder why she didn't answer my basic question. Did she agree with the recommendations of that report which recommended that the infant development program go into the Health ministry? Does she agree with the recommendations of that same report that suggested that the CHANCE program should go into Education, as the Education minister has agreed? She had no comment whatsoever to those legitimate questions of public policy.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The premise is only correct if it is what the member for North Island wants to accept. He wants to accept the premise that the Attorney-General is not going to be providing services for children in the province. You see, I know that the Attorney-General is providing those services, will provide those services and has a commitment to our Ministry of Human Resources to provide those services. So, Mr. Chairman, you see that the tremendous concern that the member for North Island expresses is really just a pig in a poke. It isn't even a point.

If the Attorney-General does provide services for children — and he has committed himself to doing so — then all of this feigned upset on the other side of the House is absolutely and totally incorrect. The Attorney-General has done just that which those two members at least on that side of the House this morning, save and except the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), have been making their point about. There has to be some kind of accountability in legal services throughout the system. We only get our people from the Ministry of the Attorney-General. We have no legal services of our own; we pay the Attorney General's office for legal services.

It has nothing to do with politics; it has something to do with service, accountability and responsibility. I say again that the member is really trying to fly some kind of an argument which will suit his own purposes, I suppose, when he's speechifying. What we're concerned about here on this side of the House is getting services to those young people.

The member for North Island asked two other questions. One was in reference to the infant development program and the other one was in reference to the CHANCE program. I think I did answer the question about the CHANCE program yesterday, because the member for Burnaby-Edmonds brought that program up. I don't think we are concerned as to which ministry actually takes care of that program. It was initiated by our ministry and, as you pointed out, it is an excellent program. I would think that because of the kinds of responsibilities that the aides have within the classroom, that failing under our ministry in terms of help — not educational help but personal aid help.... That should still continue under our ministry.

Inasmuch as the infant development program is a little different than that.... I really am very proud of that program. I am not in any way disputing that it could fall under the Ministry of Health quite easily and could be well administered under that ministry. It's nothing that we're holding onto tenaciously; it's just that it was started under our ministry and therefore we continue with it. We will take that concern under consideration.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I had asked the minister a question this morning which she responded to, and I heard her on my office speaker. I'd like to conclude dealing with that matter of Eagle Rock Ranch, and hope my colleague will defer briefly for that purpose. Mr. Chairman, the minister did provide a report to me in response to my concern about the administration of Eagle Rock Ranch. She wrote back on May 19:

"My regional staff and my executive director concur that the owner of Eagle Rock Ranch, Mr. Victor Calvert, appears to be genuinely interested and

[ Page 8276 ]

concerned about this program for youth. At present, with the removal of older youths on probation who were placed at Eagle Rock Ranch by the corrections branch, and by limiting the number of placements to a maximum of six children ages 13 to 16, my staff believe that continued placement of children at the ranch is appropriate."

This morning the point I was making was whether or not an investigation had been conducted into the allegation of physical violence. In her response this morning the minister took that point well and accepted that the allegation was a serious one and that that aspect of it should be investigated. At the same time she indicated that the person who had made the allegation was someone who had been fired from the institution....

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, please, I did not say that.

MR. KING: Well, the minister said words to the effect that sometimes a disenchanted employee makes allegations that are questionable. That was the inference I took from it.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I said there are human elements....

MR. KING: Human elements.... . and indicated that it was the case of a disenchanted employee. That's what I took from it, anyway. The point is, Mr. Chairman, that I do not presume to prejudge the allegations made, nor do I think the minister should stand in judgment of that person making the allegation.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: What person?

MR. KING: Mr. Dufour, who made the allegation that Calvert had used violence on the children. When the minister responded this afternoon she drew attention to yet another document, which I am not in receipt of. I received her report but it certainly didn't contain this information, which she's kindly sent me a copy of, I presume. Much to my horror, Mr. Chairman, I find that the investigation does in fact confirm that physical violence took place.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I cannot accept, now that we have the proven allegation that physical violence was visited upon one of those children, that that person is an appropriate operator of any youth facility in this province. For the life of me I can't understand why it is that Mr. Victor Calvert, who had no previous experience whatsoever in terms of youth containment facilities, social work, or anything else, having been proved to have lost his temper and physically abused one of the children, should still have a licence to operate that facility. I think that's totally unconscionable. I think the minister should have withdrawn that licence immediately and withdrawn the children from his supervision. The report says the staff are satisfied it was an isolated incident. I think anyone that has so little control, who is in such a sensitive position — supervising children.... If he lost his temper once and physically abused a child, I don't think the minister, her staff or anyone else — certainly the public of British Columbia — would be prepared to say that that was just an isolated incident and we should leave him in charge. I think the public would take the opposite point of view. He has proved himself incapable. He has proved himself unreliable, and he should be removed. This operator, Victor Calvert, is a huge individual — I understand he's around 270 pounds. A man of that size who would lose control to the extent that he physically abused a child in his care, when he is receiving handsome payment from both the Ministry of Human Resources and the probation service of the province, who has so little regard for children and so little regard for his responsibilities as to use physical violence, is incompetent and untrustworthy, in my view, to continue as the custodian of children.

I'm appalled that the minister took such a bland position on this thing. I wonder why, in the report I received from her on May 19, there was no reference to the fact that the serious allegation made was indeed true. That's not what she said this morning. She said: "Well, sometimes there is a human problem." I don't want to attribute improper words to her but I certainly got the inference that maybe the man that made the allegation against Calvert was disenchanted because he'd been fired from the institution. That's what I took from it. I think any fair-minded person would have taken that understanding. But here is an investigation, here is a report, a memorandum dated June 16 to John Noble from Mrs. Valerie Mitchell, coordinator of contract services in family and children's services, which in fact confirms that there was physical violence. I ask the minister to take another look at this situation.

I want to say — and the minister may accuse me of being political — that it's common knowledge, and it's been talked about in Salmon Arm, that Victor Calvert is the former Social Credit constituency president. He's well known, and there is nothing wrong with that, except that the community also knows that there is a serious allegation here. And now that it has been confirmed, if that man is allowed to stay, it's going to took like political patronage of the worst kind.

Interjection.

MR. KING: It is. Look, justice has not only to be done; it has to be seen to be done. And by gosh, when we're dealing with young children who are already in very sensitive circumstances, the last thing they need is some big hulk like that physically abusing them. So I ask the minister to think very seriously about finding another institution for those children. I don't know Victor Calvert personally — I know of him — but I do not feel very comfortable about leaving children from anywhere in the province in that institution, once having had it confirmed that the owner and operator lacks the control to the extent where he's already visited physical violence upon one of the children involved. I would much prefer and I would rest much easier knowing that we had a more stable and secure person in charge of that facility.

Mr. Chairman, I have some questions regarding the summer employment program which, I understand, is now in the charge of the cabinet committee which the minister chairs. I want to ask the minister something about the criteria for qualifying programs under this summer employment program. Do those applications come to the cabinet committee first of all, or do they come through the regional offices of the Ministry of Labour? What is the approval system for applications? Can the minister answer those questions for me, please?

[ Page 8277 ]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: May I just respond regarding the wilderness ranch which we've been speaking about. You're making assumptions on a couple of things. First of all, you're referring to children, and we're taking about.... I don't want to leave the impression with even our colleagues in the House today that we're talking about tiny children. We're talking about a resource for very difficult older children.

MR. KING: They're 12 to 16, aren't they?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: They are 16, 17, somewhere around that age.

MS. BROWN: Is it okay to beat them up?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, I'm not saying that. Mr. Chairman, I hope that I'll be allowed to respond. I have no problem in going back on this case and seeing where it's at. I can only take what my staff gives me; I don't interfere with their decisions. My staff have given that assessment of that program and they absolutely intend to have it monitored. We will be very pleased to take another look at it. I have no problem with that, and I don't think that the political persuasion of any of these operators dealing with very difficult problem youngsters has any reference to the service. I truly don't. It has not made any difference in my assessment of group homes or services throughout the province. I can't imagine how it could enter into that.

The program on summer employment was given to the joint committee on employment, but from the criteria there is a publication which shows who can hire and where the moneys can go for summer employment. In particular, they cover agriculture and small business. They can apply through the offices of the Ministry of Labour throughout the province. I can have the criteria for you in a short time, but that's all published through the Ministry of Labour.

MR. KING: I accept her statement with respect to no political inferences. I didn't raise it with innuendo in mind or to make that allegation. I raised it because it is a well-known fact, it's on the table and it's a matter of public record in terms of who Mr. Calvert is. The minister knows as well as I do that you can't escape some public deduction in this kind of thing. I think it's important that she has another look at it. Putting that aside, the essential element is the welfare of the children. She accepts that, and I certainly do.

With respect to the employment program, why this departure.... The applications previously came in through the Ministry of Labour's regional offices, and there was an approval system. I'm trying to find out what happens after those applications come in. Do they come to the ministerial committee for final approval? Does the ministerial committee have any staff of their own in terms of designing programs and the approval system, or is it simply a policy committee that has set the program up?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The answer to the first two questions is no. The explanation of it is that it is a policy committee. The Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education are on that committee and have particular reference to this program, together with all our other colleagues on that committee, because of their association with their particular responsibilities. It was the input of those ministers and the collective ministers on the committee which spelled out the program. Then it was given to the Ministry of Labour for implementation. They have the expertise; they've done it for many years. For many years our student program has been one of the best in the country, as it is this year.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before recognizing the member, the Chair is in a bit of a quandary. Naturally we don't want to frustrate debate with respect to the hon. member's line of questioning, but could it be established for the Chair where this line of questioning might be the most appropriate?

MR. KING: I think it is because this is a ministerial responsibility. She chairs the Cabinet Committee on Employment Development, and I don't know what other opportunity in the Legislature one would have to question her duties in that regard.

I want to thank the minister for congratulating us on introducing the youth employment program back in 1973, at which time it was funded to the tune of $20 million a year, increasing in 1974-75 to $30 million a year. We're talking about a $10 million program now, which is a major cutback. Can the minister explain, if she is so satisfied with the way the program is working and the Ministry of Labour's custody of the program. why the cabinet committee has been established at all'? What was the problem? Was the Minister of Labour having some difficulty with the program?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, that's certainly not the problem. The Cabinet Committee on Employment Development is assessing a fair number of programs that were either established before, are ongoing or may not be ongoing, if that decision is made. It is also addressing new initiatives. There is some financing made available through the budget for new initiatives, and the committee is responsible for negotiating and looking into the new bridging program. Part of that discussion took place last week in the estimates of the Ministry of Forests. The committee is also responsible for new initiatives. It’s as simple as that. It has the expertise of the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith). the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Hewitt), the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland, ) the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) and the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer). I think I have covered all of them. As you see, it's a very good committee that has the capability of addressing various items, and it will hopefully in the future be initiating some very interesting ones which the House will be addressing in due course.

MRS. DAILLY: Some of my colleagues may want to carry on with some questions on the minister's role in chairing he employment committee, but I would like to return to her basic function as Minister of Human Resources.

I want to deal with just one area today. I have a couple of specific questions for the minister regarding a matter that I consider to be of very grave concern not only to me but to thousands of other citizens in this province. This matter was brought to my attention by a constituent who came to my office several months ago in considerable distress. His complaint against the ministry, or shall I say the minister, concerned an invasion of his privacy, and I'm referring here to the group that was handled in a very strange, unusual manner.

[ Page 8278 ]

I'm referring to five people in this province, with nothing in common except that they had attended a demonstration at which they complained about the policies of that minister, who were singled out by her ministry to be checked about a I matter of fraud.

I think it's necessary to get this on the record because we're dealing with something very serious here. To begin with, the particular person who came to see me wasn't on welfare, and to my knowledge had never been on welfare. At the time he came to see me, he was actively working. He was absolutely stunned to find out that he was being investigated for fraud. I feel it's necessary to go into this in the House today because invasion of a citizen's privacy by a politician in this province is the first step to Big Brother government. I accuse this Minister of Human Resources of invading the privacy of citizens of this province through her investigation of five people in this province who had nothing in common but their attendance at a demonstration against that minister.

I read through the ombudsman's report very carefully. Frankly, given his comments and his report on conversations with the minister and her staff, as well as conversations with some of the people who are under investigation, he has been exceptionally kind to the Minister of Human Resources, in my opinion. The end of this report is rather mild, sort of saying to the minister: "There's nothing here that satisfies us, but we don't want to see it happen again." I'm sure the ombudsman had great difficulty dealing with the Minister of Human Resources if he had from her the same evasiveness that we have to put up with here in the Legislature. I think we have to give him credit for doing the best he could.

I consider this exceptionally serious. I feel the Minister of Human Resources purposely called for an investigation of five people in this province on allegations of welfare fraud, allegations that were never found to be true, simply because those people showed up at a demonstration to complain against her policies. What I find absolutely appalling is that to date the minister has not officially and personally apologized to those people — unless something has happened since I last heard. Do you know what this minister stated when she was asked about giving an apology? She said she was prepared to apologize for the member of her staff who had somehow leaked the information to the people who were being investigated that they were being investigated. Can you imagine it, Mr. Chairman? The only thing that that minister saw wrong, that demanded an apology, was that one of her staff members had the intestinal fortitude to say: "Hey, there are people being investigated here and they haven't even been told."

MS. BROWN: They're not even on welfare.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, two of them.... Even so — so the others were on welfare. Have they no right, in a free province, to go and stand up at a demonstration? This minister is leading us to Big Brotherism in this province.

MS. BROWN: McCarthyism.

MRS. DAILLY: McCarthyism. You tell me where a person has any right in this province to have their privacy invaded by any minister of this Crown. And to this date....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll ask all hon. members, including the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) and the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), not to interrupt the hon. member who is taking her place in debate.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, to this date that minister has not even shown the public of B.C. that she considers what she did to be wrong. The request to investigate these five people, who just happened not to like her policies, emanated from her own office. It didn't come from her staff; it came from one of her own assistants — mind you, in her own ministry. When that assistant was asked over and over again, "Well, how did you get knowledge of the fact that these people had committed fraud?" do you know what the person said? He said: "Well, we can't quite remember how." The staff person was asked: "Well, haven't you got a record of this allegation of fraud? Was it by phone call, by letter?" Do you know that the staff member said no, they had no record. Not even being able to remember how they received this allegation, not having any record of it, that minister of the Crown allowed an invasion of the privacy of five citizens of this province.

Mr. Chairman, I'm standing here to ask the Minister of Human Resources to stand up now and apologize to these five people for the invasion of their privacy. If that minister does not apologize, it means that she is not worthy of holding her position as a minister of the Crown.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: First of all, I'd like to, with the greatest of respect, tell the member for Burnaby North that some of the allegations that she has made in her comments today regarding a demonstration, and five people in the demonstration, had nothing at all to do with the investigation of the ombudsman, inasmuch as the people were not investigated by my ministry because they attended a demonstration but because the office received a complaint that they were fraudulently taking income assistance. We very often get those kinds of complaints. In fact, we get a lot of anonymous complaints, sometimes in writing, sometimes by telephone, and one thing that the ombudsman's report brought out was that there should be very clear direction in all of the offices in terms of reporting and where reports come from, even when there isn't anything to say.

For example, it's hard to say if an anonymous phone call — when you don't have a name or a phone number or anything, and people won't give it to you.... But let me just say that investigations have to be done. We have an obligation to the people in our province to investigate every complaint, and any allegation that our ministry investigates complaints in a way that misuses that kind of information should not be abroad and should not be made by either the member who has just taken her seat or any member of this House or any member of the public. We are extremely careful of how we handle those kinds of complaints, because very often they are unfounded. I don't know what the percentage would be. We've never done a study on the percentage, but it happens.

Just recently I had one that was investigated. It was anonymous, and it was about someone who went out at the same time every day. They obviously were working and yet they were taking income assistance. It was an anonymous complaint. We had it looked into. The party, indeed, was on income assistance, but that same party had to visit someone who was ill and did so at the same time every day, which

[ Page 8279 ]

looked like she was going to work every day. That's the kind of thing that we get.

Every time that we have a complaint, the complaint is investigated. It was not singled out as you said, and I wrote down your words. I want to make it clear that cases were not singled out "by the minister," which is the allegation made by that member who has just taken her seat.

First of all, our ministry didn't investigate them on the basis of any demonstration. We investigated on the basis of a complaint — an anonymous complaint, but a complaint. When someone makes an allegation such as the one about the lady who is supposedly on income assistance and also working, the first thing we do is establish whether or not they're on income assistance. I want you to be clear on this: if they're not on income assistance we're not going to investigate them. We have no power to investigate somebody who is not using governmental funds. That's the only basis for a complaint to our ministry; that's the only reason.

For example — I've just been given this information — 4,662 cases were reported, resulting in 209 charges being laid, and 913 cases were unfounded. That's easily 25 percent. Approximately 25 percent are totally unfounded. In some cases charges are not laid but they are perhaps checked; some even go off income assistance. Those don't show up in the statistics. So the 209 cases in which the charges are laid, together with the 913 unfounded ones, do not add up to the total of 4,662 reported to us in one year.

Again, our ministry did not go into this report on the basis that they attended a demonstration. The only question asked, in order to identify whether they should be investigated beyond the anonymous complaint, was: are any of them on income assistance? Identify that first. If they're on income assistance then we will pursue whether or not they should be taking this assistance. Two were on income assistance and three were not. Our staff have an unblemished record of pursuing their investigations with total integrity, and I want to emphasize that. I've had this ministry for three years and I've had these kinds of cases. They're not happy cases to handle. One doesn't want to think that anybody is cheating the system, but people come to us and tell us they are and we have to follow it up.

The only difference in this case, from all those that have come before me in these three years, is that when the ministry tried to establish whether or not they were on income assistance, they went a little further. That loophole, if you'd like to call it that, has since been closed. The first complaint came in late November, and by January there had been no response to the memorandum that had gone out from the deputy minister. He asked to update his memos, as we always do; if we have something that's outstanding and somebody hasn't answered, we update memos. In order to get a quick response to that memo, the staff sent out a Telex. That is unusual, and we have a control over that at the present time. That Telex went into several regional offices and was seen by somebody in the ministry, who apparently then told one of these persons alleged to be taking income assistance.

We have now closed that loophole. It was the first instance in three years, and no one would have been worried about it because it was the first instance that a Telex was sent, as far as I am aware. Our deputy minister might be able to tell us, but I don't think there was another occasion. So I'm saying that in my three years in this ministry the Telex system of going throughout the ministry to identify has not been used before, and it will not be used again in that way, because this has identified that weakness, It also identified a weakness in that the very close code of confidentiality within the ministry was not adhered to in this case. One of the staff members in our ministry shared that information with somebody outside the ministry. In this ministry, the code of confidentiality is extremely sensitive and necessary. We're dealing with people’s lives, and it's very important that we keep that code of confidentiality.

But none of that would have been known.... This should be emphasized. I'm not suggesting that it should not be known if we have an error in seeding a Telex. From that point of view, I'm pleased that it was pointed out. But it was not anybody in this ministry who made that knowledge available to the media. It was the people, because they felt chagrined — I can understand their chagrin — who went to the media. Our confidentiality was clearly breached by a member of our staff, but I cannot take responsibility for members of the public who want to do that. It was their course to make it public, not ours.

You mentioned the ombudsman's report. The ombudsman usually has no difficulty in being critical, as you say, but in his very full investigation — and it was a full one that involved a lot of time of our ministry staff — he found no evidence of misuse of information for any purpose.

If you want to pursue the demonstration that you referred to, I'd be very pleased to pursue the demonstration, because I was there. In their public pronouncements, they said that the one thing they had in common was that they were part of a demonstration. We did not know that at the time this anonymous complaint was followed up. It was only when it was made available to the media and I read about it in the paper that I had any knowledge of that at all. At that moment I did not connect it with any anonymous complaint, because it was one of other anonymous complaints that had come into our ministry.

I know that the member who has just taken her seat would like to make a lot of this. I don't believe that our ministry has acted in any improper way. We have a very strong, real and needed responsibility when we're handling public funds to the amount we have: that if we find someone who feels that those funds are not being used properly, we should respond to that complaint, whether it's an anonymous complaint or not. Part of the underlying reason for it is on behalf of the taxpayers who feel that they should not pay twice. They feel they should not pay someone who is already working to take income assistance. That's a very strong feeling in people in this province. I think that's true all across this world. After all, we don't want to give to people who are trying to end-run and defraud a system, and then leave people who are truly in need with less. That's really what the result would be.

I hope the member will accept that explanation. I don't see why she wouldn't. I can't understand any reason, other than a political reason, why she shouldn't accept that. If she refers to her colleague, who was the Minister of Human Resources in the former New Democratic Party administration, he will be able to tell her that all kinds of complaints come into the office. They do in every office in the province, not just mine. We have 200 offices in the province, and they come in all ways and forms. We follow up each and every one of them, I have to tell you that some of them are rather wild. We feel we have to follow them up. Strangely enough, even some of those wild ones result in charges being laid for defrauding the system.

[ Page 8280 ]

MRS. DAILLY: The minister just took her seat. I've been here a long time. We both were elected for the first time in 1966. It gives you an idea how we're getting on. Something I've watched with this minister for years is that whenever she's in trouble and has a basic weakness in her argument, she filibusters. I've seen this year after year. She goes on and on, hoping that by the time she finishes we'll all be so exhausted from listening to her that we'll let the issue go.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps we could refrain from personal allusions.

MRS. DAILLY: I didn't think she'd mind my referring to the fact that we both came in the same year.

The basic issue here — and this is the tragedy of this minister; she doesn't understand the basic issue — is the invasion of the privacy of the citizens in this province by actions taken and condoned by that minister. I said the ombudsman was mild. I'll read you what he said, and then you'll have an idea of what I think he should have done when I consider his statements mild. He said: "Among ministry officials I missed in particular any honest or serious concern with or sensitivity to the general and important value our society places on respect for a citizen's privacy." He goes on to make some very serious comments, but I find it so absolutely reprehensible that a minister of the Crown would be part of such an investigation that I consider his remarks mild. He also says: "My conclusion is that continuation of the information search and its broadening were unwarranted, reprehensible and improper."

MS. BROWN: That's an indictment.

MRS. DAILY: Mr. Chairman, the minister does stand indicted. I do not accuse her staff; I accuse the minister. This emanated from her office. The minister keeps saying: "Remember that the ombudsman did not tie in any connection with the demonstration." I realize that, but I do. As a free member of this House, I hope I have a right to stand here on this floor and accuse that minister of investigating these people because she wants to intimidate anyone in this province, particularly those on welfare, who dare to question her policies. There is nothing that minister has said in that long, convoluted defence that changes anyone's opinion on this side of the House.

May I say also of many of the citizens of British Columbia, and of the people who are victimized, that that minister was out to commence a reign of terror on people who have the nerve to stand up and criticize her policies. If that official in her department had not been able to have the courage to release to those people that they were being investigated, my God, Mr. Chairman, these kind of intimidations could be continuing under that minister. But she has been caught.

I'm saying to that minister that we expect an apology from her. All her fine words and convoluted arguments don't destroy the basic fact that that minister allowed to emanate from her office an unfair, unwarranted investigation of five people in this province who happened to attend a demonstration against her policies. We are not satisfied here, Mr. Chairman, and many of the public — and, I can assure you, my constituents — are far from satisfied. Can the minister not have the grace at least to stand and apologize to those five people. If she did, Mr. Chairman, there is hope that that minister understands what the basic issue is. No minister of this Crown has any right to invade the privacy of a citizen of British Columbia.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, let me just say that all the words such as "reign of terror" are very colourful, but they have absolute no reference to the case which the ombudsman was investigating. If they want to talk about "reign of terror," I will speak about the demonstration. Did it ever strike these people on the Opposition side of the House that on the day of that demonstration there were thousands and thousands of people downtown? There were thousands and thousands of people all over the city of Vancouver that day watching the demonstration. The demonstration started on Burrard Street, three blocks or so away from the Hyatt Regency Hotel. It ended outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel. It carried on for many long speeches, with shouting and screaming outside the hotel. Many of the fellow travelers of the members who have spoken on the opposition side of the House were there. The candidates representing the NDP were in that crowd. There were people who marched into the hotel and took over the hotel, and then they came in where I was at a conference.

The kinds of people who were there made themselves very much known to the conference, where there were some 2,000 people, to the staff of the hotel and to the people outside the hotel. They were very aware that they were there. For the member to say that I singled out five people, that this is some kind of a vendetta.... Let me tell you that those people were well known to everybody who saw them, and they very much disgraced themselves in the hotel that day. I'll just read you part of a letter from one of the ladies who was a casualty of the demonstration staged by those people. She says: "I was attacked by people aroused to a frenzy by the organizers of the demonstration. I was taken by the throat. I was kicked, punched, knocked to the floor. My clothing was damaged and I was spat upon. Subsequent examination revealed cracked ribs and numerous bruises." I can read some of the other descriptive language, and I will if you'd like.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps, hon. members, we could return to the administrative actions of the ministry.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Well, Mr. Chairman, the member who has just taken her place wants to attribute to this minister and this ministry a reign of terror against people on income assistance in this province. This is very much related to the statements that the member has made, and she made those accusations against me. I'm going to tell you that the administrative changes I made prior to this demonstration have made a positive difference in the lives of those single parents. We have many success stories out of that positive change. And I'm going to say that because of those policy changes we have people today who are independent, not dependent on the state. It is not for this side of the House to keep people under the thumb of welfare and income assistance. Now it may be the policy of that side of the House, because they certainly did not want to understand that policy in any way, and they did try to deface that policy in any way they could, so that they would rouse up people to the extent that they demonstrated in that way.

Let me go back to the way in which these allegations come to us. They are anonymous allegations in some cases — this was — and any number of people in the hotel or on the street that day could quite easily have identified those people.

[ Page 8281 ]

I don't know, but it's just as good a guess that they could have been identified in that demonstration, and surely they were very clearly visible — so visible that one girl was taken to the hospital. That's not the lady I mentioned, but a younger girl. People were knocked down. Even today as I attend meetings, even in these last few weeks.... I've recently been to a Social Credit meeting where there were some of these people who were at the annual meeting and convention where this demonstration took place, and even now they talk about their incredibly bad treatment by those demonstrators. They were completely out of their organizers' hands, and they were very much known to all the people, both inside and outside that hotel that day. If you want to talk about the demonstration, we can talk about the demonstration, but the allegation against those people, when it came into our office, was completely divorced from that demonstration until it was made known by the demonstrators themselves.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Chairman, I do have a few questions for the minister, and I don't want to change the tack of the debate too much, except that I'm a bit disappointed in the minister's answer to that last question from the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly). What the member for Burnaby North was discussing was the result of a report from the ombudsman on actions taken by the ministry. The minister went all around the question, but didn't apologize for the actions that were taken in that case.

Mr. Chairman, I want to identify myself with some of the remarks of the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann). I too, as a rural member representing a large rural area in the province, have had numerous occasions to deal with people in the Ministry of Human Resources in their various district offices. I find that's very difficult. There does seem to be a different atmosphere in that Human Resources office. I believe that comes as directives and as policy from Victoria here, probably from the minister's office. They will not discuss individual cases in a free and open manner. As MLAs we're likely to hear from people about examples where they've gone into Human Resources and not been successful or not received the attention that they think they deserve. Or perhaps they are angry about the attitude of a Human Resources officer, and so they come and discuss these matters with their MLA to see what we can do. Sometimes we can help and sometimes we can't.

The other side of the coin, though, before I get into two or three of the questions that I want to pose to the minister, is this. I think that the minister might be interested in knowing that from time to time we, as MLAs, hear of cases that have been successful, in terms of the local Human Resources officers. I know that I'm very appreciative of a number of cases, and I won't go into all of them, but I'd like just to remark on one very recent case where a young lady with a two-year-old child came into my office, and I thought: "Oh, my God!" You know, the usual — welfare. As a matter of fact, that was not it at all. She came in because she was looking for a job, and just asked me, if I heard anything about anything, to let her know. Then she went on to say that the Human Resources officer that she was dealing with had not only assisted her in obtaining funds so that she could survive and pay her rent and those things, but in fact had directed her to night school courses. She's taking an industrial first aid course to upgrade her capabilities; in fact she was very pleased with the services in that case. As MLAs we hear of these kinds of cases all too rarely. We only usually hear about the cases where somebody is not satisfied with the service that they're getting. I understand that. I want the minister to understand, Mr. Chairman, that I'm not knocking the people who work at the local level in the Ministry of Human Resources. Generally speaking, I get reasonably good cooperate where I can, or where they can give me that cooperation.

If I do have a criticism at the local level, it's that I think the Ministry ought to allow. and should allow, local Human Resources directors and workers a bit more discretion in making judgments if there is doubt. The Ministry of Human Resources always takes the side, if I may say, that the person's got to be wrong. Whereas if there's a doubt — and I certainly don't condone fraud — in serious cases I think the benefit of the doubt should go to the applicant. As MLAs once again these are the types of cases we're most likely to see in our offices, but if there is doubt, the answer is: "No, we can't help you" — because of whatever reason. These are the type of people we're likely to see.

I would like to bring to the minister's attention — and I know that these are constituency matters and we have serious, large matters.... Well, this is not necessarily a constituency letter. It is from my riding, but it's an example of the kind of thing that I suppose is happening at the present time around the province. This is a very short and articulate letter from a lady on the Sunshine Coast; in fact, it is addressed to the minister. I don't mind using the name because I have discussed this with this lady, but I don't know if she'd want her name in Hansard or not. The point is, she makes three very clear and concise points about her aged six and a half daughter, who has had a lot of problems. She has attached the psychiatrists' reports, and the assessment studies and reports, and all these things.

Here is the kind of thing that is happening in this particular area. This girl has been receiving speech therapy for the past two years; however, the therapist has taken a six-month leave of absence, and there is no replacement. This is in my Sunshine Coast Sechelt office, by the way, if you're making notes. She goes on to say that as this girl of six and a half, Melissa, will be going into grade 1 this coming September, there's no chance that she will be able to compete or to keep up with the other children in that class without speech therapy, for one thing. She goes on to say: "I was counting on the CHANCE program, and it has worked for Melissa in the past, but now I am led to understand that not sufficient funding is available to provide this for School District 46, Sunshine Coast."

I did read on page 27 in the annual report from the ministry the section dealing with the CHANCE program. It's a good program if you do it. I read with interest two days ago the minister's remarks in this House, where the minister explained how much money they were spending and what the CHANCE program was supposed to accomplish, and that's all very well. But if they abolish the program, then what good is it? Here we have a prime example of a girl aged six and a half — and there are others — who is probably going to fail and find things very difficult for the next few years unless these programs become available to her. The lady said towards the end of her letter that the costs involved to provide her with success at this young age are minimal when compared with the costs involved in trying to piece together an older child or adult along with her family. This is correct. If this young person doesn't receive the kind of attention and care she should be having now, what will the cost to society be 10 or 20 years down the road'

[ Page 8282 ]

This brings me to my second topic. I have correspondence between the ministry and people in the Powell River area dating back to November 3, 1981. The request was very simple. Because of the caseload in the area, we required a full-time Human Resources officer to work with the mentally handicapped. For some time I was led to believe.... When I first approached the ministry on this subject, I thought it would be easy — no problem at all — because the requirement was there. After a great deal of private conversation with people in the ministry, many of whom agreed with the need for a full-time Human Resources officer, I finally did receive correspondence from the minister. It essentially said: "We agree with you. We have a person working out of Courtenay who goes to the community from time to time to work with these people." The fact is that this person from Courtenay, who is very capable, comes over once or maybe twice a month for a four-hour period. What can you do with the present 100-plus mentally handicapped? We have people who come into the group home in Powell River from other parts of the province. How can you expect one Human Resources worker to work with that number of people and accomplish anything? She wouldn't even have time to look at the records. I'm very, very disappointed in this particular case, especially when I have the support of a number of people within the Ministry of Human Resources. I'm asking the minister to once again reconsider and think about providing a full-time, competent person to work with the mentally handicapped in the Powell River area.

Last but not least, I have a very short question from a constituent of mine, who is quite active in working with handicapped people in Powell River. It happens to be a relative, but relatives have the right to write to the minister. She has a mentally handicapped child. She said in her letter: "At Christmas all welfare recipients receive a Christmas bonus included in their last cheque before Christmas. This bonus is not extended to handicapped persons on government assistance, which would appear to be nothing less than discrimination." She goes on asking why the handicapped people are not included with others who receive income from Human Resources. Perhaps the minister could answer one or two of those questions. I really would appreciate it.

MR. MUSSALLEM: I must rise in my place today to speak about this ministry for a few moments. In years gone by, a large part of my day was taken up with Human Resources problems. People were coming to me with their various problems at various times, and it took a lot of time. Certainly members on our side — and I'm sure the opposition as well — will tell you that the problems MLAs get have been much diminished over the last three or four years. As a matter of fact, they are almost non-existent. When I say that, it must mean a remarkable turnaround in the policies of the Ministry of Human Resources. The minister doesn't need my support, but I'd like to say it the way it is. When we find a large ministry doing so much good for the disadvantaged people, it should be told. It's not that we wouldn't like to give them more — and I'm sure that the minister would be the first to do it — but the money has to be stretched out.

A magnificent job is being done. I think this House should recognize that; I think that the opposition benches could make a little point of that. We know it's not perfect, but it was so prevalent on our side, surely it must be the same there too. We can all find areas where there is not perfection and where things can be done, and I think the minister should be told about these and should make corrections wherever necessary and proper.

[Mr. Richmond in the chair.]

I have a couple of things I'd like to know about. I had no problems at all, except for one thing lately since the depression came in. I mean the recession. Let's put it that way; let's not say depression. Real depression is in the automobile business, but there is recession everywhere else.

I want to say that I find difficulty among people who need to get onto Human Resources while waiting for UIC. Now it does happen, but I have had many complaints or many requests and many pleadings that it doesn't happen smoothly enough and some of them are really suffering in the exchange. If this is a fact, would the minister look into it? I think it's important at this time that we should defray as much suffering as possible. Most of them say to me: "When my UIC cheque comes I'll be glad to pay it back, but in the meantime I need some money." I think that a lot of them are being looked after, but there have been cases where it has sort of crossed and recrossed. I find that the main cause of complaint lately.

I'd like to ask the minister about the distress line which, I think, was put in three years ago. I hear no more about that. Is that an effective program? Is it working? Do they correlate, and can they tell us what constituency and what areas the most problems come from? What effect has it had on the distress of children and women in this province? Has the distress line been effective? I thought it was a great idea, but I've never heard much about it in this House. I'd like to know what the minister has to say about that. In this time of recession, is the battering of children and women increasing, or is it about the same as ever? I know it's a bad business, a terrible business, but do we hear that because of distress, battering is more prevalent? Now if this is the case, I think the minister should take note of that and take countermeasures.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I would like to raise a couple of issues related directly to her responsibilities as the Minister of Human Resources and then ask a few questions with respect to her position in the Cabinet Committee on Employment Development.

I'm somewhat concerned that the policy laid down some time ago, related to Human Resources assistance and the eligibility for assistance for those people living on what I suppose are red-circled areas such as the islands, is still in place. People who live on islands like Denman, Hornby and Lasqueti in my constituency are turned down when they are in a position like so many other people in this province during this.... I will call it a depression. Maybe the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) wants to call it a recession. In this depression there are so many people who are forced to turn to Human Resources assistance, but they're being denied because of the location in which they live.

When there are 220,000 people looking for non-existent jobs, it seems to me that the policy of the Minister of Human Resources should change so that people who are living on those islands do qualify for assistance. It doesn't help them to move from Lasqueti Island to Parksville or to Qualicum or to any other place in this province, because there are no jobs for them. Many times people can live at a cheaper rate on the islands than they can in larger communities; and they have just as much chance of finding a job on Lasqueti these days as

[ Page 8283 ]

they do in Parksville or in Qualicum, I can assure you. Yet they are forced to undergo the uprooting of their families, the cost of the move, trying to find an alternative location because they must move into an area that is considered one of high employment. Lasqueti is not considered an area of high employment; therefore they are forced to move into communities such as Parksville where there are people looking for jobs by the score. And how someone who is eligible for Human Resources assistance is supposed to find a job under those circumstances, I don't know; it just doesn't make any sense. It seems to me that at this point, in view of the absolutely impossible situation as far as the finding of jobs is concerned, that policy should be altered so that people can live more cheaply on some of these more remote areas and still be eligible for Human Resources assistance.

Mr. Chairman, the minister has discontinued funding for Pacific House, which was an alcohol treatment centre and has now been closed. She was providing funding for the people who went there for treatment at a rate of $14 a day. That rate was reduced to $10.50 a day. I know that the minister is going to say Human Resources is not responsible for alcohol treatment, but it seems to me that if the Minister of Human Resources has any concern for the people who are afflicted with alcoholic problems and who had been receiving funding through her ministry, the least she could do is continue the funding at the rate at which they had received funding so that she could spend the time trying to convince her cabinet colleagues that this, in fact, did not belong in her ministry and belonged in another ministry. Once that alternate funding had been found, then perhaps she could discontinue the funding or lower the rate. What has happened now is that the facility has been closed.

I know that Pideock House, the alcohol treatment centre for men, did get some funding through the alcohol treatment program under the Ministry of Health. That has not been the case with Pacific House. It has been forced to close, and I think that's a tragedy.

I have a few questions related to the employment development program, which the minister chairs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a point of order. Questions pertaining to the minister's responsibilities outside of the Ministry of Human Resources I would have to rule out of order at this time.

MS. BROWN: On a point of order, earlier this afternoon when there was another Chairman in the chair, the ruling was exactly the opposite to the one you are now giving. The members of the opposition would like to obey the rulings of the Chair, but it doesn't really make it possible when one Chairperson gives one ruling and another Chairperson gives another.

A number of our speakers have already spoken on the minister's role as a chairperson of this employment committee of cabinet. If the Chair is reversing its decision and has changed its mind, maybe the Chair will tell us whether we are going to have an opportunity to debate schedule B separately and then have an opportunity to deal with this. But just to hand down a ruling which is completely contradictory to an earlier ruling is not very helpful.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: On the same point of order, Mr. Chairman, it is true that earlier, under different chairmanship we addressed the employment committee inasmuch as it was addressing youth summer employment. I simply referred to the fact that the administration of the committee itself decided on the youth program and that details of it of course would go over to the Ministry of Labour. I'm quite prepared to answer general questions on the committee itself. When it comes into details where another minister such as the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), who has the bridging program under his responsibility.... They were asked under the Forests Ministry. as I indicated earlier, and should be more aptly put to the .rests ministry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the point of order, the Chair has no problem if the committee wishes to discuss these matters as they pertain to this ministry, insofar as they must relate to the administrative actions of the department. I have no problem with that. If it's the wish of the committee, then so be it. The minister doesn't seem to object.

On a point of order, the first member for Victoria.

MR. BARBER: I appreciate your current commentary, Mr. Chairman, and would offer for your consideration as well a debate that occurred in this committee before you were elected here, wherein we established some time ago that the person whose estimates we are debating is also, as it happens, the Deputy Premier. It was ruled acceptable some time ago that we may discuss her actions as Deputy Premier because, of course, her salary, which vote is included in this general appropriation, also appears under this figure. It has, in fact, been established in the committee before that work as minister, as chairman of the cabinet committee and as Deputy Premier is debatable under this.

Certainly the general issue of debating ministerial estimates is the one under the minister's vote that we follow, but I appreciate your comment, Mr. Chairman. Our side is quite happy to abide by the tradition that has been established for some time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am advised, as I was not here, as you pointed out, that this was done because the minister had no objection at the time. If that is the case today, then let us try to stay within her purview as the Minister of Human Resources.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I have some questions relating to the $25 million program. She is the chairperson responsible for this cabinet committee. Since $10 million of that fund has already gone to the youth employment program to replace another program that had been eliminated by government, and another $10 million has been assigned to the bridging program under the Ministry of Forests, I'm wondering how much money the committee intends to devote to housing. It is listed under Schedule B as one of the projects that's going to be funded under that $25 million. Seventy-five thousand dollars has gone to some dyking program and I assume that they're going to continue making announcements with respect to the disbursement of those funds. But I would like to know how much of that $25 million of new money — that's all there is — is going into the housing project. What kind of housing is the committee anticipating as a result of that money.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Just taking the last question, the $25 million account which you referred to for the employment development program comes from the $132 million

[ Page 8284 ]

account. That $25 million is not the only money; neither is $132 million. Yesterday in the House we debated a bill which referred to the government housing and development bonds, which is a $250 million initiative. If that gives you a scope of the amount related to housing, I think that would give you the answer that you desire.

I also want to refer to the alcohol treatment houses that you spoke of. We negotiated with the groups you mentioned. I think you have copies of the correspondence I have sent to them. We very much felt that that was a Health program. It definitely is the responsibility of Health. That resolution has been made through negotiation and it's been a difficult one. We always have limited resources. If we had everything it would be very easy to say that we'd take all of them, but we always have to give priority to the most need. A program for alcoholic treatment was, in our mind, better under Health where it has finally ended up.

I would also refer to the designated areas. The policy for that was initiated because in places where there isn't a lot of industry or business — particularly Island areas — it was felt that it was better to designate them as non-available for income assistance simply because if the premise was that you wanted people to become independent, and that certainly is our premise, then there was very little opportunity for them to get the kind of independence they would desire in some of those places. You know the background of it. That's really why it was initiated. However, I would like to tell you that we're almost finished a review of that particular policy, and I think in the next few weeks there will be an adjustment of it. So you can look forward to that. I think I've answered that in a positive way.

I'd like to refer to the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem), who mentioned the Help Line for Children. Every time you ask about the increase in child abuse.... There is a lot of talk about advertising by government in the province. This is one of the places where there should be absolutely no dispute about advertising. Every time we have advertisements, particularly the television advertisements, on the Help Line for Children, we find that the increase in calls is quite dramatic. In other words, where there is knowledge and education, there will be a response to it. I think our ads have been very sensitive. I think they've been appealing to the youngster, as well as those who perhaps are in need of help — the abusing adults. We have brought lots of those people forward who say that they do need help. That has been a tremendous program.

You asked about the regions. It's really not isolated to any particular region; it is related to the population. We place more people in the more populated areas, of course. I would like to make a plea for the advertising; when the knowledge is there in the community, people will respond and come forward for help. The figures on that will be available in the annual report, and I would direct you to those. You can't make a case for an increase in child abuse; you can make a case for an increase in awareness, and that's all. Figures were not known. It really was hidden. Our province leads the way in awareness of child abuse, making sure that those cases that could have been called hidden cases in the past are brought out. We have little information on anything that was happening prior to the initiation of that child-abuse line.

You mentioned the Unemployment Insurance Commission and the lag time between a person's leaving a job and getting unemployment insurance. I'd like to say to the member for Dewdney that it's true that some areas in the province have been very slow in terms of the connection; time between UIC and layoff, firing or lack of work has been extremely long. I'm pleased to tell you that our staff, our regional people and I met with the minister a couple of months ago. We've had joint meetings with the managers, both the UlC representatives and the agencies, to facilitate the flow of traffic between both programs so that we can take the burden off people. In particular I'd like to mention the Nanaimo area — the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) isn't in the House. They have really had a big problem, but with this kind of cooperation we've been able to overcome it. It's been very good.

First, may I say to the member for Dewdney that he was very kind to make remarks about the kinds of services in my ministry. I really can't say it enough. We have 5,000 people in this ministry, and 200 offices. I am glad that the member for Dewdney has made the point. We had comments from the other side today and yesterday that the service in the offices is not as good as they would like it to be, so I thank the member for that comment. I will share it with our ministry staff. I think theirs is an exceptionally sensitive job, and many times they work weekends. Child abuse cases take a tremendous amount of time and effort, draining people of energy because they are such tragic and terrible cases to deal with — family cases, sometimes terrible to deal with. Our ministry staff does an absolutely outstanding job; let me just say that again, because I don't accept the criticism.

Secondly, if members of this House want information and feel that not enough information is being given to them at the local level, I am as near as your telephone. You only need to phone me or send me a note and I will have it looked into. That offer has always been there. The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) has kindly pointed out that he always has had that kind of response from this ministry.

I'd like to refer again to the member for Mackenzie and his discussion regarding the handicapped person who wrote to ask why he cannot have a Christmas bonus as income assistance. This often comes to mind around December. First of all, income assistance recipients do not get the same year-round amount of money as the handicapped. They are on for a shorter period of time. There is a high turnover in income assistance cases. Therefore the people who are on income assistance today probably won't be on income assistance at Christmas. I would just point out that March 1982 cases totalled 65,730. Cases closed in April 1982 numbered 10,947, while cases opened in April 1982 were 10,614. In other words, more cases were closed in April 1982, in these last two months, than came on income assistance. That turnover, that coming on and going off income assistance, is very prevalent. So when you think of the whole picture, please don't concern yourself that it's the same people. It may be the same numbers, but it is not the same people.

To go back to the handicapped request as to why they should not have a higher amount in December as a Christmas bonus: it is because they have a higher amount all year round.

I want to refer again to the member for Mackenzie, who talked about the CHANCE program. In his region there has been an increase in the CHANCE program, but throughout in the whole CHANCE program, there is a 30 1/2 percent increase in that service. He mentions a child, Melissa: I know the case which he is talking about. I'm sorry, I think there has been a 38 1/2 percent increase in the CHANCE program — I've just been corrected by my deputy. So that's almost 40 percent, then, for the CHANCE program.

[ Page 8285 ]

He did mention the CHANCE program in relation to a child in his constituency, the child of six and a half who needed speech therapy. Melissa needs speech therapy, and there was a cessation of speech therapy there for a six-month period. He should address that question to the Ministry of Health. That is not in our budget. But I want to say this: Melissa, until three years ago, wouldn't have had any of the services that the member for Mackenzie talked about because it is only three years since the CHANCE program came in to help the handicapped child integrate into the school classroom. So there was no help at all for Melissa until three years ago. Now we can give her help in the classroom. I would like to ask him to direct that question to the Ministry of Health, because speech therapy, as you know, is a very key problem throughout the nation in terms of service.

Again I'd like to mention the Powell River mentally handicapped coordinator. We tend to never have sufficient numbers of people, because as we give more services — and we are improving our services all the time — we find that more services are being demanded, and we continue to look at such things as the member has mentioned, like the coordinator. As more resources become available we will make those kinds of services available.

I think I've answered just about everything that has been put before us so far. I have more detail on the Pidcock Pacific area. If you'd like more detail we can discuss it on a personal basis. I'd like to offer that to the member — or if you'd like to pursue it, I'll do it now.

MS. SANFORD: I'd like to pursue another issue related to the minister's position as the chairman of that committee.

Earlier, in response to a question, the minister indicated that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the way in which the youth employment program had been administered in the past by the Minister of Labour, and that it certainly wasn't a lack of confidence in the Minister of Labour that had required that the youth employment funds come out of the schedule B. I would assume that that applies also to apprenticeship training; and employment opportunities; and the administration of the Tourism funds; and the administration of vocational rehabilitation, under health; and that the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) was really able to conduct that silvicultural program; and that the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams) — as far as job placement is concerned — under that schedule B had been able to do the job, It's not a lack of confidence in other ministers that has made the government put all of these funds, $132 million, into schedule B to be administered by the cabinet committee, with this minister as the chairperson.

In other words, what I'm saying, Mr. Chairman. Is that there is $25 million in new funds. Actually, not really — there is only $15 million, because $10 million has been taken to replace a program that had been cancelled. So what we have here is a collection of all of this money from the various ministries, and if it's not a lack of confidence in the administrative abilities of those ministers, then it's being done for cosmetic purposes. It is for cosmetic purposes that they have placed all of these programs together in one package to be administered by that cabinet committee. It is to try to convince the public that they are, in fact, spending that kind of money on job creation when there is nothing new there. It's the same apprenticeship program that was there before. It's the same employment opportunities program that was there before, and it's going to be administered — mind you. there is some.... Yes. of course there is less money this year, as there is for everything else — particularly hospital beds but it's cosmetic purposes.

I think that one of the major reasons that all of these funds have been put together to be administered through the Minister of Human Resources' committee is for: (1) the consumption of the public and (2) for the re-election of that minister. Unless we have another redistribution and redrawing of the boundaries of the various constituencies, then that minister is in trouble in her own constituency. A large part of the reason for putting all of these funds together under schedule B is to try to convince the public that it is this minister, through that committee, that is creating work. At the outside, there is $15 million under that particular schedule that is money that had not been allocated in the past. Based on her answer, I would assume that none of that $25 million is going into housing, even though schedule B itself says that part of that money is for housing. She indicated that that was another bill that was going to provide for housing if any money was taken out through the bonds.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I would also like to know, under the bridging program, whether or not there will be any moneys advanced from this $25 million program — which is not really $25 million, but only $15 million — to the various companies who will be participating under the forestry bridging program. Will there be money advanced so they will be able to get involved in getting payments for start-up costs in order to undertake various projects? I'd appreciate answers to those.

MR. BARBER: I have a simple question for the minister. When is she going to proclaim section 8 of the Guaranteed Available Income for Need Act?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's discussing legislation, hon. member, which is not permitted in debate in Committee of Supply.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's legislation already in force.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll read the citation to you from Sir Erskine May. "The administrative action of the department is open to debate. but the necessity for legislation and matters involving legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply."

MR. BARBER: I quite agree. My question is: when is she going to proclaim a section of a bill that has already passed? It's not future policy, it's their policy. It wasn’t our bill: it's their bill. It was her section. not ours. It's her policy, not ours. which is under discussion. Fm not debating the bill. I'm debating the policy. The policy apparently involves a failure to proclaim section 8 of a bill which Social Credit passed. The policy concerns whether or not cost-of-living increases shall be made a recognizable part of the ordinary formula for calculating increases in social assistance. First not debating the bill. and I totally agree with your ruling, Mr. Chairman.

I repeat my question. When. by policy, will the minister proclaim section 8 of a bill which has already passed?

[ Page 8286 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is still discussing a matter of legislation, hon. member. If it's a proclamation section, it could have been discussed during that time.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I don't think I offend the rules of the House when I say that that act, which is already passed by the Legislature.... I'm not arguing with you, Mr. Chairman, I'm truly not. May I just put it this way. The income assistance increases since 1976 have, each and every year, using the Vancouver CPI, exceeded the cost of living. If I had, in the last three years since I've had that responsibility, proclaimed that section, the income assistance increases would have been less each and every year, so I'm not considering proclaiming it.

Could I please respond to the member for Comox (Ms. Sanford). She talks about new appropriation. There's no such thing as old money. Every single thing that we have in this House from this budget, as of the beginning of the fiscal year, is new dollars. To say that we have some new money and the other is old is just not true. The additional fund of $25 million.... She asked a question about the other balance of $132 million. It was a way, since revenues are down in the province due to the resource revenues being down, to maintain the level of services that we've always had. We are putting — the Finance minister made that comment in budgetary introductions — those programs into the one fund. That amounts to $132 million. We have the capability within that committee to use those funds for the very best purposes to create employment.

You made a comment about the bridging program. It really does address itself more to the forestry ministry now that the committee has established that bridging program.

You asked about the dollars pertaining to that program. I believe it amounted to $10 million, which initiated $27 million of federal government funding, making a total of almost $40 million. We understand that will be joined by some moneys which the companies will be given in terms of material, machinery and that sort of thing. That part of it is a federal government responsibility. We do not administer the program; it's federally administered. That question and any questions pertaining to it should be more readily answered now that the decision has been made. It will be done more under the Minister of Forests, who works very closely with the Minister of Labour on that particular program.

I think I've answered everything else that you had on that, and also the member for Victoria.

MR. BARBER: Could the minister advise the committee what amount a person on income assistance may earn and not be held liable for in regard to an end revenue reduction in their monthly assistance cheques? Could she also advise us when that amount was last altered?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: It's a question that's raised often, and I understand it. I think it was 1970 when it was last altered. The amount which one can keep without deduction for a single person is $50 a month and $100 for a couple or a family.

Let the member ask the question. I know what he's implying, but I do have an answer for it through our new program. I think the implication is always that if we could let people who are on income assistance keep more of the money they cam, thereby helping themselves off income assistance, the transition to independence would be quicker. I thought that too; I really did think that when I first came into this ministry. I thought that if I ever had the chance to have this ministry, I'd like to put that into place, and we did have a pilot project in this area. It did not work out that way. We found that those people did not gain to the extent that our program during this last 18 to 20 months gained for them. Everybody is different. Having more money at the end of the week will work for some people but it won't work for everybody. Being able to retain more money at the end of the month will work for some people. I'm sure there are cases you could mention, even in the pilot project; but it was not significant enough to make it an overall policy.

We have made an overall policy of those avenues where people can upgrade their education. We're putting more money towards having people upgrade themselves in education, taking a course or a training program that would perhaps make them more self-sufficient. The Individual Opportunity Plan addresses that. It gives them a contract, a length of time, and they know that at the end of that time they are going to be off income assistance completely. They know they will not be on income assistance forever or on a part-time job forever. Granted, it's designed differently. I know that's a simple explanation.

We are developing a new approach to what we call the easement formula — a new approach to income. We feel, and our people tell us this, that the easement formula, as this idea of keeping so much is called, really can perpetuate dependence rather than lead to independence. I have to rely on my people in the ministry to give that advice. I believe it to be true, with the dramatic results we're getting in the other area. The Individual Opportunity Plan is working so well that I really believe it is a much better way.

MR. BARBER: The gray, and disappointing, area of public policy was certainly indicated by the study in Victoria. I'm familiar with the study, I'm familiar with some of the participants, and I share the minister's disappointment in its results. Obviously the hope that persons could, so to speak, earn their way off welfare, the most simple expression of that policy, was not well met. The study appears to be scientifically credible, and the consequences again were disappointing for most people.

The purpose of that policy is ordinarily held to be to assist persons to become more independent — I think that's an appropriate statement of the general purpose of that policy. However, there are some people in our society who, it would appear, by reason of age, education or the ability to function at perhaps a marginal level, are persons who will for all practical purposes never leave income assistance. Certainly I had occasion to have that drawn to my attention just a couple of days ago when I had someone call me: an older woman who is not yet officially at the age of retirement, as we recognize it, but who for all practical purposes, by reason of her own marginal abilities to cope, to comprehend and to succeed, is someone who is never really going to be able to use that policy for any transitional purpose. It's just not humane or sensible to imagine that she will.

Given the results of the Victoria study, which appear to demonstrate that increasing the amount that persons may keep and not be penalized for their earnings does not in fact produce a happy result toward that result of independence, is the minister prepared to reconsider the policy for those persons who are, for all practical purposes, permanently dependent? Again, I'm reflecting on persons whose education and

[ Page 8287 ]

whose ability to comprehend the system and their place within it.... A person who may in the past have had problems with alcohol or drugs or some other more than marginally handicapping experience may for all practical purposes be a permanent ward of the state but not yet over the age of 65. For these people, who perhaps are able to hold down a part-time job at minimum wage, a few hours a week, and who do not have nor do they request anything beyond that, the $50 limit is not, I think, appropriate.

It seems to me that part of the remedy always lies in professional discretion; part of the remedy can always be found in professional judgment on the part of the persons whom we entrust to administer policy in the field. I wonder if the minister is prepared to consider an amendment to that policy which, identifying persons who we have to admit are more or less dependent for the rest of their lives, would allow them the benefit of a larger grant which they would earn. This is not a subsidy from the Crown; this is money they cam themselves. It seems to me that for those dependent persons for whom the issue of transition is not real or practical, the $50 limit brought in 12 years ago is no longer appropriate. It seems to me $100 or $150 might be more appropriate.

Of course, there remains the enduring problem of the resentment on the part of persons who might be described by academics as the "working poor," people who are able to hold down a minimum-wage job and wonder why the heck they should bother working at all, because the amount they bring home is not much different from those which people get to keep if they're on welfare and do no work at all. This is the edge of resentment as well that also informs public policy. I appreciate that's a problem. Therefore I'm asking the minister to narrow it and to specify it and to consider that range of options that exists for persons of marginal capacity who are probably permanently dependent on assistance, who are often older persons and who could perhaps earn $100 or $150 a month and who, perhaps as the result of those earnings, should be able to keep it. I wonder if the minister would address that question of public policy as it relates to persons who are, for all practical purposes, permanently dependent but capable of making small earnings, certainly in excess of $50 a month. I just don't think the old formula of 12 years past is any longer appropriate for those people. The way to resolve it may be again to permit and to encourage the use of professional judgment and professional discretion on the part of trained persons in the field.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: First, we really have four areas that we're talking about, and I just want to identify them quickly. We have the group of people who are handicapped, who I know you're not speaking of, but that group does get a higher amount and is adjusted quarterly. In the income assistance group itself there are three areas. One is an eligibility group where they are able to take a position, being trained or whatever. They usually get off all on their own, as I said in the House, 50 percent in the first three months of being on income assistance. So their turnover is very quick; they're already into a work pattern and they have been.

The next group we could identify as the rehabilitative group, and in that group are the single parents. They've probably not worked for a long time because they've been at home raising a family. We give them different supports — even a youngster, a 20-year-old who hasn't got the burden of a child, but perhaps we still allow him to carry on medical benefits. There's another thing. All of those people need support of some kind and need retraining, which I've discussed before. Individual opportunity plans are available to them.

Then there's the long-term group, which I think you're addressing, and it's fairly stable. You'll be interested to know that there are not very many — 3,000, we think — in the province. That's not many when you consider the total caseload. It's a fair-sized group, but it is not many when you consider that the total caseload is 60,000. But I have asked my staff. We seem to have been on the same wavelength. I have addressed this.

We're reluctant to write anybody off and say that the 3,000 stay there and give them more in terms of a cheque. We're truly reluctant to do that, so we part company on that aspect, which I think you'd probably even agree with if we can come up with a program that is going to assist those people. I give, for instance, the example of an alcoholic who truly cannot be employable and who truly is written off and is very low. One day it's quite possible that he will come out of that with our help. With our help, many other people — people with some marginal mental problems and not so marginal mental problems....

So I've asked my staff to come up with a policy to address that. I don't believe we want to tie it down to a dollar figure. I'm glad you've seen that study and that you agree with us that that has not been the answer, and what is the answer is a program which addresses the individual. There are 3,000 individuals in there, and I think we can come up with something for the 3,000. It may take ten years for some of them, but it's worth doing. It may well be that some of them won't ever come off that long-term program. At any rate, we are addressing it. I'm pleased you brought it to the floor of the House, and I'll be happy to report to you as we get along with it.

MR. BARBER: Some of those individuals phone me. They are people who believe, with or without cause, that they are entitled to keep a greater share of their real earnings and to look forward to a larger share in their potential earnings. They're not, of course, asking for a larger handout; they're asking for a larger return on the basis of their own individual initiative. I think that's excellent. I'm very glad for them.

Coming to know some of them personally, I also realize — in the sense of someone who has had a bit of experience dealing with these folks — that that's not always very practical for them. It's wonderful that they feel that way, but unfortunately the human consequence isn't always as positive as that. It's on behalf of those people that I wonder whether or not the minister might direct her staff again to consider a policy, again, which allows people in the field to make 3,000 individual choices — to issue, to exercise and to employ their best judgment, their best imagination and the best intelligence they can bring to bear on the cases of these individuals.

It may well be that the woman who phoned me at home a few nights ago asking why she could only keep $50 — and about whom I know some other facts that indicate that she's earning as much as she can right now — would be appropriately and humanely helped if she were allowed to keep more of her real earnings and if she weren't penalized. It may well be that she will never get off the program, but I think it's always useful to try to find a way to allow competent human beings in our service to make humane judgments on behalf of

[ Page 8288 ]

individuals who need our service. A firm, fixed and rigid rule is not always helpful to every human being.

The $50 is currently a firm, fixed and rigid rule. It's not helpful to those human beings. Perhaps that rule should be abandoned altogether, and it should be a sliding scale, such as $50 to $150. Your employees — our employees — might be allowed to make personal judgments on the basis of their knowledge of the 3,000 human beings you've described. I'm not asking for a fixed rule; I'm asking for a fair rule. It may well be that a sliding rule is the best way. It may well be that for some people $50 is appropriate for the individual circumstances that prevail. It may be that for others two or three times that amount, based on what they might be able to do with it, would be a more humane response to their human circumstance.

I'm not asking for a fixed rule, but a sliding rule that allows your best staff to make their best judgment according to the human need and the human circumstance. I think that's a the kind of Public policy that can do more public good in the long run.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I have several rather unrelated items. Perhaps I should just run through them all and then the minister can deal with them all at one time. The first item I would like to raise with the minister is about Cedar Lodge at Cobble Hill. I know that this has been a very long-standing situation, and I thank the minister for ensuring that I funds were available to ensure that that place kept in operation until the end of June. Of course, my concern is for next year, and certainly I realize.... And I don't want to get s into the debate on whether that particular institution is the way to go. I know the minister has other ideas — that the people served by Cedar Lodge would be better integrated into I the community. But the point I want to raise with the minister right now is that at this point, when those services are not available in the community, when the school system is being asked to hold the line and other services are being asked to hold the line, that alternative is not available. I'm not arguing s the pros or cons as to whether Cedar Lodge should or shouldn't be there. I happen to think that it should be, but I don't want to get into that debate. What I am asking is whether or not the minister has reached any decision as to whether or not funding will be available to keep Cedar Lodge I in operation for another school year, and what the level of that e funding will be. I understand that the board that operates the school has limited their request to a 10 percent increase over s last year, which seems a reasonable kind of request. I would hope that the minister is able to assure me that funding will be available for at least one more year, until we're perhaps in better times and can get into the debate of whether or not c we're going to fund those kinds of institutions in the future. But until you have the alternative the minister talks about available, you can't just close down the one operation and turn those kids out into the public school system or into the home or where ever they happen to go. The parents of the children involved there from around the Island are extremely concerned. So that's the Cedar Lodge question: the request for funding for one more school year at least, and the level of funding.

There's been a lot said — turning to another subject — about the programs the minister introduced relative to trying I to get people who are in receipt of social assistance back into the workforce, and the problem with young mothers when there is no day care, and basically the problems with jobs. I know that the minister received a letter from the village council at Lake Cowichan in which they said that, even if one were to agree that single mothers should be working, there are no job opportunities for women in Lake Cowichan. The 27 applications we received from unemployed women for the village's secretarial vacancy last month is evidence of this. Now this was written back last fall. I would point out to the minister that there were 200 applications of a legal secretary vacancy advertised in the local Duncan paper just last month. So there certainly is a real problem.

The other problem in Lake Cowichan is day care. There's a two-year waiting list there — no place for children to go. Now I know the minister responded to that at some length. She was kind enough to send me a copy of a letter sent to Lake Cowichan with her reasons and her thinking on the abilities of he young women who were in receipt of income assistance end who had children. But the fact remained that there were no jobs in Lake Cowichan at that point. I think it was aptly flustered by a phone call I had from a young woman who had been working for the school district there. She had been here for over a year as an assistant with the adult program, which is run by the school district at the community centre. She did setting up tables, some babysitting, cleaning up and any other chores assigned. What happened to that girl and that job, Mr. Chairman, was that she was replaced by one of the incentive workers, one of these people being trained by the minister. She took one person, probably a mother with children, and put her to work, and that mother had to find help come way for those children in Lake Cowichan, where there's no day-care facility, and what it did was put another woman out of work. So, you know, you can create all the jobs you like, Madam Minister, but if there aren't jobs there and if you put one to work, somebody else is going to fall by the wayside.

I didn't want to deal too much with the young women. I think there's an area that has been forgotten — or hasn't been stressed as much in the back-to-work efforts of the minister — and that is the older group of individuals. I think it was in he Elder Statesman that there was an article last fall when his program came in. It said in part that people over 35 or 40 years of age find it extremely difficult to get work, and as age increases, success in the search becomes almost impossible, even with counselling and retraining. It goes on to say that the people who will then have the hardest time will be the most senior section under 60. These people will have a pretty enough time finding work if they become unemployed. The load of losing $55 per month will not be of much assistance to hem in trying to solve their problem. That is an area of real concern, Madam Minister.

I've had quite a lot of correspondence, including a letter from a woman in Crofton. They are a family of three with a teenage daughter and her husband is unemployed. She wrote me, and I will quote the pertinent parts of the letter:

"This letter is in regard to the unfair statements made of late by the Minister of Human Resources. It's us little guys who need a fair shake. Why is nothing being done about this latest dirty blow to us poor? We're in dire straits as it is now, living in a two-room cabin with no hot water and no bathroom."

I think this exemplifies the fact that the shelter allowance is just not adequate to meet today's shelter costs. This is the only accommodation that that family could afford. She continues:

[ Page 8289 ]

"There are three of us, including a teenage daughter. We get a meagre amount to live on. We can't find a better place to live, because the rents are high and no one wants children, even a teenager. We are in our early forties, and no one wants to hire us. What are we going to do?"

She says she has written a lengthy letter to Grace McCarthy, but she's not too hopeful that it will do much.

She wrote to me again:

"Thank you for answering my last letter. I also received a letter back from Mrs. McCarthy with most discouraging news. It's next to impossible to get hold of our worker. I can't blame him, his hands are tied as to how to advise people like us who are screaming to get off welfare, but at the same time there is so much red tape to cut through for retraining. Quite frankly. I don't know which way to turn anymore. So far we have only had $5 taken off our cheque."

This was a month after the first letter.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: What's the date?

MRS. WALLACE: November. The first letter was written in October when the program was first announced. She continues:

"We're still living in squalid conditions with no hope of finding anything reasonable to rent. I sure hope this new budget that's coming down will do something for low income housing, but it probably won't. We've been in this two-room cabin with no bathroom and no hot water for seven and a half months now. There seems to be a feeling that we'll be here until the winter, going out to the outhouse in the middle of night with boots and coats on."

She goes on to say that our forefathers did this. In this day and age, with the kind of accommodation we can build, it just doesn't seem right that they have to live in these kinds of conditions. She has to go to the neighbours to have a shower. She continues:

"I hope someday someone will come up with an answer, because I'm about as low financially, mentally and spiritually as I can get. We've signed up for holly picking at Amblecot, but whether we'll both get hired is another story. It would be extra money for Christmas and that's about all."

Here is a group that has really been discriminated against, Mr. Chairman, as a result of being classed as employable. It is certainly getting more and more difficult as jobs become more and more scarce. I would urge the minister to reconsider the cuts that she's made to families like that when there is just no possibility of them being employed. My experience with the people who come into my office is that people do not want to be on welfare. They want to work, but there is no opportunity, or the opportunity is getting less and less. I have some very grave concerns about people living in those conditions, because certainly in the long haul it's going to be much more expensive if ill health develops requiring hospitalization as a result of living in those conditions. The mental and emotional strain is very difficult for a mother who is trying to cope with those problems.

There are a couple of items that I'd like to mention to the minister. To use the minister's own term, I'd like to share some information with her that has come to me. I believe it demonstrates that perhaps there are some holes in the system — some problems with the bureaucracy — that could be remedied. One of them that has come to my attention is the problem of maintenance — and rightly so. When a woman with children is in receipt of maintenance, the minister has moved to attempt to obtain maintenance from the husband or the ex-husband. No one would argue with that concept. If a woman and child are in receipt of social assistance, they are apparently, told by the workers that the regulations require them to sue that husband for maintenance, or they will be cut off social assistance. A case has come to my attention where the divorce decree very definitely stated that the ex-wife waived maintenance for herself and the child, because the child was not the child of the husband, nor had the child been adopted. That woman was forced to go to court at great expense to the Crown for legal aid. The husband, of course, had to get legal aid, he had to make a trip to Kelowna. The case was immediately thrown out by the judge as soon as he heard the circumstances. Surely that could have been resolved without that kind of expense, and without tying up the court system.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One moment, please, hon. member. There appears to be an awful lot of conversation going on, which is not really parliamentary. I wonder if we could have some order and quiet. Please proceed.

MRS. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've become quite used over the last few years to the noise that goes on in this chamber, and it doesn't bother me too much. But I thank you just the same.

So that's one point, Madam Minister. Perhaps there should be some evaluation before you actually insist that a person go to court. There is no point in spending those kinds of dollars and wasting that kind of time to go before the courts of the land in a case that can't be won. I think the minister would be well advised to review this from the point of view of saving, a few dollars of the taxpayers' money and certainly saving a few dollars of the ex-husband's money in that case, who wound up with a $2,000 lawyer's bill, as well as tying up the time of the courts.

The other instance I would like to share with the minister is that in which an error occurs in the payment of income assistance. The case that comes to mind is of a young fellow who was in receipt of GAIN for about two months prior to December. He expected to work in December and therefore did not get a cheque at the beginning of the month. He earned $144 in December and consequently, applied for assistance. On December 23 he picked up a cheque which he was told was for January. He argued that it was for December. As he was in urgent need of the money, he took the cheque. He thought the matter would be straightened out eventually, but he still has not received his December cheque. By the time he finally convinced them that that was the case, it was too late to issue a cheque for December — the rules were very firm. He lost that December cheque through no fault of his. He tried to convince them that what they had done was wrong, but they said no, that was the January, cheque. By the time this was all straightened out it was too late and there was no way that cheque could be issued. I think, Madam Minister, you should have a look at the regulations and bureaucracy to ensure that those kinds of things don't happen. He certainly was entitled to the cheque; the workers agreed he was entitled; but because it had gone too long, there was no way they could do anything about issuing him the cheque to which he

[ Page 8290 ]

was entitled. He'd done all the correct things, but he'd fallen through the cracks of the system.

The last thing I want to raise with the minister has to do in a way with what my colleague from Victoria was talking about, but I want to talk more about unearned income. I'm sure the minister will be familiar with the Woytas case; the woman lives in Lake Cowichan. She appealed the fact that her husband's pension, which he had worked for and earned for her, was not being allowed as unearned income. The appeal board brought down a decision in April of '81 supporting her appeal — that it was discriminatory to say that that was unearned income. My understanding is that the ministry has now appealed to the supreme court. I believe the case was heard in May. I'm not aware of a decision being down yet. I wonder whether or not a decision has come down. I understand that Mrs. Woytas has been allowed that amount of unearned income as earned income since the appeal hearing. I'm wondering how many other people are affected. If the appeal the ministry is launching is unsuccessful, is this going to mean that other people in the same situation are going to be able to claim pension money as earned rather than unearned income? Will it be retroactive and automatic, or will there be a necessity for those people to actually make the claims?

I'm also very interested in page 1.66 of the handbook, which classes as unearned income amounts payable because of a court award. Is the minister going to consider this particular pension as unearned because the decision has been made by the supreme court, or will that be disregarded in this particular instance? I think this is a very interesting case. It's a very interesting fact that the minister has seen fit to appeal to the courts a decision of a Human Resources appeal commission. I would certainly appreciate her comments on that.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I'm very happy to be able to introduce my father-in-law today, who has not visited Victoria for a few years. He's been a resident of the city of Vancouver since 1912. He is here today with my wife and our daughter Sue. Would the House welcome Whit Halford.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I am going to be moving a motion asking for a reduction in this vote. I'm going to do it right now. I think it's only fair that the minister should know the reason why I'm moving this motion, so I'm going to give my reasons first and then will move the motion.

As I said yesterday and the day before, this minister has only been giving about 25 percent of her time to this ministry. She has been involved in everything else, whether it's convention centres or the chairmanship of this new cabinet committee on employment. As a result, she has come before us with her estimates as the most poorly prepared minister to appear before us to date. She has not been able to answer even one of the questions we've asked her when we call for statistics, figures, numbers and information. Instead, she stands on her feet and bafflegabs and filibusters. At the end of all this time, we still have no more information out of this minister than we had before she started her estimates. She is very poorly prepared. She is poorly prepared because, quite frankly, she has not been putting in the time and effort in taking care of this ministry.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's fortunate for the poor.

MS. BROWN: That may be so too.

In addition, as I pointed out yesterday, there is not one person in that ministry who can be held fully responsible for the children of this province. There is no full-time superintendent of child welfare. The deputy minister, she tells us, is the superintendent of child welfare. That is not possible, because the deputy minister has had to be deputy minister, and he's also had to be three-quarter-time minister of that ministry because the minister is never there. The minister is everywhere else. It is not possible for the deputy minister to be deputy minister, three-quarter-time minister and full-time superintendent of child welfare too. As a result we have witnessed the risk that children in care are experiencing. My colleague the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) cited one instance; I myself cited a number of instances where the minister has remained silent while the Attorney-General has withdrawn services from the children of the province. No one is trying to see the impact of unemployment and these tough financial times on the children of the province. Education is not discharging its responsibilities, Health is not discharging its responsibilities to the children, and the Minister of Human Resources sits silent because the Minister of Human Resources has not been paying attention, and there is not a full-time superintendent of child welfare prepared to do the job.

Let me give you one example. Sometime between September 23 and 25 of this year, in Winnipeg, there is going to be a national conference on day care. The federal Minister of National Health and Welfare has invited every province to send a representative to participate in that national conference. This is the first time since 1971 — 11 years ago — that there is going to be a national conference on day care. The director of the Canadian Council on Social Development, Mr. Harry MacKay, when he visited British Columbia recently, told us that B.C. day care is in a crisis situation and would benefit from attending this national conference. We have the minister introducing a policy forcing single mothers of infants to go to work when there are 18 children waiting for every single day-care space that exists in this conference. There's a national conference on it. Is the minister going to attend? The answer, Mr. Chairman, is no.

In April of this year the Minister of Human Resources, tongue in cheek — it has to have been — wrote to the Minister of National Health and Welfare saying that she feels that we need to first focus our attention and resources here in British Columbia before participating on a national level, because the government of British Columbia views the enhancement of day-care services as a high priority. There is never any relationship between what that minister says the government is doing and what the government is actually doing. The enhancing of day care is not a priority with that government.

Let me give you one instance. Family day care in British Columbia is the most popular form of day care being used. That means that more children are going to be placed in family day care than in any other form, so we should be really careful to ensure that family day care is up to snuff, that it is top quality, because that's where the children are going. What is happening? Dr. Blatcherwick, the chairman of the Child Care Licensing Facilities Board, is considering the possibility of removing the licensing and supervision of family day care in this province. We are being told that there is a

[ Page 8291 ]

possibility of removing the form of day care — and incidentally, there is more family day care in British Columbia than in any other province — which is the most popular and most used by parents. We are told it is no longer going to be supervised.

Mr. Chairman, the members of the Nelson Family Day Care Society were so upset and so distressed by this that they did a study. This is what they found. They passed this information on to the minister. "For the past year the Nelson Family Day Care has assumed responsibility for assessing and monitoring of all of the day care homes in the Nelson School District." What did they find? "An increasing incidence of child neglect and child abuse has come to light. We recognize that there is a need for better supervision of these family day-care homes." There are a number of family daycare homes that are top quality, no question about it, but every single family day-care home should be. The only way we can ensure that is by seeing that the licensing and monitoring of those day-care homes is not curtailed. This minister is going to permit that to happen.

One after another of the day-care centres write in. Every month their cheque is late. What does the minister say to them? "The Ministry of Finance is not able to answer questions on individual cheques." She goes on to say: "You realize that these cheques pass through several hands before they're issued." So presently the accounting staff are trying to work out new procedures to ensure that the cheques are processed on time. But in the meantime, Mr. Chairman, more and more day-care centres are finding that in order to meet their bills they have to go to the banks and take out loans at the incredible interest that they have to pay today, because the Ministry of Human Resources is late in sending out its day-care cheques. The minister brags about the money being put into day care and starting up new day care, when existing day cares are going belly-up because the government is curtailing its percentage of involvement in day care.

Simon Fraser University has, and has always had, one of the best day-care centres anywhere in North America. What sort of contribution do you think the government makes towards this? In 1976 the government involvement was 90 percent; in 1981 it's been dropped to 45 percent at the same time as they're cutting back on their funding to the universities and Simon Fraser University is finding that it cannot continue to support day care to the level it used to. The end result is that the day care is no longer available to students; only the staff and faculty can afford to put their children in Simon Fraser day care.

So when the minister has the nerve to send a letter to Monique Bégin informing her that the government of British Columbia views the enhancement of day-care services as a high priority, and that's the reason why she will not attend a national day-care conference, she must be doing that with tongue in cheek. Mr. Chairman, for that reason alone if for no other, I would be forced to cut this minister's salary.

So I'm going to move a motion — and I want to explain about the motion. Are you eager to move my motion? The service is really wonderful; maybe that's who the new Minister of Human Resources should be.

Because the Minister of Human Resources only gives 25 percent of her time to her ministry, I think she should only receive 25 percent of the salary. So I would like to see her salary reduced from $78,330 to $25,764.75.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Well, I'm not discussing her MLA salary, because she may still be doing her MLA duties: I don't know. I'm discussing her responsibilities as the Minister of Human Resources, and she's only putting 25 percent of her time into that. She should be getting the rest of her salary from the work she is doing on the convention centre and from the work she is going to be doing chairing the Cabinet Committee on Employment Development. So that's one reduction under her vote.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I want to reduce the minister's travel. I understand that when the minister goes to Ottawa to discuss poverty she flies first-class. I don't think it's necessary to fly first-class when you're going to discuss poverty. As a matter of fact, I think travelling in the tourist class with everybody else would give the minister some insight into what she is going to discuss. So I want to cut her travel budget. I think she should travel economy-class like everybody else. I want to cut that by $5,605.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to cut back on the amount of materials and supplies that the minister uses in her office. I want to cut down on the glossies — all those photographs that the minister uses to adorn all the material that comes out of her office — so I think I should knock off $95. I don't want to cut it off completely, because I realize she still has to carry out the instructions of Mr. Heal — you know, how to appear before TV and deal with the frizzies. I'm only going to take $95 out of that. So the total deduction would come to $31,464.75. My motion is that vote 49 be reduced by $31,464.75.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment is in order.

HON. MR. BENNETT: On a point of order, I ask if in a motion such as this where you have an amendment, it is proper to have a subamendment, reducing the salary of the critic of a minister who has not done a good job. I'm asking for your guidance. If it is to do with an MLA who is critic who doesn't live in her own constituency, is it possible to put in a subamendment?

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you're rising on that point of order, it's not a point of order. We're discussing the minister's salary only.

MS. BROWN: I want to bring to the Premier's attention that I do live in my own constituency. but wrong information is something we've come to accept from the Premier of this province.

On the amendment.

HON. MRS, McCARTHY: I want to speak to this amendment. The reason is that if I only spent 25 percent of my time in my Ministry. as has been suggested by the member for Burnaby-Edmonds. the official critic for Human Resources for the New Democratic Party, it's still better than 100 percent of that critic's time in this House by the performance that she has put on in this year's estimates, last year's estimates and the estimates the day before.

I want to say that in this past year we have accomplished such a great deal in the Ministry, that even when I took the full allowable time given to a minister's introduction in this House, I did not get finished. That's how much has been accomplished in this ministry. That's how much time is being

[ Page 8292 ]

spent in the ministry. I know it's a good political ploy, but even the member for Burnaby-Edmonds doesn't really believe what she's saying, because I know she keeps in touch with our ministry staff, with some of the people she used to know. I know some of the members on the other side do, and I know they don't even believe in that.

One of the things I'd like to put on the record is the attention she has given to one of her statements regarding day care. I really want to make a point of that. We have had some problems in terms of day-care payments being received late. That is an administrative problem which has been difficult to solve, but it has been solved. We have a procedure now in place, one agreed to just in this last little while, with the Ministry of Finance. That is one criticism that can be made with some validity; I just want the members to know that. There were some late day-care payments to different areas in the province and it has been a real difficulty for us to overcome. But I want it on the record that bill procedures have now been fixed up. Now, once the bill is received by the accounting division, it takes seven days until the cheque is in the mail. We don't know how long it will be in the mail before getting to the accounting division....

Interjection.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: It goes directly to the accounting division. Once it's in the hands of the accounting division, seven days will be the outside time; hopefully, some can go out even before that. I just want to assure the House of that.

I'm very sorry that this motion actually comes prior to my being able to address the questions. I think I'd be out of order if I did address the questions from the ember, but I would be pleased to address the Cowichan-Malahat questions. Perhaps we can do that on a personal basis, or I can send her a note.

Because part of my administrative duties are being discussed in this amendment, I must note that the case she mentioned.... That family has not had any cuts in income assistance; I don't think a case was being made for that. But this same couple, who have three children, shared in the $42 million increase that I was able to get this year from Finance as part of my administrative duties, which we are discussing in this amendment. That same family would be receiving, under the old income assistance amount, $800 a month. They have had an increase of $105, for a total of $905 per month.

I'd like to mention some of the other things she said. I say again that if we did only one thing this year — and we've done many more — to be able to bring about a change for people on income assistance and others who have been deserted by their spouses and who are hassled and hassled and cannot get assistance from their spouses.... They are deserted with their children, and if we do nothing else in this House this year, every bit of my salary and the ministry's total allocation will be worth it — not to save money for the province by helping those mothers and children who have been deserted by their spouses, but to assist those children and mothers to get away from that tremendous hassle which goes on in this province and all over. I'm going to say that that has been a real sad thing in our society, and I would think that that member who has just taken her place in debate on this amendment would be able to get up in this House and say: "Thank goodness." She's only mentioned it in terms of the dollars that it will save the province.

Mr. Chairman, I repeatedly said it isn't anything to do with saving the province dollars, because if we have any dollars at all, it will be going into some rehabilitation for those people who have been deserted and need to have help to get on the road back after their husbands have left them with their children. If we do nothing else at all in this House this year in these estimates, that is probably the most effective and the best thing that we could be doing. It's a breakthrough for this province and for the mothers and the children in this province, and I'm simply fascinated that the only kind of criticism that you can give is something to do with cutting off some material for my office.

In terms of day care and the kind of conference that will be held, which I've refused to go to simply because we have other things to do in the province.... And our priorities are within the province. I stated that clearly. I haven't seen a case made by that kind of conference for any better day care than we're doing now, and we're doing a darned good job of day care in this province.

So I don't take that criticism. I missed one conference.... Let me tell you that I missed one last week where all the Ministers of Human Resources got together in Alberta, and that's because of the policy that the NDP has where they won't pair with members to allow them to go. If they didn't think that one was important where I could exchange information with ministers across this country, then I'm sure the one that I'm going to miss in the coming month in Winnipeg isn't going to be that significant. At any rate, Mr. Chairman, I won't accept the criticism that has come. I can't imagine that the criticism would come from the critic in terms of being the critic for Human Resources, because if anybody needed to have a reduction because of effort, I can say that the critic for Human Resources has again fallen short.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I have been listening to this debate with some interest. I don't wish to delay the House, but I was surprised to hear the critic for the Ministry of Human Resources move such a motion, along with the words that she spoke — hollow words, words without foundation, and words which really, with her character, background and interest, should have had more substance than they did.

Just as the minister reacted.... The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), who's now making interesting noises across the floor, said: "Well, Grace, you take things too seriously." Mr. Chairman, indeed this minister does take things seriously, and that's the difference between your side of the House and our side of the House. In the critic's moving a motion such as we're debating now, we see after the debate that that side has put forth, and her own debate, that in the motion and in the debate they do not take seriously the concerns of people in need who come under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Human Resources. They'll manipulate them and use them for political purposes. They'll cost the taxpayers hard-earned money, which could be going to help those people, by delaying the House and involving themselves in irrelevant debate. Indeed, on this side of the House this minister does take her duties seriously. I believe she takes this type of motion seriously, because we do, and it's in that vein that I'd like to talk.

I would like to recall an incident where the critic was once in the government — not for long, fortunately — and we were all travelling on a human resources and health committee around the province. I remember distinctly some hearings we

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were holding in the Okanagan Valley. Today's critic, as then, was always espousing these great ideas with very little substance, and a group of homemakers came to us and presented their case in terms of wishing an increase in their remuneration. At that time they were very low-paid. I think it was something like $2.50 an hour. They were seeking something like a dollar-an-hour increase, and I sat there absolutely astonished when I heard the reaction of that member who has just moved this motion of non-confidence. She was not only patronizing, she was disparaging. She insulted those people and was unkind. When I brought it to her attention, knowing she would be sincere if she ever had an opportunity to move a motion, such as she is now....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, personal allusions are quite unparliamentary.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: This was a legislative committee hearing, Mr. Chairman, and it wasn’t an allusion.

MS. BROWN: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I just want to bring to your attention that the Minister of Tourism is lying.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

HON. MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I'd ask the member to withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sorry, the Chair will have to intervene and ask the hon. member for Burnaby-Edmonds to withdraw the last remark.

MS. BROWN: I'm happy to do that if the minister will stop lying.

MR. CHAIRMAN: An unqualified withdrawal, please, and I will deal with the Minister of Tourism.

MS. BROWN: Thank you for dealing with the Minister of Tourism. You have an unqualified withdrawal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Order, please. To the Minister of Tourism, all our parliamentary guidelines remind us that temperate and moderate language is a feature of parliamentary debate. I would ask the hon. Minister of Tourism to remember that, to be moderate and temperate in language. Please remain parliamentary.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: I am somewhat surprised to find that words like "disparaging" and "patronizing" are now considered intemperate language in this House.

Nonetheless, I wish to make very clear that the reaction at that time was: "Well, it's very different when you're in government and you have to provide the money." And that's the point. This minister has in fact brought the type of credibility that this ministry has needed. She has travelled about this province from one end to the other, meeting with her staff and meeting with her clients. She has demonstrated not only concern, but also the ability to translate concern into policies which are realistic and human and which are in that context and which can be afforded in terms of the ability, of the taxpayer to pay. She's been able to streamline many services in order to see that the funds made available for the client get to the client, which is the objective of those funds.

There is a great need for people who are less fortunate and have difficulty in attaining leadership through strength, and this minister not only has brought confidence to her ministry but she has brought lightness and compassion to it. She has brought solid policies to it. You know, Mr. Chairman, it is the strong who lift the weak and those in need. Through her actions....

Interjections.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: I can see in speaking to this motion that the frivolity of the opposition substantiates the motion.

This minister's activities and her ability to have involvement in other areas has done a great deal to influence the public's attitude towards Human Resources. Today people look at Human Resources and its services in a positive and vital vein, and that's essential if you're going to assist those people who are recipients. Through her example, her involvement and her attitude, she has brought confidence to her staff. [Laughter.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: I realize that the Chairman has some difficulty being concerned about people on Human Resources, but I have to assure you that many of us are concerned. If you have any understanding of human nature you will realize that the people and the Human Resources ministry have benefited from the leadership shown by this minister. It has, as I mentioned, benefited from her positive attitude and her brightness, and people who are benefiting from the Human Resources — be they seniors, handicapped or any of the other citizens — garner strength from this lightness and they garner a positive attitude from this leadership.

I certainly will be supporting the motion — or not supporting the motion.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make it very clear for the record that I will be opposing the motion, and I believe all members in the House will be opposing the motion.

In closing, I would just like to bring the compliments of many of the people that I have the privilege of representing in North Okanagan to this House and to this minister.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 22

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NAYS — 25

Vote 49 approved.

On vote 50: ministry programs, $985,997,572.

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, I'd like to ask that the Chairman, in reporting to the Speaker, bring to his attention the fact that a division took place in committee and ask leave of the House for its recording.

AN HON. MEMBER: Too late.

MR. NICOLSON: No, it can't be too late to do that.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that this second vote, which covers all community programs, is such a shambles that the questions will have to be put on the order paper.

Vote 50 approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.