[ Page 8615 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Vancouver Centennial Celebration Act (Bill 64). Hon. Mr. Wolfe

Introduction and first reading –– 8615

Oral Questions

Small business bankruptcies. Mr. Lea –– 8615

Mr. Barrett

Emergency budget. Mr. Leggatt –– 8617

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

Third reading –– 8617

Petroleum And Natural Gas Amendment Act, 1982 (Bill 56). Report.

(Hon. Mr. McClelland)

Third reading –– 8617

Employment Development Act (Bill 26). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Curtis)

On section 4 –– 8617

Supply Act (No –– 2), 1982 (Bill 57). Hon. Mr. Curtis

Introduction and first reading –– 8619

Supply Act (No. 2), 1982 (Bill 57). Second reading. (Hon. Mr. Curtis)

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 8619

Mr. Stupich –– 8619

Mr. Lea –– 8621

Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 8624

Mr. Lauk –– 8627

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 8630

Mr. Skelly –– 8632

Mr. Leggatt –– 8634

Mr. Levi –– 8637

Attorney-General Statutes Amendment Act, 1982 (Bill 62). Hon. Mr. Williams

Introduction and first reading –– 8638

WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately most of us don't see much of our wives these days, so I'm very pleased to have my wife Lillian visiting with us today. With her is a very dear and long-time friend, Mrs. Loma Bakker, and her grandson Tony Williams. Visiting with them from Northern Ireland for a number of weeks and getting to know Canada, particularly British Columbia, is a young fellow named Tony Jones. I would ask everybody to welcome them.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I have some guests visiting in the gallery today from the riding of Shuswap-Revelstoke. I would like the House to join me in welcoming Mr. and Mrs. Elmo Wolfe and their grandaughter, Miss Wendy Holland.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I'm sure all members have heard the sad news today of the death of Mrs. Shirley Owen, the wife of our former Lieutenant-Governor, who was well known and revered in this province. Mrs. Owen served along with her husband in that capacity for a number of years, representing this province. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the members, if you could extend our condolences and and best wishes to the family.

MR. SPEAKER: Is that the wish of the House? So ordered.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, there are a great number of us in this chamber who had the very great privilege of serving under Lieutenant-Governor Owen and Shirley Owen. We ask people to take on an onerous task by serving in these very important positions. We have lost both of the Owens in the past 18 months and it is a deep loss for all British Columbians. My own experience with them was that they were the kind of British Columbians who help to make us unique, distinctive and thoughtful in terms of contributing to Canada. I'm sure all British Columbians and all Canadians will mourn her passing today.

MR. RITCHIE: I would ask the House to join me in extending a warm welcome to two very good friends, Dr. and Mrs. Jack Loughlin. The Loughlins are closer friends since the marriage of their daughter and our son just a little over a week ago. With them is Mrs. Joyce Smith and Miss Joy Hosie of Dundee, Scotland.

MR. HOWARD: Visiting Victoria and in the precincts today is Mrs. Lee Ellis, who is an alderman in the municipality of Kitimat and chairman of the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. I ask the House to welcome Mrs. Ellis.

MRS. WALLACE: I have two friends visiting from Chemainus, the little town that could. I would like the House to welcome Betty Neff and Isabel Hussey.

Introduction of Bills

VANCOUVER CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Wolfe presented a message from His Honour he Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Vancouver Centennial Celebration Act.

Bill 64 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.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, before we proceed with oral questions, I have reviewed the Blues of yesterday's proceedings in oral question period. Upon reading the question of the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), indeed the question is specific and not general, as I heard it. The rulings which the Speaker made were made on the basis of how the question was heard — in a somewhat raucous chamber, I might add. Nonetheless, I heard the question as general and made my decisions on that basis. I owe the member for Burnaby-Edmonds an apology, and I would like to extend that and only wish that the member were here today.

I've had further representations — both here in the chamber and privately — regarding question period, and despite he fact that a rather lengthy discourse was given last week on he subject, some apprehension still does exist. I don't think that it is so much in regard to the question period itself or its formulation, but there is some misunderstanding as to how the procedure is applied.

In order to make that clear, may I just say this. Not all questions can be asked without a short preamble in order for the question to be intelligible. So I will accept a one-sentence preamble, and that should then no longer necessitate calls from one side of the House for "question, question, question!" I think that will take some of the abrasiveness out of question period.

Further, when a minister is giving an answer to a question and he has gone beyond the scope of the question, and when he Speaker calls for order, sometimes apparently the call for order is seen as a general call for order because of the noise in he room, when essentially it is a call for the minister to come to order. I will try to help the members in that regard: having called for order, if there isn't immediate compliance, I will stand, which will be a clear indication to the minister that his response must terminate immediately. Would that assist us some, hon. members?

Oral Questions

SMALL BUSINESS BANKRUPTCIES

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Finance. On two previous occasions I've asked the government about the problem of business failures and bankruptcies in British Columbia. Spokespeople for the government have said that the government is looking into the situation. In view of a report from the provincial companies branch that business receiverships are up 429 percent in the first six months of his year over last year, has the government decided to take definite action to protect our rapidly disappearing business community from foreclosures by the banks?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Hearing the member very clearly say, "Has the government decided to take action?" I have to say no.

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MR. LEA: What percentage of increase over last year has the government decided would have to take place before the government would take some definite action?

HON. MR. CURTIS: That is a speculative question, surely. I don't know how I can assist the member in a hypothetical situation such as that.

MR. LEA: Statistics released by the federal department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs show that British Columbia has the worst record in Canada of bankruptcies this year. The increase in British Columbia was 64 percent in the first five months of this year over the same period last year — the highest in Canada. In view of this dismal performance, will the minister explain why he has refused to offer any new assistance to the British Columbia small business community, where they are facing the worst crisis ever in our history?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I think that in a number of instances in the course of this session since we commenced on April 5, and starting on that date, we indicated a number of initiatives which had been taken by the government prior to the introduction of the start of the legislative session and since. One very significant aspect of the initiatives taken by this government was clearly enunciated in the budget, and that was the decision not to significantly increase taxes across the board. That alone was a major policy decision on the part of this government. I submit that if taxes had been increased, as has been the case in a number of other provinces, then the situation in British Columbia would be far more serious than it is today.

MR. LEA: In answer to questions in the House last week, the Minister of Finance admitted that all the economic indicators have changed since the tabling of the provincial budget in the House. Also, this government is on record in their 1978 policy statement of favouring the federal monetarism policies that have led us into this crisis stage.

MR. SPEAKER: I must now ask for the question.

MR. LEA: Has the government now decided to move away from what they described in their 1978 paper as "gradual monetarism," brought in by the Bank of Canada and the federal government in 1975? Has the government now decided that monetarism is not the answer? Because it has been shown not to work but to lead us into economic crisis, would the minister now tell us whether the government has decided to bring in a new budget that would take into consideration the new economic indicators and the failure of monetarism that they've endorsed?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Without endorsing every statement contained in that rather lengthy question by the hon. member for Prince Rupert, I have to point out that I've been asked on several occasions in recent weeks if it is the government's intention to bring in a new budget. I say again that today I have no intention of preparing or presenting a new budget within this fiscal year.

I also point out that the budget was predicated on continuing difficulties through the course of the year. While there has been some slippage, that will be fully accounted for in the series of quarterly reports, the first of which for this fiscal year will be available, as I've indicated to other members, in the course of the last few days of July or the first few days of August.

MR. BARRETT: I'm pleased to learn from the Minister of Finance that there have been no increases in taxes to small businesses. Can the minister suggest to the small businessmen in Vancouver and the lower mainland who have received tremendous tax increases ranging from as low as 100 percent to as high as 350 percent that those tax notices have been erroneously sent out and that he will immediately cancel those increases as they were not authorized, especially related to his particular statement today?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows in asking the question that it is not easy to simply roll back property taxes in the course of a year which, in the case of property taxation, started on January 1, not April 1, as is the case with the provincial budget.

If I might take a few minutes in response, because the question is an important one, I might also point out that a number of us have served as mayors or aldermen in British Columbia municipalities. We have been involved — and our associates are now involved — in the budget-making process, the decision-making process at the council table. I don't think this government or any other government at the provincial level should permit itself to take full responsibility for the increase in property taxes.

My comment in answer to the first or second question from the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) dealt with provincial taxes, which are imposed by the provincial government — or are not imposed, as the case may be.

MR. BARRETT: Since property taxes are based on the formula created by this Legislature, which the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) admits he doesn't understand, will the minister take steps to inform the banks that any pressure from small businesses to get more money...or inform the municipalities that any delay in paying small business taxes is caused by some confusion about the minister's statement that the year begins on January 1, not April 1? Will you make some effort to protect small businesses in Vancouver and the lower mainland that are going bankrupt waiting for some help?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The question asks about future activity. Perhaps if the question were rephrased to ask if the decision has been made, the minister might accept that question.

MR. BARRETT: I'll rephrase it, Mr. Speaker. Is there any hope for these people at all?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Yes, I'm sure there is hope. In asking the question, the member knows full well that much of the decision with respect to budgets at the local government level is not made in this chamber; it is made at the council chamber table. The member knows that. Showmanship is not what we need in this House at this time.

MR. BARRETT: Is it correct that assessments and the formula related to assessments are done here in Victoria by the provincial assessment commission, instructed by the provincial government? The answer is yes.

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Will the minister take any steps to instruct that a freeze be put on all property tax increases created by the assessment formula, created by this government, and that it be immediately implemented with only a 10 percent increase, to allow some businesses to at least survive? If that is drama, then let us have some drama to save these people before they go bankrupt.

MR. SPEAKER: The question is in order if it is: have any steps been taken?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I understood the question to relate more to the possibility of future government policy. But the member knows full well — and I have to point this out again for the House — that assessments are one portion of the total equation which finally results in a property tax bill. The member knows that when asking the question. He knows that the council of a city, a district municipality or a town sets the mill rate at the local level. It is not good enough to suggest otherwise in his question in this chamber.

MR. BARRETT: The first answer from the minister was that it was all the municipalities' fault. The second answer was that it was partly assessment. My third question is: can the part that is caused by assessments please be corrected by this government immediately so the small businesses that are now threatened with bankruptcy can be saved by direct action by this government through some form of grant or freeze?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I think that question clearly asks about the possibility of future government policy.

EMERGENCY BUDGET

MR. LEGGATT: My question is also directed to the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, in answer to a question of mine, the minister advised the House — I think I'm quoting accurately — that "more British Columbians are employed now than ever before." B.C. labour force statistics from the Ministry of Labour show that in May 1982, 1,205,000 British Columbians were employed, compared with 1,255,000 in May 1981. That's a drop of 50,000 jobs in British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: I must now ask for the question.

MR. LEGGATT: In light of the fact that the minister clearly, based upon statistics from his own government, does not understand that we've lost 50,000 jobs, not gained 50,000, will he now reconsider the answer he gave yesterday? Has he now decided to bring in an emergency budget — a job-creating budget — so we can get back to work in the province of British Columbia?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I certainly had no intention of misleading any member of this House when citing figures yesterday. I was using figures which were made available to me as the question was being asked. I will have to take the question, in terms of the numbers which the member has cited, as notice. Therefore I will take that question as notice and consult with my colleagues in government with respect to the precise numbers which have been quoted on both sides of this House.

MR. LEGGATT: A cornerstone of the philosophy of this government has been that to create jobs, you create a favourable investor climate. That has been a hallmark of this government. The Employers Council of B.C.'s business trend survey of June 1982...

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, you've exceeded the one-sentence limit.

MR. LEGGATT: ...discloses lower investor confidence in this province than at any time in the past. Given the Employers Council's warning to this government, given 50,000 fewer jobs, given 179,000 people on unemployment insurance, bring in a new budget, and let's get to work.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, when seeking the floor in question period, it is better to have a question formulated. Today we disappointed another member who did have a question.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Report on Bill 55, Mr. Speaker.

WILDLIFE ACT

Bill 55 read a third time and passed unanimously on a division.

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

HON. MR. GARDOM: Report on Bill 56, Mr. Speaker.

PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS
AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

Bill 56 read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 26.

EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT ACT

The House in committee on Bill 26; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive approved.

On section 4.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move an amendment to section 4 by deleting "$132.9 million for the purposes referred to in section 3" and substituting "$132.9 million for the purposes referred to in section 3, the amount to include the sum of $26,975,000 appropriated under section l(b) of Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, and the sum of $17,983,333 appropriated under section 1(b) of Supply Act (No. 2), 1982.

The amendment which I have introduced at this point replaces that which is on the order paper, and represents no variation at all from the intent of the original amendment on the order paper, but rather, recognizes the fact that there will be a second Supply Act. That is precisely the total of the situation with respect to the amendment which is now before the committee.

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Amendment approved.

Section 4 as amended approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Motion approved,

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 26, Employment Development Act, reported complete with amendment to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that, in addition to the amount authorized under Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, from and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine: (a) the sum of $1,428,891,858 towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the province not otherwise provided for for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, and being substantially one-sixth of the total amount of the votes of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the present session; and (b) the sum of $17,983,333, being substantially one-sixth of the total amount required for the purposes referred to in section (b) of schedule B of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports resolution and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the resolution as reported be considered?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Now, Mr. Speaker. I move that the report of resolution from the Committee of Supply on July 7, 1982, be now taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the resolution be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: The resolution is that in addition to the amount authorized under Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, from and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine (a) the sum of $1,428,891,858 towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the province not otherwise provided for for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, and being substantially one-sixth of the total amount of the votes of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the present session; and (b) the sum of $17,983,333, being substantially one-sixth of the total amount required for the purposes referred to in section (b) of schedule B of the main estimates for the fiscal year, ending March 31, 1983.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the committee sit again?

HON. MR. CURTIS: At the next sitting. Mr. Speaker, I move that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means.

Motion approved.

The House in Committee of Ways and Means; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I move that in addition to the amount authorized under Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, from and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine (a) the sum of $1,428,891,858 towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the province not otherwise provided for for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, and being substantially one-sixth of the total amount of the votes of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the present session; and (b) the sum of $17,983,333, being substantially one-sixth of the total amount required for the purposes referred to in section (b) of schedule B of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise, report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports resolution and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the resolution as reported be considered, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Now, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of resolution from the Committee of Ways and Means on July 7, 1982, be now taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the resolution be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: In addition to the amount authorized under Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, from and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the

[ Page 8619 ]

manner and at the times the government may determined (a) the sum of $1,428,891,858 towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the province not otherwise provided for for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, and being substantially one-sixth of the total amount of the votes of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the present session; and (b) the sum of $17,983,333, being substantially one-sixth of the total amount required for the purposes referred to in section (b) of schedule B of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the committee meet again?

HON. MR. CURTIS: At the next sitting, Mr. Speaker.

SUPPLY ACT (NO. 2), 1982

HON. MR. CURTIS: I present Bill 57, intituled Supply Act (No. 2), 1982.

MR. SPEAKER: So that each member may have his copy, the bill will be distributed at this time.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill 57 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House forthwith.

Motion approved.

The House in Committee on Bill 57; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise and report, recommending the introduction of the bill.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports, recommending the introduction of the bill.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the report be adopted.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be introduced and now read a first time.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Mr. Speaker, as the House will know, this is the second Supply Act for the fiscal year 1982-83, the first having been introduced on April 8, when the Legislative Assembly authorized the value of expenditure for three months. Therefore, on June 30 last, we reached the conclusion of the time portion of the interim supply. Members will also know from my remarks last year, and probably at the time of Supply Act (No. 1), 1982, that under the Financial Administration Act there is the capability now to continue payments beyond the particular point in time, but only for a very few days.

Therefore it is not only appropriate but indeed essential if we wish the government to continue to function, and the people of the province of British Columbia to receive assistance and a variety of services in an orderly manner, that interim supply for a further two months be approved. In consultations with one or two other members of the Legislative Assembly, I opted for the one-sixth interim supply which is before the House at this time.

MR. STUPICH: The opposition certainly recognizes the importance of granting the government interim supply and will support the legislation introduced today — not, however, with with any degree of enthusiasm.

First, I'd like to express a bit of concern. In my remarks at the time the budget was first introduced, I suggested that the figures in the budget were not attainable — as presented, the revenues would not be attained, and expenditures would not be controlled within the figures presented to us at that time. We raised some very serious questions about the figures in the budget. We did approve interim supply at that time. I'm not suggesting that the economy has changed all that much in the interim, but certainly our awareness of the seriousness of the economic picture has changed. We have learned a lot more about how serious things are.

I would have hoped that the Minister of Finance would have taken this opportunity to be a bit more candid with the Legislature and the people of the province and told us something about current conditions in the province, compared to what they were when he presented his budget. I recognize that the first quarterly statement will be out in about two or three weeks. But I also believe that the Minister of Finance knows a good deal more about the economic conditions of the province at this time than he has revealed to date. I think it would have been proper for him to have said more about that when he introduced interim supply today.

The government introduced a budget preaching restraint. It then went on to exhibit no restraint at all when it came to extracting more funds from the people of the province. A lot has been said about that, and more will be said about it. I don't intend to say very much at this time. But I will refer briefly to a press release a couple of days ago from the Minister of Finance — at least, I received it a couple of days ago; it was dated June 29. Talking about restraint, the indexed tax feature, clear gasoline increased 6.1 percent for the quarter, which means an annual increase in the government levy of 24.5 percent. The annual increase in the annual rate of government levy — the government extracting funds from taxpayers — on aviation fuel, marked gasoline, marked bunker fuel, and marked propane and butane is 44 percent. That's not restraint. The increase for the quarter in marked gasoline and diesel for farmers and fishermen who hold permits under the Gasoline (Colored) Tax Act is 15.7 percent, which works out to an annual increase of 63 percent. Mr. Speaker, that's restraint? There's no restraint when it comes to levying increased taxes on taxpayers, but there's restraint when it talks about what other people should do. There's restraint when it tells municipalities what they should do.

In answer to a question today, the Minister of Finance suggested that most of what's happening in municipalities is a result of decisions made in chambers other than this one —

[ Page 8620 ]

decisions made in council chambers. Mr. Speaker, you know that councils have very little authority over what's happening within their boundaries. Even when the councils in some municipalities decided by a unanimous vote to put a question on a ballot — at minimum expense, a few hundred dollars, perhaps, in some cases — the provincial government moved in with a heavy hand and said: "You can't do that." The government exercises almost complete authority over what the municipalities spend and the taxes they levy. The Minister of Finance knows that. Decisions are made in the executive chamber, in cabinet rooms, not in the municipal chambers. There's very little freedom for municipalities to act. When it comes to levying taxes on small businesses, industry and, indeed, even on residential owners, the percentages of the appraised value of properties were decided not in the municipal chambers but in the cabinet room here in Victoria. These are the kinds of things that are happening.

They preach restraint and then levy tax increases as high as 68 percent, as in one instance which I quoted from the press release of the Minister of Finance. But when it comes to imposing restraint, they impose that restraint on municipalities. They told them exactly by how much their total budgets could increase; they told them exactly where they could get that money; and they told them exactly where they could spend that money. Within the parameters of all that advice, the municipalities can do as they will. They have very little freedom when it comes to acting within their own budgets. As a consequence, unemployment, which has been described as British Columbia's greatest growth industry, is growing even faster.

In my own constituency 400 civic workers will be laid off because of a restraint program imposed by this government on the municipality of Nanaimo. Without freedom to do what they want locally.... The government has imposed restrictions that have obliged the municipality of Nanaimo to lay off 400 people. Mr. Speaker, that's the kind of restraint they practise. They make other organizations impose restraint on their employees and create further unemployment. They impose restraint in the field of health. A lot has been said about that, and a lot more will be said about it. Briefly, Mr. Speaker, I want to read from a letter that I received a couple of days ago.

"I am the victim of cancer, having had bilateral mastectomies as of 1979. At the present time I have developed cataracts in both eyes, as diagnosed by my general practitioner and confirmed by an eye specialist. This has curtailed my few pleasures, such as reading, driving my automobile and playing organ music, as I am unable to see sufficiently well to do those activities. My doctor has advised me that I am looking forward to a probable wait of up to one year before this cataract operation can be performed, due to the long list of people awaiting elective surgery. Both my doctor and my eye doctor have bluntly pointed out that with the spread of cancer in my body my life expectancy is short. It seems a cruel trick of fate that my remaining time must be spent with progressively failing eyesight and the inability to enjoy my small pleasures.

"In the light of my medical history and the gloomy picture of my limited future, I appeal to you to intervene on my behalf and make this cataract surgery available to me as quickly as possible."

Mr. Speaker, restraint is imposed in this instance. The Nanaimo Hospital, because of the restraint imposed by this government, is obliged to shut down hospital beds so that there is waiting list in Nanaimo of 1,350.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please hon. member The scope of the debate on granting of supply is somewhat limited. I would just caution the hon. member that although he's making references to several areas in a general way, a full-fledged debate on any of those subjects would only be in order during the estimates themselves.

MR. STUPICH: I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. I intend to deal only briefly with several headings. As I said, we will support interim supply. We recognize the need for the government to have the money to pay for these things. We question the things that they are paying for; we question the fact that some of these amounts are being spent on programs that should not be supported, and the government is holding back in other areas. We question what they've done in education — in particular the fact that courses where there are special needs are being cut back. We are seriously concerned about that. We recognize that we have to support interim supply, but we don't like what the government is doing, and we wish that the Minister of Finance had taken advantage of this opportunity to give us more detail about just how serious things are.

We're concerned about the unemployment situation. We recognize that this bill has some impact on that. We're concerned that the government has cut back on the silviculture program, on the reforestation program — on all the work that could be done in the forests to build for the future. That, too, has been cut back seriously. For that reason, we are concerned about giving this government the authority to spend any more money, because we're satisfied that they will not spend it wisely.

We're concerned that they're not doing more in the province to build up tourist facilities. Certainly tourism, which has been the third industry in the province this year, will likely be the first, we hope. More should be done to make it more of a province that welcomes tourists, because at least that industry is growing and has prospects of growing more. That we can do something about. We recognize there are limits beyond which the provincial government can't go, but certainly it can do more to build within the province on the assets that are already here. One of the things it could be doing is promoting more in the way of tourist facilities.

We're concerned at the cutback in the highway program. Mr. Speaker, we need roads — and I see there's some support for this on the other side of the House — at a time when our own people are unemployed and we have the equipment here. We have everything we need to build these roads. We have the needs and we have the unemployed. This is the time when we should be doing more. It's false economy to cut back on employment-generating opportunities here in the province when unemployment is as high as it is.

We should be doing more about health care. We should be doing more about what we're not doing in the forests. We should be doing more to cut down waste in some areas. Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said about that, and a good deal more will be said about it.

At this time in our economic life, to be cutting back on these employment-creating opportunities in the province as a whole at the same time as we are increasing the amount

[ Page 8621 ]

available to cabinet ministers for furniture.... They all say: "We're using the furniture you supplied." Mr. Speaker, if they're using the furniture that was acquired when we were in office, why are they spending so much on new furniture? The figures are far in excess of anything we ever spent, yet they keep throwing back to us: "I'm using your desk." Mr. Speaker, if they're using the desk that I had when I was in office, they needn't be spending any more money for furniture, I can assure you.

Mr. Speaker, is it necessary that we spend more money on non-productive travel at this time in our economic history when there are so many things that we could be doing with that money in the province? There is a good deal of waste, we've argued, and we will continue those arguments when we're in estimates. There are opportunities to spend money that would create jobs, and they're not being taken advantage Of.

For these reasons, while we support interim supply, we do not support giving this particular administration the authority to spend any money. We don't trust them to spend it on behalf of the people of the province of British Columbia. Nevertheless, they are the government in office today. On behalf of the people of the province, we hope that they will not be there much longer, but as long as they are the government in office, we feel duty-bound to support the programs, some of which are good. To support those programs, we will support interim supply, but not without having taken advantage of this opportunity to criticize the Minister of Finance for not levelling more with us today, and not without some of my colleagues taking advantage of the opportunity to express some of their concerns about how this money is going to be spent.

MR. LEA: As my colleague for Nanaimo has said, we will be supporting this piece of legislation, but I think we would be remiss if we supported it without making some of our concerns known to the Legislature and to the people of B.C. It is an opportunity for us as legislators to discuss the state of the finances in this province and to take a look at where we have been, where we are and possibly in what direction we should go.

Mr. Speaker, we are in economic crisis, not only in British Columbia but in Canada, and not only throughout the western world but throughout the world. I think we have to review where we have been. Up until the New Deal of Mr. Roosevelt we were pretty satisfied in our western democracies and western economies to go along with monetarism as the means of governing our finances and our economics. Along with Mr. Keynes and Mr. Roosevelt we got a new practice of using fiscal policy by governments to manage the economy. The Keynesian fiscal policies that worked during the Depression, because of low prices and low interest rates, will not work today. It has been tried, and it will not work. We have been using a mixture of monetarism and Keynesian policy since the middle 1930s or the late 1930s in our western economics.

I suppose we can reflect and look back at the fifties and the sixties and say that they worked comparatively well. At least they seemed to be working. But beginning with the seventies, things began to fall apart. At that point somebody came on stage from the past, Mr. Monetarism, who said: "Let's do away with the Keynesian part of our economic policies now and just deal with monetarism." I think it is important to bring this up because in 1974-1975 the Bank of Canada and the government of Canada said:. "We also are going to be going along with the monetarist theory."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. The member knows that I am very interested in what he is saying, but under the limitations of the scope of debate under a supply act.... I know he is making a passing remark and not entering a full-fledged debate on the economics or economics. Please proceed.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, maybe you could help me by telling me what confinements we are under.

MR. SPEAKER: The scope of debate under the supply act has to do with the pros and cons of providing interim supply. It is not an opportunity to debate again that debate which was made during estimates. The reason for that restriction is so that the House is not subjected to the same debate on the same question twice in one session.

I am sure the member is aware of it and will proceed.

MR. LEA: I don't intend to make the same debate, Mr. Speaker, because so much is new and changed since we made that debate during the budget, but I think we have to examine the way we arrived where we are today.

The government of British Columbia fell into lock-step with the general consensus that was going on among many conservatives a few short years ago, and that was that monetarism was the answer. In 1978 this provincial government said to the federal government that the policy of monetarism decided by the Bank of Canada and the Canadian government was the correct one. It was so stated and signed by the Premier in 1978 on pages 13 and 33 of the document.

I think there is a growing new consensus not only in British Columbia, but in Canada, that if we are to find our way out of our present difficulties we have to look seriously at the kind of supply bills that we bring into a legislature or parliament to be voted for or against. We have to take a look at the method that we use to collect our revenues, the methods that we use through these kinds of taxation bills that can stimulate the economy or put it into a recession. This government has missed the boat by reaching to the past and saying: "It's the good old past that will help us. Monetarism from the nineteenth century is the answer."

I think there's a growing awareness in this province that if we are going to rise above our difficulties, we can no longer protect ourselves against the international marketplace; we must compete in the international marketplace. We must, therefore, compete with goods and services that are needed in the international marketplace, and we must do it competitively. There has been no indication from this government that they're heading in that direction. They say it, but they don't do it. They say it, but it doesn't show up in the figures of Bill 57. We're going along the same old way of monetarist economy theory, as opposed to putting our economy in shape.

The monetarist theory that this government endorses has brought the economy to its knees. Even when the economy picks up. the kind of investment that should be made now, so that we can take advantage of a resurgent economy....

We won't be able to deal with it. The investment that's needed to deal with it isn't being made now because of the monetarism policies of this government and the federal Liberals. They, the federal government and this Social Credit government, struck a policy a few short years ago that has driven this country and this province into the depths of recession, yet we see no indication from the government through Bill 57 that

[ Page 8622 ]

they've changed their mind. They are going to cure the ills of our economy even if it completely kills the economy itself. That's what the policy of this government and the federal Liberals is doing — killing the economy. But then, Mr. Speaker, that's what it is designed to do.

This paper put out in 1978 and signed by the Premier is a blueprint for economic destruction. This blueprint has been followed by the federal and provincial governments, and we are now reaping the outcome of those policies put forward by this government.

We asked the minister earlier today and last week whether, with all the new economic indicators that the minister has, the minister would revise his budget and bring in a new budget — not an interim supply bill, but a new budget — to deal with the new economic reality that we are living with today. The minister said no, that his first budget took into consideration how bad things would get. The minister can't have it both ways. If, when he brought in his budget, the minister knew that things were going to get this bad, then he should have confessed that to this Legislature and to the people of the province. He should not have told us that things were rosy, as his budget indicated they were; he should have levelled with us. Bill 57 is nothing more than an extension of that original budget. It's calling for money to be spent from a budget that has proved to be not workable.

I don't think this government has done some of the fundamental things that have to be done when bringing in any sort of budget. They haven't even taken a look at the most fundamental questions of how an economy is to be run, especially a resource economy such as ours. This government believes that there's a definite schism between a government budget and the private-sector economy. They believe the two aren't related other than through taxation, which can hurt or help. They believe they're separate. Their entire economic philosophy is simply put and, I submit, simply thought out: no deficits, and create the proper climate for investment. No, they didn't say "no deficits"; they said a balanced budget, and create the proper investment climate. This government has yet to bring in a balanced budget. They've either had surpluses or deficits, neither being a balanced budget. Not once has this government brought in what it says it believes in — a balanced budget.

We see investor confidence at the lowest ebb in history. I suggest that we have the lowest ebb of investor confidence and, therefore, of investment in this province, because this government clings to the monetarist theory which has driven us to our economic knees. It started in 1978 with this government agreeing with the economic monetarist theory of the Bank of Canada and the federal government. But it doesn't end there. Today we see the government playing lackey to the federal government's new economic policy. This is the only premier out of ten to run to Ottawa and take direction from the federal government, which has brought this country to its economic knees. We are the only province meeting the requests of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the federal Liberals.

In fact, this government will try little experiments on Mr. Trudeau's behalf to see how it works before the federal government will even put its little toes in the water. This government is the running lackey of the federal Liberals. The federal government wanted to bring in block spending for social services and education. Who accepted it with open arms? This Social Credit government. We are now suffering from that in our post-secondary institutions and in our social services. The block funding has been a disaster. My party opposed it when we were in government. That party over there opened it, brought it in, caressed it, and we now have disaster in those areas of financing in this province. This is all reflected in the bill we're discussing.

Monetarism? The federal Liberals said they liked it; this government said: "Us too." Block funding for social programs? The federal government said they wanted to push it down our throats; this government said:"It's good enough for us." A restraint program that picks out one section of the economy as the culprit? The federal government said: "How about doing it?" This government said: "It's good enough for us. We'll try it first, Pierre." There isn't anyone who believes that we don't have to show some restraint, but it's all of us — you, me, our neighbours, the economy as a whole. If we are ever to get a handle on our own economy, we do have to show some restraint, but restraint in order to build up the capital goods to invest into our economy so that we can become autonomous, free from the United States and other foreign control.

MR. RITCHIE: You've been reading something.

MR. LEA: The member accuses me of reading. Yes, I have been. I wish I could make the same accusation against you. You obviously haven't been reading.

The federal government's economic policies have been disastrous. Their financial-sharing programs with the provinces have been disastrous. This government in British Columbia has embraced those policies — the same policies that brought us to our knees economically, that brought us to our knees in terms of cost-sharing with the federal government on much-needed social programs in this province. Block funding? This government got suckered, but willingly. Now the federal government is saying: "Only one sector of the economy has caused all our trouble." This government is saying: "We think that too." At least the federal government put a limit on its own spending, something that this government won't do.

This government has not limited the user fees to any specific amount. The sky is the limit. They raised Hydro charges and all the user fees far beyond the limit that they set for one particular sector of the economy. This government would be better served if it would find some way to stimulate our economy and to create jobs. If you create jobs you stimulate the business world, trade and commerce, and the whole general economy will begin to pick up. But you don't do it through monetarism and killing the economy.

Mr. Speaker, it's not that I think what I'm saying is so important, but I think this debate is important. I find it absolutely frightening that we don't have a quorum in this House for a debate. Not only do we not have a quorum to debate interim supply; we don't have one single member of the press gallery paying any bit of attention to this debate. I'd like to dwell on that for a moment, because I think it's deplorable that the debates in this House are not being covered by the media; only the highlights during question period. I say it's a disservice, not to that side or this side of the House but to the people of this province, that the member for Kamloops (Mr. Richmond) or the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt), when they speak, are not heard because the gallery doesn't print it or put it out. That is not an insult against you, Mr. Member. That is thick up there; that's an insult against you.

[ Page 8623 ]

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Democracy is not being served if the people of this province, through the free press, do not hear what the members of this Legislature are saying. I suggest to all of my colleagues in here that they are not hearing what's going on in the debates of this session through the media. I suggest to you that it isn't the fault of the reporters up there. I believe that they are understaffed and do not have the opportunity to cover modern government and modern Legislatures as they should. We are not being served by the free press and media generally in this province. We are not being served, and the people are not being served. I was going to make a point about the quorum, but let's just keep the members we have.

The government brings in Bill 57, asking us as legislators to approve some more spending out of the budget which was passed — without the estimates, of course — just a few short weeks ago. We as the opposition have to vote for this legislation, because not to vote for it would mean that senior citizens wouldn't get their pension money, handicapped people wouldn't get their money, the civil service wouldn't be paid, and the private sector that deals with government wouldn't get paid. So we are under an obligation to pass this piece of legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: Vote against it. It will go through.

MR. LEA: Mr. Member, you've only been here a few short months. You don't quite understand. We have to vote for the legislation, or the province would come to a standstill. But we do not agree with the figures in here, and the manner in which the revenues are being raised and spent.

AN HON. MEMBER: So vote against it.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, shall we all ignore him? It's hard to ignore such stupidity.

We are not going to solve the economic problems of British Columbia by doing one thing only: that is, restraining the wages of the civil servants and the people who work for Crown corporations. We are going to solve the economic crisis in this province and in Canada only if we can reach consensus with the different segments that make up our economy: labour, business and government. Once there is a consensus from those three groups, then maybe we can move on to solve some of the problems we face in this province, But you don't try to strike an agreement alter you’ve set the ground rules, as Bill 57, and the Premier and his government have done.

Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation that we're going to be passing is a farce. Because of this government. many aspects of revenue and spending do not come anywhere near this Legislature. Was the Legislature consulted when there was a new user fee put on the water of this province — $100 million of revenue to this government that was not discussed in this Legislature? This government indexes taxation; they've indexed the taxation on gasoline. Did you know that the fishermen in my riding over five months have faced an increase of 26 percent on fuel, because the fuel that they use has been indexed by that minister and that government? Fishermen fighting to save their income, fighting to save their investment in their boats, are being faced with an indexed taxation when at the same time we see governments taking the indexing out of old-age pensions. Isn't there something wrong?

Can the member for Kamloops (Mr. Richmond) sit there in complete partisanship? Can't people during moments of crisis say: "Let's get together; there is a common enemy"? The common enemy is a phenomenon we've never faced before: high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. In modern terms it's called stagflation. We know that the old doesn't work; we know that to combat this new phenomenon, this budget won't work and this interim supply won't work. Why aren't we looking together for new answers to this new problem that's bringing us to our economic knees? We have economic holocaust in this province, in this country and in the world, and the member for Kamloops says: "If you don't like it, don't vote for it." Do any of us like it on the government side or on this side? None of us like it. We may differ in solutions, but maybe we wouldn't if we talked; maybe we wouldn't if we had some debate in this House that was meaningful; maybe we wouldn't if the Minister of Finance would come clean, if the Minister of Finance would bring in Bill 57 and say: "Here, British Columbians. Here is the state of the finances in the province today. What are we going to do about it? Give me some help." No, that doesn^t happen.

This government thinks they have the answer: monetarism. They recommend something that has been proved not to work. They say they're for monetarism, but they don't really practise monetarism either. They practise something else that hasn't worked: a mixture of Keynesianisin and monetarism. It's what we've been doing since the early forties. Now we are in a new situation, a new economic crisis, one never known to us before. They should be bringing together all segments of our economy and saying: how do we meet this new crisis? How do we find some solutions? What is the forum? How do we involve everyone? Maybe the opposition has some ideas that might be of help. Maybe the government has some ideas that they don't "ant to share with us. I hope not. I hope they have some ideas, but I hope they're willing to share them with us.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance stands up and says: "Oh, by the way, here is a new bill, number 57; it's called interim supply. I'm going to sit down now, and I want you all to vote quietly for it. but I'm not going to fill you in; I'm not going to let British Columbia know what our financial situation is." Only last week he said the economic indicators are changed. What have they changed from and to? Where are we in this province? Or do the Minister of Finance and his government feel that the people of this province are not mature enough to take the bitter truth and try to find solutions? Or do the Minister of Finance and his government think we are a bunch of children who have to be treated with no information and who have to trust the adults — the adults being them?

Do adults hoard information? Do mature people hoard information and not share it with the people they are paid to serve? That's what this government is doing, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to find solutions to our economic crisis by acting in an immature manner. In my opinion, this government is acting immaturely by not sharing with the people of this province the reality of the situation of the day and asking for help. Nobody has all the answers. This government, through its stubborn clinging to monetarism, has proved that they certainly do not have all the answers. And some of the answers that they have decided are right are proving to be absolutely disastrous.

[ Page 8624 ]

The question that we have to face is: how in British Columbia can we help, through our budgets and government policies, the economy of this province to be a competing, thriving, healthy, revenue-paying economy, so that we can supply the services to our people? We are rich in this province with natural resources, but there is no wealth until we decide that we're going to transform those resources into usable items.

I couldn't believe this government when, a third of the way into northeast coal, it finally discovered that the manpower required to meet the coal project was not in place. Can you believe that a government in 1982 had not even done the most fundamental guns-and-butter calculations of economics to know whether or not the proper manpower numbers were there to service a project that they were a third of the way into? It happened. This government, almost in panic, found out way down the line going into northeast coal, because of improper planning or no planning at all, that if we are going to man northeast coal, we're going to have to import the workers. It won't be Canadians and British Columbians working in that northeast coal; it will be people we've brought in who've been trained somewhere else, because there's no coordination between government, industry and vocational training.

I know this government hates the word "planning." They somehow conjure up in their minds the idea that planning has something to do with communism. They see communism as grey people living on grey streets listening to grey music coming out of grey speakers on grey walls, and they know that's bad. That's their intellectual analysis of what planning is all about. There's only one opposite to planning, and that's no planning. This government which does not plan has no planning. They therefore find themselves knee-jerking around from one economic development to another: northeast coal, the stadium, B.C. Place, ALRT, Pier B-C — but not even a hint of any coordinated planning among all those different projects or the government budget or the economy as a whole, because they don't believe in it. They feel that as long as they look with a friendly eye on business investment and make some attempt to balance their budget, all will be well. That's government's role, they feel. Government's role is to do nothing except make the business community feel comfortable and try to balance the budget — but, my God, no planning. How terrible it would be if the people of this province, with their government, were to plan.

The budget that this bill is based upon is a deceit on the people of this province, because we have not had the government share with us our own public business. During hard economic times it is a piece of paper that will not help our economy to recover, grow and become healthy. It is a holding action budget. It's a holding action interim supply bill. The government is bereft of ideas and they're too proud or arrogant to ask for help and reach out their hands to the opposition and say: "We may need your help now. We want to share ideas." They're too arrogant or too ignorant to go to the business community and say: "We can't do it alone." They're too arrogant or too ignorant to go to the labour community and say: "We can't do it alone. We are together in a very serious problem."

The sickness in our economy is self-induced to a great extent. Therefore only we can cure the sickness in our economy. This budget, this interim supply and this government are not doing any of the things that have to be done to lead us out of the quagmire we're in. They are satisfied to sit idly by and say: "Let the private sector do it." They're not even asking the private sector for any advice. They are satisfied, like their counterparts in Washington and Ottawa, to subsidize Massey-Ferguson and Chrysler into obsolescence, but they will not put money into research and development for the small and intermediate companies, which is where innovation, new ideas and new technology come from. Do you know what this government put into research and development last year? Only $8.1 million.

If we are to grab ourselves by our bootstraps and pull ourselves out of this economic quagmire, we have to start afresh. This government should let the restraint legislation they have brought in die on the order paper. They should come to the people of this province, to the opposition, to labour and to the business community, and say: "How do we get ourselves out of the problems we're in?"

This government knows that the solution they've put forward in the form of their restraint program is politically good. They know that by bringing in this restraint bill, things are going to be fine politically. They also know that in terms of getting ourselves back to a healthy economy, it doesn't do one damn thing. That is political hypocrisy at its worst. People are losing their homes and a lifetime of work and investment in their business. They're losing their jobs, dignity and pride, and this government still plays stupid political games with everybody and everything in this province.

We have to vote for it because people have to get paid, but we do not agree with the philosophy behind it.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: We've heard a lot of words emanating from the socialist side of the Legislature about hypocrisy and all of those unparliamentary terms that shouldn't be used in this interim supply bill. It is merely due to the fact that the socialists opposite, instead of getting down and facing the real issues in this Legislature, spend their time golfing and making a lot of noises and being political. Never once have they offered any concrete suggestions on how to assist the economy of this great province of ours, which is certainly going through some very trying and troublesome times. As part of this great Canada, which is going through some very trying and troublesome times, we're also tied to the North American economy and to the United States.

They seem to forget that it was those socialists over there — some of whom are sitting here now — who, when they were in Ottawa, got in bed with the Trudeau socialist government and wholeheartedly supported many programs that are fundamental to the problems that we're experiencing today in Canada. We've heard a lot of phrases, which I shall not use in this Legislature...but I do want to say that they pass our ears and we know that they haven't even got their heart in the debate.

When this budget was first brought out, what did the socialists opposite say about the budget? They said: "Oh, this budget is so good that it's an election budget." The member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) was a short-lived Minister of Finance in that government at one time — very short-lived. Remember, he's the official Finance critic for the opposition. He stood in the Legislature and said: "Oh, my gracious, those Socreds have done it again. They have balanced their budget in these very difficult economic times. I don't know how they did it, but they balanced the budget again. It's got to be an election budget." Today we're passing a portion of that budget in order that the civil servants in this province can be paid. We're sitting here today because of the

[ Page 8625 ]

dallying and time-consuming tactics of the socialist opposition.

What did their leader say? Their leader said....

Interjections.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Oh, he expects an election, the budget is so good. After the budget was brought down in this Legislature some months ago, their leader....

AN HON. MEMBER: What leader?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I know, Mr. Member, they're fighting among themselves; they're having difficulty getting together. Their leader says this budget is so good that the Socreds are going to call an election on it. Yet today, when we're passing interim supply, a portion of the budget, in order that the province can operate for the next two months, they stand up and say: "Oh, no. Terrible, terrible!"

I don't want to get into the economy today, but it was touched on lightly by the member. I say "lightly," because they never come to grips with issues facing this province. They're a highly political opposition. They never talk about the subject of the economy. All they can say is that this government isn't doing anything for the economy. This government has more projects going in the province of British Columbia today to create firm, long-standing jobs than any other province in Canada or any jurisdiction in North America — make no mistake about that. All they can do is stand up with their airy-fairy criticism. They said the Japanese are going to have control of northeast coal. Did you ever hear them say anything about the criticism of the Kaiser deal? In the days when Kaiser got into financial problems, the Japanese steel industry came to their rescue — they owned 38.88 percent. What happened to the price of coal? The price of coal went up and up. They have tried to pour cold water on every single job-creating project that this Social Credit government has brought forth to keep people employed in this province. They talk about taxes. If we spent a quarter of the money they recommend on their airy-fairy programs, we would have to raise taxes substantially in this province.

The socialists opposite get in bed with the Liberal government in Ottawa. They've been in bed, and they can't get out.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Oh, yes, my friend, you were down there in Ottawa and you supported those Liberals on some of the very policies that they're trying to back out of today. The Leader of the Opposition stood in this House and chastised this government for allowing FIRA projects to go ahead, when we desperately need that investment capital from other jurisdictions to create jobs. He stood in this Legislature not too many years ago and said: "Give all the oil and gas to Ottawa; nationalize it." They supported the Liberals and that's their policy. That's what's happening today. They have driven billions of dollars of investment out of this country, dollars that would be creating jobs in British Columbia today, and they try to tell me they're not in bed with the federal Liberals. They're all tied to the same stick. They're all socialists, and they're trying to back out of the policies this little government warned them about years ago.

MR. LEGGATT What about the national energy program?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I just mentioned the national energy program. They wouldn't have needed that program if the leader of the socialists in this province had had his way. They would have given all the resources of British Columbia to Ottawa — driven away billions of dollars in investment, thousands and thousands of jobs. When that socialist opposition was government, they drove the petroleum industry out of British Columbia at a time of the highest demand for petroleum products that we'd ever witnessed. Right in the middle of the first energy crisis after 1973, that socialist government drove the petroleum industry from British Columbia. As I've said before, that fellow who represents Vancouver East should have worked for Warner Bros., because he's created more ghost towns in the Peace River than Warner Bros. ever did for any of their movies.

The people of British Columbia understand what you socialists are all about. You'd rather spend time marching around this province in protest against projects that are going to create jobs than in coming to grips with the real issues facing this province. This government believes in having parks, it believes in protecting the environment, but we have to have a balance. If those airy-fairy socialists were in government, the whole province would be a park, but we'd all have empty bellies.

It's been interesting for me to listen to the debate emanating from the opposite side of the House with regard to northeast coal, a project which is going to create thousands and thousands of jobs. It is not a make-work project but one that is going to give a basis to the economy for years and years.

MR. LAUK: How many? You won't give any figures.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You didn't put northeast coal together, and your leader would stop northeast coal dead in its tracks if he were elected premier of this province; he's said so on many occasions. Don't talk to me about northeast coal. You couldn't put the project together. When you were travelling around Japan, you were taking baths instead of selling coal. Once a social worker, always a social worker — that's what the Leader of the Opposition is. Give things out, create expectations in this province that no economy could support. That's all they've done: they're just like the Liberals in Ottawa. Socialists — give it away; build up expectations.

We should be working together. If they had any real desire to help the economy of British Columbia, to help future generations have jobs, those socialists would be working with this government to solve the problem, instead of being over there with their airy-fairy politics, shouting politics all the time. They're not interested. The only thing that socialist opposition over there is interested in is getting their hands on the power of this province and ruining it like they did six years ago.

Yes, they would stop all the projects. When we brought in a project for the Minister of Highways to build the Annacis Island bridge to help the future transport of this province, to help the economy of this province, they were against it. When we went ahead with Pier B-C and the trade and convention centre, even the member for Vancouver Centre was against it.

MR. LAUK: What!

[ Page 8626 ]

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, you were, my friend.

MR. LAUK: Against what?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You were against it, you were against Pier B-C and the trade and convention centre. Oh, yes, you were against it until it almost fell by the wayside because your socialist friends in Ottawa couldn't even see the benefits. But now they're trying to get in bed with us. It's too late, my friend. The people in Vancouver Centre have got your number; they will remember that you were against it.

I remember last year, Mr. Speaker, when this little Social Credit government over here was coming to grips with the problem and bringing on these great projects, what did they say we were doing? They said we were building monuments to ourselves in the province. I remember well standing in my place last year and saying: "We're building monuments all right; we're building monuments for employment; and we're building monuments for future generations of British Columbians to keep the economy going and to keep it strong." Now they want to move in and take it all over so they can ruin it again. They want to create huge deficits that future generations will have to pay for. They would have a post office and a courthouse on every corner of every hamlet in British Columbia if they were in government, and they think that would help the economy. I'll tell you, we'd be selling postage stamps that big; maybe it would keep them busy licking them.

Oh, those socialists over there.... Try as they may, they're in bed with those fellows down in Ottawa; they supported the policies of the Liberals down in Ottawa. I don't care whether it was FIRA, which drove investment capital out of this province when it was needed, or whether it was the national energy program. I don't care what program it was, the socialists have been in bed.... So I say that I support this interim supply bill, Mr. Speaker, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future we'll have the opportunity right here in this Legislature to discuss all of these great programs and to say what we've done for the small business community in this province. I'll be able to tell you what happened down in Manitoba as soon as the socialists went in. Oh, they talk about.... Well, one minute they'd start northeast coal; the next minute they'd renegotiate it. I know how they'd renegotiate it. They'd renegotiate it like the socialists did with the hydro projects in Manitoba: they negotiated them right out the door. There wouldn't be any projects.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Alcan?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Well, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Alcan. Oh, yes, the NDP came in with with all their airy-fairy ideas; they're going to renegotiate the Alcan project. Where did they renegotiate the Alcan project, Mr. Speaker? They renegotiated it right out the back door, not for just today but for ever and ever. That's how the socialists would renegotiate the northeast coal deal. I'll tell you, they'd negotiate it right out the back door. There wouldn't be any northeast coal deal.

I remember them standing in this Legislature last year saying: "If you bring on northeast coal, you're going to kill the southeast." Well, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to be down in the southeast about three weeks ago to open one of those great industrial parks created by policies of this government, which is helping communities to bring on industrial land. The park was sold out before we even got a chance to cut the ribbon on it, because the southeast part of this province, because of additional coal sales since northeast coal was announced and because of an additional price which was brought in on the back of northeast coal — the highest negotiated price of coal in the history of the southeast, on the back of northeast coal....

I don't care where you go in this province, but you can see people working as a result of the programs and the policies of this Social Credit government — not make-work programs, not a post office on every corner, not a social welfare office on every corner passing out the taxpayers' money, like the social worker leader of the socialist party opposite.... Once a social worker, always a social worker.

MR. COCKE: Once a car salesman, always a car salesman.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Once a car salesman, always a businessman, my friend — you'd better believe it. Once a social worker like your leader, always a social worker; once a businessman, always a businessman. Right on!

Interjections.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Well, now we hear from a lawyer — one of those socialist lawyers over there, one of those fellows who went down to Ottawa. When he was down in Ottawa, he supported the Liberals. Oh, yes, he's a great guy. Support the Liberals; get in bed with the Liberals; you're all in bed with the Liberals.

MR. COCKE: You're in bed with the Liberals.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Now we're hearing from the member for New Westminster, the member who took the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, with no competition at all, and lost $180 million in one year. When the British Columbia Development Corporation, under the great leadership of this little government, went into the city of New Westminster and said, "We see a great project here, and we'll rebuild this downtown core" — it's happening today and thousands of people are employed — that member from New Westminster was against it. He said it would never work. It was too big a scheme for his little mind.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, I was there two weeks ago. The member was invited, but he was too busy out at some social welfare rally. He couldn't attend to the business of his riding — something that's progressive, something that's going ahead, something that's creating jobs. Mr. Speaker, I certainly support this amendment.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Maybe if you hadn't lost $180 million with ICBC when you managed it, you might be sitting over here instead of sitting over there. Think of that, my friend. You fellows ruined the economy of this province.

MR. COCKE: We did?

[ Page 8627 ]

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, you did. I want to tell you that my memory isn't that short — but it isn't that long either. I can remember those dim, dark days back in November of 1975. I remember them well. There was a high demand for mineral products, and prices were high, there was a high demand for lumber, and prices were high, and the economy of British Columbia, because the socialists couldn't run it, was going down the tube. And what happened? The social welfare leader of the socialists over there, who had tried to run the ship of finance, abandoned the ship as it was sinking. He got off and he put the little member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) on to try to patch it up with bubble gum, but it was too late. What did he say before he left? He said: "We'll cut programs and services to people in this province to balance the budget." I remember him saying it back in November. And what did he do? He froze the hiring of civil servants. He cut back on this and that, and he retrenched so much that he had to put backup lights on his pencils.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I support this interim supply bill. We want to ensure that the civil servants of this province are paid. By delaying it, the NDP don't want the civil servants of this province to be paid. They want them to go home at the middle of the month without any paycheques — empty bank accounts — yet they stand up here and they pontificate about how they're for the worker.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: No, I won't do it, that would be too cruel. I've been too cruel to them already.

I want you to get the message, Mr. Speaker, that I certainly support this interim supply bill.

MR. LAUK: First of all, I want to apologize to all of those visitors to Victoria who may be sitting in the gallery. I want to explain that the hon. Minister of Industry and Small Business Development used to be a fine orator in this chamber. He had his day, but time has passed him by — he and other graduates of the Huey Long school of political oratory. The evangelical spirit of days gone by is kept alive by the hon. endangered species from South Peace River, who is now, as they say in political parlance, "missing and running." He used to be a big gun on the treasury bench. Remember those days? They're a dim memory now in the twilight years of his political career. He's gone from a big gun to a wet firecracker.

MR. SPEAKER: To the bill, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: From the wet firecracker to the bill.

The hon. minister mentioned a few things, and I'll go through them briefly. There was little of any substance in his remarks, certainly nothing that had anything to do with the bill. But there were one or two points that might be remotely related. He suggested the economy was ruined in 1974-75 by the NDP administration, and that's been an oft-repeated charge of the government over there. It's a false charge. It's not true in any way. I would ask the Minister of Finance, who is still in his seat, whether he agrees with this statement:

"The worldwide decline in economic activity from 1974 to 1976, coupled with the quadrupling of energy prices, brought the economic situation of British Columbia into even sharper focus. Governments were committed to spending programs initiated in the years of rapid growth and, as their tax revenues fell with the decline in economic activity, were faced with unprecedented deficits."

Can the minister nod his head if he agrees with that statement? It certainly doesn't focus any blame on the NDP administration, as the Minister of Universities (Hon. Mr. McGeer), the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and the Minister of Industry (Hon. Mr. Phillips) have claimed over the last few sessions in this chamber. They're not indicating any agreement, but they should. That statement was made by their own Premier in February 1978.

He said many other things in that same statement. He called upon the Trudeau administration to bring in tight money policies to raise interest rates. It's little wonder that the Minister of Industry has rushed out of the chamber after his miss and run; it's his own first minister who called upon the federal government and has played hand in glove with Pierre Elliott Trudeau ever since. Who went back this February and met with the first minister? Who was the only premier to come back with a restraint program along the lines of what Pierre Elliott Trudeau wanted imposed? The first minister of this government. He's Pierre Elliott Trudeau's pet poodle. Everybody knows it. He's the Liberal lapdog. He's playing along and encouraging the economic disaster that's befalling the Canadian economy.

The minister talks about northeast coal. I have here a confidential report to the head office of the Royal Bank of Canada in Montreal, Quebec, dated May 3, 1982. On page 3 it states: "The potential effects of northeast coal in British Columbia should not be exaggerated in spite of its importance to B.C. The project represents at most 4,000 construction jobs, and continuing B.C. employment, if the economy improves, of 2,500 jobs."

HON. MR. CURTIS: Are you going to table that document?

MR. LAUK: I'll have to get leave from the author of the document before tabling it. I’ll get a copy to you one way or another, Mr. Minister.

As I was saying, the report says 2,500 jobs, if the economy improves, in an economy where the labour force exceeds 1.3 million. The same report states that "the Minister of Finance, in an answer earlier this week in Question Period, claimed that the number of people working in this province was on the increase." On page 1 it states:

"The forecast is for no real growth for the B.C. economy in 1982. It is worth recalling that the real output in 1975 declined as well. The broadest economic statistic, which is also very current, is estimated employment. In the first quarter of 1982, total employment was down by 1.6 percent from the year earlier. This is the first such quarterly decline since 1958, and it's going to get worse."

Is a chartered bank operating within British Columbia better informed than our own Minister of Finance? That certainly seems to be the case. If the Minister of Finance cannot be better informed, but stands up and misinforms the chamber in Question Period, it indicates a shocking lack of research by the Minister of Finance. It's proof positive that

[ Page 8628 ]

he's not capable of acting as the Minister of Finance in this province.

I haven't got good news today in debating the supply act.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're resigning.

MR. LAUK: No, I said I haven't got good news. My resignation would come as good news to no one in this province except you and my family, Mr. Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I can give you other names.

MR. LAUK: You can, but I'd have to check them out as usual, Mr. Speaker.

I have a press clipping that I want to raise here with the folks. It says: "B.C. Faces Depression, Lauk Tells Convention." Do you remember that press clipping? I'm sure the Premier wants to leave now. He's going to be embarrassed and squirm in his seat if he stays. This article appeared in the Vancouver Sun on August 13, 1979, on page A8. I'll read part of it to the committee again:

"'British Columbia faces a major depression in the early 1980s,' NDP MLA Gary Lauk said Saturday. 'Continuing oil price increases and massive public and private debt will send unemployment soaring and land values plummeting,' Lauk told the annual convention of B.C. Young New Democrats at the Britannia Centre. 'We are facing something pretty serious: the free market system is hitting a reef,' Lauk said. 'We owe ten times what we own.'"

I went on to make five significant statements with respect to the early eighties in British Columbia.

What was the response from the political spectrum right? Here's one response, an article on August 14, 1979, in the then Victoria Times on page 16: "Lauk Depression Gives Prof Chuckle." This should amuse the minister of wisdom, universities, technology and hopeless causes. I'm quoting from the article:

"'A provincial politician's dire prediction of a major depression in B.C. early next decade because of soaring oil price increases and massive public and private debt is nonsense,' a University of Victoria economics professor said today. Dr. Leonard Laudadio, chairman of the university's economics department, was commenting in an interview on a speech last weekend by Gary Lauk, Vancouver Centre NDP MLA. Lauk is reported to have told the annual convention...."

They repeat the statement.

"Laudadio said it was a silly forecast. He said, 'It's irresponsible for Lauk to make such a long-range forecast which is likely based on very little economic information. It's a politician's forecast, not an economic forecast.'"

That I will agree with, Mr. Speaker. Dr. Laudadio was correct, and that's proof positive that economists can't predict a damn thing in this province and in this country.

As my friend the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) has said many times, if all of the economists of the world were laid end to end, that would be a good thing. An economist tries to do more than they're capable of doing. A politician, on the other hand, knows two things. He listens to economic analysis from the economists, but he listens to the people, and he knows a little bit about human nature. From that, he can make suggestions and predictions that are more likely and more probable than the so-called science of economy.

Since that speech of over three years ago, the Premier of this province and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman) and others in this chamber.... Even as short a time ago as last spring and last December, I think, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs made his last jibe. They found the article — I'd almost forgotten that it was reported — and they raised it in their speeches last December. They said: 'Aren't all of these dire predictions that are being made funny." They said that employment is up and that things are booming in December and so on. They said that Lauk's predictions didn't come true.

I stood again, and I said that when I made that speech, I was talking about the first part of the 1980s, and it was due. I said that massive public and private debt is leading this country to disaster and that the so-called free enterprise system was hitting a reef it hadn't hit before. Do you think they would listen? Not a chance. Do you think they're listening now over there? They know the answer. They're out now, Mr. Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer), talking to your constituents about how you're showing a deaf car to the warnings that you've had over many years. Why don't you listen? What is your problem? What is the problem with that group over there? Do you believe these myths? Do you have blind faith in the economy and your view of science? Do you have such blind faith that you will not listen?

The government has stood by helpless and powerless to do anything about the massive private and public debt in British Columbia that would have helped get us through some of the uneven spots during these bad times. Do you think they would have taken my advice in 1979 and moved quickly towards a reduction of that massive public debt? No. They've let Hydro continue to be that monster, that Mammon, that god of greed. It's completely out of control, creating even more of a financial disaster in this province than the economy itself.

I'm going to make some other predictions today. The members opposite can mark them down and make fun of me for the next few months. When they come true, they'll sit silently and sheepishly like schoolboys. They won't admit their problems. They'll hide their heads in the sand.

HON. MR. CHABOT: You're a joke.

MR. LAUK: Here's the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing saying that I'm a joke. There's another hon. member whose time has passed him. Time has walked right past him, and he didn't even notice it. These are the twilight years of their political career.

By Christmas there will be 16 percent unemployment in this province, and that will be a minimum. We'll still be unable to deal with inflation because of artificially high energy costs. There will be a glut of land on the market through and into the spring that will lower prices of housing and land still further, creating a critical path towards depression. Don't say that you didn't know it would happen; I'm telling you now.

By October it will be fully revealed that one major Canadian chartered bank will be in virtual receivership, if not actual receivership. Again, it has to do with very grave outstanding oil and gas loans. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which has shareholders' equity of about $2.4 billion has an outstanding loan to Dome Petroleum of $1.6

[ Page 8629 ]

billion or $1.7 billion. Dome Petroleum has outstanding loans with other banks. It's not paying interest. It's the most outstanding debtor. There are others, particularly with the Bank of Commerce. They're not paying interest. The interest is accumulating. That's called the capitalization of interest. The most dangerous attack on the economy one can conceive of is the capitalization of interest. The silly high interest rates are breaking everybody, and they'll eventually break one of the most powerful chartered banks in the country.

In October 1981, an average 27 percent of our major industrial companies' outflow was for debt-servicing charges, which includes interest and other charges. In less than a year the total outflow of those debt-servicing charges has now increased to 64 percent of their annual budgets. In less than 12 months, it has gone from 27 percent — the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) knows how tremendous a problem this is — to 64 percent to service debt for the major industrial companies.

I don't know what the Premier discussed with the labour and business leaders this morning. I hope they came to grips with some of the things I'm talking about here. I'm pretty sure they discussed some aspects of what I'm saying. We are facing a major crisis which they were warned about years ago. You can no longer have blind faith in the system. You have to come up with some answers. I don't believe that throwing money after the problem is the answer either. The more money you throw, the more inflation, the more debt, the more problems are created.

In 1968 a bill called the Consumer Credit Control Act was introduced in the House of Commons. It was rejected by the Liberals, even though it was introduced by a Liberal.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I must....

MR. LAUK: That bill was introduced very close to the Supply Act in the federal....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I must remind you that there are limits to the rule of relevancy in this bill. I know the member is aware of it.

MR. LAUK: Well, I may not be in order, but you have to admit I'm charming.

Consumer credit controls were introduced and rejected by the federal government in 1968. We had an opportunity then in this country to control the massive inflation and massive debt which have now led us to this crisis. Because of political cowardice, we didn't take the opportunity. That political cowardice was shared by all parties. Except for a few members of the New Democratic Party caucuses across the country, no one was speaking out about the massive debt that was building up.

Now to the bill. The last prediction I want to make is this: without increases in user charges or taxes, the growth of the provincial budget, for the first time since the war, will decline in real terms in 1983. I think the Minister of Finance should know that, don't you, Mr. Speaker? The real growth of the provincial budget will decline. In other words, there will be a net loss; that's without increases in taxes.

This year, this most irresponsible government has raised user charges and taxation on businesses and ordinary people. They've ignored the assessment problem with ordinary property taxes. They've been warned, month after month.

They've taken no steps. They've allowed their Crown corporation giants to bleed the people of this province to the point where we're on our knees. People are hurting out there. Glib answers will no longer suffice. The Minister of Finance can no longer stand in his place in question period, and during this debate, and give glib answers and say, "I don't know," and give inaccurate statistics and say: "Well, I'll have to cheek that." He's got to get on the job. That whole government has got to get on the job. You just can't meet now with the labour leaders and the business leaders and say: "Well, I'm sorry that we didn't do better; now let's work together." You have contributed substantially to the weakness of the British Columbia economy, and now you want forgiveness. There's no forgiveness in the political system; there is in personal, social interaction. I forgive each one of you, as a human being. As a government, there is no room for forgiveness; there's only room for resignation. That's all there is: resignation.

I say that this government is not fit for public office and should resign before one more day of this devastating myopic view of economic solutions goes on. Every step they take is more and more devastating to the economy. They've not just been content to make a mess in British Columbia, they've encouraged the federal government to go into monetarism, claiming they didn't have any part in it, but we know it's in a document — February 1978. The government is playing lap dog to the federal government's restraint program, which is tinkering with the economy. It's a devastatingly foolish budget at the federal level.

We call upon this government to withdraw the Supply Act. We call upon this government to bring in an emergency budget; that's what they must do. Bring in a budget that is sound and sensible, one which takes into consideration the tremendous negative forces now in effect, caused by massive debt foreclosures and receiverships across the country, and in British Columbia particularly, where forestry and mining are on their knees as well. The people of British Columbia should at least have been standing during this recession. The government should have supplied the resources necessary for each citizen, businessman and worker in this province to have something to fight back with.

What have they done in the last year? They've raised taxes and user charges; they have allowed Crown corporations, through Hydro, to increase rates. They have sat idly by, as the Minister of Universities. Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) has done, and allowed that incompetent utility, the B.C. Telephone Co., to increase its rates massively. That minister said nothing about it, because his friends and campaign contributors are on that board. Ordinary subscribers in this province are being bled dry by a utility that has an absolute monopoly over that telephone system. Now they're laying off workers. They're the only company in Canada that has a secure income, and they are laying off workers. The government again sits idly, by and gives answers in question period saying: "Well, we don't interfere in private enterprise." Since when was a massive monopoly like the B.C. Telephone Co. private enterprise?

AN HON. MEMBER: Order! That's federal legislation.

MR. LAUK: My good friend from Prince George, whose constituency name escapes me for the moment....

[ Page 8630 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Let's not interrupt the member who has the floor.

MR. LAUK: He says it's federal legislation. A lot can be done in this Confederation, Mr. Speaker, I say to that member, by strong-minded provincial politicians who can express leadership and strength rather than this weak-kneed, scaredy-cat attitude taken by the Minister of Universities and that government with respect to the CRTC. Do you know what his big stand was with the CRTC and the public utility? He put up a communication dish at taxpayers' expense out on the front lawn. It didn't even work. I couldn't even get the lacrosse game from Richmond on it.

HON. MR. McGEER: No blue movies, either.

MR. LAUK: Not even an interesting movie to make it all worthwhile.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, let's not interrupt the member. He's having difficulty staying on the bill.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, I will end with my remarks now, but I want to say that I'm predicting again 16 percent-plus unemployment this Christmas and that a major charter bank will be in virtual receivership.

AN HON. MEMBER: Thanks to Dome.

MR. LAUK: Thanks to Dome, but also thanks to a lot of inept attitudes on the part of the federal and the provincial governments. And I predict that there will be a further downturn in housing and land prices on a critical path towards a depression. Does this bill meet any of those challenges? I say no. Yes, we'll vote for supply, but it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance should withdraw this act and bring in an emergency budget to deal with some of the dire consequences of ignoring the negative impacts that are occurring in the economy.

HON. MR. MeGEER: Mr. Speaker, the member who has just taken his scat isn't wrong in everything he said. He came up with a dry prediction on Grizzly Valley, but if indeed he put forward the notion that irresponsible spending and high energy prices would bring about a severe recession — perhaps a depression — then he was eminently correct in that. But, Mr. Speaker, he neglected to tell us about the role the New Democratic Party has played in all of this in Canada. He might have been better advised to have given those predictions to his own caucus when the NDP was government in this province and were marching British Columbia toward a depression all on its own, apart from the economy of North America and of Canada, because that's where the policies of the New Democratic Party, as practised in this province, were taking British Columbia.

And then, Mr. Speaker, we have had a translation of those same policies into national policy in Canada. While the member who has just concluded his remarks talked about the high cost of energy and the consequences of irresponsible spending, the person who has been the champion of public spending in Canada has been the national leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Broadbent.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the member please take his seat for just a moment. The same caution that was given just a few moments ago still persists; that is, that the bill before us is the Supply Act (No. 2), 1982. A historical review is not in order, except as a passing remark.

HON. MR. McGEER: I was merely giving some advice and observation to the members opposite, who have been reluctant to grant supply and to support the restraint programs in British Columbia that will make that supply serve its purpose; who have been reluctant to permit investment in British Columbia and to permit B.C. Hydro to do its job of supplying power to this province and earning income for the province; who have been against northeast coal, B.C. Place and all of the positive employment-building programs of the province, and against all of the restraint in public expenditure measures that the government has taken. Yet the members opposite decry the unemployment and the public spending and recommend that this government step aside, when its great job, first of all, is to run against the current created in British Columbia by the presence of the New Democratic Party when they were in government and now to run against the national current as a result of New Democratic Party policies being adopted by the Liberal government in Ottawa. It was, after all, the New Democratic Party that put forward the motion which defeated a responsible budget in Ottawa and put the Liberals in power. It was the Liberals, put back in power with the help of the New Democratic Party, who then put into place the national energy policy. That was only echoing the advice given by the provincial leader of the New Democratic Party, who offered to turn over all of the petroleum resources of British Columbia if only the national government would socialize them.

Now we're beginning to see the consequences of that kind of action being taken by the national government — $13 billion spent on foreign oil purchases.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the hon. member soon to relate the remarks to the bill before us.

HON. MR. McGEER: They relate, Mr. Speaker, because it is the profligate spending in Ottawa which is directly leading to the high interest rates, which directly leads to the unemployment in British Columbia, which directly leads to decreasing revenues to this government, which directly leads to the necessity to put on restraint programs in the public service, which directly leads to the difficulties we have in producing supply in this country. You spend $13.5 billion for foreign oil, as we did in Canada last year; you subsidize that with $3.6 billion directly given to foreign powers, with the taxation raised partly through a natural gas levy here in British Columbia, amounting to well over $100 million, taken right out of the pockets of people of this province to give to Saudi Arabia and Mexico. You have to add to that another $8.5 billion spent implementing nationalization of our oil and gas industry, as recommended by the New Democratic Party opposite and their leader, as implemented by the Liberal leader of Canada, but with the support and urging of Ed Broadbent and the national New Democratic Party.

The member who just took his seat predicted the failure of a Canadian bank because of interest payments on the debt of Dome Petroleum initiated by the national energy program and the takeovers. If it were to take place, then we could trace the blame directly back to the New Democratic Party in

[ Page 8631 ]

British Columbia and the Leader of the Opposition right here in this province.

I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member who took his seat that we are in some difficulty in Canada because the national debt this year will not be $19.5 billion, as announced in the recent federal budget, but much more likely will be $23 billion, because the Canadian dollar has slipped in value and those calculations of the national debt were based on an 82 cent dollar. In addition to that, there will be another $18 billion of debt racked up by provincial governments across this country. We're over $40 billion in debt in current account this year, with senior levels of government all in.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I must caution you again. The debate upon which you have embarked might be more easily determined to be in order in another House, but not in this House under Bill 57.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, can you then explain to me, with these debts building up in Canada, with revenues dropping and precious exchange being squandered on purchasing oil when we have shut-in gas in British Columbia, and with our gas being taxed and those tax dollars being sent to Mexico and Saudi Arabia — why, with all of this and with the difficulty governments in Canada are having in facing our deficit — we have the New Democratic Party, provincially and nationally, opposing the restraint program? If we continue to spend money that isn't there, as has been encouraged by your national leader — the leader of the New Democratic Party — how on earth can interest rates be brought down? Where does the leader of the New Democratic Party, nationally and provincially, think the money is going to come from to finance these horrible current account debts we're building up, as well as the purchase of foreign oil?

MR. LEGGATT: You're going to borrow it abroad.

HON. MR. McGEER: It's going to be borrowed abroad — you bet your life it is, Mr. Member. And as that happens, interest rates in Canada will be pushed up. There is no other choice.

How do we work our way out of it? We work our way out of it by totally abandoning the policies of the New Democratic Party, nationally and provincially. We must have restraint in Canada. We must end the foolishness of the national energy program. We must abandon, nationally, as we had to abandon provincially, the driving out of investment money by socialism. Investment dollars are not ordinary dollars. Investment dollars are super dollars. They're the dollars that fuel the economy. When investment dollars are there, the engine speeds up. When they go, the engine coughs and stalls.

What has happened with the national energy program and FIRA is precisely what happened with the punitive and ridiculous taxation measures introduced by the New Democratic Party when they were government in British Columbia — namely, the flight of investment capital out of the province.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member. debate on consolidated fund bills, which is the debate that we are presently on.... Sir Erskine May clearly says: "The debate on the stages of these bills must be relevant to each bill, and must be confined to the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants specified in the bill in the case of an appropriation bill. In general terms, any questions of administrative policy may be raised which are implied in such grants of supply." I propose to the member who is debating that his debate is out of order.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for being out of order, but I did feel an obligation to respond to the points raised by the member speaking for the New Democratic Party.

Of course we intend to support this supply bill. Of course the government expects and anticipates that it will be able to take measures to protect the economy of British Columbia and. In so doing, to run at a strong counter-pace to the backward movement being established by the national government. This is a time when the economically fit are being tested by tough international times, brought on, of course, by the points alluded to by the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk).

But we will not recover our economy in British Columbia by going along with the policies laid down by the national government, or by going along with the suggestions made by the New Democratic arty members opposite, because it does no good to continue to spend irresponsibly. It does no good to cut off primary production, as the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) would have us do with northeast coal. It does no good to shut down power development, which will drive the engines of our economy in British Columbia and would today form our most reliable export product — power. But the members opposite would have us choke that off too. The members opposite would be against the largest urban redevelopment scheme in North America now taking place at B.C. Place.

All of these things have been put on the record by those members during debate in this session. Therefore what this little government must do to further the interests of the people of our province is reject the policies of the national government. reject the policies of the national New Democratic Party, reject the policies of the members opposite, and build the economy of British Columbia, as Social Credit has a]ways done, on a strong and secure foundation that will allow us to withstand the storms of international finance.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MCGEER: UIC benefits. I'm glad the member raised that point, because what it does is illustrate the dilemma always faced by the members opposite, who are unwilling to acknowledge that there is a hierarchy in dollars, and that their value is not equal in a democracy. Dollars are all born equal, like citizens,but their contribution varies. The least valuable dollars are those that are sucked out of an economy to pay for non-productive services, because what they do is penalize productive activity. At the top of the scale always are the investment dollars, because they precede economic activity. Then comes primary production. Then come the service industries to assist primary production. At the bottom of the heap always are the government expenditures which take away from those productive activities and have no multiplier effect at all. What we have to be so careful of, Mr.

[ Page 8632 ]

Speaker, is to not suck the private sector dry. Unemployment insurance payments, welfare payments, public services of all kinds, have the least economic value to society.

We've got to get back to an understanding in Canada, though it's well understood by this government in British Columbia, that we will not have economic help until we understand the value and necessity of productive primary industry. Other countries have grasped this principle, and they are the ones doing well in the world today. But when we take things like this for granted, as the New Democratic Party did when they were government between 1972 and 1975 in British Columbia, and as the Trudeau government has done during nearly all its years in office, particularly since it was re-elected with the help of the New Democratic Party, our country continues to slump. We have lost self-respect, we have lost respect in international circles, and our citizens suffer. But here in British Columbia we're going to run counter to the trend. This government has not lost sight of the important things, even though the members opposite have never been able to see them clearly.

Mr. Speaker, we will support this bill. British Columbia will continue to prosper, relative to other governments and jurisdictions in Canada and North America, because of the sound principles followed by Social Credit.

MR. SKELLY: It's a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate on the second Supply Act of this Legislature. It's interesting to listen to the two big guns, as they call them, who have been thrown into the fray by the government party. It always seems that when there's a far-fetched point to be made, the second member for Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is tossed into the match. I think this is a man who has done more than anyone else in this Legislature, in this province, to cast doubt on the credibility of the appellation "scientist." It seems that whatever happens, this member can change his opinion, change his meaning, even change his political appellation from one day to the next. Today he's attacking the Liberals with vigour, whereas a few years ago he was the leader of the Liberal Party. So anything he says, almost about anything, should be taken with a grain of salt as to its credibility.

MR. SPEAKER: With that passing comment, we go to Bill 57.

MR. SKELLY: Simply a passing comment, but the minister did talk about the strength of the economy. What we're concerned about in dealing with the Supply Act at this time is the strength of the economy. The minister talks about the economy of British Columbia leading the way, and yet the indicators that have been brought forward in this House in question period and in debate elsewhere have shown that this province is leading the way in the number of job positions lost, in the increase in the number of people unemployed, in foreclosures and bankruptcies. In every single indicator to the negative, this province is leading the way.

The minister attacked the federal government and in particular some of its creations — the Foreign Investment Review Agency and the national energy program. Yes, to the extent that those programs did attempt to stimulate Canadian investment in the economy, and to give Canadians control over the fuel that the engine of the economy requires, we did support them, even though we considered them half-measures with some possibility of failure. It's interesting that the minister stated in his speech that as a result of these policies, we have become dependent on those who control internationally those energy commodities that we're forced to buy on the world market. It's interesting that those countries have gained control of those very energy commodities that have given them the strength and given them the foreign exchange to become the real foreign investors in the world — those people whose money we seek because they have taken control of those key commodities that run the industrial world. He is criticizing Canada for its half-measures to do the same thing. To the extent that they are half-measures, Mr. Speaker, yes, we criticize Canada for that. Canada should be taking control over its industry, and Canada should be taking control over those valuable energy commodities that we desperately require if we're to keep this economy going, and going independently of those countries into the future.

Mr. Speaker, the people I want to talk about in this debate.... The main reason I want to talk about those people is that they are now dependent on government largess. They are dependent on the money that flows from this government in welfare payments and transfer payments into the communities of this province. I'm talking about my constituents in Port Alberni who now depend on the largess of the government for their survival. The last statistics from Employment Canada show that over 5,000 people formerly working in that community — productive people — are now out of work. Many of them are without hope of getting work in the forest industry again. Twelve hundred of those people will be going on welfare between now and the end of August, and of course welfare is a significant part of the supply bill that we will be voting for at the end of this debate.

People in that community have been cut off extended health benefits, dental plans and prescription drug plans; cut off wage-loss insurance schemes that they paid for through the investment of their labour. For all these services they now depend on premium subsidies and welfare payments from the provincial government — part and parcel of this bill. And they depend on the grace of the banks and the lending agencies who are withholding foreclosure actions, because they cannot recover the investments in the event that they do foreclose. There is, of course, no protection from this provincial government, as there is from others across Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I've always spoken with pride of my constituents. They are among the most productive and the best-paid workers in this country, and the best organized in terms of their union organization. To the extent that they are able to bargain for safe, healthy and secure job conditions in a safe and healthy job place, they have bargained for and won those conditions. Within the last few months and within the last year that job security, that safe and healthy workplace, has been lost to them. These were also the people, Mr. Chairman, who at one time contributed in large measure to the revenue side of the provincial budget, in revenue from the forest resource, in revenue from their own income taxes and other taxes paid in the form of consumer taxes and user charges. The people of Port Alberni have always been positive, contributing citizens in this provincial economy, and in the national economy. They've had the dignity to pay their own way and then some. To date, under this government, and under the policies of the national government as represented in two recent budgets, they have not become tenants in their own homes. They've lost many of the goods they've purchased out of the investment of their labour, and they're now beggars on the provincial government for income support,

[ Page 8633 ]

medical premiums and that type of thing. It's not a position that the people of this province pride themselves on being found in. It's not the position they want to be in, and in fact they would do virtually anything to get rid of the government that has placed them in that position.

A very few years ago the Premier looked at a takeover action that was being speculated about in the press when MacMillan Bloedel, the major employer in my riding, was threatened with a takeover from Canadian Pacific Investments. The Premier came to town and said: "There is absolutely no way that we will allow this B.C. corporation to be sold out of the province." Many of the citizens of my riding took the Premier at his word, a mistake that many people in this province have made. When the Premier came to them and suggested that they invest in the B.C. Resources Investment Corporation, again they took him at his word and invested. When the Premier was touting shares around the province, people in my constituency borrowed money and bought up to the limit in the B.C. Resources Investment Corporation. Taking the Premier at his word is something they realize now they never should have done.

M&B, the company that was not for sale when the Premier said that B.C. was not for sale, was sold outside this province to Noranda, or to Brascan, or to the Quebec Pension Plan. Who knows who owns it now, but it's certainly not owned by the people of British Columbia. It's certainly not managed, from the point of view of my constituents, for the benefit of the people working in the resource industry of the province of British Columbia. M&B personnel say to me that, in terms of M&B being restored to economic health, the first part that's going to come back is Alabama ,and the second part to come back is going to be the interior of British Columbia. If it comes back, then the coast will return to its former economic vigour.

This is not the kind of positive statement that the people of my constituency are looking forward to from a company that the Premier said should never be sold outside of British Columbia. It now appears to be operated in part by the Quebec Pension Plan. Now we're only a part of a multinational hydra that seems to be focussed on Alabama and uses places like Port Alberni as a branch plant to be brought on stream when it's justifiable to the company's shareholders and dropped when it's not earning a profit or when market conditions are bad. If only the Foreign Investment Review Agency were operating in reverse at the time that M&B was investing outside of the province, using the money that they earned here on the resources and labour of British Columbian workers, who made the money for the company so they could invest outside the country. If only the United States had had a foreign investment review agency at the time that would have told them: "No, don't spend the money in Alabama. Keep it at home. Invest it in Port Alberni where it belongs." Then the people of my constituency would be a lot happier today.

A few months ago, when the B.C. Central Credit Union was predicting that British Columbia was entering a recession, and when the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) was predicting the same thing, the Premier's response on October 21, 1981, in the Province was: "Premier Bill Bennett branded as amusing Tuesday a B.C. Central Credit Union report that says B.C. has now entered an economic recession." He found it funny. There are a lot of people in my constituency who don't find that funny at all, and didn't find it funny at the time.

MR. SEGARTY: What did they do about it?

MR. SKELLY: Call an election and we'll show you what they're going to do about it. We'll show you what they're going to do to you and you and you. They'll get a government that is concerned about their problems and that directs their attention to the problems being experienced in the resource industry now in British Columbia.

What did the Deputy Premier (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) say a few days ago that we should do? What was her solution to the problem? There are 1,200 new people in Port Alberni now going onto welfare under the Bennett government. A few days ago the Deputy Premier said: "The solution to the problem is that they should be positive." All they have to do is be positive and look to the future. That sounds like Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover: prosperity is just around the corner. All you need is a positive attitude. Sit on your duff, but have a positive attitude and collect welfare like everybody else in the province of British Columbia under this Social Credit government.

It's interesting that when it was suggested to the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) that there may not be enough money in the budget — and again we get back to the Supply Act (No. 2) — to pay for the welfare that people are going to require when they lose their jobs in British Columbia under the present Social Credit administration, she said she was just keeping her fingers crossed. That's a positive attitude! Don't do anything about it. Just sit on your duff, and keep your fingers crossed. Blame the federal government. They blame Ronald Reagan, and he blames world economic conditions. Or blame the opposition, which seems to be this party's solution to the problem.

The Deputy Premier said that all we need is a positive attitude and that prosperity is just around the corner if we sit on our backsides with this positive attitude and keep our fingers crossed in the hopes that enough welfare money will be available to keep us through the bad times.

She said in the same speech that the NDP did not make any positive proposals. The NDP has made positive proposals, but the government has simply never listened. The government, in its ideological rigidity, has never listened. This is a government that's always willing to talk and blow off about their megaprojects in the north and their megaprojects in Vancouver. but they're never willing to listen to positive proposals from anybody. They always take their own counsel, and 90 percent of the time it's the wrong counsel.

The NDP has made some concrete suggestions that would distribute the economic wealth of this province much more than the present government is distributing it. It's a difference in philosophy. As I've pointed out before in this Legislature and elsewhere, it's represented in the way we looked at recreation in this province. As opposed to developing megaproject sites like the Winter Olympics at Whistler, B.C. Place or the northeast coal development, which robs capital from the rest of the province and invests it in small areas of the province and to the benefit of the very few, it would distribute capital into every small community around the province. As an example, I'll use one of our programs that the provincial government stole when it came into office in 1976, and that was the recreational facilities fund.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was breaking every municipality.

[ Page 8634 ]

MR. SKELLY: Obviously the member stopped reading his mail for the last year, because the letters that I get from municipalities say that the government's policies right now have virtually bankrupted every municipality, hospital board, school district and every single local government, or driven them to the edge of bankruptcy. They've taken it out on their employees and on services. To their credit, they've been responsible. Rather than simply folding up, they've sacked their employees, cut back on services and, as far as possible, kept those services going and kept those employees on that they could keep on in spite of the cutbacks that the provincial government has imposed on them.

To use that example of the recreational facilities fund, which distributed something like $400 million in taxpayers' funds around the province, and that impacted on every single community in the province of British Columbia, it was a megaproject in itself worth half a billion dollars, and yet every single one of those dollars had the value of three or four. They were recreation dollars, health dollars, employment generation dollars and corrections dollars. They were producers of wealth and producers and improvers of the human resources of the province of British Columbia. Yes, that's something that this government doesn't understand. It's a fundamental philosophical difference between this government and us.

Yes, we did use dollars to create work here in British Columbia, but they were innovative and creative dollars — the Royal Hudson and the Marguerite. Everything the government can suggest that is positive and creative — investment dollars that have brought tourists to this province and created businesses in this province.... It has kept this province, going through the rough times that have been created by the Social Credit government through their monument mentality and their fixation on megaprojects. Correcting this economy provincially doesn't need any additional spending, and we endorse the concept of restraint.

It's interesting how the word "restraint" is used. If we could conduct a poll, I'm sure we would find that the word fares fairly well in the polls, that it has a fairly positive connotation. That's the only reason you've used it, because your ministers and your members have their snouts in the public trough day after day after day, exercising no restraint at all. We've gone through the budget this year and last year; hundreds of millions of dollars, as far as we can determine, are simply wasted dollars which exhibit no restraint at all on the part of this government. If those hundreds of millions of dollars were taken from that budget and redirected into positive programs, as suggested by the NDP, we would resolve some of the problems of chronic unemployment, of people on welfare, businesses shutting down, homes foreclosed. Instead this government insists on the right to blow that money, to waste that money. As long as they're at the public trough, they insist on keeping those dollars for their own enjoyment, and the heck with restraint. Restraint is what everyone else should suffer.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: You're welcome to it. They're threatening my salary, as if a cut in my salary would make me sit down and shut up; as if I treat my salary as they do, as a bribe to keep silent. Your constituents complain day in and day out over your lack of representation, over your handling the budget of this province, over the way you're blowing money as if it were going out of style, over Broadway shows and expensive French wines. Yes, as long as they're getting that salary, they keep their mouths shut and allow the ministers to go off at will and blow that money in New York, blow that money around the world.

I support restraint, but I do not support the direction in which this government is spending money: on megaprojects and monuments that are gobbling capital in this province. They are driving us into debt with these debt-intensive megaprojects; billions of dollars for Site C, for projects where the economic rationale is now collapsing, where the environmental rationale was never established. The future of this province is being mortgaged to provide those projects.

Why are my constituents forced to shut down five of the schools in their area? These are schools strongly supported by the community. Fifty people were laid off, and a brand new school is being built in Tumbler Ridge so that the miners can have their children educated as they mine that coal to fuel Japan's industry. We will be paying the cost of the valueadded when they ship cars and finished goods back to British Columbia. Why are hospital beds being shut down in Port Alberni? One hundred people laid off, and we're building a brand new hospital or clinic up in Tumbler Ridge. When I called to find out the cost, they wouldn't tell me, but 100 people are laid off in Port Alberni and a whole floor of the hospital being shut down so that money will be available to build that new hospital at Tumbler Ridge.

I support restraint but I don't support restraint to the extent that we're stealing money from the producing areas of this province, stealing money from productive citizens, stealing jobs, stealing security, stealing the homes of productive citizens of British Columbia, in order to invest them in megaproject monuments that are serving this province only to create jobs over the short term. It gives raw resources to Japan so that at some time in the future we can buy which the products of those raw resources at grossly inflated prices that our unemployed people will not be able to pay.

We do not oppose this bill, Mr. Speaker. We support it reluctantly — reluctantly in my case because the citizens of my riding need the welfare payments in order to survive. We only want to draw the government's attention to the problems that its current policies are creating for people all around this province, and the hostility those people feel toward this government's policy. I intend to support the bill. I do not intend to deprive anybody of the benefits of government payments by delaying this bill unduly, but I feel it's my obligation to draw the government's attention to the serious problems its policies are creating, and this bill provides me with that opportunity.

MR. LEGGATT: I will be reasonably brief, I hope. I think there is a tendency to debate the past too often in this chamber. I believe, since coming here, that we may not be learning that much by debating what happened in 1975, 1972, 1976, or from the constant repetition of the past. As the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) pointed out, we now have a unique situation in our economy. This is not a depression in the classic sense of the last depression. It is a unique situation, where the governments of the western world have been unable — although they are trying in various ways — to control the evil of stagnation. We continue to have roaring inflation, plus roaring unemployment. These two evils, these two Horsemen of the Apocalypse, are driving the economies of all provinces and of our country into a state of depression.

[ Page 8635 ]

We could get into a trivial debate about how bad things were in 1975 and how bad they are now. I'm really amazed that members of the government want to get into that debate. There is no question.... Very briefly, the latest report of the Employers Council of British Columbia shows that investor confidence in this province is the lowest since they have been taking statistics.

I hope members of the government will not continue to trivialize this debate. It's not a time for silliness in the chamber. We are all in a mess; all of us who live in this society and in this province are in a deep and desperate mess. People are crying out for us to do something, yet there is no leadership being provided.

I have to say that the proposal which the Premier made when meeting with representatives of labour and business is a good start. Is it going to surprise anybody that somebody says something good about something that happened? In fact, it is something that was brought in late, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. It is a good start to try to accommodate the natural conflicting interests within our society. I wish any Premier of this province all the luck in the world in trying to succeed in controlling this horrible problem in our economy. We certainly will support the Supply Act, which supplies $1,446,875,191. Of course, what we should have had is what we've been calling for day after day, in view of the absolutely scary statistics — an emergency budget. If you have to have a Keynesian budget, then you have to have a deficit.

The problem in all economies has been that political leaders have not had the courage to run surpluses in good times and deficits in bad times. Now they don't have an opportunity to run a deficit when money is so desperately needed to be put into the economy.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) really took all his Liberal clothes off today at last and bared himself in his true Neanderthal presence. I wish he were here. This is what he told us: the least valuable dollars in our economy are UIC dollars; the least valuable dollars in our economy are social welfare dollars. Talk to the corner store, the guy who's struggling to make a living. Where would we be without those transfer payments? Where would we be without those UIC payments? We're now entering a depression. We would have been in one for the last ten years if we hadn't had those moneys coming in at the bottom of the economy to provide the purchasing power that people must have to purchase the products of the system. If you cannot provide it through the free enterprise sector, it has to be provided artificially. It's what has kept at least the western economies together over a period of time.

But there was a consensus that was developed, largely after the Depression and the Second World War, in which all political parties came to an agreement about redistribution of wealth. Somehow there had to be an effort on the part of governments to redistribute wealth with some kind of equity and fairness. Those who espoused the philosophy of the government would be the least fair. The Liberals came somewhere after them, and of course the democratic socialists tended to want to redistribute it faster than any of the others.

But regardless of which part of the equation they were in, they all agreed that there must be some sense of fairness, and that was the philosophic glue that held western societies together. But now that glue has been broken. Now that philosophy is broken by  monetarism, something that the superficial thinkers of the right grabbed immediately as being the magic solution to the problem of stagflation. They ran with the simplistic doctrine of controlling the money supply to control inflation. The result is that we run a very real risk of a democratic breakdown in all our jurisdictions, because the public does not perceive governments to be acting fairly.

It's that perception that's absolutely key to some kind of civil and economic order within our society. It is because of that breakdown that we now plead for a social contract or consensus. I will direct it to the bill, Mr. Speaker. I see you looking at me a little bit over your glasses. The bill, in fact, is an attempt, of course, to get temporary financing, which obviously the opposition knows must be given; we will support that temporary financing. But at this point we really should have been presented with a new budget, and in that budget we should have been seeking that social contract that is absolutely essential for this or any other government to attack this very serious economic problem of stagflation. How do we attack it? People are constantly asking what our solutions are.

First of all, in terms of the provincial economy, we have provided an economic direction in a paper called "Let's Get to Work," which, in fact, deals seriously with the economy. It deals with the most serious problem in the economy, which is interest rates. When you deal with interest rates....

One of the difficulties with monetarists is that they think by controlling the money supply you bring interest rates down and you therefore control inflation. What they have failed to understand is that interest rates are one of the most important inflationary factors in our society. If you happen to borrow money at the bank and you own a building, you will pass those interest charges along in rent. Every businessman who has to produce a product has to show the cost of that product in the cost of the interest on his borrowing. That's the major inflationary factor in society today.

We must deal first of all with the question of interest rates. As I said, I congratulate the Premier, because no one will deal with interest rates until he establishes a social contract. A social contract is a contract in which the competing elements of society agree and say: "Yes, now we shall have control of interest rates on a consensus basis." High interest rates are not the cure; they are the worst element in the economic disease that afflicts us.

How do wc achieve this consensus? How do we achieve some kind of agreement? We do not do it by attacking one group in society and leaving all the others alone and then saying: Why aren't you cooperating?" That is the difficulty with this arbitrary restraint attack on public servants. It leaves everyone else in the economy alone. You must deal with the economy in a macro sense. In dealing with the economy in a macro sense, there must be guidelines set in terms, first of all, of the very, rich. You cannot expect support for budgets when the guy who has never seen more than $15,000 in his life sees incomes of $400,000 a year in the business sector. That is the social consensus I'm talking about. The inequity of those two incomes is so great that when you decide as government that you will attack the $15,000-a-year man, because he's taking too much out of the economy, and you don't attack the guy who's making $400,000 a year, how do you get a consensus out of that? How do you get an agreement out of that? How do you ever bring our democratic society together without having an incomes policy? Yes, I'll say it: an incomes policy in

[ Page 8636 ]

which there is some essence of fairness. There is no essence of fairness....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's not interrupt the member who has the floor.

MR. LEGGATT: As I say, the Premier has belatedly made a first step. It's not a bad idea to get people together and talk. I wish we could do it on the national level, but it's no longer a time for narrow, silly, trivial debate on the subject of the economy. It's too serious. There are too many people out of work. This society is now in the worst condition it has been in since the Depression. And you're not making it any better by simply continuing a class war in this province. If you're looking for a long-term solution to what to do with the economy....

It's fascinating. I always listen to the second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer), who always turns his back and leaves this place as soon as he makes his speech, but he's always delighted to talk about the horrors of the national energy policy.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the member for Omineca please come to order.

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, there wouldn't be a gallon of oil ever found in the Arctic without the national energy policy. Do you know that in terms of the energy policy of this country, there wouldn't be an industry in Alberta if Ontario hadn't subsidized them with a national energy policy to get them underway? That happens to be the kind of uncomfortable truth that nobody will listen to. But the facts are quite simple.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I've cautioned various members as we've been going through this debate that relevancy is something that we must have some regard for. The debate on the stages of these bills must be relevant to each bill, and must be confined to the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants. Further, in general terms, any questions of administrative policy may be raised which are implied in such grants of supply. I would recommend this relevancy rule to the member who now has the floor.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the interim supply bill has funds which will be directed to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, which is, of course, intimately related to the question of our energy policy.

I saw the 1981-82 annual report for the B.C. Petroleum Corporation on my desk. It just came in today. Is this the next corporation we're going to BCRIC in this province? Is this the next one we're going to destroy? The BCRICing of public assets is not an economic strategy. It's what the Premier himself called "teaching the people the lessons of capitalism." Maybe they have learned their lesson now. They did a good job. BCRIC is trading at $2.49 today.

I want to urge this government: please, we've learned a lesson; please, leave us alone. We've learned those harsh, good, solid, efficiency lessons of capitalism. You've ground them down really well now. You have 179,000 on unemployment insurance. You have 50,000 fewer jobs this year than last. You have the highest unemployment rate in the country outside of Quebec. You have the lowest investor confidence there's ever been in the province, according to the Employers Council's latest report. So we've learned the lessons that this government tried to teach the population. They've felt the lash, and now it's time to bring forward a new budget and help people in this economy. It's long past due. It is ideological fanaticism that has brought us to this point. The point of my speech, Mr. Speaker, is that it's time for a consensus. It is time for no more trivializing; the debates of the past should be over. Let's talk about how we solve this immense economic problem that the member for Vancouver Centre so eloquently pointed out. He predicted what is happening now back in 1978. You will not solve this problem by ramming solutions down the throats of other people.

Interjection.

MR. LEGGATT: You'll solve it by poisoning wolves? Is that what you're going to do?

First of all, we need an incomes policy; secondly, we need an industrial strategy which provides intensive capital in research areas to develop a secondary manufacturing industry that does not rely entirely on integration into the U.S. economy. For example, when the United States gets a cold — as you will see right now — we have pneumonia. The whole purpose of the national energy policy, which has gone over the heads of every member of that government, was to try to develop self-sufficiency in energy; to try to develop an economy which could withstand that U.S. cold. Now, because of their failure to plan and understand that we must develop a sophisticated secondary manufacturing capacity in the west, we have the worst depression we've ever had.

The United States is bottoming out; it's probably coming out of it. It will be two years down the road before we see the light of day, because of a lack of industrial strategy on the part of this government. It's shocking. You ask for solutions. The only solution we've seen is that monetaristic right-wing rhetoric that got us into the mess we're in right now. They have stood around saying: "Planning is a dirty word. It's some kind of terrible, socialistic thing that's going to be imposed on everybody."

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Under standing order 17 it is not permitted to interrupt the person who has the floor. The rule of this House has been that an occasional interjection is permitted, but the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) and the member for North Peace River (Mr. Brummet) have used their quota.

MR. LEGGATT: An industrial strategy is something that Japan has followed since the Second World War; an industrial strategy is something that the social democratic governments of West Germany and Sweden have followed since the war.

[ Page 8637 ]

Do you know the interest rate in Japan today? Mr. Speaker, it's between 6.5 and 7 percent. If it wasn't for that low interest rate, you wouldn't have any northeast coal development at all, because our present interest rates here are so high that there was no way that could have flown; it would have been an even more disastrous deal than it is if they didn't have a planned economy like Japan to produce those interest rates.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell us about Sweden.

MR. LEGGATT: I will. Sweden continues to be one of the most economically successful countries and still has a much higher gross national product per capita than Canada has — higher than the United States. Economically Sweden is one of the most successful countries the world has ever seen. Obviously you must be reading only the National Review about Sweden; I can't imagine you've ever read anything like a UN statistic about any standard such as health, education or level of income. Sweden leads this country immensely in all those areas.

Interjections.

MR. LEGGATT: Income tax!

MR. SPEAKER: May we have order, please, hon. members. Let's proceed with orderly debate.

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, what I plead for is a new economic strategy, a strategy which deals with consensus politics, not conflict politics; a strategy which deals with long-term industrial solutions for the province. That can't be just giving away natural resources, as we do, for example, in the northeast, where we have very little hope of ever recovering the public investment.

Interjection.

MR. LEGGATT: Of course we will sell coal, but we would have sold coal and provided British Columbia companies, Canadian companies and Canadian workers guaranteed employment, not a giveaway.

The key to the future for us, Mr. Speaker, is a fair society, a society where we treat those least fortunate as well as we treat those who are most fortunate, because it is only in that way that we reach a consensus. It is only in that way that you preserve the democratic experiment, which is the best experiment the world has ever seen. If we allow this right-wing. Milton Friedman, Bill Bennett fanaticism to prevail, the social fabric will wear out; we will split our societies into social chaos.

I support the bill, Mr. Speaker. It's just too bad there wasn't enough wit and intelligence on the other side to produce an emergency budget.

MR. LEVI: As my colleague said in describing the witless group on the other side, we know that most of the afternoon we've had the benefit of the intellectual wing of the government led by the boomer from Omineca. His greatest contribution to the debate was: go out and buy BCRIC shares. He's the kind of man who would sell tickets to go on the Titanic, and he hunts wolves by trying to outrun them. That's the contribution he's given to us all afternoon. All afternoon he sat there. I know he's been bothering you all afternoon, and you have to keep going to May and Beauchesne. I think we should go to the Sergeant-at-Arms and heave him out of here. He doesn't serve any useful purpose. He doesn't even sit in his chair property.

MR. SPEAKER: To the bill, please, hon. Member.

MR. LEVI: It's relevant to the bill. After all, I just commented on the economic brilliance of that member — his contributions, solutions. Well, we made that suggestion more than three weeks ago — resign, get out of there, and let somebody else do it.

I was interested in what the member....

AN HON. MEMBER: Where's that $100 million?

MR. LEVI: I want to talk about the $100 million. I want to talk about the member for Vancouver–Point Grey, who says that those terrible dollars — the welfare and unemployment insurance dollars.... That is the very principle that separates us from you. You would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep people on the unemployment rolls, and you won't spend anything to put them to work.

In the last four years your Human Resources budget has gone from some $480 million to nearly $900 million. You've got more people on welfare out there, and you come to us with this bill. Bearing in mind what the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) said.... She's not even sure she's got enough money to cover the payments. Is there enough money in this bill to cover those payments? It's your system. You support it. You are free enterprisers. What are you going to do? Borrow? This is the government that set up eight more Crown corporations. They took services from the government and put them into Crown corporations, and then they run the Crown corporations into a borrowing debt that's enormous. That's not borrowing. That's a new kind of newspeak for these people.

If the government were to borrow to put people to work, is that so evil? This afternoon we've had documented the number of people who are losing their jobs. It's a tragedy, and you all know it. You get letters from your constituents — people in the declining years of their lives who thought that they would finish out their lives with one principle that they've held dear all their lives, and that is to be solvent and never to have to go on the public purse. We have people on the public purse today — people on welfare or unemployment insurance — who never in their wildest dreams ever dreamt that their whole world would come crashing down because of the inability of governments to do anything.

Time and time again in this House we have asked the government what they are going to do. All the ministers say is, "It's their fault," and they point over to Europe, Ottawa or New York, but not to one solution. Yet three years ago, when the poor little Minister of Housing was away, the government suddenly found a socialist principle and decided to put $200 million into the housing market to create jobs, take people off welfare and provide living accommodation. That was two years ago. Why is that solution not viable today when we have more carpenters out of work and more people looking for housing? But it's not viable.

Do you think you're going to run under the wing of the federal government? You have no solutions whatsoever. Yet a little more than two and a half years ago you tried one and it worked. It created the thing you always argued about. We'll

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have a housing surplus. Yes, we've got a housing surplus. The only thing is that nobody can afford to get into the houses.

The point is that they have become a new type of government. They are devastators. These people have devastated not only the lives of people in this province, and that's the great tragedy. We can't even have a reasonable debate. This is the one major opportunity for us to discuss the economy. The last time we wanted to have a debate on the economy, the Minister of Finance, the man that should be most interested in hearing the views, adjourned the debate. He didn't want it. What we have to do in here is to talk about the economy, because the major criticism that we have to have of the Supply Act is that it's just allocating another portion of the money that was part of the budget in the first place.

What has amazed me over the years is that the government could get itself into such an organizational mess that they have never yet been able to bring a budget forward where they've not needed a Supply Act No. 1 and Supply Act No. 2. They can't even organize that kind of legislative program in such a way. There has to be, in the light of that, some underlying reason for this. They keep delaying and delaying. I rather sense the delay in bringing this bill forward is that wishful thinking that they have over there that things will improve. They prefer not to look at the reality of where we are but simply to hope that something will improve, so they delay it and we delay it. The biggest argument the Minister of Finance makes to us is that the most important plank of their program is employment generation. We've sat in this legislature since April 5, and we only dealt with the bill about two weeks ago. We finished it last week.

You have to have an ordering of your priorities. There was nothing ready when we came here. There was nothing included in this bill that meant anything, in terms of the arguments that the minister offers to us — that we are planning our way out of this. You have no plans. You do not know what to do at all. Yet we have the specious nonsense coming across the floor: "Give us solutions." You're the government — that's why you were elected. If you haven't got the solutions, then you had better go to the people and get another endorsement. Get another endorsement.

MR. KEMPF: Ha, ha, ha!

MR. LEVI: Ha, ha, ha! the member says. There are only three members in this House on the other side who got elected in 1975 that never made it into the cabinet, and one of them is the economic expert from Omineca (Mr. Kempf), the wolf chaser. They haven't recognized his talents, have they, Mr. Speaker? It's very unfortunate, because he would tell us how to do it. He's going to tell us, when he gets up tomorrow, what his solutions are.

MR. KEMPF: How does your son in Fraser Lake vote?

MR. LEVI: My son in Fraser Lake is unemployed.

AN HON. MEMBER: How did he vote?

MR. LEVI: Why don't you go and ask him? He's a constituent of yours.

We have an indication that you want to wrap it up, so I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Introduction of Bills

ATTORNEY-GENERAL STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

Hon. Mr. Williams presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Attorney-General Statutes Amendment Act, 1982.

Bill 62 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.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:58 p.m.