[ Page 795 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tobacco Tax Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 13). Second reading.

Mr. Michael –– 795

Mr. Gabelmann –– 795

Ms. Brown –– 798

Mr. Reid –– 803

Ocean Falls Corporation Repeal Act (Bill 30). Second reading.

Mr. Cocke –– 804

Ms. Brown –– 808

Hon. Mr. Waterland –– 812

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1983

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, it's a rare pleasure for me to rise this morning and ask all members to join me in wishing the happiest returns of the day to a very vibrant, energetic and knowledgeable lady who will be celebrating her ninety-third birthday tomorrow. I'm sure this longevity aspect will strike a degree of fear in the breasts of our socialist friends opposite, because she's none other than the mother of my colleague the first member for Vancouver-Point Grey.

I would ask all members to join me in wishing very dandy birthday greetings to Mrs. Ada McGeer, and may her shadow never grow less.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, from the Royal City — the proposed capital and should-be capital of the province of British Columbia — may I present to the House and ask that the House welcome the president of the largest ratepayers' association in the Royal City, Mr. Bob Osterman, and Mrs. Osterman.

MR. PASSARELL: Visiting the galleries today is an old classmate of mine from Notre Dame, Bernie Schwartz from Biggar, Saskatchewan. I would like the House to welcome him.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join me, though belatedly, in recognizing the contribution that was made by Mr. Harold McWilliams, who passed away and was buried last week. Mr. McWilliams served for three years, from 1968 until his retirement in 1971, as B.C. deputy minister of recreation and conservation. From 1937 to 1956 he was in charge of the province's reforestation program and worked in other departments of government, giving very loyal service. I would like the House to join me in an expression of condolences to the family.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 13.

TOBACCO TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1983
(continued)

MR. MICHAEL: In taking a leaf from the book of the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), I would say Phillip Morris is dead, Sir Walter Raleigh is dead, and if the people of Canada don't quit chewing tobacco, it will be the rumination of the country.

[10:15]

The time has probably arrived when the opposition should give consideration to proceeding with the business of this House. We've debated this bill for several hours. It's a very simple question of whether we're in favour of it or against it. I would ask the members opposite to give consideration to proceeding to some more challenging, interesting debates, which I'm sure both sides of this House are capable of and willing to get into. Let's get on with the business, and proceed in the interests of the constituents, the people of British Columbia, whom we are supposed to be representing.

I would close by saying that I rise to support this tobacco tax bill, and would ask the members, let's get on to some more interesting, challenging debates.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, particular thanks to my new friend from Kootenay (Mr. Segarty) and my old friend from Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael). The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke suggests that we should get on with this debate and not "delay the business of the House." This is very much the business of this House. We have over the years, in debating tobacco tax legislation, let it go through without very much thought. The Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) agrees with that. Today I want to join with my colleagues, some of whom have treated this issue lightly and some of whom have treated it more seriously. Since I'm not particularly good at the light side, I'm going to try to deal with it on the more serious side.

We are raising $132 million from tobacco taxes in this province. That is a significant amount of money. It is a particularly significant amount of money when you compare it to the amount spent on encouraging people not to smoke. I happen to think smoking is a dreadful and expensive habit. It's expensive not only from a health point of view but also — on the lighter side — it's also expensive for those of us who don't smoke to have to get our sweaters dry-cleaned every time we go to a social function. I find the habit absolutely revolting and disgusting and I....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Wear a suit.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I don't go to the kinds of parties the former Attorney-General does, where I have to wear a suit; I go more often to the kind where I wear a sweater or less.

As I was saying, it's a dreadful habit. I'm not going to transgress on the subject matter contained in the bill proposed by the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), other than to say that I agree with that. I hope we can begin the process of ending smoking in public places, including, may I say, the dining room downstairs and other locations, so that those of us who can't stand the stink when we're eating have a chance to eat in peace.

I do want to talk about the fact that I think we should be spending a considerable amount of this $132 million of revenue that will be raised in this fiscal year on preventive programs, on ways to encourage people not to smoke. I think it's generally agreed that smoking is expensive in health terms; it creates all kinds of disease in terms of lung cancer, coronary problems and what not. The evidence is in, and I don't need to go through all the data on that.

In fact, some of my colleagues suggested that smoking saves society money, because all the smokers die so young they don't have to occupy nursing homes. I've been in enough nursing homes and seen 90-year-old people smoking to suggest to myself that that isn't always the case.

Interjection.

[ Page 796 ]

MR. GABELMANN: That's right.

Mr. Speaker, there was a report done in 1973 that, for the most part, has not been implemented in this province, and that was one done by Dr. Richard Foulkes, who was commissioned by the Minister of Health, the current member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke). Dr. Foulkes spent some considerable time talking of the need for prevention in health care matters, and he included in that some discussion about the need to spend money, time and effort, educationally and otherwise, on the whole question of tobacco. I find it really quite disturbing that at a time in our society when alcohol and drug abuse is of such significant cost to society, not just in economic terms also but in social and personal terms, we have programs such as the Alcohol and Drug Commission being abolished.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

None of the new money raised by this bill that we're debating this morning is being, as far as I can determine, allocated to encouraging people to give up the dirty habit. Nor is any given to the whole issue of people not starting the dirty habit. It's been traditional in our society that women have lived longer than men, and one of the medical reasons given for that is that women have not smoked to the degree that men have. That's now changing, and teenage girls are now smoking more than teenage boys. The impact on the potential for life expectancy will be noticed very shortly in our society. Men will begin to live as long as women, or put more accurately, women will begin to live as less long — if I can put it that way — as men. How much effort is being made by society, through the government, to encourage 12-, 13-, 14- and 15-year-old girls in our schools not to take up this habit? How much of the extra revenue raised by this legislation is being earmarked for educational campaigns in our schools to ensure that these teenage girls do not — for the most part, at least — take up this filthy and expensive habit? Not very much, I would suggest.

The prevailing wisdom has been — and the federal Minister of Health seems to echo that view — that the way in which you prevent or discourage smoking is to raise the tax. I'm not sure whether cigarette taxes, and alcohol taxes for that matter, are raised almost annually simply because the governments want revenue or because they seriously want to try to discourage addiction or overuse of either alcohol, tobacco or — I won't include the other drugs; they're not on the list. But I suspect that unthinkingly and without planning governments have simply increased the tax as a revenue measure and not as a measure designed to improve the health of our society.

I think it's time we discussed that basic issue. The federal minister suggests that raising taxes, particularly on tobacco, to exorbitant levels will stop people. I'm not so sure. I think of my own case, as one who enjoys a bottle of beer on occasion, and remembering when a dozen beer were $2.52. It is now in the $8 to $9 range for a dozen beer. It should discourage me; it doesn't. It doesn't appear, either, to discourage very many others in our society who consume not just beer but other spirits and wine. The taxes there have been increased quite exorbitantly over the years; the consumption rate does not appear to go down as a result of that.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I've listened carefully thus far; the member, however, is speaking about taxes which may or may not be applied to spirits, beer and wine, and that is not the subject of this bill in principle, I suggest.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is well taken. This is the Tobacco Tax Amendment Act.

MR. GABELMANN: I would not agree at all with that point of order by the nervous minister. The fact is that this is a sin tax. What we're debating is a sin tax — not syntax, but a sin tax — and the principle of raising money from people's sins is what is under debate in this bill. It specifically refers to one particular sin, but in discussing that sin I feel I have a right to talk about the other sins that are also taxed, because the evidence for one applies to the other. If the Minister of Finance is uncomfortable with that, so be it.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It's very difficult to find a principle in a bill where Section 1 says, "Section 2(l) of the Tobacco Tax Act R.S.B.C –– 1979, c. 404, is amended: (a) in paragraph (b) by striking out '2 cents' and substituting '3 cents,' (b) in paragraph (c) by striking out '3 cents' and substituting '4 cents;' (c) in paragraph....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No, I'm just trying to find the principle. I'm going through this to see if I can find a principle in this bill, Mr. Speaker.

What is the principle when all we have is a series of numbers? The principle is, that this is a taxation measure. There are a variety of taxation measures in our society. Some taxes are raised by personal income tax, some by social service taxes, some by resource revenues; other taxes are raised in other ways. This is a bill to raise taxes from people's sins, and I intend to talk about sins. I'm not going to talk about resource taxes, because as hard as I look through all the mumbo-jumbo in this bill, I can't find anything about resources; nor can I find anything about the sales tax. So I won't talk about them, but I will talk about tax on sin.

For too long now we have, on the one hand, blandly and blindly accepted that by making speeches or allegedly arguing we will discourage bad habits by taxation — the evidence is not in that we will — and on the other hand, doing nothing, and even less than nothing, in our society to make sure people don't take up these bad habits It's clear to me that these increased taxes on tobacco, and on the other sins, have not worked. Why doesn't the government consider, instead of raising money as they hope to do, an additional...?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: One moment, please. The Minister of Forests rises on a point of order.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member now speaking has said, in effect, that people who smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages are sinners. That may be his opinion, but I take exception to that and would ask him to withdraw that implication.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister's absolutely correct: it's my opinion that it's a sin, and I'm entitled, as is any other member in this House, to get up and express my opinion.

[ Page 797 ]

Mr. Speaker, are you ruling that I can't express my opinion?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: As a matter of fact, I am not. I will just bring something to the House's attention in a moment.

[10:30]

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, according to estimates, at least, the effect of this bill will be to raise an additional $18 million this coming fiscal year, the one we are well into now.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No, a total of $18 million for the entire fiscal year. The tax began July 7, but for this entire fiscal year it will produce $18 million. Presumably then, it will produce $20-odd million in subsequent fiscal years. Hopefully it will produce less because people will not smoke.

But what is the government doing? What is the principle? What is the objective of this government in this matter? Is the principle to raise money or is the principle to reduce the use of tobacco? The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) suggests that the purpose is to raise money.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Now I hear the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat) suggesting that the purpose of this bill is to raise money for health care services, human resource services and other kinds of services.

I don't understand why in this society we would not be prepared to spend a few million dollars raised by this particular tax to save many more millions of dollars in reduced costs to society. Not just cost in terms of health care but also costs in terms of fires, lost time at work — which is a factor caused by tobacco — and a whole variety of other costs that are incurred by our society.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam asks me: "Who says we are not discouraging the use of this particular weed?" But we are not. The Alcohol and Drug Commission, which had a variety of things in its mandate — hopefully, as well, a mandate to discourage the use of tobacco — is being abolished. Where are the educational programs coming out of the revenue from this particular bill to discourage the habit, particularly when it comes to teenage girls in particular and teenage kids in general? Why are we not spending some of this on those kinds of programs?

I think one of the reasons that some of us on this side decided that we wanted to take some time on this bill is that, as I said earlier, year after year we blindly do the same thing: we increase the taxes on this particular sin knowing that it's not politically unpopular to do so. For the most part, even smokers will agree to accept increased taxes, but we never take the time to think about the consequences of the habit, and it's about time we did. It's about time that we embarked on extensive educational programs in the school system. I would suggest that it should be more than the $18 million that is being raised in this fiscal year by this particular bill, but we should spend considerable amounts of money in our schools on telling people about the effects of tobacco.

Why isn't there a policy in this province, as there is allegedly with liquor advertising — beer and wine — that the tobacco manufacturers have to run at least 25 percent of the commercials opposing tobacco?

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations whispers across: "Good point." That's a non-partisan issue. This whole question of taxes on sin, educational programs and the abuse of drug and alcohol in our society is a non-partisan issue. We all agree about it. We share views. The idea that it's "sexy" and "in" and all those things to smoke and to drink is mostly promulgated by television. No money is set aside.... We don't even need to use this money out of this budget for that. We could just pass a law saying to the tobacco advertisers that they must spend a proportion — whatever it is, I suggest 25 percent, but it could be some other percentage — of their advertising budget on an anti-tobacco campaign, in the same way that with beer and wine there has to be a campaign for moderation. Those are important considerations. That doesn't require government money, but what would require government money is to make sure that programs like the Alcohol and Drug Commission are maintained. Whether they're maintained as part of a separate agency or as part of an active function of the Ministry of Health is legitimately debatable, but the fact is that at the present time nothing is being done at all.

I want to go through a couple of recommendations made in 1973 that affect this particular issue. The report of Dr. Foulkes, which has had wide play over the years, is one that I agree with in general. I suspect there are individual proposals in it that aren't particularly agreeable, but for the most part his approach to these issues has been from the preventive side. He argued that there should be an Alcohol and Drug Commission to deal with alcoholism and drug addiction, and smoking is a drug addiction. That commission should be organizing appropriate integrated programs at the community level. It should be an independent agency so it can offer advice to government, and it may well in the course of its studies and work decide that the advice to government is not to continue to raise taxes on tobacco, that that's not the appropriate way to control or discourage tobacco.

In fact, I think you can argue that this tax, like a sales tax, hits harder at the poor people in our society. The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), when I made reference to a 90-year-old, made reference earlier to one of the few pleasures in life. For a lot of unemployed people and a lot of people on their own without much money, smoking is, in fact, a pleasure. There's no question about that, and I don't deny it. When you have a tax that's across the board like this it wouldn't be a hardship for the minister or for me if we were smokers, but for that poor individual who's living on a fixed income in a tiny one-room suite, that cost is a hardship. Maybe we should look at the whole question of how this tax hits. Does it hit fairly or not? I think probably not. But that's something that could be looked into, too, by an alcohol and drug commission that was independent of government and had the power to make recommendations about how the taxes should apply, and how we should proceed.

I'm not going to stretch this out to 40 minutes, mostly because I would be repeating myself excessively if I were to try to do that. But I do want to talk about one more thing. In

[ Page 798 ]

1973 the estimated cost of coronary heart diseases in the United States, and this is a figure based on studies done six years earlier.... In 1967 coronary heart diseases cost $15 billion in the United States. If you assume that Canada is 10 percent the size of the United States you can assume that that cost in Canada would be roughly $1.5 billion. Since B.C. is 10 percent of Canada, the cost would be $150 million here in British Columbia. The economic cost to society of coronary heart disease alone is more than the money raised by this particular tax measure. If it was $150 million in 1967, imagine what it is today. Excessive costs. We don't take enough time to think through how we're going to handle these kinds of issues.

The final recommendation in this section of that report, entitled "Recommendation No. 163," is: "That the government place greatly increased emphasis on lifestyle modification to persuade the public away from such proven unhealthy activities as smoking, alcohol and drug ingestion." That's a recommendation that has never taken place; in fact, we have gone the other way, Our sports stadiums are dependent upon booze; they wouldn't survive economically without them.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I think it is the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) who suggests that's utter nonsense. There's no question at all that the operation of B.C. Place, without the passage earlier of the ability of beer and wine companies to advertise on the electronic media in this province.... The whole foundation of that....

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, earlier I felt it appropriate to draw to the Chair's attention the fact that we are debating a tobacco tax increase. Surely we are not debating the question of beer and wine advertising or display material at a stadium.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps just to read Sir Erskine May's comments on second reading: "The stage of second reading is primarily concerned with the principle of a measure.... At this stage, debate is not strictly limited to the contents of a bill, but other methods of attaining its proposed object may be considered...." I'll leave that with the members. All members are aware that it's rather a judgment call on the part of the Chair.

I don't want to frustrate debate, but if the hon. member for North Island could contain his comments to the principle of the bill and what it's intending to obtain, then I'm sure we could proceed quite in order.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I'm standing here puzzling as to what Sir Erskine might tell us if he were here — whether or not I've been in order. I may well be straying slightly from the order, and I acknowledge that, Mr. Speaker.

What I would like to do in closing, and I will close at this stage.... [Applause.] I knew if I used that line I'd get some applause. Mr. Speaker, I would like to put into the record a couple of statements that have been made over the years about tobacco. One is from Sir Charles Lamb: "This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized." Burton: "Tobacco, divine, rare, super excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers' stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases How is that for an old view of tobacco? Edward Lucas says: "One of the two things that men who have lasted for 100 years always say: either that they have drunk whisky and smoked all their lives or that neither tobacco nor spirits ever made the faintest appeal to them." I read those quotations because my copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations included them. I think all three of them are totally irrelevant, but I did want to share them with the House.

I want to read a final quotation, which I think is quite relevant and descriptive of the problem we face with tobacco. I think it illustrates that the measures taken by the Minister of Finance to attempt to wipe out this filthy habit are not appropriate. In saying that, I'm assuming that he is in fact trying to wipe out this filthy habit by this tax measure. I must say, though, that I do have some doubts as to whether it is a correct assumption. Interestingly, the gentleman's first name was Graham and his second name was Lee; his last name was Hemminger. He was born just before the turn of the century.

Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.
It satisfies no normal need. I like it.
It makes you thin; it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean.
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen. I like it.

I suspect we could take off the last name of Mr. Hemminger and, if it were in order to cite the first two names of this gentleman, attribute that quotation to one Graham Lee.

I now move the motion be amended by leaving out the word "now" and adding the words "on this day six months hence."

[10:45]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The motion is in order.

On the amendment.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, the reason I'm speaking in support of the amendment is that I don't think the bill it is amending is going to do what the government wants it to do. If I thought for one minute that by raising the tax on tobacco people would stop using it, I would support that legislation; I would support it wholeheartedly, with all my strength and being,

I dislike smoking. I cannot think of a single good thing that comes from smoking. I disagree with the people who say that smokers are not a burden on the medical system because they drop dead of heart attacks. That's not true. They live on and on, and they're sick all the time. They're a total drain on the health system. They're always coughing and spitting all over the place. They have nasty habits. Their fingernails turn brown, their teeth turn brown, and on and on it goes. The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) is upset.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Brown is beautiful.

MS. BROWN: Not when it's the colour of your fingernails and your teeth.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I understand that the member opposite is speaking on the amendment to hoist this bill for six months. I would suggest that her remarks have to be kept to that point, which really doesn't have much to do with whether or not people get sick. We might be interested in finding out six months later

[ Page 799 ]

whether people are going to get sick. The hoist for six months is what we're talking about.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That point of order is well taken. We are now on a hoisting amendment.

MS. BROWN: I'm glad the minister asked those questions, because it gives me an opportunity to be in order when I respond. We're hoping that in the six-month interim the government will begin to see the error of its ways and will pull the legislation. Raising the tax on tobacco is not going to stop people from smoking.

One other thing I dislike about smokers is that they often fall asleep when they're smoking and burn down things: they burn down houses; they burn down apartments. They smoke in the bathrooms of airplanes and cause airplanes to blow up. Smokers are an absolute menace. There's no question about it.

If I thought for one minute that there was any way at all to rid the world of smokers....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: This is it.

In all seriousness, if there's anyone out there who knows how we can stop people from smoking, I would like to find out.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: You know. Okay. I personally would like to find out.

Today marks 28 years that I have had to live with a smoker. I am an expert on what it is to be continually breathing someone else's smoke. I am the one who's going to die of lung cancer, not him. And if I thought that by raising this....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Oh, Mr. Speaker, I know that he would appreciate the hon. second member.... Is that what's driving him to smoke?

If I thought that raising the taxes would make even one person stop smoking, I would support it.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: I would. Are you going to stop smoking? You haven't even started. Think of all the lives that would be saved, all the property that wouldn't be burned down, all the airplanes that wouldn't be blown up if people would stop smoking. Think of the health care system: no lung cancer, no pleurisy, all that coughing.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rebuilding all those houses.

MS. BROWN: Rebuilding all those houses. You've got me right there. If in order to stop that we have to stop smoking, then I'm with it.

I really hope that this hoist is going to give the government an opportunity — the Minister of Finance is leaving just as I am coming to the financial part of my argument....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: He's gone for a smoke, right. My case rests, then. Precisely. It's even raising it.

In all seriousness, this bill has to be hoisted because I think the government's making a very serious mistake by introducing one more regressive piece of taxation. That, in fact, is what a tax on tobacco is. It's regressive taxation. I think that for the government to add this to all of the other regressive taxation which is already a burden on the people of British Columbia is not something that the opposition can support.

I want to talk — I know that this will bring back memories to a number of people who had the misfortune of having to read Samuelson and Scott's Economics when they went through school.... But there are some things here that I think the Minister of Finance needs to take a second look at, so I want to recommend to him first of all a particular chapter that he has to read, and then the exercise that comes at the end of it. I want to recommend to him chapter three, which deals with the functioning of a mixed capitalist enterprise system. It talks in some detail....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Speak to the amendment.

MS. BROWN: I am speaking to the amendment. This is the problem: we have a Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) who is not even respectful of the bible of economics, Samuelson and Scott. That's the problem we have in this province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Poppycock!

MS. BROWN: If the minister will listen very carefully, the minister will understand by the end of the time I'm speaking what is absolutely important: that during the six months that this bill is hoisted the Minister of Finance and the minister who is interrupting me continually, the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, read this chapter, and, having read the chapter, address themselves to the exercise at the end. Because one of the things that the chapter talks about in great detail is taxation. It goes into the difference between progressive taxes such as the personal income tax system and regressive taxes such as this particular tax on tobacco, the one we were discussing and about which in support of an amendment to hoist I am now speaking.

One of the things the chapter says to whomever is implementing this kind of tax is that they should look at the person or persons who ultimately will be paying a particular tax. They have to ask themselves the question, first of all: does the burden of that tax stay on the person against whom it is first levied? Can one always assume that the person a legislature puts a tax against is the person who really ends up paying that tax or the person who is victimized by that tax? This is not the case, because one of the things we know for sure — that experience has shown us — is that people who smoke will find the money to buy cigarettes regardless of what else they have to go without in order to continue to support their habit. Because smoking is an addiction. Raising the taxes on smoking isn't going to stop people smoking. It means that they're going to be pulling money from somewhere else in order to continue to support their addiction. That is one of the reasons why this is such an insidious kind of tax. A number of people have this habit who fall into the category — and most of the

[ Page 800 ]

people on whom the tax bears the hardest — of those who can least afford the habit of smoking in the first place. To have a tax added on top of that and to have that tax increased is an additional burden which they themselves don't bear. They take the money from elsewhere in order to continue supporting their habit.

MR. PARKS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I'm having a great deal of difficulty understanding how this hon. member is speaking to her hoisting amendment. It certainly sounds as if she is still debating the main motion. As I understand the hoisting motion, she wishes this House to shelve this resolution for six months. I have not heard her debate why it should be suspended for six months. Perhaps she could speak to that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is well taken, although the member now speaking has, in the Chair's estimation, addressed the hoist principle. If the member could stay with the principle of the amendment now before us I am sure the House and our rules would be satisfied.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, you have just illustrated and demonstrated why you are the Speaker, and not the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks). Mr. Speaker could see the link immediately. I am agreeing with the Chair. The Chair is correct.

I'm going to repeat, for the benefit of the two little backbenchers down here — the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) and the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam — that I'm asking the government to hoist this piece of legislation for six months, hoping that during those six months they will avail themselves of some of the information about regressive taxation and its impact on various groups on our society, will see the evil of their ways, and pull the bill completely. Having stated that in principle, I am going to help the government, and hopefully the two little back-benchers at the same time, by discussing some of the issues raised by Samuelson in chapter 3 of his book on economics, about regressive taxation and the groups that are affected by it, and why it has a negative impact not only on the people at whom the tax is directed, but on other people as well.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Before I was interrupted we were talking about the question of who ultimately pays this tax, and whether in fact a tax of this nature is having the effect on the person at whom it is directed, rather than on someone else. Now that the Minister of Finance has returned, this is a question which I think he has to ask himself during the six months this hoist is in progress. The Minister of Finance has to address the question of just who is going to be affected by this tax.

[11:00]

On page 190 of this particular chapter in the textbook is a summary, which I'll quote for the benefit of the Minister of Finance; this is a lesson in economics I'm giving here: "Taxes give the government the resources which it needs for its public activities.. Taxes also finance welfare transfer expenditures that change the distribution of income. The overall way taxes are levied affect the final distribution of income among people." That's a very crucial point, one that the Minister of Finance has to keep in mind whenever he's contemplating introducing a tax.

"Taxes is one way of redistributing income, and when you tax fairly through a progressive tax system, you redistribute income in a fair and equitable manner. When you tax unfairly through a regressive tax" — such as the one we are now asking the government to hoist for six months — "you redistribute income unfairly and in an unequal manner, and it tends to be a harder burden and have a harder impact on the people who can least afford to pay that tax."

The whole question of regressive taxation is one that this government has never addressed itself to. In fact, this is not the only piece of regressive taxation that this government has visited upon the people of British Columbia. That's why I think they need the six months. If they do absolutely nothing else with it, they need the six months to do some reading, some research, learning, analysis and study about the real honest-to-goodness impact of regressive taxation on people.

Okay, here comes the little exam that I would like the minister to do over the next six months, Mr. Speaker. This comes at the end of chapter 3. After he's read the chapter, he should do this little exercise. First of all, it says: "Make a list of different taxes in order of their progressiveness. Then try to decide what is the importance of each at the various levels." He doesn't have to do the second half of the question if he doesn't want to. But he certainly has to do the first part of that question. He has to make a list of all the various taxes that he, during his time as Minister of Finance, has visited on the people of British Columbia, during the six months that he is looking at this particular tax. He also has to look at some of the other taxation. He should make the list in terms of his perception of how progressive those taxes are. As a matter of fact, to jog his memory, I think he should include in that, for example, the sales tax. I don't want to go into detail on that, because that's another bit. I'm just giving him some ideas of some of the other taxes that he should include, in terms of making this list.

Then I want him to deal with this specific question because — you're not going to believe this — Samuelson and Scott, in their textbook — and it was printed in....

AN HON. MEMBER: Quite a while ago.

MS. BROWN: It was, because even in 1966.... This is a reprinting, because I used it myself, and I've been out of school a long time. But this is one of the....

HON. MR. GARDOM: How long?

MS. BROWN: Almost as many years as you.

But imagine, one of the exercises that I had to do as a student, and that I think the minister should now do, is this: "Since people don't change their smoking habits as a result of taxation, and since the poor smoke, a tax on cigarettes is really no different than a tax on bread. Do you agree? If so, what ought to be done?" Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, that this exercise — this test — which I'm asking the minister to do over the next six months, during the time that this bill is hoisted, is an exercise that every student who's done first-year economics has had to do. It is appalling, isn't it, that a first-year student in economics knows that a tax on tobacco is regressive. But the Minister of Finance for the province of British Columbia hasn't discovered that fact yet.

MR. PARKS: It is a progressive tax in a social sense.

[ Page 801 ]

MS. BROWN: It is not a progressive tax. It is not a social service tax.

MR. PARKS: In a social sense.

MS. BROWN: Here we have the little back-benchers challenging the fine minds of Samuelson and Scott, who have been training, teaching and educating students in this province since the beginning of time, because this is a required text, as dictated by the Ministry of Education. It's approved of by the government's own Ministry of Education. This text has decided and stated and said that the tax on tobacco is a regressive tax. Every first-year student in economics has been taught, has learned and knows that it is a regressive tax. They have been set an exam at the end of chapter 3 that every single one of them has to deal with, and we have the Minister of Finance of the third largest.... Is it the third largest budget in all of Canada that he's dealing with, or is it the largest? It's the third largest budget in all of Canada. He doesn't recognize that by increasing the tax on tobacco, by even allowing a tax on tobacco, he is supporting, introducing and increasing a regressive piece of legislation.

MR. PARKS: Would you rather it be reduced?

MS. BROWN: It shouldn't exist at all.

MR. PARKS: Oh, I see.

MS. BROWN: Did you take first-year economics? It's a regressive tax.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment. The hon. member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew seeks the floor.

MR. MITCHELL: It's just on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would like you to ask the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) to participate in the debate properly: stand up and give his reasons but not interrupt the speakers.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that a point of order?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, it is. Thank you, the point is well taken.

MR. PARKS: What's wrong? Can't Rosemary defend herself?

MS. BROWN: I would like to acknowledge that certainly for this side of the bench, chivalry is not dead. I want to thank my colleague for Esquimalt for coming to my defence.

However, during the six months this hoist is in progress, I am hoping that the Minister of Finance will avail himself of this copy of the text, read chapter 3 and do those two tests. I have one final one I would like him to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: That'll take him more than six months.

MS. BROWN: Yes, maybe we should move an amendment to the amendment.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No, you have to defend it.

During the next six months, I want the minister to do this third test. I notice he's writing down these little exams I'm giving him. I want him to review his understanding of the following concepts: benefit and sacrifice notions — all of these things are covered in this particular chapter — direct and indirect taxes, progressive and regressive, and tax incidence and shifting. Those are four points which I am going to touch on very briefly just to help him so that when the time comes for him to do this little test, he'll get the answers correct. I would be too embarrassed to admit to anyone that the Minister of Finance of the province in which I live couldn't pass the first-year economics test on the third chapter in the first textbook that every first-year economic student has to use.

I want to quote again from Samuelson on this one. I want to get it exact so that when the minister reads it it comes out exactly the same way. "The problem that we have is that regressive tax takes a larger fraction from the income of low income earners than it does from the income of high-income earners." That's the real problem with regressive tax. The first point I raised was that the tax didn't necessarily impact on the people it was directed at, and the second one I'm raising is that regressive taxes take more of a percentage of the income of low-income earners than it does of the income of high-income earners. When we are looking at the redistribution of income, we see that a regressive tax tends not just to keep the poor poor but it tends to make the poor poorer than they were before, and it tends to make the rich richer. That is one of the real problems. If the minister recognizes that taxes are a form of income redistribution, then he has to recognize that the regressive tax is more of a burden on them than it is on others by taking more of the income of the poor.

It goes on to say that when you add that to the other indirect and direct taxes that low-income families have to deal with, regressive taxes are really very destructive. If it were the only form of taxation, we would say the government has no option, but it is possible to use a progressive tax system. That's why it is so important that the minister should be very clear in his mind that this particular tax is not progressive. Income tax is progressive. If, in fact, the government is using taxes as a means of generating revenue, then the government has a responsibility to see that the tax it uses is a progressive tax, that it impacts in an equal and even manner on all people and that it does not impact more severely on that segment of society that can't afford the tax in the first place. When you start to look at the other taxes that low-income people have to deal with.... I don't want to talk about the tax on restaurant meals, but that's a straight across-the-board tax that everyone has to pay regardless of their income. A person who makes $10,000 a year pays the same 7 percent on the purchase of goods or services as a person making $100,000 a year. The impact of that tax is harder on the person making $10,000 a year. As with tobacco, so with sales tax and these other taxes: they are regressive. All I am saying is that the poor already are dealing with too many other regressive taxes, and if the government is really serious and the only reason for introducing this tax is to generate revenue, then the government should know that it is better for everyone concerned that this revenue be generated by a progressive tax, such as a progressive income tax system, rather than a straight-across-the-board regressive tax such as a sales tax or

[ Page 802 ]

the tax on tobacco, or a tax on meals, the other tax introduced by this government.

[11:15]

The problem that we have is that so often we mistakenly think that because we live in an affluent and a wealthy country everybody can afford the taxes and can afford to pay the price for the goods and services which they receive. That is not true. I think we have to start looking at the statistics.

MR. REID: You should quit smoking if you can't handle it; that's simple.

MS. BROWN: The two little back-benchers keep saying they should quit smoking. I thought I had dealt with that. It doesn't happen. You don't stop smoking if you are addicted to tobacco simply because the tax is increased. You don't stop drinking if you are addicted to alcohol simply because the tax is increased. As a means of dealing with morals it's a failure. It has been proven over and over again. It is not necessary for us to reinvent the wheel; it has been done. The research has been done on it by other jurisdictions, other people in other places at other times. Increasing the taxes doesn't stop people from smoking or drinking.

MR. REID: It helps.

MS. BROWN: It doesn't help.

MR. REID: I couldn't afford it, so I quit.

MS. BROWN: You didn't stop smoking because of the taxes; you stopped smoking because you smartened up. You decided you didn't want to die of lung cancer, you didn't want to have cancer of the lips, you didn't want to have pleurisy, you didn't want to burn yourself in your bed at night or blow up an airplane. That's why he stopped; it had nothing to do with taxes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that why you quit smoking?

MS. BROWN: That is why I quit smoking.

If the minister really believes what the two little backbenchers are telling him, then let him use the six months to read the material, to read the research, to find out for himself that as a means of dealing with one's morals, one's sin, bad habits or addiction or whatever, taxes don't do it. If you could stop an addiction by taxing, all we would need to do is put a tax on heroin. You speak to the Minister of Labour, and he will tell you that not even treatment deals with that. You don't deal with addictions through taxation. Surely not even this government could believe that. Not even this government could believe that you deal with addictions through taxation.

So it doesn't deal with the addiction. The only rational reason that they have for this tax is a source of revenue; they are trying to raise money. If that is the case then they have a responsibility during the six months that this legislation is being hoisted to look at a progressive way of raising income rather than a regressive way of raising income.

Before I was interrupted I was going to give some statistics on poverty in Canada and in British Columbia.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. REID: Poverty?

MS. BROWN: Poverty, that's right. The poor who smoke pay the same percentage tax as the rich who smoke. It is precisely for that reason that it is regressive. In British Columbia, according to the statistics that we have....

MR. REID: Cigar smoking should be against the law.

MS. BROWN: I agree with that member 100 percent. Cigar smoking should be against the law.

MR. REID: Cigarette smoking should be against the law. Your husband should quit smoking.

MS. BROWN: I like cigar smokers; I just don't like the fact that they smoke cigars. Some of my best friends are cigar-smokers.

We have something like 9.6 percent of the total poor of Canada living in British Columbia. We're talking about 272,000 people living beneath the poverty line who could be impacted as a result of this regressive taxation. In case you're wondering, what I'm pointing out is....

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, I'm wondering.

MS. BROWN: Okay.

We sometimes forget, because we're so fortunate to have the mountains and the ocean and everything is so beautiful in B.C., and we think that everyone is rich and living in luxury.

MR. REID: Out in Point Grey.

MS. BROWN: Who lives in Point Grey?

MR. REID: Don't you live in Point Grey? Isn't that where luxury is?

MS. BROWN: You'll have to ask the two members for Point Grey. In Burnaby I don't know what you're talking about.

HON. MR. GARDOM: At one time you had great representation.

MS. BROWN: But now I have the best.

My colleague, in moving the motion, touched on the point that one of the tragedies of smoking is that more and more women are beginning to smoke, and as a result of this they shorten their life span. The other statistic is that they make up 63 percent of the poor in British Columbia, who are going to have to pay this tax and who are going to be affected by this particularly regressive piece of taxation.

When we talk about poverty and the poor, then we're talking about women.

AN HON. MEMBER: Women.

MS. BROWN: That's right, we're talking about women. So I have a special interest....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. We are supposed to have one formal conversation at a time, and right now the hon. member has the floor.

[ Page 803 ]

MS. BROWN: Sixty-three percent....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, hon. member. If other members, particularly the Leader of the Opposition, wish to conduct a caucus meeting, this is not the time, in deference to the rights of the member for Burnaby-Edmonds. Please continue, Madam Member.

MS. BROWN: What I was trying to talk about was the fact that....

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Okay, now can we talk about the 63 percent of poor people in British Columbia who are women, on whom this particular piece of regressive taxation is going to be a very particular burden? A large percentage of those women....

AN HON. MEMBER: You haven't got time.

MS. BROWN: What? Did you deduct the time that the caucus meeting was in progress? You didn't? Oh.

Mr. Speaker, I set three little exams for the Minister of Finance that I'd like him to do during the six months that the hoist is in progress. All of them deal specifically with the regressive nature of this particular piece of taxation. I have dismissed the concept of the tax as a means of dealing with one's addiction to tobacco, or one's morals or lack of them, or whatever has to do with smoking. I refuse to believe that that's the reason the tax was introduced. I accept that as a tax measure the government introduced it to generate revenue, and I pointed out to the minister that as a revenue-producing instrument it was very regressive, because it had a greater impact on the poor than it did on other people. I then asked him, in the six months during the time this hoist is in progress, to avail himself of Samuelson and Scott's Economics, chapter 3, which deals specifically with this issue of regressive and progressive taxation and which compares this kind of taxation with really being a poll tax on people — that's really what it is. Then I also gave him these three exams to do, one of which is an exam that every student in first-year economics has to write and that says, specifically — and I just want to repeat this in case the minister missed it the first time: "Since people don't change their smoking habits as a result of taxation, and since the poor smoke, a tax on cigarettes is really no different from a tax on bread." The question is: do you agree, and if so, what ought to be done?

I tried to help the minister by pointing out that the answer to that question is yes, he should agree; and the second answer is that he should withdraw the legislation. So he's got the answers to the questions, and I hope he'll pass the test. I support the hoist.

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of....

MS. BROWN: No, no. Is this closure?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I'll defer, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, the minister is entitled to speak on the amendment without running the risk of closing debate. And the minister defers to the second member for Surrey.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House,

Motion approved on the following division:

[11:30]

YEAS — 27

NAYS — 13

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

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, yesterday the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) raised a matter of personal privilege on a statement made by the hon. Leader of the Opposition during debate the previous day. The hon. minister stated that at the time the statement in question was made he was unable to clearly hear what was said. Accordingly, after examining Hansard he raised the matter upon his first opportunity to do so.

The hon. member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), speaking to the matter as a point of order, observed that it was now too late for the complaint of the hon. minister to be considered by the Chair. It is my opinion that while points of order and matters of privilege should be raised forthwith, there are circumstances when this may not be possible. In the present instance I consider there has been no undue or excessive delay in the making of a complaint, in view of the hon. minister's explanation.

With reference to the statement complained of, I am sure that upon reflection the hon. Leader of the Opposition must agree that the reputation of the minister was improperly impugned, and that he will now — in the proper tradition of the House — wish to withdraw the allegation which was made by him against the hon. minister.

On this matter, the Leader of the Opposition.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I do not treat this matter as lightly as the members do. If the minister feels impugned, it is a serious matter to be dealt with as the House.... The Chair is asking that I withdraw, which I am considering on my feet. But in response to the "earliest opportunity," you see in Hansard that the minister was clearly aware because he

[ Page 804 ]

stated right after my remark that he wasn't offended by my personal attack. If you read the line, he was fully aware of what I said. In the tradition of this House, if he wanted a withdrawal he should have got up immediately.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Do not lecture the House, please.

It is my intention to withdraw. But I withdraw on this basis: the privilege afforded the minister to wait 24 hours to raise this matter in Hansard is now open to every other member. On that basis, Mr. Speaker, if I have offended the sensitivities of that minister, who is one of the most delicate flowers in this chamber, I withdraw my remark.

MR. SPEAKER. Thank you, hon. member.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 30.

OCEAN FALLS CORPORATION REPEAL ACT
(continued)

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the House Leader for informing us that we would be adjourning the debate and moving on and jumping around. The opposition have been asked to cooperate. Let me suggest to you all that the opposition, under the circumstances in this House, are cooperating beyond belief. Can you imagine a province confronted with the liturgy of proposed legislation that we are confronted with, and we're asked to cooperate? "Trust us." Well, I will speak to the bill — in due course.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, here's a man who wants your job. I'll sit down while he raises a point of order.

HON. MR. CHABOT: The point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that the member speaking now is not speaking to the bill. He's standing there lecturing the chamber. He has indicated to me that he'll speak to the principle of the bill, and to the bill, when he's ready. I suggest that the rules of this House are such that he must speak to the bill, and not stand there and attempt to lecture the House as to whether there's cooperation between the two parties. Bring that member to order once and for all.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. members.

Hon. members, as we are all aware, the business that goes on between either the Whips or the House Leaders outside the chamber is not a matter for debate. We always allow a member some latitude when introducing his remarks in speaking on any specific bill, and I'm sure the member for New Westminster was just about to come to the bill at this moment.

MR. COCKE: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your indulgence, nor can I tell you how much I am distressed by the Provincial Secretary because of the fact that he is so urgently suggesting that I get on with this bill. Certainly one gets on with the bill.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

We're dealing with Bill 30, the bill that outlaws, that destroys, that dismantles the Ocean Falls Corporation. The Ocean Falls Corporation that was set up in 1973, was set up for social reasons.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Social reasons. I heard the member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) suggest recently that the increase in a certain tax, a tax that I may not refer to by virtue of standing orders, was for "social reasons." I suggest that Ocean Falls Corporation was set up in that year for social reasons. There was ample.... I've heard some arguments in this House. The arguments from that side were that Ocean Falls did not have access to a timber supply that would meet the needs of the corporation. That is absolute, pure nonsense. At the time, there was all sorts of access to forest reserves — Crown reserves that were not taken up by Doman, or any other in the forest industry. That job was done, however, in the interim: to divest the province of that access, to give away those forest reserves, and make their prophetic statements come true. Sometimes they think we're not watching what they're doing.

Yes, there's no question about the equipment at Ocean Falls, no question that it was outmoded. But there is also no question that Ocean Falls had at its beck and call the cheapest power in the province, with the possible exception of Cominco. Two-mill power, Mr. Speaker, from their own dam, and that dam sits there to this day. Is it then not worth it to bring that mill up to a standard that could sustain competition? They said it was a white elephant when we brought that mill in under government control, because all the jobs were going down the tube. We felt that a lot of people wanted to live there. They told us they wanted to live there. They loved their community.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Jobs. That's right. These people are always talking about jobs. It's a key point on the British Columbia central coast. And what did they do? They not only divested us of a perfectly good investment, but beyond that, they destroyed that community. I was saddened.

Recently, within the last three or four years, I have visited Ocean Falls on a number of occasions, and I was saddened to go up there and see a skeleton town. The preceding Social Credit government, the W.A.C. Bennett government, after having been reassured by Crown Zellerbach that they would keep that operation, spent a lot of money on a school, a hospital, and gave the town the understructure that they needed in order to survive.

MR. REID: That was the leadership of the day.

[11:45]

MR. COCKE: Nothing changed in that period. Nothing changed in terms of viability. If you're talking about viability, that viability suffered at the hands of the new Socreds, this new coalition of opportunists who are running the province of British Columbia into the ground — this debt-ridden province that has for the last eight years had a government that it did not deserve, and goes on having a government that is running us right into the ground. They ran Ocean Falls under the ground.

[ Page 805 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, why doesn't the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) jump to his feet at the opportunity which will be afforded him and argue that one should be a party to destroying a viable, good community in the province of British Columbia?

From that same minister the argument of the day was the fact that we had picked up a white elephant. What actually happened? We got not only enough profit out of that to repay us the million dollars we invested; we got more than that. The taxpayers didn't spend a nickel on that mill or on that town, other than the money already put aside to build the school and the hospital and provide the services. So it was not a white elephant. As I recall, it made a profit in the first year of more than half a million in excess of that.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), that great minister....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I'll ask the minister to come to order.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Agriculture reminds me of an analogy. He reminds me of another venture.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I'll tell you what you remind me of.

MR. COCKE: I find that anything the member for South Peace River has to say to me has to be complimentary, because we are such great friends, aren't we?

Let me go back to the comparison raised by the Minister of Agriculture, who said: "Remember Swan Valley." We remember Swan Valley. They did to Swan Valley early what they're doing now to Ocean Falls. They destroyed a viable opportunity in this province.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: How can you destroy a rat-hole?

MR. COCKE: A rat-hole?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for New Westminster has the floor and will continue on Bill 30.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I must say I very much appreciate the help in discussing this question. Every time I hear a remark across the floor with respect to what I'm saying, then I know perfectly well that I must be on exactly the right track.

We're talking about the dismantling of Ocean Falls. They dismantled very early a food processing service in this province that had met with tremendous success elsewhere in the world. In their early days, 1976-77, that government decided that they had all the inspiration in the world and all the understanding of business. We have seen where that understanding has taken us. It has taken us from being a province that had a tremendous debt situation in terms of low debt per capita to a very high debt per capita. When they took power in 1976....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. minister.

MR. COCKE: I'm just going to remind that minister that this province had a debt of something in the order of $4 billion in 1976. What is it today? Approaching $14 billion. It took us a century to build a debt of $4 billion and it's taken them eight years to build a debt almost triple what it was then. They don't mind spending the province's money at the beck and call of Hydro. Spending $750 million a year and more. Ask us for anything you want and you'll get it. Spend it on B.C. Rail, Tumbler Ridge and all other megaprojects; but when it comes to saving a vital link of communication, a viable community in terms of its positioning, economic possibilities and wealth of cheap power, no, not on your life.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: All of these interesting remarks about the NDP government, which put this province in a better capital position than it has ever been. I wish I had it before me, but I could show you the debt per capita over the years since 1968. The best years this province ever had were while the NDP were in power.

MR. KEMPF: Is that why they fired you out after three and a half years?

MR. COCKE: They fired us out after three and a half years because the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Socreds and every other opportunist in this province decided to get together in coalition. Two at a time you couldn't beat us, but it took every other political right-wing party in the province to do it. No other party in the whole of Canada wouldn't form a government with 45 percent, but this is a nice little tight ship. This is a nice little tight coalition, and they all do their bidding.

Let me get back to Ocean Falls, and maybe they won't....

Let me just show you a little graph. This is debt per capita. That debt per capita in 1971 was up here, and it's back there now. During the year '72 it went down; '73, down; '74, way down; '75, way down; and '76 it started to go up again, and it's been up in the higher ranges ever since.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, you will advise the Chair as to the relevance.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Agriculture and Food very kindly gave me the relevance when he said: "You want us further in debt." In other words, a few dollars spent on a viable community of Ocean Falls.... It could have been done easily. We could have had that access not only to the forests but also to the very inexpensive power. We know by experience....

Interjections.

MR. KEMPF: How would you know? You hadn't come over on the boat yet.

[ Page 806 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I will ask the hon. second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) and the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) to come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: I seem to be upsetting them somehow. I particularly resent the remarks of the member for Omineca talking about somebody who happened to come from another country, which is the mother country of this land. But that's neither here nor there. That's expected behaviour from the member for Omineca.

Interjections.

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for Omineca will come to order. The member for New Westminster continues.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. COCKE: Let me get back....

Interjection.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go back home where you came from.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. COCKE: It's a shame that the government are taking this opportunity to make their biases known, because they prove by that opportunity that they've taken advantage of that their biases are stupid and foolish with respect to what I'm talking about.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The members will come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: What we are talking about, I guess, is a bit of history. In 1973 this province was faced with a strike. Everybody's going to get the thought in their minds: "Oh, my goodness, we had a strike." But let me tell you what kind of strike it was. It was a strike of capital, not a strike of workers or picket lines. For some reason or another, they were not particularly happy with the advent of the NDP in power; I'm not sure why. In any event, that happened to be the situation. One of the companies that reacted was Crown Zellerbach, and I'm convinced they reacted in the way they did by virtue of the fact that we were elected. Make it tough for the government, they thought. When that Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) was a back-bencher, they had an agreement with the W.A.C. Bennett government of the day that they would maintain Ocean Falls, and I gave as my reasoning that they broke that promise to the province by virtue of there being a change in government.

Another company did exactly the same thing, at about the same time. We all recall Columbia Cellulose Corporation of New York, don't we? They owned vast sums of forest land, at both the south and north ends of the province. Col-Cel announced they wanted out. Weyerhauser announced they would buy the profitable southern division, but they would not buy the north; the north could go "square to blazes," and that's exactly what was said. Part of that success story was that the NDP said to Weyerhauser, on behalf of the province, "Buy it all, or none." Having said that, we had no alternative but to buy it ourselves. We bought it, made Can-Cel out of it, and that became a very profitable enterprise, I don't mind telling you. It was also wrecked by the wrecking gang that threw it into BCRIC, that gang over there that couldn't stand the province to have assets like that — a window on the industry, and all the rest of it. Oh, no, Mr. Speaker, it's not good enough for the people of B.C.; see to it that it gets back into the hands of the private entrepreneur who didn't want it and was prepared to go on strike, prepared to wreck our province, our jobs and everything else.

To save 5,000 jobs we hung on to it. To save 1,200 jobs in Ocean Falls we hung on to it. That's precisely what we stand for, and continue to stand for — the people of the province of British Columbia, not the captains of industry. The captains of industry, so ably protected by the Socreds; the captains of industry who have enough money to protect themselves. A government should be in power to protect the needs of the people in our province. They have neglected that and they should be ashamed of themselves. When they bring in a bill like this and expect us to support it in any way, shape or form, they must really be ready for some care or treatment.

[12:00]

They continually argue that their reason for getting rid of Ocean Falls was an increased debt load. Why then has the province been faced with an increased debt load elsewhere, which hasn't even been discussed or put forward with respect to any kind of apology or discussion with the people through the House?

Let me ask you about the $45 million....

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we're not even talking about the $1.6 billion direct debt that the government has, which is health care, etc. I'm talking about the Crown corporation debts in this province that have been exaggerated to the extent that we make Ottawa look like very careful spenders — and nobody can argue that Ottawa are very careful spenders. Ottawa has been tremendously stupid with the way they have collected debt, but so has this province. You take per capita debt here, and we make Ottawa look good. Here we are, 5,000.... Let me also give you an idea of what it looks like in terms of percentages of gross provincial product.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Speak to the bill.

MR. COCKE: You're talking debt? You're the minister.... Mr. Speaker, isn't it interesting that the minister who tried to call me to order by indicating something about debt is the very person who's now saying: "Speak to the bill." That is to the bill, because their argument is that it's going to create debt.

I didn't want to go into detail on this, but I have to; you're forcing me to. In 1971 we had a percentage of gross provincial product debt of just a little over 27 percent. It went down to 26.5 in 1972, to under 25 in 1973, to under 22 in 1974, to 21.75 in 1975. And then in 1976 it went up to 23.5, in 1977 it went up to 25, and in 1978 it went up to almost 26.

[ Page 807 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I'm showing you. Where is it in 1983? Away back up to 27.5 percent. Gross provincial product debt; that's our debt load. If they want to talk debt, we'll talk debt until.... This comes from the economic survey of the B.C. Central Credit Union.

We maintain that a terrible injustice was done to a beautiful little community in this province, a community that was viable, that has a super port — one of the best deep-sea ports in the province of British Columbia. We're discussing another Harbours Board situation. It strikes me that if there was any imagination with respect to how the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development wants to put this province back on the road, he might have looked at that port as an ideal opportunity. The cheapest form of shipping is by water, so if we have our forest raw product coming in by water and our paper coming out by water, it strikes me that that again increases the viability of Ocean Falls. You don't have to bring the pulp by railroad and truck, finally get it to water and then ship it wherever you're going to ship it. You're already there, already on the water, so it's viable. The mill, if you would take a look at it someday, is right on the water. There's no movement other than water movement. That, as far as I'm concerned, increases the viability of Ocean Falls.

Ocean Falls should not have been destroyed. I have known people who grew up in that community and love it. It's a unique situation. It rains there — it rains some here, and it rains an awful lot in Prince Rupert — but a lot of people like to live there. Ocean Falls was a fine little community. Children that grew up there loved it. Because what did they have at their beck and call, immediately beside where they lived?

AN HON. MEMBER: Pulp mill odour.

MR. COCKE: That is probably one of brightest things that that member's ever said since he's been been in this chamber. Of course there was some pulp mill odour, but I can remember one of his predecessors in here, Mr. Gaglardi, who said, any time there was a suggestion that pulp mills smelled: "Those are the smells, my friends, of dollar bills flying down from the sky." In any event, yes, there was a pulp mill, and anyplace that you have a pulp mill there is some odour. Of course with newer and newer technology, that is becoming reduced to some extent. But that was not a terribly bad mill, because of the type of paper that they did. It was not a very bad mill in terms of smell.

Aside from that, they liked it there. They had a beautiful bay right beside them for boating, fishing and enjoying the outdoors. All of the outdoors along the sides of the mountains and hills were there to revel in. It was a beautiful community. Moreover, they had privacy. And some of them liked it. I can remember going to that town years ago when that mill was going full tilt. I remember talking to people, and they just wouldn't leave. They absolutely loved it. They just adored all the opportunities they had. That now has been taken away.

I guarantee that Ocean Falls will be resurrected someday — maybe not even for a forest industry situation. It will be resurrected some day because of the very thing that I told you in the first place, and that is cheap power. Somebody's going to go there. Somebody's going to start something again. It's a shame that we did not give support to the basic prime industry that has been there. If, in fact, it should have been phased out, why not slowly introducing new and better opportunities in terms of providing employment in that area? The fact is that two-mill power is absolutely precious. Hardly anywhere on the continent do you have access to two-mill power. The dam is already there. The turbines are there. There could probably be some improvements with respect to the amount of power that you could get from it, but it's all there now. Let it go unattended, and it's going to cost an absolute fortune to restore what was a real little gem on the coast of British Columbia. That gem is called Ocean Falls.

When I hear the government talking about white elephants and the like, at that point I become very discouraged. It strikes me that there isn't enough understanding or empathy over there that would fulfil the needs of the people in this province.

MR. REID: There aren't enough taxpayers' dollars, either.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we continually hear about taxpayers' dollars from a government that's run this province into the ground. That government has made us one of the most debt-ridden jurisdictions in all of Canada.

MR. HOWARD: And they did it with glee and pleasure.

MR. COCKE: That's right. That government had some of its ministers out spending money like we've never seen before. We've had the story of Broadway Bob. We've had the stories of others who have spent money irresponsibly, not only within their ministry but on themselves for their fun.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: And you want to borrow some more.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, those are the kinds of things that should be considered worthy of some borrowing. The minister puts his hands on his head thusly — the same minister who obviously had to vote in cabinet with respect to the money that's being poured into Tumbler Ridge to make a viable community in the Minister of Economic Development's back yard.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Sure it's a viable project. We can't even sell the coal we're producing in the north, Mr. Speaker, and he says we should put a billion dollars plus of taxpayers' money into a production up north when we can't even look after the needs of the south. Come on! Don't talk about Ocean Falls. Ocean Falls has far more viability than Tumbler Ridge will have until the turn of the century. There is a time when that coal will be needed. There is a time in the future when that energy source will have to he tapped. But, Mr. Speaker, they've jumped the gun, because that minister and the first minister in this province are so up to their ears in love for megaprojects.

MR. HOWARD: And love for debt.

MR. COCKE: They love debt more than any jurisdiction in this country. And I suggest....

MR. REE: One thing we favour is real jobs.

[ Page 808 ]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the member talks about real jobs. After they wipe out 1,200 jobs in Ocean Falls, they have the audacity to walk in here and suggest to us that they're interested in real jobs and that we're not. We are interested in real jobs. But way beyond the real jobs, they have successfully destroyed the potential of a first-class community on the very centre of our coast. I say successfully, unfortunately, because I feel it's a travesty that they should have done such a thing to our province.

[11:15]

Let me sum up. (1) They destroyed a community of people who loved to live and bring up their children within the confines of that community. The history, Mr. Speaker, speaks for itself. Only once — and that was during the war when they had to use so many of the males in that community, who left to fight for our country and for a cause — were there a great many singles in that particular area. Mostly it's been a great family community; it certainly was right after the war. (2) A community with access to two-mill power. Think about it. In the past only the CPR have had access to that level of cost in terms of power. Why did they have that access? Because they had the Kootenay River right in their backyard. We gave the CPR half the country, for crying out loud, to get them to build a railroad out here to B.C. (3) A viable situation with respect to transportation. To add to the viability of the future, the potential of that area, it was all water transport. Even that minister, with not too big an understanding, understands the value of that.

They have forsaken all of those values and brought in a bill, Bill 30, that doesn't even deserve to be ripped up. Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that we can in no way support this bill, nor will we. It's part of a package of travesties visited upon the people of the province of B.C., and we can't be a party to those travesties.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the questions my colleagues on both sides of the House may be asking is: what would someone from the great metropolis of Burnaby-Edmonds know or understand about Ocean Falls? I think that when we debate and discuss this piece of legislation, what this government is doing to Ocean Falls, we are not just talking about a place or about a decision. We are talking about a fundamental difference in ideology and philosophy. The story of Ocean Falls, Mr. Speaker, affords us an important insight into the philosophical and ideological difference between the way in which the New Democratic Party and the Social Credit government respond to communities.

The New Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, believes that you can use public enterprise in order to secure long-term industrial future for a community. We believe that Ocean Falls, a town that has been home to something like three generations of British Columbians, deserved the right to continue to live and to exist. We believe that if the only way to do that was to use public enterprise, then that was a good use for public enterprise. That was a positive approach to that particular dilemma.

On the other hand, Social Credit, or certainly the government, believes that you just write off a town — not because the town is not viable, not because the people in that town are abandoning it. You make a callous decision, totally disregarding the people who work and live there and who have been a part of a community, as I said, for three generations, simply because philosophically and ideologically, as a political party and as a government, you do not believe in social ownership, do not have a commitment to social ownership and will not permit social ownership to work. That really is what this debate is all about. We can talk about lumber and timber, about energy and about the ports — and I'm going to talk about all of those things — but I think that we should not lose sight of what we are talking about here: two different philosophical and ideological approaches to a community. One, the government, is prepared to callously destroy — wipe out — a community which was home, as I've said, for three generations of British Columbians. It's quite prepared to do that simply because of its commitment to an ideological philosophy. Another government saved Ocean Falls, respected the community and the three generations of British Columbians who lived there, because that government's ideological and philosophical commitment was to see that social ownership works — helping social ownership to work, protecting that community and its people, and refusing to believe that you sacrifice a community simply to your political ideology. That's the basic difference. That's the underlying reason for all of the things that this bill represents and means.

The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead), when he opened the debate on this, decided that he should give us a little bit of the history of Ocean Falls. I want to repeat that because I think the history of what has happened to Ocean Falls very clearly illustrates the difference in our ideological approaches to that particular problem. He told us about the fact that there was a meeting which took place — he thought it was in 1969 — between the then representative of Ocean Falls, Mrs. Isabel Dawson, and the then Minister of Forests, Mr. Ray Williston, and Crown Zellerbach, at a time when Crown Zellerbach was considering shutting down Ocean Falls and allowing that town to die. Because this meeting took place in the context of a pending election, certain decisions were made. Now we don't know what those decisions were. We have no idea. We only know what the end result was, and that was that Ocean Falls had a stay of execution. Crown Zellerbach decided not to go through with its original plan just to shut down Ocean Falls. He pointed out that a public statement was made to that effect. They said they wouldn't do that. He speculates and says he believes that it is possible that Crown Zellerbach received some more timber rights on the coast of British Columbia in return for agreeing to keep Ocean Falls going for a while longer, at least until the election was over. He doesn't know. What he does know, though, is that the government responded in a very strange and unusual way to this decision. The government went into Ocean Falls and built a brand new school. I think the figure he quoted was in the neighbourhood of millions of dollars, which for that time, when the dollar was certainly worth more than the dollar is today, was a lot of money. They put into that small community the largest gymnasium of any school in British Columbia. It was a clear commitment to Ocean Falls and to the education of the children of Ocean Falls. That's what the government did to prove that Ocean Falls was going to be permitted to survive.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The government did something else. They built a brand new hospital in Ocean Falls and equipped it in ways that many other existing hospitals weren't equipped, with the latest in x-ray equipment.

[ Page 809 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Have you been there, Rosemary?

MS. BROWN: I have been to Ocean Falls, and I'm going to talk about my visit to Ocean Falls later on. One of the things that people think is that because you live in Burnaby you don't go anywhere else. It's a beautiful place, but I have been to Ocean Falls, and I'm going to talk about my visit to Ocean Falls.

As I was saying, they made an investment in a well-equipped, brand-new, beautiful hospital — another public announcement to the world that Ocean Falls was going to survive and that Crown Zellerbach was going to honour whatever deal was made in terms of keeping its operations there going. Then, lo and behold, in 1973 a public statement came from Crown Zellerbach, the American owner of the Ocean Falls paper mill which employed more than one-third of the company town's total population. For all intents and purposes, they were it. You worked for them or you didn't work. Crown Zellerbach had had many profitable years and had not plowed any of that profit back into the equipment. They didn't try to modernize it, to keep it running smoothly or up-to-date, and they treated Ocean Falls in the manner in which all marauders typically treat places: go in, take out, cut and run. As someone who grew up in a part of the world where this was common practice, I know. You move into a country and take out what you want, and when you've sucked it dry, taken all the profits and everything, you leave; you shut it down.

As I said before, when the American owners of Ocean Falls paper mill, who employed more than one-third of the population, announced they were going to cease operations in 1973, one of the reasons they gave was that the equipment was antiquated and not really in good condition. It seems as though someone else was responsible for the condition of that equipment.

MRS. WALLACE: Just like Chemainus.

MS. BROWN: That's right, just like Chemainus.

[12:30]

If the truth be known, it came as no surprise that no one rushed out to buy that antiquated, run-down mill when it hit the market. So the 1,100 people who lived in Ocean Falls were hung out to dry; all their labour, everything, down the tube. When it became very clear that no buyers were interested, the New Democratic Party government of the day, again as a direct result of its ideological and philosophical commitment to public enterprise, in the best interests of the people who lived in Ocean Falls, as well as in the best interests of the community of British Columbia, purchased Ocean Falls. In an article published in the British Columbia Lumberman in 1975 by Jean Sorensen, Ocean Falls was reported to be the buy of the century.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN. "The people of British Columbia know that the minister has made, for the sum of $1 million," what is referred to in this article as the buy of the century. They got the mill and the townsite. The cost was that low, we're told, because Crown Zellerbach retained its cutting rights to the valuable timberlands which had been associated with the mill for well over 65 years. This article in the British Columbia Lumberman, April 1975, says: "Skeptics who believe Ocean Falls should have been turned into a penal institution will have to deal with Ted Vesak. He believes in the future of Ocean Falls. 'I've studied it inside and out.' He'll also tell you Ocean Falls is sitting in the middle of the largest untapped block of timberland left on the province's west coast.'" That's what he said. "Vesak, who came to Ocean Falls to work for Crown Zellerbach in 1954, and later left a Vancouver head office job to go back, is convinced the provincial government got the buy of the century."

That government over there disagrees with that. They believe that to pay $1 million to purchase the mill and the townsite, in the middle of what is referred to as the largest untapped block of timber left on the province's west coast, and to protect those jobs and its own investment in that community — the expensive school and hospital that it's put in there on behalf of the people who live in that community — was not a good investment. But the government of that day, the New Democratic Party government, recognized that that was a good investment. Because you don't always measure things by the bottom line — certainly you don't when human beings are involved. That is something that that government over there never takes into account. As a matter of fact, they will refuse to participate in a good investment if it includes public or social ownership of any form of property. However, this article goes on to say that for the $1 million paid to Crown Zellerbach by the provincial government, the government received "a five-storey hotel, a wood mill, a groundwood mill, a newsprint mill, schools, apartment buildings, subdivisions, a hydro dam, commercial buildings, recreation facilities and 45 acres of townsite valued at close to $50 million." That's what the people of British Columbia purchased for $1 million, and by so doing in addition protected the jobs of those people who worked there and protected that community.

The article goes on to say: "It is to the chagrin of those opposing Ocean Falls that the corporation can even announce a modest profit for the last fiscal year. 'Things are starting out good this year, and if things keep going as well, we should do better than last year,' Vesak says." He didn't pretend that Ocean Falls didn't have problems. He was too involved in the lumber industry to do that. He was quite honest about the fact that if Ocean Falls has a problem, "it is the constant need to buy its raw materials to produce newsprint, a problem that Vesak is both aware of and concerned about."

What we don't know, and what we will never know because we were not party to that meeting between Mr. Ray Williston, Mrs. Dawson and Crown Zellerbach, is what the deal was that was made and whether that deal was honoured or not. We don't know. We were not a party to those discussions, and we have no idea whether in fact Crown did hold up its end of the bargain or not, or whether it just hung in there for a couple of years and then pulled out, taking with it the additional long-term timber rights which my colleague from Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) suspects was what they were paid in order to keep their mill going. We'll never know whether that was the case or not.

The New Democratic Party government was unable to acquire Crown Zellerbach's timber rights, because they were held in the form of old temporary tenures which the company was unwilling to sell. The company was not prepared to cooperate in keeping Ocean Falls a viable, fully employed community. They were almost up to full employment there for a while.

[ Page 810 ]

Going back to the days of unrestricted resource giveaways, old temporary tenures are a form of tenure almost akin to private ownership in that the land reverts to the Crown only after it has been completely cleared. However, a good corporate citizen with conscience has the option to allow the government to purchase those rights if that is their wish. But Crown Zellerbach did not want to cooperate with the government in saving Ocean Falls. They were unwilling to expropriate these timberlands. This is one thing that the New Democratic Party has always been accused of: when you vote for the New Democrats, you vote for expropriation. Of course, the only time we've ever had any expropriation in this province was when Social Credit expropriated first the Black Ball Ferries and turned them into B.C. Ferries and, secondly, when they took over B.C. Electric and made it into B.C. Hydro. That's the only time we've ever had that kind of heavy-handed control.

However, the New Democratic Party government did not want to expropriate these timberlands. The government therefore concluded an interim agreement under which Crown Zellerbach contracted to sell timber to the newly formed corporation for just three years. The government intended to acquire timber in the midcoast area in 1975-76, and at that time several of the licences on Crown land were due to expire.

What happened when those licences expired? Did the Social Credit government, which won the election in 1975 and became government, take them over and use them to keep Ocean Falls viable and working?

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: No, they didn't. At a time when they had an option and an opportunity to take over those licences, they allowed the licences to be acquired by Doman Industries. Then they turned around and said: "We can't keep Ocean Falls open because we can't supply them. We haven't got the resources that Ocean Falls needs." After deliberately making the decision not to acquire them, when those licences came up for renewal, they allowed them to go to another company.

Again we go back to an ideological, philosophical decision made by this government.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Well, you know, the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot), not speaking from his seat, said: "Right on!" Right on to the 1,100 people who lived and worked in Ocean Falls. Forget about them. Write them off. They're not important. As the member for Mackenzie said, forget about the 1,800 native people who also benefited from the survival of Ocean Falls. Wipe them out too. Wipe out their jobs and say "right on."

Then the little back-bencher keeps saying, "What about the taxpayers?" The people who worked in Ocean Falls paid taxes. The money generated by a corporation which is owned by the Crown goes back to the people. That's where it goes to. So you know, Mr. Speaker, that question from the little backbencher just doesn't make any sense at all.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, that's what happened when they had an opportunity to secure those licences for Ocean Falls. What they never talk about, of course, is the fact that in the beginning that Crown corporation was not a losing proposition. In fact, it earned a profit in 1976. Between 1973 and 1979 the mill won newsprint export sales of more than $150 million, paid out more than $55 million in wages to its employees and contributed greatly to the revenue of the provincial government. Those are the taxes that that member for Surrey keeps asking about.

Ocean Falls was well on its way to becoming a stable.... But it was always a stable community. In addition, it was well on its way to becoming....

MR. REID: A losing proposition — a drain on the taxpayers.

MS. BROWN: Oh, why do I always feel that I should take the education of that member seriously, Mr. Speaker? When am I going to finally accept that he's uneducatable? But it's not going to happen; there isn't any point in trying to teach him anything. I just explained that they were paying $55 million in taxes, $150 million in export sales — revenue to the province — and he says: "What about the taxpayers?"

MR. REID: What about the taxpayers?

MS. BROWN: That's what I'm telling you. That's precisely what I'm talking about. The 1,100 working people in Ocean Falls and their families were exporting $150 million worth of sales, receiving $55 million in income and were paying taxes. And he still doesn't understand.

The profits in 1976, Mr. Speaker, as I have said....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You're the main reason that your party's in opposition, do you know that?

MS. BROWN: I am? Nobody on my side of the House knows that I have that much power, Mr. Speaker; only the government recognizes that.

[12:45]

In any event, when the government made its decision to close down Ocean Falls.... First of all, it was a bad economic decision to do that. But the other thing it did not do was take into account the people who lived in Ocean Falls. What about the community of Ocean Falls? What about the 1,100 to 1,200 people who lived there, the families who used those schools in that stable community? Three generations of British Columbians have lived in Ocean Falls.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: They were glad to get out of it.

MS. BROWN: Not true. If you travel the length and breadth of this province, you'll run into people who have lived in Ocean Falls. Without exception, including the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), they think of Ocean Falls with nostalgia. It was a good community to live in, a stable community. Three generations of British Columbians lived there.

The setting of Ocean Falls....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) asked me if I'd ever been there. I must say that I look back on my visits to Ocean Falls with a great deal of pleasure. It's a very beautiful community, or it used to be, before....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Who were you there with?

[ Page 811 ]

MS. BROWN: I took the ferry from Port Hardy to Ocean Falls.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Was that the Lasqueti ferry?

MS. BROWN: No, it was the one that goes to Prince Rupert. He's the minister of economic development, and he doesn't even know how you get to Ocean Falls. That's the kind of decision that government makes. They wipe out a community — never visited it, doesn't know how to get to it, doesn't know anything about it, but wipes it out with the stroke of a pen.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's right. First he wipes out the ferry service, then he wipes out the community. No care, no concern, no commitment whatsoever to the quality of life of the people who used to live there and who still want to live there. No respect for the small communities of British Columbia and the major contribution that those small communities make to the quality of life of British Columbia. Doesn't take that into account. An ideological decision: because Ocean Falls was owned by all the people of British Columbia, it had to die. That is the decision that was made by the government, without taking into account the contribution of a small, stable community Re Ocean Falls, with a good fabric; good underpinnings in terms of its social needs being met; good school, good hospital, good housing, community centre, skating rink, firehall — the whole works. It contributed to the revenue of the province. That's what Ocean Falls did.

MR. MOWAT: Supported by the taxpayers.

MS. BROWN: Not supported by the taxpayers: supporting the taxpayers. That's what Ocean Falls did — it supported the taxpayers.

MR. MOWAT: It lost money.

MS. BROWN: It lost money because of the bungling of the Social Credit government — turning over those licences to Doman, instead of using them to keep Ocean Falls as a viable community.

The problem with these newly elected back-benchers is that they haven't taken the time and trouble to do their homework on the party they ran for. He sits there not understanding a single word about what his government did, just parroting everything.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Probably your family is one of the families which would have wanted to keep Ocean Falls alive, and which looks back on Ocean Falls with nostalgia.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: To give the minister correct information, if there does exist a $300,000 townhouse anywhere in Burnaby, I certainly have never seen it. I certainly don't own it, and I certainly don't live in one. So I think he'd better get his records straight; I do not live in a townhouse, and certainly not a $300,000 one.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: The reality of the situation is that that minister never has his facts straight. He never knows what he's talking about.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No wonder my husband smokes too much.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's possible, as I said. I'm not going to argue with that one. It's quite possible that he smokes too much. I certainly keep telling him that he smokes too much.

Mr. Speaker, if I can continue. The month since the announcement of the closure of Ocean Falls by the minister of industry and small business — the minister who is continually interrupting — has really been a particularly sadistic and cruel one for the people who work and live in Ocean Falls. In fact, once the government made the decision to wipe out Ocean Falls, they could have gone about it in a more compassionate way, but this government does not have a record for compassion. Straying from the bill, Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind you that when it introduces restraint, the first people whose services it cuts are the children who are being sexually and physically abused, families, the disabled and seniors, so it's not surprising that the minister, in carrying out the annihilation of community life in Ocean Falls, should do that in a callous and cruel manner as well, because that certainly is the mark of his government. That is precisely the way in which his government does business.

First of all he announced that Ocean Falls employees were told that up to half of them would be able to retain their jobs. That was the first announcement he made. That was bad enough, because what it meant was that half of them were going to lose their jobs.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for bringing the light to my attention.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Yes, I saw the green light.

He went on to say that there was going to be a $9 million investment to convert the paper mill into processing facilities for low-grade lumber. Now that the town has been all but shut down, Mr. Speaker, those jobs are as distant as they've ever been. As of the end of May of this year, only 100 of the nearly 500 employees at Ocean Falls had found new jobs. Only 32 of them have found those jobs in the forest industry itself. Many of the Ocean Falls families have suffered large financial losses because they've had to go and abandon their homes, which of course they purchased at the sale price, whatever it was at that time. The community has all but died, and nothing remains except the buildings which the government invested in when it built that huge school with that large gymnasium and that hospital with all of that top equipment, and all of the

[ Page 812 ]

housing. When I visited Ocean Falls recently, it was beginning to die. The saddest thing about my visit to Ocean Falls was to look at those houses standing empty, to look at that hotel with how many hundred rooms in it standing empty, to look at buildings crumbling and the abandonment of Ocean Falls — the school that used to have so many children in it, the hospital that used to be the pride and joy of that entire coast, because Ocean Falls used to be the social centre of the coast. To watch that abandoned....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No. You can turn up your nose at the very things that your own government invested in, but you did build a decent school in Ocean Falls, and you did build a quality hospital there. Those were things that Ocean Falls did have, and they're now abandoned. There is nothing as sad as watching a ghost town. When you go to a ghost town that dies because people have left it, that's one thing, but when you visit a town that's dying because it's deliberately being killed, that's another tragedy. That's a double tragedy, because you have people who are being rendered homeless at the same time that they're being made jobless. That's what that ideological, philosophical decision of that government has done to Ocean Falls. I do not support this legislation. That's the reason why I'd like to move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion negatived.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I would like to take my place in the debate on this bill and speak about some of the socialist doubletalk that we've been listening to for the last 40 minutes from that member, and some of the rather contorted economic theories that she espouses. However, the time being what it is, I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:58 p.m.