[ Page 507 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Termination of Government Employees. Mr. Barnes –– 507

Reduction of Human Resources' Staff. Mr. Parks –– 508

Reduction in Human Resources' Services. Mr. Barnes –– 508

Municipal Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 9). Second Reading.

Mrs. Wallace –– 509

Mr. Pelton –– 511

Mr. Rose –– 513

Mrs. Johnston –– 516

Mr. Stupich –– 518

Mr. Cocke –– 521

Mrs. Dailly –– 523

Mr. Mitchell –– 525

Mr. Howard –– 527

Appendix –– 532

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1983

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. CURTIS: For those of us who have an interest in British Columbia and Victoria history, this is an important date. It is a date being marked by the Sisters of the Order of St. Ann, who arrived 125 years ago in Victoria to establish a small school. It's interesting, Mr. Speaker, that — I believe, if I'm correct in my information — they arrived on a Saturday and commenced their first classes on the following Monday. They were four sisters of the Order of St. Ann, accompanied by Bishop Modeste deMers from the province of Quebec. The actual anniversary occurs in June, but it is today that members of the Order of St. Ann are celebrating a very significant anniversary –– 125 years. I believe one member of the order is in the gallery today. Perhaps the House would recognize that date.

MR. SKELLY: I ask the House to welcome a number of my constituents who are in the gallery today. Mrs. Linda DeVito is here with her daughters Kristin and Jana. They are visiting the Legislature with my wife Alexandra and my children Susan and Robbie. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mr. Ian Downey, my neighbour from Cranbrook, to the Legislature. He was the campaign manager for Harry Mathias in the Kootenay riding. I would like everyone to give him a good welcome.

MR. CAMPBELL: I would like the House to show respect to Mr. Reid, the second member for Surrey, who caught a purse-snatcher out on the street last night. A tourist from Washington had been attacked by a purse-snatcher and the hon. member caught the purse-snatcher. The police were called and the man was arrested. Mr. Speaker, that goes to show you that our members are taking care of the public. Thank you.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House to welcome two friends of mine from Vancouver who are sitting in your gallery today, Mr. Ted Rogers and Mr. John Rogers of Touchstone Investments Ltd. I ask the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would like all members to bid a very warm and special welcome to a lady who is very well respected by this side of the House, Mrs. Rosemary Dolman.

Oral Questions

TERMINATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Deputy Premier. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot; the former Deputy Premier. She is a victim of restraint as well. I want to apologize for that error, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question to the Minister of Human Resources. On Thursday of last week, the minister told this House that staff firings would be conducted in an orderly, humane and proper way. She said: "Our ministry staff will be the ones who will be told. We will not be firing staff through the media." Can the minister advise why ministry staff had to learn of their firing yesterday through the news media and why she insulted the House in the way she did last Friday?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The second part of the question is highly irregular and not in order in question period. The first part of the question....

MR. BARNES: I will withdraw the insult part and say: why did she misguide or mislead the House?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm pleased to respond to the question regarding the notification of staff in my ministry, because our ministry administration has gone through a very great deal of trouble to make sure that the staff who would be terminated would be advised in a very orderly and proper way.

I was very surprised to see two members of my ministry staff interviewed on television last night, apparently surprised. I followed that up this morning by asking my deputy how that could have happened. Let me tell you that the procedures in place were to make sure that all management staff knew of the terminations. They would then be able to advise staff yesterday morning or afternoon, before the public was advised. Secondly, all staff members would receive a letter from the deputy minister. All those in the lower mainland and most of those on Vancouver Island would receive them yesterday afternoon, and those others who are further away from either the Victoria head office or the Vancouver mailing and delivery service would probably receive them later in the week; however, they would be told verbally by their supervisors.

[2:15]

We have gone to great lengths and trouble to make sure that they were informed properly and with due respect for good labour practices. They are being given four months' notice in some cases, nine months' notice in some cases, and some are to be terminated in March of next year. They have been given very lengthy terms of notice as compared with terminations given in the private sector.

MR. BARNES: I would like to thank the minister for her response and suggest that she meant well. She meant to be humane, but she failed.

The minister has fired those staff in the ministry who have the responsibility of keeping families together. Family counsellors have reduced child apprehensions and children in custody by 20 percent in the past 12 years. In 1970 there were 10,500 cases and in 1982 there were 8,500. Has the minister decided how she will deal with the increased need for custody care which will follow the firing of family support workers?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the family support program is the largest program in the announcement yesterday. The total program is being eliminated. It has been in place since 1978 in this province. I believe it has done a very good service since it was started, and I do not take away from it the service which it has undertaken. It involves over 200 people. That does not mean, however, that the services for children in which the member is showing some concern — and it is a concern which we on all sides of the House

[ Page 508 ]

share, the concern for families and children — will be neglected by this ministry. On the contrary, there is a very large group of people in our ministry who will continue to address these concerns. You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that that service is putting a child support worker into individual homes, and the numbers of homes that they can cover are limited in number, in comparison to other services in our ministry. I can assure the member that the services for children will be very well looked after in this province, because we have been known to be in the forefront in Canada in that regard.

MR. BARNES: The support which the ministry staff had been able to provide under trying circumstances has reduced a number of child apprehensions. At the same time, the minister has fired the support staff and is phasing out specialized child-care resources for children in custody. Where does the minister think she will care for the increased number of children in custody as a result of the staff firings?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the implication in that question is that there is no staff left at all, and that's not true. That is just simply not a fact of life. One service within the ministry has been terminated; that is, the family support worker service. It has been in place for four years in this province and it has now been terminated. Other services that pay tribute to support for families and children are still there. The foster care service, the war on child abuse and social workers are still there. There is no diminution of services in any of those and there will not be.

MR. BARNES: The minister has said that community groups will pick up the services which the government has axed. Will the minister then explain why she announced yesterday a 25 percent cut in community grants across the province?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where the announcement of a 25 percent cut in community grants came from. That's news to me. Maybe the member would like to explain that.

I would like to explain my comment regarding community services because you did make mention of it. Please do not misunderstand the statement that I've made to the press. I have said, in response to the same sort of question, that there are many service clubs, churches and other organizations in the province which, by virtue of their commitment, will be picking up some of that service, and I'm quite sure they will. I'm sure there are many churches that would do as they did historically and traditionally in this province for very many years before government did any of this kind of work.

MR. BARNES: I'll correct a percentage, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps it was a 100 percent rather than a 25 percent reduction in grants to the communities, especially to the ones that provide information to seniors in need.

The minister has clearly put the cart before the horse and executed her ministry hit list before known support services are in place. Is the minister now prepared to demonstrate her alleged concern for the people involved by getting her act together before she commences savaging people's careers by pink-slipping her ministry staff?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, not only is the question out of order, but it was very poorly read by the member.

REDUCTION OF HUMAN RESOURCES' STAFF

MR. PARKS: My question is to the hon. Minister of Human Resources. In this morning's press there appears once again an attempt to mislead the public of this province. Would you clarify for the House whether or not any of the staff of your department were told they would be fired immediately if they talked publicly about their situation?

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, planted questions of that nature, giving the minister an opportunity to do what she should have done on motions by making a statement are improper.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, every member of this chamber has the right to pose questions. The Chair has recognized the member. Further, if points of order are to be raised and not interfere with our time in question period, they can be addressed, as they have been on numerous occasions, at the conclusion of question period.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the question asked by the member is one on which I have already responded to the media, because I was surprised and shocked to see the allegation in the morning news. I would like to share that answer with the House, and I'm pleased the question was asked. I did not have knowledge of the question, but I am pleased it was asked. The answer is no, none of my staff people have been threatened in any way by the administration of my ministry, nor will they be threatened in any way.

REDUCTIONS IN HUMAN RESOURCES' SERVICES

MR. BARNES: My question is to the Minister of Human Resources. The minister has suggested that this member has difficulty delivering his questions in a form that she feels acceptable, and I will accept that criticism. I want to ask the minister what she has done personally to fight against her colleagues on that side of the House to protect the people in this province who need Human Resources' services. Is she saying that she goes along with these restraint measures that are destroying families and homes and children?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The allegation that we are destroying homes and families is absolutely a typical socialist charge which is untrue and which is one of the kinds of charges which they would like to have made a fact of life in this province, because that's the way they fight politics. But, Mr. Speaker, let me assure the member that all he has to do is refer to the budget where the increase to the Ministry of Human Resources is very great this year. It is larger than last year; it has been continually so under the administration of this minister. It has continued to strengthen over the years in

[ Page 509 ]

terms of our commitment as a government to social services in this province and will continue to do so.

MR. BARNES: The Minister of Human Resources has indicated that the government is committed to statutory responsibilities, social assistance and protection of children under the family and child services legislation. She said she is not cutting off core programs. Why is she keeping the people who look for those who are cheating — in other words, the officers in the minister's department who are...? What shall we call them — the fraud squad? Who are they? Are they also core? Are they that essential that you would cut out programs for children but keep the people who try to watch those few who may, out of desperation, try to steal a few dollars? Is that the commitment of this government?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Well, I assume that the first member for Vancouver Centre is referring to the inspectors' program on the income assistance program. The income assistance program in the province is almost half a billion dollars, and the inspectors' program is one which assists the ministry in making sure that the income assistance is received by those in need, not by those who would defraud. Mr. Speaker, I just want to emphasize that within those families which we are protecting from fraud are children who we are providing income assistance for.

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition rises on a point of order.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, a serious allegation was made in the House during the question by the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) saying that a press report was misleading the public. I would suggest that when those charges are made, evidence should be tabled with this House so the House can deal with irresponsible press stories in an official manner, rather than by wild accusations without evidence. That's the normal practice, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is beyond the scope of the Chair. The member is fully aware of that.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order with respect to the question by the hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks), it is long since practice in question period that no question be based upon a direct reference to an item in the press.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

MR. LAUK: In the interests of order and fair play in question period, the Speaker should, without interruption from any other member, find those questions out of order. I ask Your Honour to take that into consideration.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, as I have stated on numerous occasions, if the Chair were to strictly interpret the rules of question period, there wouldn't be a question period, I respectfully submit. Therefore I would ask all members, in the spirit of question period, which is really an opposition period of time to ask questions of the government, to remember that we are in question period and that they should ask questions.

Hon. members, I have taken the opportunity to submit to each member a brief recap of some of the rules of question period, and possibly if members were to peruse that we would find that our procedures move a little more quickly and much more in order.

[2:30]

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 9.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT, 1983
(continued)

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MRS. WALLACE: I want to deal with this bill as a member who lives in a rural area and, therefore, is very much affected by regional boards. I think that much of the argument that has been presented during this debate has been very indicative of the reason why we are suddenly faced with this piece of legislation. It indicates that there have been a few people — and I submit there are very few — and a few areas that have felt frustrated because of majority community decisions. As a result of that, there has been pressure put upon this government to introduce this bill in order to allow minorities, as a part of the greater whole, to make decisions independently from the majority decisions of that greater whole. So really what we are talking about is the correctness and the desirability of doing our planning for the future on the basis of small, localized concerns, or whether that planning should be done on the basis of the community at large. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that we should be doing that planning on the basis of the community at large. What is happening with this bill is removing that ability to plan for the future on the basis of the community at large.

You know, you're never going to please everybody with planning, because somebody isn't going to like what you come up with. My good friend from Omineca was talking about how he would really like to just get rid of regional boards completely. I don't know if he lives within the municipality or the village or town of Houston, or if he's outside the limits, but I know that he has a very nice home constructed there. Let's assume for a minute that it's outside the limits of the town of Houston. I'm sure that that member would not....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, the member for Cowichan-Malahat has the floor. Perhaps we could refrain from private discussions here and there, and show some parliamentary courtesy.

MRS. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm sure that that member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) must visit his home occasionally. Assuming that that is outside the

[ Page 510 ]

limits of the village of Houston, he would not like to go home some weekend and find that a hog farm had located on one side of his home and a culvert-manufacturing plant was operating around the clock on the other side of his home. That's the kind of thing that happens, Mr. Speaker, if you don't have some kind of overall planning. There is no protection for your investment in your home or in your community if those plans can be wiped out, as will happen — as is happening — with this bill. Those are the things that can happen. Those are some of the concerns that I have.

I also have the concern, Mr. Speaker, that in fact we are kowtowing — may I use that word; is that a usable word in the Legislature? — to a very small minority. Probably one municipality in all of the Greater Vancouver Regional District is supportive of this particular piece of legislation. All the others are not, and I think there are something like 15. Mr. Speaker, I happen to have a couple of very interesting pieces of information here. I have a resolution that was passed today by Vancouver city council, and I would like to read it into the record:

"Whereas many groups in the city and throughout the province have raised serious questions about many aspects of the 26 pieces of legislation before the House in connection with the budget.

"And whereas these bills have little to do with restraint as such, but involve severe restrictions on human, social and democratic rights.

"And whereas, under provisions of Bill 3 in particular, members of city council could be fined up to $2,000 for failure to take a position ordered by Victoria.

"Therefore be it resolved that this city council calls upon the provincial government to take a second look and withdraw all 26 pieces of legislation, and to initiate discussion with all the affected groups, before making any new legislative proposals on all matters in question.

"And be it further resolved that as far as Bills 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 22, 26 and 27 are concerned, bills which directly affect the operation of Vancouver city council, that we take steps to adopt a definitive position on these matters, for the purpose of formal representation to the provincial government."

That's a resolution passed by the council of the city of Vancouver, certainly the largest metropolitan area in our province, representing a great number of voters in the province and certainly a great number of people who live in the lower mainland area and are expressing their concern and their desire for some consultation with this government. I'm wondering why the minister responsible hasn't taken time to consult with that group and with other groups around the province before introducing this legislation so hastily into this chamber for discussion. I'm wondering why he hasn't taken time to meet with these people and to hear their concerns before foisting this legislation on us here in Victoria. What's the panic? What's the haste? Why do we need to get on with this? Is it because someone is waiting in the wings with their bulldozers at the ready in the community of Delta, say, on the Spetifore property, which has been mentioned many times? Or, as has been mentioned in the Province of this week, are developers that covet farmland now waiting quietly for the bill to be proclaimed? Woodward's, which is planning a large shopping centre in Surrey, is expected to be the first beneficiary. Is that why this is being pushed into the Legislature, rushed through here without taking time to consult with the people concerned?

This is a government fond of talking about good economics and good, sound business sense. It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker — again, going back to the GVRD — that the combined capital investment programs of the municipalities of the GVRD.... It's very difficult for anybody like me driving through that area to know where one municipality starts and the other ends. I'm sure you from the north have the same problem. It is a conglomerate of urban development, with a conglomerate of various governments that only the people who live there, I'm sure, can sort out as to where one begins and the other starts. So to move in the direction of doing away with any sort of overall regional control seems very strange.

The point I wanted to make is that in that combined group of municipalities there is a capital investment that averages about $100 million per year. That's about $95 per capita. In addition to that, you have to add the regional thing; that's just the various municipalities added together. If you add in the various regional things like water, sewage, transit, hospitals, all those sorts of things, it's much more than that. What does it cost to have an overall planning system by the GVRD in that area? What is the cost to the taxpayer of that planning system, which is planning for some kind of orderly development of that $100 million investment? It's $1.3 million, or an average of $1.08, to have some reasonable, rational planning in place on a $100 million investment. Doesn't it make good economic sense to keep that kind of planning in place? It certainly does to me.

I just don't understand a government that is bringing in this kind of legislation. Why? Is it because they have a need to satisfy some political commitments relating to a supermarket by Woodward's or a subdivision by Dawn Development? Is that the reason behind this? Or does it relate to other areas as well?

It certainly relates to my own area, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) has received a letter from the city of Duncan, dated July 12, of which I have a copy. It is signed by the mayor of Duncan, Mayor Douglas W. Barker, who is certainly no supporter of my particular political party.

"Dear Sir:

"It is with deep concern that the city of Duncan has learned of the abolition of regional planning in British Columbia. We have a very good regional plan in the Cowichan Valley Regional District. The city of Duncan has been planned as the commercial core."

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Just listen for a minute, Mr. Minister.

"Now, in anticipation of the revised regional planning act, the municipality of North Cowichan" — which sort of surrounds Duncan city — "is in the process of rezoning 12 acres of land from rural to commercial."

The municipality of North Cowichan — a pretty large and strong municipality in the Cowichan Valley — is a member of the Cowichan Valley Regional District. The mayor of North Cowichan is no stranger to the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips). He often talks about him in this House. He just happens to be the man who

[ Page 511 ]

was very much after my seat during the last election. So the municipality of North Cowichan is in the process of rezoning 12 acres of land from rural to commercial.

"This land adjoins the city of Duncan, is in a strip along the highway and abuts Somenos Lake. This proposed commercial zone would be larger than the commercial core of the city of Duncan.

"This new plan completely destroys years of good regional planning. The Duncan city core has just been revitalized" — under, I may say, Mr. Speaker, a very good program that that government initiated, the downtown core revitalization program — "at a cost to the merchants of $400,000. This work was done under a British Columbia government program and was undertaken by the merchants on the strength of a good regional district plan."

In other words, Mr. Speaker, the regional community plan was in place. Duncan was the downtown commercial core, and those merchants were prepared to put their money where their mouth was and invest $400,000 in upgrading their facility under the downtown rehabilitation program to ensure that there was a good commercial centre for people who lived in the area. Now that's gone. North Cowichan can rezone their rural land to commercial, to up their tax base, right along the highway. If they so decide, they can allow a strip development to go in there that will completely destroy Duncan city. Mr. Speaker, it is not good economic sense to allow a second area to be built up that will offset the money and the work that has gone into ensuring that we have a good commercial centre within that area.

[2:45]

He goes on to say: "I would urge you to review this legislation. The effect in this community could be to completely destroy the economy of the city of Duncan and those forward-looking businessmen who have invested their time and money in the city."

That's just one sample of the kind of concern out there. And yet here we are, with this piece of legislation being brought in so hastily, with no notice at all, no prior discussion between the minister and the people concerned. It is of extreme concern to me that we're being faced with discussing this particular piece of legislation before those discussions have taken place.

Another concern that I have relates very specifically to the rural areas. The whole idea of community planning in the rural areas.... The plans are wiped out, cancelled, destroyed. The bill says something to the effect that it repeals the sections that relate to community plans. It takes away the rights of regional districts to bring in plans. One section says that all regional plans and official regional plans prepared or designated before the repeal of these sections are cancelled and have no effect. So there we are with no planning.

It goes on to say that a regional board or district may — and I emphasize the word "may" — introduce a community settlement plan. But there are really no teeth in that. There's really no assurance that that's going to be lasting or binding. It's not going to assure the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) that he's not going to find a hog farm next door to his nice residence. It's not going to assure me that I'm not going to go home someday and find the vacant lot next to me has been taken over by some rather noisy industry. That's not the kind of rural life that those of us who live in those areas anticipate. That's not the kind of atmosphere that we look forward to when we live in a rural area. That's my concern.

Another concern that I have, Mr. Speaker, relates to the fact that while I and my representatives, as rural representatives on a regional board, will have nothing to say about what happens in any of the municipalities or cities or towns within that regional district, there is no change in the sections of this act which set up the voting procedures on regional boards. What I'm saying is that members of municipal and city councils who sit on regional boards — and who will continue to sit there, as the act will now read — will have the right.... Normally their vote is greater than the rural vote; certainly that's the case where I live. The people who represent those municipalities and towns and cities will have the power to dictate what happens even with a settlement plan in a rural area. What I see happening is that things like garbage dumps, which aren't wanted within the confines of a given municipality or city or village, can well be placed outside those boundaries in the rural areas. The whole setup allows for that.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: The minister says the regional district wanted to put a garbage dump in Fort Langley. I would expect any decisions to be made by a majority decision of a group within that area.

The minister refers to Texada Island, and we certainly know what happened there; there was a great outcry against that. The rural areas are going to become the Texada Islands of every municipality in this province. That's exactly what's going to happen, because those members of municipal and city councils who sit on those regional boards are going to be able to carry those votes. We really don't have anything to say even about our own community settlement plan, as little power as they have to regulate us as far as development goes.

To me, it seems utterly unfair and undemocratic to take away from the rural representatives the right to have something to say about what happens in municipal areas, yet allow people from municipalities, villages, towns and cities to continue to have the same representation on regional boards in their planning, limited as it is. That concerns me very much, because it is very undemocratic; but again, it's symbolic of the kind of legislation this government seems inclined to bring in.

For all those reasons, it's very obvious that I do not support this legislation. From an economic point of view, it's obvious that planning pays. And from a social point of view, it's obvious that planning pays. And from the point of view of today's lifestyle, where we move about so quickly and easily over such extensive areas, indeed it is important that we extend our planning to cover the greater community, not just some lesser part of that whole for expediency or profit or political payoff.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, this is only the second opportunity I have had to talk to this House. I do rise to speak to Bill 9. Having sat up there on three or four occasions, I certainly appreciate the standing order with respect to relevancy, but there is a point I feel I must make to set the record straight before I launch into what I have to say. I have very few remarks, as a matter of fact, with regard to Bill 9.

If I may, I would like to acknowledge a most unfortunate but completely inadvertent oversight during my first speech to this assembly. In my zeal to get my maiden speech off my chest, I offered to stand at the top of the batting order and did

[ Page 512 ]

not enjoy the benefits of hearing many others speak. I therefore proceeded blissfully ignorant of the tradition of this House to congratulate Mr. Speaker and Mr. Deputy Speaker on their respective appointments. I'm a strong believer in tradition, because I think it brings a sense of time and place, in a historic sense anyway, and a sense of dignity and decorum which in my view is essential to a forum such as this. Therefore I belatedly but most sincerely add my congratulations to those of my colleagues on both sides of this House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I would appreciate your conveying my sentiments to the hon. member for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson). I know that you are both well aware at this time of my respect for the position that you uphold, as evidenced by my interest in learning all the intricacies of the Chair and by the fact that I keep this little red book close at hand all the time. Mind you, Mr. Speaker, this latter point could prove difficult, as there are those who might take solace in the fact that there was another chairman, now departed, who also was noted for having a little red book.

Now to Bill 9, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to take too much time. I'm not given to making long speeches, but I would like to deal with this bill under two or three different headings, and the first point that I would like to deal with is the fact that I'm concerned. There seems to be some misunderstanding in this House with regard to what this bill is trying to achieve. It has been suggested by a number of people that the introduction of this bill would do nothing more than — to use a word which was a favourite of the late John Diefenbaker — emasculate the regional districts from the point of view of planning. I don't see this as being the case at all. I think that the bill deals with the official regional plan, and that's about where it ends.

I have a couple of things here that might back up what I'm saying. First of all, there's a very small article that I would quote from the Daily Sentinel, which I understand is a Kamloops newspaper. This is a statement made by Mr. John Taylor, the deputy Municipal Affairs minister, in which he stated that this bill does not eliminate the existing powers of regional districts to zone land in the unincorporated areas. He went on to state that the regional districts will continue to function in the unorganized areas and deal with official settlement plans. He said that the latter documents designate future land uses for specific areas within a district.

I would like for just a moment, Mr. Speaker, to borrow a page from the book of the hon. second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), and perhaps deal with a number of items that I believe are very relevant to this bill that I bring forward out of my experience with the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District. This district has an official regional plan, as have most other regional districts, I believe, at this point in time. But that is not where their planning function begins and ends. They also have a planning function for local jurisdictions and for electoral areas; they provide all of the planning for that particular function and they also provide planning on a contract basis for other areas, for small municipalities and communities which cannot afford to have planners of their own.

They are involved in an interface type of planning, as has been mentioned by some of the members who have spoken previously on this bill, on matters which relate to things like sewer and water services. As a matter of fact, the Greater Vancouver Regional District is very deeply involved in these two services which are provided to municipalities. This, I would suggest, is one of the original reasons why regional districts were formed: to provide this type of service which doesn't know geographic delineation, but spreads over from one side to the other.

[3:00]

The Dewdney-Alouette Regional District not only has responsibility, as I have stated, for these other matters, but I would just like to read out to you a number of the other things that they do handle through their planning department. They do research which is related to the function of regional hospitals and provide data for decision-making to those bodies; they become involved in agricultural land reserve administration, the applications for pieces of land taken from the reserve being processed through the regional district, and they also handle these applications through to the Land Commission, if they get that far. They have a responsibility for regional parks planning; they do base maps for regional use; they keep track of land inventories — and I'm still just speaking about the regional district with which I am familiar; and they also develop and establish regional data bases which are useful for a variety of purposes, like public works planning, monitoring regional development, and that kind of thing. They also get involved in things like population forecasting so that people down the road will have some idea of what they're working with in that regard. They have input into provincial corridor planning and, as has been stated and seems to have been accepted as one of their responsibilities, are involved in official settlement plans. I believe that, contrary to what has been suggested just a moment ago, most areas do have settlement plans in place. They also have a responsibility for the administration of the Soil Conservation Act.

So, Mr. Speaker, I must repeat that I don't see Bill 9 as being the end of the regional planning function. Also, suggestions that have been made that you could, if this bill goes through, wake up some morning and find a piggery next door to you, or some other kind of development which is not compatible....

Interjection.

MR. PELTON: A piggery, I think I said. Yes.

This really cannot happen, because regional districts, like municipalities, have zoning bylaws, and this type of thing is controlled through the zoning bylaw. I haven't read anything in this legislation which says there will no longer be zoning bylaws.

I would like to speak for just a moment or two about APCs — advisory planning commissions. It was mentioned yesterday, I believe, by the second member for Victoria. He mentioned the advisory planning commissions. These commissions were developed many years ago before most municipalities or cities had planning departments or planners. Advisory planning commissions served a very real and useful role in the controlled development of areas in which they functioned. There are many planning commissions which are still functioning and which still provide this kind of service. There is nothing that's indicated to me that this procedure will be affected under this particular piece of legislation. Most of the cities, I believe, and the large municipalities no longer have advisory planning commissions, simply because they have planning departments. But there are other areas, I know, within the regional districts.... The Dewdney-Alouette Regional District has a very active planning commission which does great service to all of the people they serve, particularly the people who live in the electoral areas where

[ Page 513 ]

the only form of government they have available to them is that government that they get from the regional district.

Just for one moment I would like to talk about the technical planning committees that are being done away with under this legislation. It has been my personal view for some time now that.... I suppose way back somewhere these particular committees had a value, but in my view they have outlived any usefulness which they might have had. I personally have found, particularly over the last three years, that they did yeoman's service at the time that official regional plans were being developed. An official regional plan is, as I'm sure everybody appreciates, just like an overlay kind of thing. You put all the community plans together, and you can take the official regional plan and lay it over the top and it fits on there just beautifully. All of the functions are identical — almost identical — except that in the official regional plan they are more widely defined than they are in the community plan, where they get down to the nitty-gritty.

AN HON. MEMBER: There are more bureaucrats involved in it.

MR. PELTON: Yes, that's true enough.

The TPC, I would suggest, probably had some value, but as I also suggest, it has outlived its usefulness, and I see no harm in its being done away with. They've got to the point now where they are an impediment, I believe, to the ongoing development within particular municipalities.

I might give you just a couple of examples of the kind of thing I found very difficult to live with. The TPC becomes involved in applications for removal or subdivision of agricultural land reserve parcels. On many occasions I have sat on the planning committee of the regional district from my own municipality.... Here's a planning committee that's made up of people from the municipalities which are in the regional district, plus one of the regional directors, and we have been dealing with a subdivision application within the agricultural land reserve. This is quite permissive. There's no problem. You can subdivide within the agricultural land reserve, but within different jurisdictions they will have stipulated the size of parcels that agricultural land can be subdivided into. The TPC with which we have had to deal has, for some reason or other, locked onto the idea — and perhaps it came out of the Land Commission at one time — that parcels within the ALR should not be subdivided into less than ten acres. People have come forward with applications that are.... If you applied good logic to these applications I think it would be no problem at all to justify the fact that they could be subdivided into smaller parcels than ten acres. But the TPCs choose the ten acres, and invariably they come forward with this negative kind of a statement. It becomes monotonous that it must be ten acres.

A viable piece of agricultural land certainly doesn't have to be ten acres in size. I can give an example of why that's not true. In Pitt Meadows we have a young man who is renowned throughout this province for the cucumbers he grows. He grows enough cucumbers to make a very good living and to support a family, and I believe he hires one or two people. He grows these cucumbers on 100,000 square feet of land. If that isn't viable farming, I don't know what it is. On top of that, the cucumbers are not even planted in the land; they're grown in pots. I just cite that as an example of the type of thing we've been getting out of the TPCs, and which I think we can do without henceforth.

The last thing I would like to speak about before I sit down is the matter of autonomy for municipalities and other jurisdictions when it comes to planning. I believe this is absolutely essential. I have never been able to accept the fact that someone from some other area could judge the kind of planning that goes on within my municipality by the people who are elected to serve the municipality; the carefully thought-out plans that they have approved, plans that have been presented to them by the planners they pay, and that have gone to public hearings in many cases. I cannot condone the idea that some other jurisdiction should have anything to say about whether this type of thing should go forward or not. I believe this is a form of decentralization. It is a form of autonomy that I believe municipalities are entitled to. I believe those people who sit opposite support what I am saying, and I would like to quote from Hansard. This is the first time I've stood on my feet and made a little speech without having everything all written out, so forgive me for just a moment.

This first one, from Hansard of April 6, 1982, is taken from a speech made by one of the gentlemen opposite, whom I admire very much. I've sat here and listened to him speak; he's an excellent speaker. I don't necessarily like all the things he says, but I certainly enjoy the way he says them. That's the hon. member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea). In a speech that he made he said:

As a matter of fact, when the entire western world is starting to take a look at the centralized economy that we have with some worry — I think with well-grounded worry — when the whole world is taking a look at a decentralized economic system and a decentralized system of government, this government is going to a centralized system more and more and more. More of the decisions that were made at one time at the local level are now coming into this province's capital to be made by a small group of people we call cabinet. More and more and more we see the industrial and economic decisions that were once made at the local level being made further and further away from the local area — in New York, in Japan, all over the world, eastern Canada. As we see those local decisions in our own economy slipping away from us, we also see local government decisions slipping away from us, into either Victoria or into Ottawa. A government that says they are for the people, that they want the people in this province to make the decisions that affect them.... This government has gone exactly the other way around, in terms of schools, in terms of municipalities, in terms of regional districts. Every one of those areas has had powers taken away from them and transferred into the cabinet rooms in Victoria.

MR. REID: Who said that?

MR. PELTON: That was the hon. member for Prince Rupert. Perhaps he was right at that time, but by George, we're trying to change it now. We're trying to turn some autonomy back to the municipalities, and for that reason, if for no other, I stand here and support Bill 9, and I would recommend support from both sides of the House.

MR. ROSE: This afternoon I would like to offer a few musings on this particular piece of legislation. I don't expect to speak at any great length, which will probably please the members opposite, and my own colleagues as well.

[3:15]

I would like to take issue with a few of the things my good friend from Dewdney said just recently. I don't suggest that he has misled us in any way or is particularly confused himself, but I think he needs to be clarified on one or two little items here. I think it's true to say that the whole package of 26 or 27 bills.... They tend to be centralizing bills. When it

[ Page 514 ]

comes to education, and to municipalities and their financing, whether we're talking about the ability of a municipality or an institution to pay salaries, to hire staff.... All that kind of stuff is being centralized in the ministry. We know that there are diseconomies of scale. But when it comes to the autonomous zoning of land, then it's up to the municipalities, and this is where the municipalities are most vulnerable.

As the mayor of a large municipality, which I once represented federally, I think the members should know that the very reason we have a land use act at all, and an agricultural land reserve, is that the municipalities were not able to withstand the pressures of development, because they didn't have the strength individually. So they were being picked off one by one over the years. I've been in municipal life a little bit — not a lot, but some — and I can recall that we had a lower mainland regional plan approved by the municipalities before we had a lower mainland regional district. It was the regional plan and the districts within that that asked for and ultimately received in 1966 or 1967 the letters patent for the lower mainland regional district. Now that didn't last very long; it lasted only one year. It lasted until the Roberts Bank issue came about, and it had to do with where those rail lines to the Roberts Bank coalport were to be directed. It became a terrific issue. The regional district, which was one year old, was led by a man who's now in the Council of Forest Industries — Alderman Don Lanskail at the time. Where that rail line was to go became a profound political issue. The regional district became a political force that threatened the power of the provincial government. Within a year of the letters patent being issued for the planning function of that district, because it became a political instrument and because it disagreed with the government, the plan was scrapped. The district was scrapped.

So we had three or four more created out of it. It was "divide and conquer." Exactly the same thing is happening here. Where do you think we got Dewdney-Alouette Regional District? It was all part of the lower mainland regional district. These were districts that asked for and received that plan, and were granted letters patent for one year. They were just withdrawn by fiat by the provincial government, by the Hon. W.A.C. Bennett. Where do you think the Fraser-Cheam Regional District came from? It came from the same thing, and so did the Central Fraser Valley Regional District. They came about as "divide and conquer," because the regional plan was so strong and so concerned about the region that it became a political threat. It frustrated the ambitions and the objectives of the Premier of this province.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: The hon. member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland) has his dates all mixed up. He wasn't in this House at the time; he wasn't even in municipal politics. He was a broadcaster at that time, and he was able to reach all the citizens in Langley without the aid of a microphone.

I really think it's important to set the record straight. Who asked for the regional planning to begin with? The municipalities. Who asked for the planning function? The municipalities. Who chopped up the lower mainland regional plan into about four or five parcels and left other areas completely vulnerable? It was the provincial government. The same thing has happened again. My good friend and colleague from Dewdney says that he doesn't understand why there's this big misunderstanding about all plans being cancelled.

We didn't say all planning is being cancelled — certainly not for things like sewers, water, transportation or hospitals. We know those aren't being cancelled. I refer the hon. member — and I ask him to look at the bill — to section 808(l). It says here: "Elimination of regional plans and official regional plans. All regional plans and official regional plans prepared or designated before sections 807 and 808 were repealed are cancelled and have no effect." Well, it seems to me that what you've got there is the very contradiction of what the member asserted. Therefore I find it a little difficult to understand what he is saying.

Look, it's land use planning that's being attacked in this bill; it's not all planning. I repeat that when it happens to be something that controls the purse-strings, then this government wants to centralize; but when it has occasion to leave a municipality vulnerable, then we've got autonomy. I don't think you can have it both ways, but maybe you can. Maybe the idea is, after all, that you won the election and you can do as you like. Land use planning is extremely important in British Columbia, but there are other aspects as well. The business of a region is a pretty important one.

The member for Dewdney represents a municipality that is sandwiched between two other municipalities. At least to my knowledge, at the moment he has had no examples of developments right on his border. But ask Coquitlam. Coquitlam had Burnaby put a huge shopping centre right on its border and Port Coquitlam had Coquitlam put a huge shopping centre on its border. It seems to me that consultation in regard to those matters is extremely important.

If Pitt Meadows, for instance, with this bill passing decided to put a huge gas plant or some sort of heavy industry that was going to be polluting on the border with Maple Ridge, it would be very serious. If you couldn't handle it regionally, I don't know how you would handle it. As a matter of fact, I've been to many meetings with the hon. member dealing with the regional plan and its economic development. I think that he would agree that intramunicipal planning is extremely important. You don't have a vehicle if it's a notwithstanding — "notwithstanding anything it says here, we don't have to pay any attention to you as a region." Then I think we've lost something that we've gained. I put it no more harshly than that. I don't say it's the black hand of the state or the absence of it or whatever. I think we've got to be reasonable about it or we're not believable. I, for one, regret the fact that regions will no longer have an opportunity to control their own destinies in an organized way. It is left up to a particular municipality to make its own decisions. I don't think that's proper.

Let's say it's acid rain, air pollution or whatever; land use planning is similarly important and needs to be cherished. So I intend to vote against this particular piece of....

MR. REID: Why?

MR. ROSE: Because I don't think most municipalities want it either.

MR. REID: Oh, yeah?

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't know about most, but all I know is, as Will Rogers used to say, "All I know is what I read in the papers."

[ Page 515 ]

I'm not going to read you the city of Vancouver's latest pronouncements. We've heard from the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) on that one, so I don't need to repeat it. But I got a letter, as did my colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks), from the district of Coquitlam, which I am honoured to represent, regarding regional planning functions. It says here:

"The municipal council of the district of Coquitlam at their meeting July 18, 1983, adopted the following resolution: 'That council reaffirms its endorsation of the ten recommendations in the proposal of April 16, 1982, from the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel, said recommendations attached to the letter from the GVRD, dated July 12, 1983, addressed to Mayor Brian Robinson, and the council's endorsation of the ten recommendations be made known to Coquitlam MLAs, the GVRD and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.' "

Then there is a reference to their recommendations, and I'm certainly not going to bore the House by reading all of those recommendations, but I think the important one is this:

"That the intermunicipal planning function should be provided in legislation for the metropolitan economic areas such as the lower mainland and greater Victoria, which have large and growing populations and numerous local government jurisdictions."

That's the way that at least one municipality I represent feels about it. I have to at least present their representation. That letter went to the minister. I think that we fool ourselves if we say that deregulation is going to solve our problems. Deregulation didn't solve the airline problems in the United States. Go down to Arizona and look at the planes on the ground. It didn't increase the traffic and it didn't even make the fares much cheaper; it put all the airlines out of business. So don't look to deregulation as some sort of magic panacea that is somehow going to solve all our problems, because it isn't going to do it.

What is this business that we're mired somehow and we're in a tanglefoot of regulations? Of course we are. How can we operate as a civilized society unless we have some rules to follow? The argument here is not whether we need rules; the argument is what the rules should be and how many should we have. But if it becomes vital to the development of our region, where is the population on the lower mainland going to go except up the Fraser Valley? There is no other place for it to go. We can chase it up on the hillside. We can prevent urban sprawl. Surrey nearly went broke just after the war because they couldn't service urban sprawl. It seems to me that there is a regional function here. If you deprive that region of those powers, then it is going to be very difficult. I doubt, Mr. Speaker, in all sort of kindness and benign approach that I can take to this, that we would have had this problem had it not been for the Spetifore land deal. I know we've had other problems — Grosvenor, Laing and other sorts of attacks on the Land Commission. We could argue about whether or not those things are justifiable, whether it's all sand or whether anybody could grow anything on it or not. The point is the frustration. We have this legislation, this "son of Spetifore" that we're talking about. To throw this great baby of regional planning out with the bath water seems to me.... I'm trying to think of a nice word. Precipitous, how's that? It's precipitous.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Spell it. It's very nice.

MR. ROSE: I wouldn't attempt to spell it, because I'm afraid I might not be able to do it.

People will say this is a payoff to developers — all the rest of it. The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) will say: "Well, don't you want any jobs? Don't you want us to build housing?" Of course we do, but we happen to think that you could build houses just as well, maybe not as cheaply, on hillsides as we can where it's easier. For that matter, I believe that all the corridors for transportation should be in the same place in the Fraser Valley. Do you realize that in the constituency of Langley there are about six or eight wide corridors that just gobble up valuable land? We didn't think about those things 20 or 30 years ago. Surely we've learned a bit since then. We've got rail corridors, road corridors, power corridors. They should have all been down the river corridor, but they weren't. Second sight is fine. We all have 20:20 hindsight.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE. I'm sorry. I interrupted the minister who was interrupting me. I apologize for that. I shouldn't do that.

Because a government or a municipality such as Delta happens to be frustrated by a particular aspect of planning and the law works against it in that instance, I don't think that's any reason why we should change the law. Beyond that, what concerns me about this amendment is what the situation would be if a municipality, such as Maple Ridge or Pitt Meadows, decided to amend its plan without relationship to the region, to use up some agricultural land reserve to supply a lot more housing or something like that. As I said, there's no place for the population to go, except up the Fraser Valley, and it's a limited amount of land. What happens there is that the council says yes, you can do it. The council lets it go, and the rezoning goes through, and you have a recommendation to the Land Commission that this agricultural land be changed in zoning. Following that, it goes to the Land Commission, which looks it over and says: "No, you can't do that. We don't like it." Then it goes to cabinet, and the cabinet says yes, you can. Then there is no final appeal from cabinet. We have taken away the right of regional districts to have a final look at that kind of proposal. Maybe that's what the aim is. I, for one, regret that.

[3:30]

There's just one other thing I would like to say before I sit down. Really, it isn't often the local people who control development anyway. You talk about local autonomy, but frequently it's in the hands of developers, many of whom don't even live in this country.

There was a classic book that I thought was interesting, but I've forgotten the name of the author. It was called City for Sale. That book was about....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It was Lorimer's book.

MR. ROSE: Well, it might have been. Anyway, it dealt with the city of Montreal. Lorimer, if that's his name, demonstrated that Imperial Oil or some oil company had bought up all the land around the periphery of Montreal and made certain...

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Rockefeller.

[ Page 516 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, it's the same thing — Chevron.

...that development did not go on in the urban core of Montreal; Montreal was going to become the hole in the doughnut, where the shopping centres and all the arterials led. That had nothing to do with local planners. But if a city or a region cannot control that, so development is done by dummy corporations....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Get rid of them? Well, that's the final arbitration to all these things.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, in this case it wasn't a regional district.

The same thing is true of Montreal or any other district. I think it indicates a need for more than just the particular, say, suburban municipality's interests that we have to concern ourselves with. I think the minister will find.... I'm sorry the minister had this sort of sprung on him the other day because of a procedural wrangle over here, because I know he intended to consult with a number of people. I happen to know he had meetings set up. I happen to know he was a little bit embarrassed that we're proceeding with this before he's had an opportunity to have those consultations — at least, I've heard. Well, I give him the benefit of the doubt. You're not sorry, Mr. Minister?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He wants to get on with it. I don't care what his colleague over here says; he would push ahead with it. He would go at it with a tank, I think. He would railroad it through. But I'm quite sure that the minister, who has a lot more sensitivity on these issues than a lot of people might give him credit for, would have preferred to consult with the UBCM and perhaps other bodies on this matter before he proceeded.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is he shaking his head?

MR. ROSE: No, I'm not certain. That does not, in his view, signify a negative. It signifies that maybe mosquitoes or something are bothering him.

I think we try to make the case, and I'll sum up quickly, that regional plans were asked for by the municipalities. Point two: you need to have those powers regionally or else the whole thing becomes chaotic, with one municipality competing with another, without regard for the other. We have to have some protection in terms of land-use planning; at least nobody argues any longer that if I want to have an autowrecking business in my yard next to a single-family residence, that somehow interferes in somebody's private use of the land. We are much more civilized and advanced than that. But we have to have rules and regulations, and it seems to me this is not a forward step. This is a backward step and we'll regret it.

MRS. JOHNSTON: I am very pleased to stand before you today, Mr. Speaker, and speak in favour of Bill 9. Some of the comments put forward by members in opposition are so far from the truth and reality that one wonders if any of them have really taken the time to read the bill.

The point which disturbs me more than anything else is the type of personal rather than philosophical attack that has come across the House. I don't mind people disagreeing with me or with members of the government, but when these disagreements take the form of personal attacks, I think they should not be acceptable or allowed. I hope some of the members might clean up their act when they stand up to speak.

The suggestion made by some of the members opposite is that this is the Spetifore proposal. Certainly nothing can be further from the truth. We have already heard from the minister that this is not a bill that was put together overnight, and the Spetifore proposal was something that was dealt with very recently. Prior to the bill's being presented in its present form, the minister assured us that discussion had taken place between the Union of B.C. Municipalities and members of the development industry. I really don't know how much further you can expect a member to go; this is the place now to debate it. The mayor of Surrey, who is very involved in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, has been over to meet with the minister twice recently, to my knowledge, and quite likely more often than that, and this has certainly been one of the matters and topics for discussion. For a member to suggest that the minister has placed this bill before the House without any prior consultations with the bodies that are to be involved would certainly suggest that the members are not informed at all.

In my maiden speech to this House, Mr. Speaker, I did refer to the necessity, in my opinion, of having the wings of the regional districts clipped, and this is certainly a start in the right direction. It never ceases to amaze me — and I speak now of the members of the Greater Vancouver Regional District — that applications for change of land use from Surrey, Delta or Richmond which go before the board and have to be dealt with by members from North and West Vancouver, and particularly Vancouver, are met with a negative reaction, even though the applications of members of the local councils in Surrey, Delta and Richmond, the three communities mainly involved in asking for land use changes, are not dealt with in a vein of respect for the wishes of the local community.

Members of the opposition have been suggesting that adoption of this bill would leave us with no planning in some of these communities, and I really can't understand that argument. We have a very large planning department in Surrey, and most communities have planning departments. Are they suggesting that the local planning departments and councils are not intelligent enough, that they don't know the wishes of their local communities well enough to make decisions with regard to land-use planning? It is ridiculous to suggest that you are going to have an auto-body repair shop next to a home if you have a planning department in a community, or that you would have a major industrial type of development next to a residential community in an area such as Surrey, Delta, Burnaby or Vancouver, or any of the communities that do have planning departments. The planning departments of these communities wouldn't allow for that.

One of the original ideas behind the regional districts was the decentralization of development, particularly the office jobs, store type of development. But Vancouver, holding one of the major blocks of votes.... If they're not prepared to support decentralization of industry, jobs, or whatever it might be — commercial, industrial.... If they're not prepared to support decentralization, it's just not going to

[ Page 517 ]

happen, because they hold the controlling block of votes on the regional district. Vancouver has continually encouraged office development in their downtown core, to the detriment of the suburbs in the outlying districts. So when you have one of your major partners in a regional district working to their own particular plan, with no respect for the regional plan in general, it's just not going to work.

I think basically we have a difference in philosophy here, and the question that I would ask is: should the locally elected governments have control over their destiny or should other communities do so? When communities in the suburbs put forward applications for changes in land use — and often they apply to land that has previously been in the agricultural land reserve; not all the time, but quite often they do, particularly in areas such as Surrey, Delta and Richmond — it never ceases to amaze me that the mayor of West Vancouver or North Vancouver or Vancouver will stand up and speak very strongly against the change of land use. They are not prepared to put up any money to allow that property to continue to stay green. They want to have their constituents — the residents of their city communities — go out for a Sunday drive and enjoy the greenery of the country, but it's at the expense of the people who own that property in the country. I think it's high time that we said no. If they want to have these large greenbelts for their residents to look at, they had better start making provision for them in their own communities or help the people who are in these larger suburban communities to maintain them as greenbelts, if that's the way it's going to be. They can't have it both ways. They're going to have to help pay for them.

Here is another example, and this doesn't even apply to agricultural land, Mr. Speaker. Surrey council has a very active planning department, and we've been working on a community plan for quite some time. We designated large areas in our community for future acreage and half-acre development. But no, the regional district, in their wisdom, wanted that particular area developed with urban lots. The local council wanted half-acre and one-acre development so that they could provide some open space for the people living in that community. But no, the regional district — the majority of the members on the board — wanted that as urban development. So, you know, it seems to me that somewhere along the line the local autonomy has really been lost. Maybe we should even go further than this bill. Maybe we should be looking to Houston in the U.S.A. They don't have any planning. The economics of the day dictates their planning. Maybe this is the way we're going to have to start looking.

I think it's very important for us to look at the amount of money being spent by some of these regional districts. As mentioned earlier by one of our members, the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District has a $2 million budget. The Greater Vancouver Regional District had an $8.5 million budget in 1982, and their 1983 budget is roughly the same. Roughly $1.5 million of that is for regional planning. It's a great deal of money. If we are talking of restraint, it is actually a duplication of work being done by local communities. That work is already being done by the municipalities, so it's a waste for it to be done in two areas. The Capital Regional District's 1983 budget is just about $38 million; $360,000 of that is for planning.

Maybe, as the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) mentioned earlier, we're not going far enough. I would hope that this would be just a start in changes that are going to be made in the legislation. Furthermore, I know that the Minister of Municipal Affairs is very concerned about input from the local communities. He has already set up a meeting with members sitting in the gallery today. It seems to me that input is what we're looking for, and the input that has been received from many of the local councils.... I can specifically mention Surrey because we dealt with such a motion in Surrey council, which was asking the provincial government to relieve the regional district of their planning powers. This is not just a bill to relieve the members of the transaction of the Spetifore property.

I would like to repeat some of the comments made by the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) this morning because I think they're very important. It shows the....

[3:45]

MR. BLENCOE: I wouldn't do that.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Wouldn't you? Oh, I would. Just in case some of you across the floor didn't listen this morning, I think it's very important....

MR. LEA: Are they germane, though?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Yes, of course they're germane, and I would like to suggest that it shows the inconsistency of some of the arguments put forward by the members in the opposition. I'm suggesting that their arguments with regard to the Spetifore property really don't hold a great deal of water when they say we want to do away with planning and that we're basically going to do away with the preservation of farmland. I refer to the article that was in the Vancouver Sun on February 4, 1974, when the minister of the day said that the Land Commission Act was not designed to save all farmland. The environmentalists were trying to preserve Tilbury Island from industrial development. "They should realize that the Land Commission Act was not designed to protect all the farmland in British Columbia, Industrial Development minister Gary Lauk said on Wednesday." This appeared to be in complete contradiction to arguments that have been put forward by members opposite over the last two days. He further went on to say that these people have to realize that the Land Commission Act....

Interjections.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Lauk went on further to say: "These people have to realize that the Land Commission Act was not intended to preserve every square inch of farmland in perpetuity." I would like to suggest that that was one of your own members — a member sitting in opposition....

MR. REID: Who said that?

MRS. JOHNSTON: The second member for Vancouver Centre. I guess it isn't really unusual, but it's contradictory to hear a member of the opposition referred to as having made this type of statement when we hear their members standing up now and suggesting that it was only the Socreds that would do anything like that.

In November 1973 the NDP purchased 726 acres of land on Tilbury Island in Delta for an industrial park. This was dedicated as prime farmland, class 2 and 3, in the proposed ALR. I'm repeating this and hoping that some of you opposite are listening because it's very important. "Prime class 2 and 3" is certainly not anywhere near the designation of the

[ Page 518 ]

Spetifore property. They are suggesting that the Bennett cabinet has removed thousands of acres from the land reserve. Ninety-eight percent of the 120,000 acres removed from the ALR since 1974 were recommended for removal by the Agricultural Land Commission. This means that the decisions and recommendations of the Land Commission were supported by the Socred cabinet on all but 2 percent of the areas. The Social Credit cabinet, in accordance with the Land Commission, has added 82,374 acres to the agricultural land reserve.

I'm very disappointed. I hope that members opposite are going to read Hansard so that they'll have all these facts, and when they stand up to speak on Bill 9 they'll be able to speak with a little bit more knowledge and information, or else they won't bother to speak and they will support it. Because they're not really standing behind statements that have already been made by members of their party who have been in office for quite some time.

In closing I would just point out that I believe local autonomy of municipal and city governments is very important. The regional districts have grown to the extent that not only should they have their planning powers clipped, but there should be other items that are under their control....

I'm glad to see that transit was taken from them, and I think we're going to start looking at some other areas. When we look at $38 million for the Capital Regional District and at $8.5 million budgets for the Greater Vancouver Regional District, in a time of restraint there's too much duplication in those sums. I'm pleased to speak in support of Bill 9.

MR. STUPICH: It will come as no surprise to you, Mr. Speaker, to hear me say that I intend to speak in opposition to Bill 9.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The hon. Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), I think it is now — today — asked me whether or not I would raise Tilbury. Well, I'll rise to the challenge; I will talk about Tilbury.

I'm pleased to see that the hon. member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) is still in the House. I believe that if there is anyone on that side of the House who's going to listen, then I believe it will be that member, whether he's in the chair or not. He gives one the impression that he's actually listening to what's being said. Not too many of the 57 members in the House are prepared to listen to what anyone else is saying.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Well, I may include in that the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid). He certainly doesn't listen with his ears. One gets the impression he does all of his listening with his mouth wide open.

I was in this House when regional districts were first started, when they were introduced by the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, the hon. Dan Campbell, with the support, of course, of the Premier of the day, W.A.C. Bennett. At that time they were given one common function. Every regional district's prime function was that of planning. That was why they were established in the first place. Certainly, in the passage of time other functions were assigned to them by the first Social Credit administration. I don't recall whether we added any functions, or whether any have been added since, but they have picked up a number of functions over the years. But the one function that they all had was planning. The one function that they still have, until this legislation is approved, is planning within the regional district. That was felt to be the most important thing. Up until that time there was some planning in municipalities. Up until then there was some planning done by the provincial government, although precious little, in rural areas. Whatever planning being done was being done by the Department of Highways in those days. Regional districts were first established to get some rationalisation of the planning that was going on, so that it would truly be planning. They were given the role of planning within the boundaries of those regional districts.

It's a function that they have carried on, not without some controversy over the years. There have been questions raised about what they're doing. But there can be no question that it's better to have the planning done within the boundaries of a regional district, even when there are several municipalities within the boundaries of that regional district, rather than to have various municipalities within a regional district, in opposition to other municipalities, decide where certain zoning changes are going to be made.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The hon. first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) made some interesting remarks about this and talked about the way in which the regional district is stopping certain areas from having certain attractions. For example, wouldn't it be great if highrise office buildings could be built in areas other than downtown Vancouver? I can't agree to that. I wish they were all in one place. Keep them all in one place and let's keep the rest of the country a little bit better than sticking a whole bunch of highrise office buildings all over the place, simply because it suits the needs of a particular municipality.

I see the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) is rather amused at this. Of course, it has been called the Spetifore amendment. And even the members on the government side....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'll stop for a breath, and maybe you can say that again. I might hear it this time.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I don't know what that has to do with planning on the part of the regional districts. Certainly everything that the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society has tried to do has been approved by local planning authorities without any problem at all. The vote on the highrise was eight votes in favour and one against on a city council of nine.

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I'm trying to hear this and answer it at the same time. There are too many of them chattering. May I simply say again that out of nine votes, eight were in favour of everything that that organization wanted in order to proceed with the planning that was proposed.

[ Page 519 ]

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The member suggests that I want all the highrises in Vancouver. What the hon. first member for Surrey was speaking about and what I was responding to — the minister obviously wasn't listening to his own member — was her decrying the situation in which highrise office buildings within the Greater Vancouver Regional District are being concentrated in one part of that regional district, rather than being spread evenly throughout the Greater Vancouver Regional District. That's what the conversation was about, Mr. Minister.

If I could get back for a moment to the hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs, well might he smile about this. It's being called the Spetifore amendment, and the members on the government side, while sometimes they've objected to that, have never really made a case for it being anything other than that. The Minister of Municipal Affairs — the current minister — was, of course, a member of the Land Commission at one time. His attitude towards saving agricultural land, preserving it for that purpose, was well-known. You'll recall, Mr. Speaker, that it was the object of an RCMP investigation at one time. You'll recall, Mr. Speaker, that same member saying in this House that had it not been for the intervention of the Attorney-General, he wouldn't be a member of the House. So we know his attitude towards agricultural land.

I can well believe that that minister would bring in legislation doing away with some of the authority of the Land Commission, indirectly. I suspect, Mr. Speaker, that he probably has more arrows to fire with respect to the Agricultural Land Commission Act — he or other members of his government. I think we have not seen the end of their attack on the Agricultural Land Commission Act in this current session of the Legislature. I'm concerned about that. We'll have to wait to see what comes next, I suppose.

The first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) made much of the fact that the municipality of Delta supports what the government is doing in this legislation, and that's great. But it's not the whole story. The member neglected to point out that of the twelve municipalities within the GVRD, eleven are opposed to Bill 9. Eleven to one — that's pretty good odds; that's better than eight to one.

This is dated July 26: "Eleven of the member municipalities of GVRD have voted to oppose Bill 9, or expressed their approval of the current regional planning process" — they liked the regional planning approach — "or endorsed the ten-point recommendation re regional planning. Only Delta has decided to express support for the bill."

Mr. Speaker, the GVRD did come up with recommendations with respect to planning, and I would like to remind the members of those recommendations.

" (1) An inter-municipal planning function should be provided in legislation for metropolitan economic areas such as the lower mainland" — the whole of the lower mainland, not just municipality by municipality — "and greater Victoria which have such large and growing populations and numerous local government jurisdictions. Because of those local government jurisdictions, so that there will be some rationalization of planning within the municipal district, it is important that there be this larger area that does have control of planning.

" (2) the purposes of inter-municipal planning should be:

" (a) to provide a process for the coordination of programs, services and expenditures necessary to meet the needs of the area's population."

One of the things included in the planning process, the official regional plans, that has been talked about a bit is planning traffic corridors. How ridiculous it would be, Mr. Speaker, to have municipalities planning traffic corridors. Suppose when they got to the boundaries of the municipality they didn't meet with what was being planned in the next one. It makes some sense only if there is inter-municipal planning.

"(b) To investigate and recommend action on problems which affect all or a major part of the area."

You can't say that something happening within a municipality has an effect only on that municipality, not when they are living as close as they are in the Capital Regional District or in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

[4:00]

" (c) To supply the information on the overall social economic and physical development of the area which is necessary for effective planning and decision-making."

" (d) To establish and maintain a regional land-use policy framework."

Mr. Speaker, that's a good recommendation. It makes a lot of sense. It makes no sense to take away from the regional district the authority over planning within that regional district. We're not centralizing by maintaining it as it is. It's not the sort of centralization that is before us in perhaps 20 of the 26 bills currently on the order paper. Almost every one of them is increasing centralization of power within the cabinet room. This is simply saying that the planning will stay at the local level, but in a local level of a size appropriate to the planning process itself.

" (3) All metropolitan economic areas should be covered by official regional plans" — this was supported by all of them at that time — "which should include:

" (a) area-wide development objectives and a strategy describing the desired distribution of future population and employment, together with the transportation systems needed to serve that distribution. It's appropriate that the regional district as a whole should decide whether or not there should be half-acre lots or 10-acre lots."

The member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) raised the question of a recommendation that within the ALR the area should be limited to 10 acres when he talked of a very successful agricultural producer, who was operating on about a hectare. In that particular case he went on and sort of spoiled his story by saying that that particular farmer could just as well have been on non-agricultural land. What he was growing was growing in pots. Certainly in that instance it made no sense for that person to be obliged to use 10 acres. But I suggest that rather than disturb the planning process, it would have made more sense for that person to have located elsewhere, rather than to be on good farmland. There are all kinds of anomalies.

I've been challenged to deal with the Tilbury land. Several members have quoted a member of the NDP administration at the time, with respect to the Tilbury land, ten years ago. The Agricultural Land Commission Act was introduced in this Legislature in the early spring of 1973, and it was

[ Page 520 ]

passed before summer. In those days we used to meet in January. We'd have a budget in February, and we'd get on with the business and, up until 1972 at least, we'd be through with the business by sometime in April, subject to coming back again for special situations. Now we can't even have a budget until July. However, in those days things went along a bit more smoothly. The Land Commission Act was introduced in early 1973 and passed a couple of months later, and at the time it was said over and over again that the boundaries were not carved in stone. Certainly there were mistakes made in setting up the boundaries originally, but you'll recall that the boundaries were all discussed, studied and submitted to public hearings by regional districts, and finally approved by regional districts before they were submitted to the Land Commission for further study and review, before they were again submitted to the Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet for further consideration and review. A lot of work went into them, and even then the process was not perfect. It couldn't be, but at least it achieved something.

At the time we said that the ideal would be that there would be a five-year period during which any further changes would have to be made. It was called a fine-tuning process by the first chairman of the Land Commission, by the second chairman, by me and by others. By the end of that time, hopefully, few changes would have to be made. By then, hopefully, the community in total would recognize the importance of the whole program, would realize that this was in the interests of the whole community, and would accept the boundaries that were finally established after a fine-tuning process of five years.

Within that five-year period mistakes were made, I'll grant you that. There were areas included that should not have been included, and there were areas taken out that I was opposed to having taken out at the time. I accept that. Nevertheless I accepted also that for the greater good, in order to get the boundaries established, in order to get as much away from controversy as we could at the time, compromises were necessary and were accepted. The Tilbury land was one of them. Planning had gone into that beforehand, and while I personally felt that it hadn't gone so far that it was too late to turn the clock back, others argued that it had gone too far. Whatever, that was done. We're talking about something that was done almost ten years ago.

Today we're talking about something that is being proposed to be done ten years later, five years after the fine-tuning process should have been completed. It hasn't been completed. The Land Commission, from the time of the election of the Social Credit administration in December 1975, has been starved for funds for proceeding quickly with the fine-tuning process. The Land Commission itself was changed. The Social Credit administration didn't like the decisions that were coming out of the Land Commission and appointed their own people to the Land Commission. They didn't like the decisions that their own people were making, because when these people worked with staff and saw the value and importance of what was happening, they were making very similar decisions to the ones that were being made by the original commission. It was a real training process for them to become members of the commission, with the one exception that I mentioned, and that is the current Minister of Municipal Affairs. He never did learn, but the others learned and they made, in general, good decisions.

The Social Credit administration had to react again. They brought in legislation in 1977, I think it was, to take the appeals into the cabinet room so that if you were ever turned down in an appeal anywhere, there was a process of getting into cabinet, where the decisions were made without any public discussion. You could always get your land out if you had an "in" or a cabinet minister's ear. Unfortunately that's the way it has gone in recent years. Even that hasn't been good enough to get all of the land out. We're not talking about hundreds of thousands of acres. Sure, they can talk about how many acres were added and how many have been subtracted, but it's the critical and important pieces that are important. One that is important enough to get into a cabinet discussion is very important, and unfortunately those are the kinds of things that have been happening since. When all else fails, if you can't even get your land out by going to a cabinet meeting, well then, change some legislation to make it possible.

In this instance, it would seem that there is a municipality that is anxious enough to get this particular piece of land out that it's well worth bringing legislation in to upset the planning process for all the regional districts in the province. As one commentator said, "it's using a baseball bat to kill a flea" to have to change the process of the whole province simply to accommodate one individual situation. One wonders why they didn't make a frontal attack on the whole process and throw out the land commission act completely, as the Premier threatened to do in the dying days of the election campaign, as he threatened to do in the election campaign of 1975, but to this day apparently hasn't yet had the nerve to. I say "to this day" because today is July 26; who knows what will happen on July 27. They may well decide take the legislation on completely.

Planning now, before this legislation, is done at the local level. I've been challenged across the floor about shopping centres in Nanaimo. I'm unhappy about the proliferation of shopping centres that have been built within the boundaries of the city of Nanaimo. Certainly with regional district support it couldn't have happened because the regional district did have the authority. But how much worse will the situation be when there is no supervision by the regional district? It's bad enough now in Nanaimo. It will be worse if we pass this legislation. It's unfortunate that the government feels it necessary to do this simply to deal with one particular situation.

The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland) is getting bored with the whole process. I can recall his involvement in a particular attempt to get some land out of the agricultural land reserve as well, and I won't talk about it now. I visited the Gloucester Properties, as did many of the members in the House — good agricultural land.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The Minister of Labour says: "You've got to be kidding." Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you had the opportunity to visit that area. I don't know whether that minister ever looked at it. It's just amazing to see the excellent farmland on one side of the boundary, and the way it is being used productively. Then you come to a line — in one case it's a fence; in one case it's a ditch — and you say that on the other side of that ditch and the other side of that fence it's not good farmland.

Bill 9 should never have been introduced; it takes away from regional districts the right to plan their own destinies.

[ Page 521 ]

Bill 9 would make it possible for municipalities to start competing against each other within the boundaries of one municipal district, to the loss of the whole regional district area. Bill 9 was introduced for one particular situation that surely could have been handled some other way. We have to be opposed to Bill 9, and we hope the government will have the good sense not to proceed with this legislation.

MR. COCKE: First, may I say that not only do I not support this bill, but I would think the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) knows, as I do, that the council in New Westminster has voted in opposition to it. They have voted in opposition to this bill because that city has had an opportunity to be at the whim of the provincial government. They would take the regional district ahead of that group over there, which has taken New Westminster down the tube for the last number of years, particularly since 1976.

The council in New Westminster feels as I do: that to allow a conglomerate of cities and towns within a region to each go its own way with respect to planning, the only control being at the level of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, who at once wishes to be a czar in this province.... He's just been made a minister, for goodness' sake. Now all of a sudden he wants to be the planning czar for the whole province. That's what this is all about. He has made it very clear, as have other members in this House, that they are very concerned about the interference of regional districts, particularly when it gores their ox. That's the thing that really hurts. When that group over there either has a friend who has been seared by the planning process or themselves have been seared by the planning process, then trouble begins.

We have been accused of having made a mistake in Tilbury. I, along with my colleague from Nanaimo, agree that that was an unfortunate situation. Nonetheless, it was part of the very early process of the whole question of protecting agricultural land. If we are to say that the people of British Columbia should be continually jeopardized because of one mistake, then I think we're making a very poor argument. It's interesting to me that it's the members opposite who continue to bring up that question, the very members who don't believe in the situation in the first place.

[4:15]

Whether or not we like it, a very small percentage of our land is available for agriculture. The other day I spoke to a person from California, and it was a very interesting conversation we had. This person was suggesting that they lived in a very rich agricultural area. However, because of the fact that taxes are getting increasingly high in that area, the farmers are selling their land to real estate developers. It sounds like an old story, doesn't it? And the minister says: "Tut, tut, tut." Because of his inability to think into the future, he is not thinking about the fact that it's this kind of a question all over the world that will place our future generations in jeopardy.

We heard all that talk this morning about the Spetifore land. We heard the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) admit that this bill was the Spetifore amendment, so I gather that this is pretty well accepted on both sides of the House now. What they're saying is that because of the fact that there were some mistakes made with respect to succession duties, estate taxes and the evaluation of the land, this particular family was to some extent jeopardized financially, and that subsequent to that they raised potatoes and then were confronted with McCain, which I believe, and I agree with that member, is a damn travesty.

It is an absolute travesty that McCain should have been placed in a position where they could drive a B.C. firm out of existence before it even got started. That's a travesty not of our making, but why add travesty to travesty? Why take that land out of the agricultural land reserve, which has been done, and then, having taken it out of the agricultural land reserve, after it has been proved to be good agricultural land for generations — incidentally, it was farmed for generations — and the regional district will not agree to make it a housing subdivision, bring in an act like this, depriving all of the regional districts of the province of their planning function?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Nonsense!

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, it is not nonsense at all. It's taking away the planning function with teeth.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: You've deleted 809 from the statute, have you not? Then go and read it. I just took the time to read it before I got up to speak.

You and I both know, Mr. Speaker, that this bill does exactly what the minister wants it to do. It places all the power in his hands. The municipalities are subservient to that minister. They don't have the muscle that the regional districts have; therefore that's where it rests.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Trust him.

MR. COCKE: The first member for Surrey says: "Trust him." She trusts him to make sure that every farm in the province becomes a trailer court or something. I think probably she has some idea about trailer courts and the like. But I don't trust any individual that goes power-grabbing like this. I have listened to all the statements that he has been making in this House over the years, and what we see before us is totally consistent with his statements made heretofore, and those statements are: "Get rid of these hindrances; the developers are getting impatient." Developers do get impatient. They get impatient because what they like to do is develop the bottom land — it's easier to develop. They want to get in where it's cheap, and that's precisely what this kind of thing enables in the long run.

I believe that Delta are making a sad mistake, and now this government moves in to bail them out.

This minister must be getting uncomfortable. For some reason, all of a sudden not only is he a czar but he now has the capability of saying to a member opposite: "Get your hands out of your pockets." As long as my hands are comfortable there, they will remain there, Mr. Minister, with or without the Minister of Municipal Affairs liking it.

I believe that the municipalities cannot function as units when they are so close. I can remember the old days of Dan Campbell. All the talk in those days was metropolitanization, wondering what to place under the metropolitan mantle and wondering what not to and so on and so forth. It was decided ultimately that metropolitanization was not the way to go and that the regional district was the concept.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the regional districts do need some refining. I will go that far.

[ Page 522 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) said: "What do you know about other parts of the province?" It just so happens that we have some land in the Interior on Skaha Lake. The now Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) was up there....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: What's wrong with having property? The only thing that I don't have is Dawn Development shares.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: No thanks. You keep them.

Mr. Speaker, the ranchers in Okanagan Falls decided that they were going to introduce a slaughterhouse into that poor little community, with a 10,000-head feedlot. Now I don't know if you know anything about Okanagan Falls, but it's kind of a nice little beautiful valley at the foot of Skaha Lake. So some of us had to go to work to see to it that it didn't happen there, because there were other areas that were quite happy to have these facilities. It just so happened that it never did get to the regional directors from Penticton and other cities because, as we all know, the rural directors have a veto on that sort of thing and the rural directors exercised their veto. In other words, their vote carried the whole thing and put it away, and now it's down in some other part of the valley. It's away from civilization.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: The GVRD.... You see, Mr. Speaker, that's precisely what I'm saying. If there is a way to refine it, why don't you find a way to refine it rather than bludgeon it to death? That's all we're talking about — change the weighting of votes. You're the Minister of Municipal Affairs. You've been there for 15 minutes and you bring in a sledge-hammer to cure a very easily cured situation, in my view.

The vengeful attitude of this government has shown up in every piece of legislation we have before us, except the first piece of legislation, which will never be discussed or talked about. It is the parliamentary piece of legislation that comes in each year and dies on the order paper so that the Attorney-General can be blessed by introducing it the next year, and it's about parliamentary privileges.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I have discussed this with people in our area who are most affected and with people on council in New Westminster who are most affected by this legislation. They suggest that if we don't have an overall plan and if we allow individual municipalities, cities, towns or whatever to be vying for everything and paying no attention to one another, then we don't have the kind of streamlined society we need. Some of the members opposite shake their heads. They say: "Trust us. The Minister of Municipal Affairs will make the decision." I will have faith, but I will tell you this: I would like the people in our province to read Hansard, just the speeches that that minister has made in his time in this House, and "trust us" will not be their attitude.

MR. REID: Have faith.

MR. COCKE: Have faith!

Mr. Speaker I'll tell you what kind of faith everybody should have, and that is the faith in a government that brings in legislation that's fair, equitable and hasn't got some kind of motivation such as what we have here.

MRS. JOHNSTON: That's the B.C. spirit.

MR. COCKE: The B.C. spirit has become a joke across our country. How ashamed I am every night when I go to bed, picking up the eastern press and finding out that we are the laugh of the nation. Now we've even hit the Wall Street Journal, for crying out loud. They in turn have said that we've got a foolish, repressive, vindictive government. Now really and truly.... When you have to become the object of half the western world looking at us and sneering, or smiling in disbelief, then I suggest that what this government should do is not only pull this piece of legislation, but pull all 26 bills. Pull every one of them, like the city council of Vancouver asks, including your good Socred member Don Bellamy.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, one of the most amusing people in this House is that two-word member, that second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid).

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: That's right, he's comic relief, and the good Lord knows we need comic relief in the serious days we have before us. We have before us a bill — Bill 9 — that has nothing to do with in-depth thought in changing the situation so that regional districts can better respond to the needs of the people in our province or the needs of the respective municipalities that they serve. No, the bill has been brought in in order to see to it that Delta can pull out that potato farm, and that the developers can sell it for millions of dollars and walk away suggesting to themselves that they made a good deal when they helped elect the Socreds to government. That's not good enough. That is not the kind of reason that we should be debating this bill in this House this day. We should be debating a well-thought-out change or a streamlining for municipal districts. We should not be debating a bill that denies them an opportunity to see to it that there is coordination of planning.

[4:30]

We all talked about that years and years ago. I can remember when somebody said to me: "Are you in favour of metropolitanization?" I was a little bit young and not too terribly involved, other than by the fact that I knew this duplication of service, the duplication of so many things, was insane and uneconomical. I said: "You know, I'm almost at a point now where I believe in total amalgamation of the whole lower mainland." That would be a mistake. But what we've got here is an amalgamation of the whole province under one planning czar who doesn't know anything about planning, obviously. He's done more than Vander Zalm in those terms. I don't think Vander Zalm wanted to go that far. His big problem was that he took a kick at the Islands Trust and got his feet wet. Then somebody told him the polls were wrong, at the behest of Lord knows who. Anyway, he's growing lettuces. It would be a great help to this province if, in fact, the

[ Page 523 ]

Minister of Municipal Affairs would go back to selling feed, because he has brought in a bill that's an offence to the whole planning process of this province. There is no way that you could expect anybody on this side of the House to support this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or any bill.

MR. COCKE: That's precisely the way it looks, Mr. Member. When bills are born in vindictiveness, when bills are born in insincerity, when bills are nothing to do with good government, how can you expect the loyal opposition to buy them? Not on your life. Many of you have been here and seen the opposition in the past. If the legislation is decent and good and thoughtfully put together, it will be supported from this side of the House. But when legislation is this bad....

This isn't the worst, I must admit. This is the enabling legislation for Spetifore, but it does affect a great many other planning functions. It certainly is not the basic rot that we face in terms of the legislation we have before us. In any event, Mr. Speaker, we oppose this piece of legislation.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't profess to be an expert in municipal affairs, so I can't compete with the expertise that we've heard from many of the members who have just joined the Legislature as former, and still present, aldermen. I cannot go into the great details and specifics which they have, but I'm on my feet to speak because I can see in this bill a very basic principle being enunciated, and a philosophy which I could never support. It's not merely because I happen to be a member of the New Democratic Party that I am philosophically opposed to this. I am speaking primarily as a person who has been elected to represent the people of Burnaby North. If I sat still and did not rise to take part in debate on this bill when it's going to have such detrimental effects on the people who live in the community which I represent, then I would indeed be remiss.

I'd like to explain why I feel this. I think the first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) certainly did make a point which I completely agree with when she said: "After all, it looks like it's a complete difference in philosophy." I don't think she quite realizes that it isn't a difference between the Social Credit and the NDP philosophies; it's a basic difference of philosophy between those citizens in this province who believe that we should go back to the good old days, which we all know were not really those good old days, and the more enlightened citizens of British Columbia — I know I speak for many of them in Burnaby North — who believe that we know that we're now living in 1983, and that all the mechanisms and organizations of governments which existed at the turn of the century cannot possibly fit the needs of modern government today. This is really the basic philosophical difference.

Somehow or other, many of the people on the Social Credit side of this House seem to believe that you can turn the clock back. You're no longer dealing with little villages and communities in the lower mainland; you're dealing with highly sophisticated, densely populated communities. The very reason that the Social Credit government under the former Premier, Mr. Bennett Sr., brought this in — and I give him credit for having that foresight — was that they could foresee that the whole tone, population and character of our communities, particularly in the lower mainland and the lower Island, were going to change tremendously. This was brought in by Dan Campbell maybe 20 years ago; I can't remember the actual date. Give him credit; he looked ahead and foresaw the many difficulties that we would face if we allowed each local government and community and municipality to do its own thing entirely without any regard to its neighbours.

Somehow or other, for whatever reason — and many people on this side of the House have certainly given some of the reasons why they believe they have done so — the Social Credit cabinet, aided and abetted by many of the people who have worked in local governments and have joined the Social Credit Party or are members of it, want to turn the clock back. They want to take us right back to the turn of the century. They continually talk about how it's going to save the taxpayers money, and they cite a figure, as the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) did earlier today, of around $2.5 million, perhaps even more.

I look at that and I say yes, you may save that in some of the staff that are going to be fired and other functions that are being taken away and won't be needed. But do you know what's really interesting? At the same time as those members talk about saving the taxpayers money by this bill, which will eliminate several million dollars — we concede that — that same Minister of Municipal Affairs who's bringing in this bill, and referring to the saving of money is taking action and making policies that are going to add millions of dollars to the taxpayers of B.C. in the local areas. He has just announced a complete change coming in the whole matter of financing sewerage in the lower mainland and other areas. That very act itself is going to cost the people of Burnaby, whom I represent, thousands or probably into the millions of dollars, and I hope you can explain to me that it will not. The point is in reality that every act that is taken by that government is not saving money to the degree they state, because on the other hand they are imposing more and more taxes on the people. So this argument about saving a couple of million dollars here is not going to wash with the people of Burnaby, I can assure you, when they see what other impositions are being placed on them by these changes.

One of the members said: "We're so glad that we have transit back in the local area." Well, that sounds great, doesn't it? All these simplistic statements sound great when they're out there on their own making speeches in their communities. But have they the courage to say also: "Sure, we've taken transit away from the large structure it was in" — and many of the large structures were created by the Socred government to begin with — "and we're going to take it and give it back to the local areas"? But have they, at the same time, explained to the people they represent and to their communities that the Social Credit government is not returning the taxpayers' money to those communities for transit operation? We find no policies that are going to alleviate the burden of transit. We find that the local taxpayer is going to be paying more.

Many of the members of the GVRD have said regarding transit — and I know I'm digressing, but it was brought up by another member: " Okay, we don't mind having it back to run locally, but will you give us the money to operate it? Will you give us the money to operate it so we won't be put into a deficit operating position where the taxpayers are going to have to pay more?" We have no assurance of that, Mr. Speaker. On one hand to talk very simplistically about this bill saving money, and at the same time completely to cover up the other policies which are going to create more problems for the taxpayer, I don't consider is playing it really straight.

[ Page 524 ]

We do not, as I said, live in little villages anymore. I know one of the members who spoke on behalf of this bill, and no matter whether I disagree with people or not, I still respect your right to get up. I think some of you really are sincere in your beliefs, but the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) actually said that this was going to modernize, streamline, or something to that effect, and that he believes it is good to move in this direction of going back to the local area alone performing the functions. I wonder if he, in his business, is ready to go back and start selling the horse and wagon again. Is it not the same analogy, Mr. Speaker? He is selling, I presume, modern cars today, but he's asking us, and the people of my area, to go back to the horse and buggy days in planning.

MR. REID: If the regional district had their way, I probably would.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, the regional district, which the member has now referred to, doesn't want this bill. As has already been pointed out to the minister, the GVRD representatives asked for a meeting with him. Did they get it before you brought in this bill? I wonder. If you met with them, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, then surely you understood their concerns. Why have you still ignored their concerns and brought forward a bill which the members of the GVRD do not want?

It has been pointed out, I'll repeat again, that as recently as this week 11 of the member municipalities of the GVRD have voted to oppose Bill 9. How can you ignore that? I know the new Minister of Municipal Affairs.... Whether or not I agree with him in his policies, I still say I wish him success in his job. But how can you start off well in your position as a minister if you're going to immediately bring in legislation that ignores the wishes of the people who have given their opinions on the proposed legislation? Surely that is not performing the basic function of a new minister or of any minister. So I'm asking that minister, when he is closing the debate, to explain to us whether he has any respect for these people who have come before him with their concerns.

[4:45]

I live in an area — and I know everyone who has travelled through Burnaby is well aware of this — where we get all the traffic. We get all the traffic from Vancouver going one way and all the traffic from Coquitlam, Surrey, etc. It just happens to be where we are located geographically. When I first moved to Burnaby years and years ago, of course, it was quiet and there was no traffic problem. But times change, and with those changing times I expect — and the people of Burnaby expect — that government will allow a structure that will help my municipality meet those terrible problems of being a traffic corridor for surrounding municipalities. When the people of Burnaby discover that with this bill the Social Credit government is taking a vehicle away from them which would perhaps help to alleviate to some degree the terrible traffic congestion in North Burnaby, for example, they are going to be absolutely shocked.

If Vancouver city wants to do something that will dump more traffic into North Burnaby, or if Coquitlam or Surrey want to do something that is going to create more traffic for North Burnaby, what recourse do we now have? What recourse does the Burnaby council have? Before, we had a structure, the GVRD, where the Burnaby aldermen could sit on the GVRD. Instead of a confrontational style, they could sit with their colleagues from Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Surrey, etc., and discuss these common problems. They had a vehicle that would help prevent one selfish little community from doing something that would have a serious effect on another community.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

How on earth can we accept the fact that we are going to destroy a facility that was created more than 20 years ago by the Social Credit government to meet the needs of the future? Here we are in the future today, 1983, and what do we find? We find that another Social Credit government is going to take away this good vehicle. They're going to take us right back to the turn of the century, and we're not there anymore. We're dealing with modern, tremendous problems. You can't handle those problems with the same structures you had at the turn of the century. That's why we don't want to turn the clock back. You talk about streamlining. You know, the interesting thing is that when you debate the GVRD and its functions vis-a-vis the functions of a local government, I must admit that as a member of Legislature I have a great problem, because it is very difficult to get anyone very excited when you talk about function. Most of the people, I'm sure, in my riding and many others really do not make it a particular source of great excitement for themselves to study the functions of the GVRD or the municipal council. I'll tell you, they do get excited when they find out that some actions taken by somebody somewhere are affecting them negatively.

It's very easy for the Social Credit government to move on the GVRD at a time when the people in my riding and in others are really concerned with other problems, particularly unemployment and the economy. This is a time to bring in something like this, because most people aren't going to have time to study it, and most people are not going to have time to understand the implications of it, but it's my job as a member of this Legislature to try to point out to the government the implications and make them stop and say: "Hey, maybe by eliminating the planning land-use functions of the GVRD, perhaps we really are making an error. Perhaps the people in my area are not going to benefit." This is the point I'm trying to make. I'm very concerned that this whole area is going to slip by too easily.

Some people say: well, is it really that important today, in light of the other tremendous problems and the other horrendous legislation brought in by the Social Credit government? As far as I'm concerned, when you produce and pass legislation in any legislature which is going to allow for selfish unilateral action by one municipality against another, I say that the effects of that are indeed serious and are going to affect the lives of the people and their children who live in that community today.

Mr. Speaker, I don't take this bill lightly at all. I'm very concerned about my own municipality of Burnaby. I'm very concerned about the actions that can now be taken by other areas surrounding Burnaby, which are going to have a dreadful effect on the lifestyle of the people of Burnaby North. I just cannot believe that the one protection we had is now being taken away from us by this bill.

What is Burnaby council going to do now? If Vancouver takes action against them, for whatever reason, and if the other communities take action, how can Burnaby stop them from taking negative action? I'd like the Minister of Municipal Affairs to explain this to the House when he closes

[ Page 525 ]

debate. Does the Minister of Municipal Affairs not believe that we all should cooperate with each other, that we are not an island unto ourselves? If he believes that, how on earth can he bring in legislation that will return us to the philosophy of one community pitted against another? This is the whole problem we have with this bill.

I know there are other problems. There are suggestions, of course, that some individuals may put pressure on the government for their own particular purposes: so they can develop housing, instead of seeing that land developed for food. I'm not going to go into those details. I am not here, with the background that I have, to prove that, but I say to you the problem with this bill is that it will allow that. It can allow that kind of thing to take place because individuals within a municipal council now can manage to bring about something in the line of what may be happening in the Delta area, without the check on them of other people saying, "Hey, that's going to affect everyone in the lower mainland, not just you. We want to be sure that our children and our grandchildren have enough food to live on; therefore we have a responsibility not to turn over arable land for housing."

We have a responsibility not to impose tremendous amounts of new traffic on another area and just say: "It's okay. It's making some money for us in our municipality, with no concern for the long-term effects on the surrounding areas. We are long past the day of living unto ourselves. I consider this legislation one of the most serious pieces to be brought forward, although we know we've got many more serious ones to deal with, because the effects of this are going to be long-lasting.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for sanity to prevail on the other side. I ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs to go back and read the press clippings — unfortunately, we had no Hansard until the NDP came into office. Read the press clippings about why the regional district was created in the first place. Sure, Mr. Speaker, maybe there has been fat; maybe there are a few minor areas that you could put your finger on and say: "We don't need that." But we're not talking about a minor area in this bill. We're talking about land-use planning, which is one of the most vital areas and responsibilities affecting everyone in communities.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the Social Credit government and the minister: please sit down and look over this bill. Listen to the GVRD. Listen to people who haven't got any particular axe to grind, except that they want a structure that will meet the needs of 1983. I cannot support a bill that takes us back to the turn of the century.

MR. MITCHELL: I was rising on this, and I hesitated because I thought maybe there was someone else who would like to participate in our parliamentary democracy besides the minister over there, who wants to ram this bill right through the House without listening to the debate that is going on not only in this House but in the community. I think this is important.

In the last four years I've had a crash course on knowing the difference between settlement plans and regional plans. I've sat in on more dry hearings and public debate on what should go into a settlement plan, what the community in the particular location that I happen to represent wants, and how it's going to fit into the greater community that we live in. One of my hon. colleagues said we are not an island unto ourselves.

I think it's important, and I'd like to stress this, to review what actually is happening. I would have more respect for the government if they brought in a special piece of legislation that said the area commonly known as the Spetifore land would be taken out, rezoned and given special status. I would respect it, because I know this is what they really want to do. Instead, they throw out a smokescreen and bring in Bill 9. To fill out Bill 9 they have to throw in a lot of little bits of legislation, whipping out this section and putting in another section, changing in a lot of ways the direction for which the Municipal Act was there to provide a groundwork or a network for the development of a community.

I happen to represent an area that I really don't believe either the minister or those who advise him have taken into consideration. You may know, Mr. Speaker, that my riding consists of the Esquimalt municipality, which is fairly well settled and has a municipal council, a mayor, and all the staff and engineers and the bureaucracy that keeps that particular area functioning. But also, in part of my riding, I have five regional districts. Those regional districts have the highest density of population of any place in Canada that is unincorporated. You have an area that has all the problems of a city, all the problems of a growing community, and what you really have is five balkanized states with one man — one director — who is elected to govern that particular state. He has the power to grant rezoning. There is one particular area in my riding which runs from the Six Mile House on the Old Island Highway to Colwood Corners. There are something like 17 spot-zoning, different zoning applications in that particular area. It is one of the greatest examples of an unplanned area that is becoming kind of a laughing-stock and a blight to one part of the community. I believe it was because of maybe the maturing of the regional district that they have now worked with the regional directors in the communities with some long-range programs for the betterment of the Capital Regional District.

I too share what the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) says: there are all kinds of people who are opposed to regional districts, but you know, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Until such time as the minister and the municipal departments start to recognize some of the problems that are affecting my particular area, the Western Community, and bring down some type of legislation that is going to allow that area to grow instead of as five balkanized states.... As long as you continue to have five balkanized states, every so often the majority of the people who are elected....

I have the greatest respect for anyone who runs in regional elections and gets elected and tries to be a director in that area. He's pushed and pulled by all the developers and the community groups and the Greenpeace people. One of the great things about the regional district is that you have input from a variety of directors. You have experience from other areas, and you have a certain amount of support. Unless you have a town council or a city council that is making a decision as a group, that the continuation of five balkanized states in one riding.... I don't know how many areas in the rest of the province have the same problem, but I know it is not as intense as in that particular community....

[5:00]

Interjection.

[ Page 526 ]

MR. MITCHELL: Oh, I can give you a recommendation. Will you promise to accept it? If you want a recommendation, through you, Mr. Speaker, if I write it down and if he promises to accept it, I will make the recommendation that he withdraw this bill until he consults with the regional districts throughout the province to get what other legislation that is needed.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If you want to discuss the whole community.... What I'm discussing, and I'm trying to stay within the bill, and not get too far away.... This is one of my major fears: that you bring in all these silly little changes. You're going to abolish the technical planning commission; they're going to abolish section 815 of the act. This is one of the sections of the act that you can call on and get the expertise from the technocrats, the bureaucrats, those who are involved in environment, for school planning, for long-range planning, for mining, for gas.... This is one of the most important resource groups of any groups that are consulted when you are developing a settlement plan. I know that all of us at one time or other in our community involvement have been involved in planning, in the various levels of democracy. We have our ideas, and a lot of these ideas are great ideas until we talk to somebody who knows the facts. You must have that resource group that you can go to and say: "How does my idea or our suggestions for this part of the community fit into the development of the province?"

I know that in one area in Colwood we have a....

Thirty to forty years ago, when that area was developing, gravel pits were a source of revenue and the building boom of the greater Victoria area exploited those particular gravel pits, and somewhere down the line they were given an industrial zoning. When the area developed — in the meantime people were building houses all around that particular area — the community wanted some control over the extraction of gravel in their immediate neighbourhood. First they approached their regional director. He made recommendations. I believe there are some recommendations now before the minister to allow gravel to be classified under the soil-removal bylaws that they have in the area. Then all of a sudden the mining department, which is part of section 815 of the Municipal Act, says that gravel is not classed as soil, it is not classed as a mineral, but it comes under the mining branch. All of a sudden you have another government function telling the community they can't lay out their settlement plan, that a gravel pit is no longer an industrial zone, that it now comes under the mining branch.

Again, I am not sure where the minister stands on that. What I am trying to use as an example.... There are many problems developing in the Western Community. As the five particular areas have only one person as their voice....

When they are trying to make their presentation, when they are trying to listen to those in the community, this particular government is continually throwing additional roadblocks in their way.

I couldn't help but comment, talking about all these roadblocks and complaints.... As I was listening to my friend down here, the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid), go on about powerlines and gaslines and highways going across the farmbelt, I thought he was a new NDPer, because what he was condemning was 30 years of Social Credit unplanned development in the Fraser Valley. It was really quite interesting to listen to these comments — complaining that the farmers couldn't farm because there was a railway or a roadway or a powerline. These are the things....

This is why I say to the minister very seriously — he is still in the chamber — that before they make any major changes in the legislation they consult with the elected regional directors and the appointed regional people. There is a need for a major change in the Municipal Act. There is a need for recognition of responsibilities in the development of the Western Community. The Western Community, in spite of what we might like it to be, has evolved as a kind of a bedroom community for the greater Victoria area. If that development is going to have any long-range program, there has to be a tie-in with the planning of sewage disposal — is it going to be built.... It's not going to be built by View Royal; it's not going to be built by Colwood; it's not going to be built by Langford. Unless it's built in toto with an end that is going to be in an area where it can be disposed of....hat development has to come within the four districts.

The governments in the past have set up a regional district and have given letters patent for that particular capital region to look after that planning. Though the amendment is no longer that a district shall prepare a settlement plan, the district may prepare a settlement plan. People may develop residential areas, and that particular area, as it develops, will build a lot of homes. All of a sudden, if someone has built a $150,000 or $200,000 waterfront home, with a change in the regional director they can say we're going to zone 5, 8, 10 acres of property right in the middle of a residential area for industrial. If this doesn't conform with the overall development or settlement plans that have been laid out in the past, we're going to have chaos, and you're having chaos. There has to be planning. The settlement plans have to be in place, and they have to have some validity. You say that they may do it and they may not. You are going to endanger the investment of a lot of citizens of our community because there is a lack of foresight down the line.

If you really want to jam something through, jam through a special piece of legislation and allow Spetifore to go through if this is what the 35 members of the government have as their number one project. If they have to keep that promise that was made to someone down the line, do that. But don't go out and jam a lot of changes to the development of a community, regional or settlement plan, because what you're going to have is exactly what happened when they jammed through a special piece of legislation to take the Ganges sewer system — the results of any court case that may deal with that sewer project on Saltspring Island.... The legislation allowed the installation of a $2 million pipe on the bottom of Ganges harbour, and there it sits. There was no consultation with the local community. It was jammed through. This Legislature was used as the club to destroy the community involvement on Saltspring Island. We who sat here in the NDP section were ashamed that the power that was given to somebody in the municipal ministry was passed through into the cabinet and was brought into the floor of this House and jammed through in the dying hours of a particular session because they would not take that request or the need for a sewer to the community and say: "What do you want?" As a taxpayer from out in Esquimalt, I have to pay for the $2 million waste. Someone is paying interest on $2 million. We talk about $2 million here and $2 million there. That $2 million was wasted by this Social Credit government because they wouldn't listen to the community and the input of those

[ Page 527 ]

other people who are elected and who have responsibilities. Don't jam through something, railroad it through and completely change the traditions of parliament.

Parliament has certain traditions. If we go by these traditions, there is input and listening. We have our throne speeches and our budget speeches, and then we bring in our legislation. If this legislation is controversial enough that there is input and there are concerns out in the community, then set up our parliamentary committees and go out into these communities and listen to what the delegations there have to offer. These are the traditions that are not being carried out in this particular parliament and weren't carried out in the last four years that I sat in here under the Social Credit government.

[5:15]

We seem to have run from one disaster or crisis to another. We started off and had the dirty tricks crisis, and then we had the expense scandals and the wine scandals. As I mentioned before, we had the Ganges scandal where my colleague from Port Alberni was thrown out of the House. I don't think we should continue that attitude within this parliament. We are losing the respect that I believe the community would like to give us. I think we have been given a certain amount of responsibility, and we should work within those traditions. We should work within the framework and represent all sections of the community, not use legislation for one particular piece of land they want to take out. It's been taken out of the ALR; they want to develop it. As I said, develop it in a manner that is going to work within the community.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

This is why I'm afraid that with some of the amendments they've brought in you are going to open a door within my five balkanized states. Right now we have five directors. They all talk to me; we disagree violently on certain programs, but at least the avenue is open for the community to make their presentation.

One section says that if there are ten pieces of property owned by ten owners they don't have to be notified that there's going to be a zoning change in that particular area. There are areas in my community where a lot of properties, future retirement homes and recreation properties, are owned by ten and more people. To a great extent they are absentee owners who come out in the summer or on weekends. They don't always follow the local paper that serves that particular area. If they happened to miss seeing that ad concerning the area in which they had purchased land or on which they had built recreation cottages, that zoning could change overnight. What is in the minister's background that he doesn't want to notify people living in an area that there is going to be a zoning change, for the price of the 32 cents it would cost to advise those who own property in that area that the zoning is being contemplated? That section is not needed. I make this prediction: somewhere down the line, if it's jammed through as the massive majority of 35 over there can do, it's going to cause a problem.

Again I would ask the minister — I believe he has already made a commitment to meet with the GVRD on the mainland for their input before this bill gets past second reading — to meet also with the other ones locally. What I believe is the final intent — and this is something I really fear — is that this government intends to centralize everything in Victoria. I think that's dangerous. If that danger is allowed to rest on one minister, as long as that minister has a halo above his head, I might accept it. But from my vantage point over here I look over top of all the ministers in the government and all my rump group down here, and not one of them appears to have a halo. When I look up I don't see one above my head either.

As I said, I don't think it should be allowed in the Western Community. I don't like the one regional director having sole power for one part of my community. I think there have to be additional elected people to go along with him. There has to be some input. If you're going to cut them loose from the capital region and give them all this power that they may decide to have a settlement plan or they may not, then you're going to say they may amend it or they may not. You're going to allow that power to go to one person. I think this is what is going to happen right now: they are going to try to centralize all that power into the minister's hands. I don't think any minister of any government has that right to that power or has that right to use this House to jam through legislation that's going that power. It is going to cause a lot of turmoil in other groups that are elected and groups that have moved into a community and want to participate in the development. They want to participate and decide if they're going to have an enlargement of gravel pits or if they're going to have industrial areas jammed on them. They want to have more than one person that they can appeal to.

I can see that we're going to have all kinds of amendments to the Municipal Act. We're going to have all kinds of amendments to many other pieces of legislation. The one thing that these amendments will do is centralize all the power in Victoria. That's fine. I can get in my car and in 20 minutes I can drive down and lobby the bureaucrats, the civil servants and even the minister. But there are a lot of areas in British Columbia that do not have easy access to find out what is going on in their particular community. It can be up in Omineca or even in your riding of Prince George. A whole recreational community can be wiped out because you didn't have to notify those people who own property there. Maybe they wanted to retire there and there were ten pieces of property that were owned by ten owners, but it was no longer required that they be notified that there was going to be a change in that particular area.

There are so many problems in some of these ill-thought-out amendments aimed at accomplishing one thing that I think the bill itself should be withdrawn, Mr. Speaker. We should go back to consult those in the community. If it means having a parliamentary committee, if it's that important, let's do it.

Let's not use this Legislature to jam one thing through for one particular group of people. I know the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) spent hours saying what a great need there is for that development in that area, and that the Spetifore property could not grow potatoes; They were not viable. I'm not a farming expert. The only thing I'm worried about is that the legislation before us right now is not needed in its present form. It must have some refinement, and it needs additional consultation from those in the community before it is jammed through.

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to approach examination of this bill from the point of view of a look at our history in the province. The fact is that municipal legislation is not in the category of being an ordinary piece of legislation that applies universally to all residents of the province — as, say, a

[ Page 528 ]

taxation bill or the like would. It applies indirectly to residents of the province, but it applies more directly to another form and level of government, which has sometimes been called a child of the Legislature or a level of government that is a creation of the Legislature. As such, I think in the past this House has dealt with the development of municipal legislation in a much more respectful way than is being done with this particular bill.

Any change to any section of the Municipal Act, or any change proposed to it, may apply to a municipality or municipal government, which includes regional districts. I'm encompassing all organized structures of government under the Municipal Act. It applies to them in different ways. In many instances there can't be a universal declaration of legislative authority that is applicable in all situations and all circumstances in an equitable way. Large municipalities are affected differently by the law than small municipalities. This particular bill takes no cognizance of that. It has a universal and arbitrary application to all regional districts, to all municipal levels of government, districts, villages, towns and the like, regardless of the peculiarly different circumstances with which they may be faced.

[5:30]

If it weren't for the overriding political aura or atmosphere surrounding this particular bill, or the political considerations that went into it, rather than the effective, respectful administrative considerations that should prevail, one might be able to argue that it would have relevance, say, in the lower mainland, where municipalities are contiguous one to the other, and there is very little area outside of an organized municipality other than the regional district. You could say in that instance that there being no what we used to call unorganized territory involved, you could apply this sort of legislation to those areas. Maybe the same thing prevails with the regional district structure in the Victoria area; I'm not too sure of that. But while you may be able to argue that the bill would have application in the lower mainland, where municipalities are connected one to the other by a simple arbitrary boundary line, and there's no space between those municipalities, it does not apply in northern or rural areas, or it does apply in a disadvantageous way. It's an instance, once more, of the southern part of the province, or the urban or metropolitan or lower mainland part of the province, imposing its ideas upon rural northern areas. The further away you get from the urbanized areas of the province, the less valuable it is.

For instance, assume this bill is in effect. In the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District area, as an example — you could apply the same reasoning to the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District area — if this bill were law a regional district might decide to identify a certain area as a park area, a recreational area or as an area that has aesthetic qualities, just on the borders of a municipality, say Houston or Terrace. Because the connection between the two would be gone in terms of some overall regional concern, the municipality of Houston may decide that it's going to establish a garbage dump right at the outer border of the boundaries of the municipality of Houston — right next door to where the regional district may have decided to establish a park. One interest — that is, the dumping of garbage from the residents of Terrace, Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake or anywhere else in a particular area within that municipality — is not compatible, or would not be compatible, with a recreational concept perceived by the regional district as necessary for the residents of the area.This bill, if it passes, would permit that type of different approach.

I know, and I'm sure the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) knows, that there is sometimes conflict between the board of a regional district and a particular municipality within the regional district area. There are personality clashes from time to time. That's normal and natural. People have different personalities and different characteristics, and they get their backs up about what somebody else does. You get those kinds of things.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: The member for Omineca had the occasion to say something in this House which obviously wasn't listened to, because he wants to say it all over again. I'll give him every opportunity, when and if we ever get to the committee stage; he'll have the opportunity to explore further his thoughts about that.

The bill would tend to leave the opportunity available, if it's passed, for a regional district to do one thing on the border of a municipality, and for the municipality to do something entirely incompatible with that concept.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: The member for Omineca never ceases to amaze me, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, he speaks in the House, but nobody pays any attention, especially members on the government side. He comes to that conclusion so he's got to keep interrupting other members in order to get his point of view across, as if we're going to pay any attention to what he says.

MR. KEMPF: Nobody in your constituency pays any attention to what you say.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order. The member for Omineca will come to order. All members will come to order. Bill 9, please.

MR. HOWARD: I'm on the bill. That's what I'm talking about, and I keep being interrupted. That's one of the reasons, I might add, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Omineca is not in the cabinet. He spent so much time in Skeena trying to do me harm that he forgot about his homework at home. He was just carrying out orders.

This particular bill will leave regional districts and municipalities in that conflicting position. I maintain that there has to be rational, orderly and sensible planning as to what you are going to do in an area so that the general public's interest is served, and not just the narrow interest of any individual on a municipal government level, or whatever narrow interest might exist within the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

At one time in the Legislature we had a standard practice.... This is some years ago, I think probably even before one of the distinguished gentlemen who advises Your Honour from time to time about procedural matters was here. There was a respectful practice in this House of having all municipal legislation examined and dealt with by a committee of the Legislature: not only legislation; not only bills that were referred to the committee after receiving second reading in the House; but references were also made to it that would

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permit, in a broad sense, the Municipal Affairs committee of the Legislature to listen to representations made to it by particular municipal governments, or by the Union of B.C. Municipalities, or by anybody else who wanted to make a proposal with respect to the development of municipal law. In other words, the procedure and the mechanics existed to take the advice of those who were most immediately and most directly affected by municipal legislation — namely, municipal governments. That practice has disappeared.

The Municipal Affairs and Housing committee of this Legislature, since I've come here in 1979, Mr. Speaker, has never met on any occasion. It might have met to elect a chairperson or something but never met to conduct any business, and has never had the government of the day, since 1979, take any interest in the subject matter of municipal affairs or in input from municipalities and the UBCM, or refer any subject matter to the committee. It's a committee in name and members, but an ineffective committee, because the government didn't have the interest in the subject matter to get that committee functioning and to receive input from the people affected by the law itself. What better way can we pay attention to democracy than by calling upon the ideas of those who are going to be affected by a particular piece of legislation, and listening to them, and paying attention to them? Because they're the ones who are affected; they're the ones who are going to do this. But it has never met.

When we were the government of this province, there was a committee of the Legislature, so I'm told, that was struck and authorized to travel throughout the province and to listen to representations. It spent a great deal of time in the district of Omineca and in other parts of the north. Maybe it even went to Columbia River, for all I know. Maybe the member for Columbia River (Hon. Mr. Chabot) was even on the committee at that time.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Boondoggle.

MR. COCKE: You found a gravel pit in Columbia River.

MR. HOWARD: That's where they had their last meeting, and the now Provincial Secretary saw the gold-mine that was in that gravel pit and moved quickly and took advantage of it. Maybe that's what happened.

But this committee existed, and it travelled around the province and said: "What are your views, people of the province and municipalities, about the development of municipal legislation?" We don't need, in this instance, to go that far. We could simply establish the committee, give it a term of reference to do something, and have the committee of this Legislature listen to what the people who are going to be affected by this particular bill, all throughout the province, have to say about it. It could see how it will affect them. I know the member for Omineca has a devoted interest — and I support his devotion in that regard — to a particular committee structure. I say it without equivocation and without any strings attached: when the occasion comes to deal with that particular committee, I hope that the member for Omineca and I find that we are allies in our approach to a particular committee of this House. It may be. I don't know, but I hope we are.

That's what happened before. This bill runs in the face of the commonsense, respectful approach that we should be taking to municipal legislation by asking people who are affected by the law so dramatically, so intimately: "What do you think about it?" There are municipal governments in the constituency of Skeena that almost within days — I was going to say " almost within hours," as a figure of speech — of this bill seeing the light of day passed a motion disagreeing with it, saying: "We don't want that particular piece of legislation." They foresaw what the difficulties were going to be. I'd like those municipal governments to have the opportunity to come.... They can't come to the Legislature, because we forbid such things, but that's what committees of the Legislature are for — to be able to say why they do not want this particular bill. What is its effect as perceived by the municipality? I'm not talking about the regional district. Because part of its powers are going to be removed, the regional district would undoubtedly have a kind of vested interest concern. One should not discount their opportunity, and their right to appear and say things. But I'm not talking about the regional district's attitude; I'm taking about the municipality.

Another thing I want to deal with is some of the background developments preceding the introduction of the bill. It has been called, dubbed and identified as the Spetifore amendment because it has, no question, an immediate connection with a decision made in regard to that so-called Spetifore property. There was some activity of a financial nature prior to the introduction of the bill — some activity with a financial complexion to it. The Spetifore property, I am advised, is owned — if not entirely at least in part — by a company called Dawn Development (Canada) Ltd. There is a connection between people who are principals — or one person who is a principal in Dawn Development — and another company called Sunmask Petroleum Corp. On the 15th or 16th of June, at the request of Sunmask, the trading in shares of that corporation — Sunmask — was halted on the Vancouver Exchange. I understand that's the only stock exchange where it's listed. If it traded on other exchanges as a listed stock in Canada, undoubtedly the stop order would have applied there as well. That trading was halted at the request of the company because the company had some announcements to make with respect to a rather intricate and involved corporate relationship between a number of companies.

[5:45]

The stock did not trade for a couple of weeks — something of that nature. On the 30th of June this year, trading in Sunmask was resumed. At that time an announcement was made — this is from the George Cross News Letter of that day — about some very complex corporate relationships regarding a number of companies. If someone wants to read through it and find what the intricacies are, I think it might be preferable to read from the George Cross News Letter instead of my trying to put in my words what's involved here. This is the announcement:

"F.J. Anderson, president of Sunmask Petroleum Corp., announces that a private company he controls, 108195 (Canada) Ltd., has granted Sunmask an option to acquire 50 percent interest in Denton Investments Ltd. and 1,600,000 common shares of Dawn Development (Canada) Corp., being about 30 percent of those issued by Dawn. Denton own about 49.9 percent of the outstanding common shares of Inland Natural Gas Co. Ltd. Inland, in turn, own about 67 percent of the shares of Trans Mountain Pipeline Co. Dawn's major asset is an interest in some 765 acres of land in Delta, B. C.

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" Mr. Anderson states that he has completed an agreement with Trans Mountain wherein Trans Mountain acquired his 50 percent interest in Denton, discontinued all legal actions between himself and Trans Mountain and gave him the right to reacquire the 50 percent interest in Denton. Sunmask" — and that's the company we want to get to here — "may exercise their option by or on December 31, 1983, by payment of $10 million in cash, issue of 4 million shares and redemption of some $35 million of preference shares in Denton and 108195 Canada. Also, Sunmask will issue Mr. Anderson an option to acquire an additional 2 million shares of Sunmask at $2.50 each. Sunmask propose to raise the funds required to exercise the option by way of an underwriting of their shares. Mr. Anderson says this in turn will allow him to exercise his right to reacquire the 50 percent interest in Denton and complete the transaction."

I think the George Cross News Letter probably understates the situation when it says that complex deals regarding takeovers are outlined, because it is complex.

On the day that that announcement was made, trading in Sunmask shares on the Vancouver exchange recommenced. On June 30 there were 116,300 shares traded at a closing price that day of $3.30. There were a couple of block trades, one at $3.25 and one at $3.30; those are not really significant to what we're going to be talking about here. It's natural that that volume of 116,300 shares would have taken place on the day following the announcement when there had been a cease-trading order in existence for the preceding couple of weeks, or maybe 10 trading days, or something like that, and when the previous level of share-trading, prior to the announcement, had been about half of what that 116,000 trade was that day and, back beyond that, was in the 7,000-share range, 4,000-share range, 5,000-share range, and so on. So it's not unusual to expect an extraordinary volume of trading in that set of circumstances.

The interesting part comes here. On July 5 — two days before the budget and two days before this bill was introduced and some days after the member for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson) had publicly gotten into the controversy by making declarations about a decision by the Greater Vancouver Regional District with respect to the Spetifore property — share trading dropped off to 23,000 shares. That's significant. As I said, on the first day after the cease-trade order was lifted, one could expect that volume to increase as it did. Two days before the budget, the volume was 23,000 at a closing price of $3.40 — ten cents over what it had been on June 30. Remember, there would have been no trading over July 1 and those days in there because of a weekend and because of July 1. On July 6, the day before the budget was introduced....

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: Now we get an interest shown by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt).

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: If you want me to talk on the budget why don't you draw the budget forward where we can deal with it? It's because that minister's ashamed of the budget. He doesn't want to see it come before this House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The Chair will call the members who are interrupting to order. If the member for Skeena can relate his remarks to Bill 9 the House would certainly appreciate that. I will once again remind all hon. members that any reference to Mr. Speaker in the House is out of order except on a suspended motion.

MR. HOWARD: I've said "Mr. Speaker" at least a dozen times in the course of my speech, Mr. Speaker.

Regardless of the interruption of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who is so sensitive about the budget that they put it to one side, this doesn't have anything to do with the budget. It's a smokescreen that he's drawing up there to prevent us from getting this information forward here.

On July 6, the day before this bill was introduced, which just happened to coincide with the budget....

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: The share trading was 120,000 shares the day before, July 6, with a closing price of $3.50 — up another 10 cents. There's some movement up there. The earlier price in that period preceding that announcement was below $3. On budget day the price moves to a closing price of $3.70 from $3.50. The market closed before this bill was introduced. On July 8, the day following the introduction of this bill and the day following the budget — it's all connected — the closing price was $4.

We all know what insider trading is all about. In fact, that same gentleman, Mr. Anderson, who was the president of Sunmask, so the Vancouver Province of July 20 says, has been charged in connection with unreported insider trading in the shares of Sunmask Petroleum Corp. Now, that's his business and has nothing to do with what we are dealing with here. I only mention that to put forward an understanding about what insider trading is in the concept of corporate relationships. People who are insiders in the corporate sense are required to report their share tradings in the company of which they are an insider within ten days following the end of the month in which the trade took place. But there is no reference, Mr. Speaker, to what might be called "political insiders" and knowledge of something that may be forthcoming.

You will recall that I asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) a question in this House some days ago. I asked him whether he had discussed Bill 9 with anybody in the Social Credit Party before it was introduced in this House. His unequivocal, declaratory answer was "no." Now I don't know if he meant by that that nobody in the Social Credit caucus is a member of the Social Credit Party, but the fact of the matter is it was an incorrect answer; that he had discussed it with members of the Social Credit Party, and members of the Social Credit Party knew about the bill before it was introduced. That needs to be examined.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill, please.

MR. HOWARD: This relates to the bill, Mr. Speaker, because this bill relates to a piece of land that Dawn Development and Sunmask are involved in. The declarations of

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candidates in the last election show that certain candidates were shareholders of Sunmask Petroleum.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, at this point we are in second reading discussing the principle of the bill before us.

MR. HOWARD: I find it difficult to discuss what you call the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker, when the principle is suspect. But I will, and that's what I'm attempting to do. Perhaps what is necessary is to have a review of the things I was going to say between now and resumption of the sitting of the House tomorrow, at which time I can expand upon the shareholdings then declared by the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) and the member for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson). In the interim I'd like to move to adjourn the debate until the next sitting of the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound rises on a point of order.

MR. REYNOLDS: The member for Skeena made a long quote from the George Cross News Letter. I'm wondering if he would be prepared to table that paper that he was quoting from.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Standing orders provide that if a minister quotes.... They don't apply to a private member.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad that the member elevates me to that position. Regardless of the prohibition against it, I'll gladly table it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We haven't had the question yet. All those in favour.

Motion approved.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the member for Skeena wish to table the report he was referring to?

MR. HOWARD: I would do anything to accommodate the curiosity of the member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave will be required.

Leave granted.

MR. HOWARD: I have a copy of the George Cross News Letter. I'll table the copy from which I quoted with the understanding that the hon. gentlemen at the table will give me a copy so I can have it back again.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have that undertaking.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

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Appendix

WRITTEN ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

13 Mrs. Wallace asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following questions:

For the calendar years 1982 and to date in 1983-

1. How many pollution control permits were issued and how many amendments to pollution control permits were issued in each year?

2. What amount of revenue was generated by the Province through the issuance of pollution control permits in each year?

3. If under No. 1, any amendments were issued, which permits were amended and what were the amendments?

The Hon. A. J. Brummet stated that, in his opinion, the reply should be in the form of a Return and that he had no objection to laying such Return upon the table of the House, and thereupon presented such Return.

15 Mrs. Wallace asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following questions:

For each calendar year from 1976 to 1982-

1. How many violations to pollution control permits were (a) reported to the Ministry and (b) detected by the Ministry?

2. How many amendments to pollution control permits resulted from these violations?

3. Were any individuals or companies charged as a result of these violations?

4. If the answer to No. 3 is yes, (a) what are the names of these companies or individuals; (b) how many fines were levied as a result of the violations: and (c) what was the total of these fines?

The Hon. A. J. Brummet stated that, in his opinion, the reply should be in the form of a Return and that he had no objection to laying such Return upon the table of the House, and thereupon presented such Return.

36 Mr. Stupich asked the Hon. the Minister of Finance the following questions:

1. What was the total of cash and temporary investments held by the General Fund at March 31, 1983?

2. What specific investments comprised the total in No. 1, and for each, what was the rate of interest payable to the General Fund?

The Hon. H. A. Curtis stated that, in his opinion, the reply should be in the form of a Return and that he had no objection to laying such Return upon the table of the House, and thereupon presented such Return.

38 Mr. Passarell asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following question:

While Amax has been on an extended shutdown, has the Provincial Government researched land tailings disposal as opposed to allowing ocean tailings disposal?

The Hon. A. J. Brummet replied as follows:

"No. The question of land disposal of tailings was investigated during the assessment of the permit application and was rejected."